It looks like the iOS 8 release hasn’t gone as smoothly as Apple would have hoped. The company had to pull HealthKit apps at the last moment due to a bug and then when it tried fixing that bug with iOS 8.0.1 it ended up creating a whole new mess. iOS 8.0.2 was later released to fix all of the previous issues but it didn’t take care of them all. It has been discovered that the “Reset All Settings” option in iOS 8 is causing files from iCloud Drive to be deleted.
Using this option on an iOS device will not erase any data or media, at least that’s what that option explicitly states above the buttons. All it does is reset the entire settings on the device and brings them back to default. At no point is it supposed to delete any local data or data that’s stored in the cloud.
Multiple users have complained of lost data on forums after using the “Reset All Settings” options just to bring back the settings to default. Most of them have noticed that data on Apple’s own productivity apps, Numbers, Pages and Keynote, is the one being targeted by this bug. It deletes the data in iCloud Drive on the device and also on iCloud.com, so if anyone doesn’t have a backup they’re in some trouble.
One user who talked to Apple Support said that the company is waiting on its engineers to come up with a solution. Hopefully it will be able to fix this soon so that users may not inadvertently put their data at risk of being deleted for good.
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