A new bug has been discovered in iOS 8 that causes iCloud Drive documents to be permanently deleted when a user taps on "Reset All Settings" through the Settings app. The issue, brought to light by a number of concerned readers on the MacRumors discussion forums, appears to be limited to iWork apps like Pages, Numbers and Keynote.

"Reset All Settings" is supposed to erase all settings on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch as expected by its name, with an explicit notice that no data or media is deleted from devices. As confirmed by MacRumors this afternoon, however, the option currently deletes all iWork documents stored in iCloud Drive on iPhone and on the iCloud.com website.

As a result, at least one user has seemingly lost his iWork data forever. MacRumors forum member Chris Newbold explains that, because he is running OS X Yosemite beta, with no iOS 8 backups on iTunes or iCloud, his iWork data has completely disappeared after he activated the Reset All Settings option on his iPad:

Because iOS 8 was so sluggish on my iPad 3 I reset all settings (No data or media will be deleted) and sped it up BUT deleted my iWork data! Then promptly synced and deleted it in iCloud.I have public beta of Yosemite so can't roll back via time machine. I have no pre iOS 8 backups in iTunes or iCloud to revert to (well iCloud device backups don't contain cloud documents and I should have iOS 7 backups in iTunes but can't find any. iCloud has no trash like dropbox. They seem gone forever.

iOS 8 has definitely not been the smoothest software update that Apple has ever rolled out for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. A few weeks ago, the update was released with four major features missing or not fully functional: HealthKit, iCloud Drive, SMS Continuity and Apple Pay. Then there was the iOS 8.0.1 breaking iPhones fiasco. Perhaps the issue will be fixed between the iOS 8.1 and iOS 8.3 software updates that are reportedly currently in testing. Apple did not provide comment.