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[BUG]Container crashes on startup with Missing apple_id field when no session exists #482
Description
🐛 Container crashes on startup with Missing apple_id field when no session exists
📝 Description
When running mandarons/icloud-docker, the container consistently crashes during startup authentication with the following error:
P.s. Thank you for all your work on this. When it worked/works... I loved it!
icloudpy.exceptions.ICloudPyFailedLoginException:
('Invalid authentication token.', ICloudPyAPIResponseException('Missing apple_id field'))
This happens even in a completely clean environment where no session file exists.
The logs show:
Session file does not exist
Missing apple_id field
Invalid authentication token
🔁 Steps to reproduce
- Use a fresh Docker setup with persistent volumes:
volumes:
- /config:/config
- /icloud:/icloud- Configure credentials:
app:
credentials:
username: "your_apple_id@email.com"- Ensure no prior session exists:
rm -rf /config/session_data
rm -rf /home/abc/.local/*- Start the container:
docker compose up❌ Actual behavior
The container crashes immediately and loops:
Session file does not exist
Missing apple_id field
Invalid authentication token
The process restarts continuously.
✅ Expected behavior
When no session exists, the container should:
- Fall back to username/password authentication
- Trigger fresh Apple login flow (2FA prompt)
- Create a new session file after successful login
🔍 Observations / possible root cause
It appears the application always attempts token authentication first:
_authenticate_with_token()
even when:
- No session file exists
- No valid token is available
This leads to a failure inside icloudpy:
ICloudPyAPIResponseException('Missing apple_id field')
It looks like an unhandled or invalid token state is being passed into the authentication flow, causing a crash before fallback authentication can occur.
🧪 Environment
- Image:
mandarons/icloud-drive:latest - Docker version:
Docker version 29.6.0, build fb59821 - OS: Linux Debian
- UID/GID: 1000:1000
Activity
mandarons commentedon Jul 17, 2026
Please try the latest v1.26.0 release in clean environment.
gerhardmayer-1974 commentedon Jul 25, 2026
I hab the same problem a few days ago an also didnt find an error. Before it worked for weeks.
My failure was the apple password. i changed it last week and i also changed it in the yaml, but didn't copypaste it - i typed it letter by letter and so i got one false. right one is I - false one is l .... big-i and little-L ... with the wrong password the docker crashes. as it corrected it i could do the 2FA without trouble
epheterson commentedon Sep 30, 2026
Since #529 (merged, in the next release), a rejected sign-in, like the mistyped password found above, no longer crashes the container into a restart loop. It logs the error, sends a notification, and retries with a backoff.
mandarons commentedon Oct 1, 2026
Closed as fixed by #529 (merged 2026-09-24).
The crash/restart loop is gone: sign-in failures no longer escape the sync loop.
ICloudPyFailedLoginException— the wrapper icloudpy raises for exactly this response (Invalid authentication token./Missing apple_id field) — is now caught and routed to an auth-error handler that logs the error, sends a notification, and retries with a backoff (30-minute floor, independent ofretry_login_interval). The process no longer exits, sorestart: unless-stoppedcan't produce the crash loop seen in the logs.The recovery path works as the issue's "expected behavior" describes: each retry re-attempts password sign-in, a successful login creates the session file, and 2FA runs when required — as confirmed in this thread once the mistyped password was corrected. If the sign-in is rejected (wrong password, throttling), the container now stays up, reports the error, and keeps retrying instead of restarting every few seconds.
Same PR also fixed the sibling restart loop from an unreadable/missing
config.yaml(the loop waits for the file instead of exiting).danwelcome commentedon Oct 12, 2026
FYI, for anyone else who has seen the
Missing apple_id fielderror message recently, I saw this error message because my account was locked. I signed into icloud.com in my browser and unlocked my account and I was able to reauthenticate using the webui without any issues.