ScreenTime does not sync

[JSDK]

What's up with Screen Time - a feature that's been in iOS since 2018 and still doesn't work. I find that Screen Time from my MacBook does not sync to my iPhone. Conversely, I can see my iPhone usage on my MacBook without any problems.

Both devices are represented in the Screen Time drop down menu on my iPhone, so it's not because my iPhone can't "see" my MacBook in Screen Time.

I have tried countless times to disable Screen Time, restart and enable it again. My MacBook shows up on my iPhone - but it doesn't detect the use of my MacBook. I've also tried enabling, disabling sharing between devices, to no avail.

If I choose to drop sync, and disable "Share across devices" so each device just shows its own usage, it takes a while - my MacBook ONLY shows my iPhone's usage but not its own, which is really weird .

Does anyone know of an obscure solution to this problem?

Is there a hidden file in MacOS that can be deleted, in order to force Screen Time to "restart"?

 

[StumpyBloke]

Unfortunately, this has been done to death here. It quite simply does not work full stop end of story. There is anecdotal evidence that any more than two devices and it completely falls flat on its arse

This is just another Apple fail… Add it to the list!

 

[JSDK]

Unfortunately, this has been done to death here. It quite simply does not work full stop end of story. There is anecdotal evidence that any more than two devices and it completely falls flat on its arse

This is just another Apple fail… Add it to the list!

That's what I feared. The strange thing is that I have experienced before that it has worked without problems, and suddenly from one moment to the next, nothing works. How can Apple make syncing work with everything else across the systems, but fail with something as simple as sharing stats. Unbelievable.

But thanks for the answer anyway.

 

[Morac]

Contact Apple support. They’ll report it to the engineers and will eventually get around to fixing your account. It took 2 years for them to fix mine.

 

[JSDK]

Contact Apple support. They’ll report it to the engineers and will eventually get around to fixing your account. It took 2 years for them to fix mine.

It won't be necessary. For inexplicable reasons, it started working again here. When I got up this morning and happened to see my widget I could see a lot of hours had been added. Then checked in settings and my consumption from the last 3 days from my MacBook had appeared on my iPhone. Don't know what happened.

 

[garethjs]

ya it periodically works. I had to return my iPad m4 due to fault weeks ago. Signed out of iCloud and wiped device and till today it’s still showing up as a device in my screener list with no usage recorded for weeks of course.

In the past if you disabled screen time on all your devices and then turned it back on the list would regenerate itself correctly.

Now that doesn’t work anymore

How hard is it to get a device removed automatically when u sign out of iCloud seriously…

 

[JSDK]

@garethjs

Usually, a device will be removed from Screen Time after a few days. Try disabling Screen Time again on all your devices, reboot, wait a few days and re-enable Screen Time. Most often it is removed, or usually only lasts a few days.

It's incredible. It's actually an important function, especially those who use it to keep track of their children's screen time, and it just doesn't work. Then they should rather remove the function and call it an "AirPower".

BTW, wrote in a previous post that it worked again. It only did it for 2 days, then it started losing connection and forgetting to update screen times between devices.

 

[garethjs]

Yup I tried that.

Given that the only way u can disable screen time now is to click “turn off website and app activity” which in turn syncs that off setting to all your devices.

I waited 3 days before turning it back on and still the return iPad appears in the list with last recorded usage on the 30th of May

I have found that when someone else is logged into that device with their own Apple ID screen time associates that device with theirs and it disappears from the previous owners screentime list.

 

[Morac]

Turning ScreenTime off too long can completely break it. I turned ScreenTime off for a little over a month once to get rid of a missing device. When I turned it back on on my Mac, iPhone and iPad none of the devices would see any other device’s name at all. The ability to change devices just vanished even though my Mac would show ScreenTime data from my iPhone and iPad as happening on my Mac. Setting also wouldn’t sync. Basically everything was broken. It was like that for about 2 years and then just started working around when iOS 17.5.1 came out.

 

[Morac]

So I happen to check today and saw my iPhone’s screentime data stopped syncing to my other devices on June 6. No activity is showing for it on my iPad and MacBook Air as of that date. My iPhone is reporting my iPad activity hasn’t updated since June 5th, but I see activity up till yesterday on my iPhone and Mac. My Mac is showing today’s activity on all devices.

I tried toggling “share across devices” off and on on my iPad and iPhone. That didn’t fix the issue, but instead caused an old device I removed from my account at least 9 months ago to show up in the device list with no activity. I’ve never seen that before. Since only 3 week’s worth of Screen Time activity is kept it makes no sense for a 9+ month old device to show up in the list.

Basically Screen Time worked for about a week, before it broke again.

 

[Morac]

I decided to call Apple Support. The first thing they had me try was renaming all my devices, including my Mac. Not sure why as I’ve never heard anyone say to do that, but I did. That didn’t work.

Then they had me turn off ScreenTime on all devices, wait a minute, power off all devices, wait a minute and turn ScreenTime back on on all devices. I turned it on on the iPhone first, then the iPad, the Mac, waiting about a minute between each. Within a minute activity started syncing between all devices so that fixed it. It remains to be seen whether it stays fixed, but it’s working currently.

The agent mentioned the phantom device, in my case an old iPhone, is a known issue they are working on. There’s currently no way to remove it.

 

[Morac]

And they stopped syncing again. Both my iPhone and iPad aren’t showing any activity on other devices after around 4 pm, so they stopped syncing after around 27 hours. My Mac is showing activity on other devices.

 

[Morac]

And they stopped syncing again. Both my iPhone and iPad aren’t showing any activity on other devices after around 4 pm, so they stopped syncing after around 27 hours. My Mac is showing activity on other devices.

I went through the steps of turning off ScreenTime on my Mac, iPhone and iPad again, restarting them all and then turning it back on. They are syncing again, but that’s not a solution if I have to repeat those steps every 27 hours.

 

[garethjs]

u need to stop trying lol. It simply doesn't work at the moment.

Watching iOS 18 preview videos it seems even in beta 2 screen time crashes when u try to access its settings. Hopefully it means they are redesigning it from scratch.

 

[Cunir]

Lost count of the number of times i've toggled off "no account changes" on my iphone to change a setting, then switched it back on again, only to see it's still toggled off on my ipad.
Thats worrying from a security point of view

 

[Morac]

It happened again. This time it stopped working after 31 hours on my iPhone and 35 hours on my iPad. My Mac activity continues to show up on other devices.

 

[Morac]

I didn’t reset this time and left it alone and it started syncing again after charging all devices overnight. I’m not sure why that mattered as they kept syncing throughout the day even though not charging.