Sync to iCloud gives "Index has invalid data" errors

Suspected Bug
1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

When I try to sync to an iCloud photos remote, I get "Index has invalid data" errors.

Run the command 'rclone version' and share the full output of the command.

$ rclone version
rclone v1.74.2
- os/version: ubuntu 24.04 (64 bit)
- os/kernel: 6.8.0-117-generic (x86_64)
- os/type: linux
- os/arch: amd64
- go/version: go1.26.3
- go/linking: static
- go/tags: none

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

iCloud photos

The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)

rclone -vv --log-file ~/bug.log sync icloud-andrex-photos: /home/share/cloud/icloud-andrex-photos

The rclone config contents with secrets removed.

[google-jenand]
type = drive
scope = drive.readonly
token = xxx
team_drive = 

[google-andrex]
type = drive
scope = drive.readonly
token = xxx
team_drive = 

[google-twicefooled]
type = drive
scope = drive.readonly
token = xxx
team_drive = 

[icloud-jenny-drive]
type = iclouddrive
apple_id = xxx
password = xxx
_auth_session = 
cookies = xxx
trust_token = xxx

[icloud-jenny-photos]
type = iclouddrive
service = photos
apple_id = xxx
password = xxx
_auth_session = 
cookies = xxx
trust_token = xxx

[icloud-andrex-drive]
type = iclouddrive
apple_id = xxx
password = xxx
cookies = xxx
_auth_session = 
trust_token = xxx

[icloud-andrex-photos]
type = iclouddrive
service = photos
apple_id = xxx
password = xxx
_auth_session = 
cookies = xxx
trust_token = xxx

A log from the command with the -vv flag

2

welcome to the forum,

that debug log is not complete. in the end, are all the files synced or not?

can you find a simpler command to test, such as
rclone lsd icloud-andrex-photos: -vv

3

I pasted the whole debug log, but it's 3 MB. Pastebin would only accept the first 512 KB. Gist claimed to accept the whole thing. However, you can see the error starting on line 14 of the log.

I can't really tell if all of the files are synced or not.

This command works:

$ rclone lsd icloud-andrex-photos:PrimarySync
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26       103 1831
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26      2338 All Photos
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         1 Animated
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         1 Bursts
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26       103 Favorites
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26        25 Francoise
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         0 Hidden
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26        53 Live
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         0 Long Exposure
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         7 Panoramas
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         8 Portrait
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26        60 Recently Deleted
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26        29 Roxy
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26        41 Screenshots
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         5 Seek
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         1 Seek Thermal
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         0 Slo-mo
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         0 Time-lapse
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         0 VIOFO
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26       192 Videos
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         1 WhatsApp
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         9 bike
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26         8 drawing
          -1 2026-05-28 12:58:26        89 recipes

But this one gives the error:

$ rclone ls icloud-andrex-photos:
2026/05/28 12:58:44 NOTICE: Failed to ls: query user albums for zone "CMM-4E0D3A72-AE76-4357-8276-5ACA2A0D2183": HTTP error 400 (400 Bad Request) returned body: "{\n  \"uuid\" : \"4b6a427d-a18f-4de8-8aec-be09eb4fcea6\",\n  \"serverErrorCode\" : \"BAD_REQUEST\",\n  \"reason\" : \"Index has invalid data\",\n  \"errorClass\" : \"BAD_REQUEST\",\n  \"error\" : \"BAD_REQUEST\"\n}"
4

Forgot to mention that I tried removing the local cache directory (rm -rf ~/.cache/rclone/iclouddrive-photos/icloud-andrex-photos/), and also reathenticating to icloud (rclone config reconnect icloud-andrex-photos:). Neither one fixed the problem.

5

need to post full DEBUG output for each command, not snippets.

and for a deeper look --dump=bodies

6

Trying again.

$ rclone --dump=bodies --log-file ~/bug.log ls icloud-andrex-photos:

Log output is in gist:e8ba3253ab703ba77dfea2e1749fd89f · GitHub.

7

as i mentioned, try rclone lsd for a smaller log file.

and do you have the same issue with icloud-jenny-photos ?

8

rclone lsd icloud-andrex-photos: succeeds.

$ rclone --dump=bodies --log-file ~/bug.log lsd icloud-andrex-photos:
          -1 2026-05-28 14:57:50         0 CMM-11A44FA2-C02E-4109-90B4-246073ECD192
          -1 2026-05-28 14:57:50         0 CMM-4E0D3A72-AE76-4357-8276-5ACA2A0D2183
          -1 2026-05-28 14:57:50         0 PrimarySync

Log is in gist:887527895d3753a25981d92c2f334aa9 · GitHub. There are no errors in it.

No, I don't get the error with any of the other 3 icloud configurations.

9

Do any of your album names have / in? There is a bug report that they don't work.

10

No. There are no album names with / in them. Just alphanumeric characters and spaces.

11

It looks like from your log that rclone is trying to treat some things which aren't photo albums as photo albums (the CMM-* entries - shared moments maybe?).

Try this which ignores them

v1.75.0-beta.9783.5a11bb553.fix-icloud-photos-cmm-zones on branch fix-icloud-photos-cmm-zones (uploaded in 15-30 mins)

12

Confirmed that that build fixes the problem. The errors are gone, and rclone ls and rclone sync finish successfully. Thanks!

13

Thanks for testing @andrex

I've merged this to master now which means it will be in the latest beta in 15-30 minutes and released in v1.74.3