HT201085: Share purchased content with Family Sharing

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Alrik23

Q: Why I cant share my purchased application to my family's devices. It says that "this application is no longer shared" and said that they need to purchase the application which I paid already.

Why I cant share my purchased application to my family's devices. "This application is no longer shared" that's the icon appeared always when we open the game. And said that they need to purchase the application which I paid already.

iPhone 5, iOS 8.1

Posted on Nov 17, 2014 7:11 PM

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Q: Why I cant share my purchased application to my family's devices. It says that "this application is no longer shared" and said tha ... more

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  • by Funnypotato,

    Funnypotato Funnypotato Nov 18, 2014 12:34 PM in response to Alrik23
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 18, 2014 12:34 PM in response to Alrik23

    I've got this exact same issue.  I've been doing a lot of digging on this since I first turned on Family Sharing a few weeks back.  Here's the situation I'm in - I'm guessing you're in roughly the same boat.

     

    I have a couple of iPads which I have essentially given to my two sons to use.  One is logged in with my Apple ID; the other logged in with my wife's Apple ID.  Traditionally, my wife has purchased games and other Apps using her Apple ID and we have in the past (prior to Family Sharing) temporarily logged one of the iPads out of my Apple ID and logged into my wife's ID so that we could get the app onto both iPads thereby purchasing the app only once.  Once the app was installed we would then revert back to logging into my account and the game would still play.

     

    This worked beautifully as automatic updates on my iPad would simply prompt for my wife's password whenever it tried to update an app that my wife had purchased and we had installed under her account.

     

    I thought I'd be clever and start using Family Sharing once I saw the benefits (get the kids to request apps, we authorise them, share calendars, location sharing etc).  So, I turned it on, created accounts for my kids (they are younger than 13), and added my wife's account as an administrator. I was set up as the family organiser.  This turned out to be a big mistake.  For some reason the iPad that is logged in using my Apple ID does not recognise that the apps my wife purchased which are installed on it are are effectively shared from my wife as the original purchaser - it seems to think that the because it was purchased prior to turning on Family Sharing that it somehow falls outside of the new sharing regime.  It also happens on free apps by the way.

     

    One way to fix this is to simply delete all of the apps that are installed on the iPad which are from 'another account' then simply reinstall them from the shared family member who has bought them. I've seen reports on the internet that this has had some limited success for some people.  The problem I have is that some of these apps are games with saved data - my son does not want me to delete his Minecraft worlds which he has spent months building!

     

    And this is where I am stuck.  I thought iOS 8.1.1 would have solved this but it hasn't.  Automatic updates for the affected apps now do not work - in fact it stops them from working altogether as now when you launch them after an 'update' they quit immediately with the 'no longer shared' error.  The only solution is to log out of the Apple ID, log back in with my wife's, update the app, then log back into my account again.  My concern is that Apple are going to clamp down on the number of times you can log in and out of accounts (I've read that somewhere too).

     

    Apple, if you even bother to read these, please at least acknowledge the problem and give us some sort of (non destructive) solution to it.

  • by NicaNinja,

    NicaNinja NicaNinja Nov 18, 2014 10:06 PM in response to Funnypotato
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 18, 2014 10:06 PM in response to Funnypotato

    Try purchasing any app with the new Apple ID first. It can be free like "Find my iPhone." Once you have a purchase established with the new Apple ID, you can use Family Sharing like it's supposed to work. You can update all the apps and download new ones from the Organizer's Purchases.

     

    I just spent hours figuring this out. My son's ID was set to ask for permission. Once I gave it permission to buy (for free) the new app on his device, I was able to update current apps and install new ones from my purchases that I had made with my Apple ID.

  • by Funnypotato,

    Funnypotato Funnypotato Nov 19, 2014 9:29 AM in response to NicaNinja
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 19, 2014 9:29 AM in response to NicaNinja

    Excellent - thanks I'll give this a try.  If I log out of the current user (my ID) and log in as my sons new ID, purchase any app, then attempt to download minecraft again it won't wipe out the data will it?

  • by NicaNinja,

    NicaNinja NicaNinja Nov 19, 2014 10:17 AM in response to Funnypotato
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 19, 2014 10:17 AM in response to Funnypotato

    I'm not sure... we've actually got two iPad minis for our two kids. On my son's I tried EVERYTHING including restoring the iPad, deleting the app, reinstalling it, logging in with different user accounts, etc.  On his, all the data was gone when I finally got it working. On my daughter's, all I did was log out of my user ID after upgrading (Minecraft was on there after the upgrade), then I bought an app with her user ID, then I was able to update Minecraft on her device and it kept all her data.

     

    I'm not sure when or what step in the process wiped my son's data. I would recommend keeping the app on the device (or install it w/ main acct), then switch accounts, download app with secondary account, then updating app.

     

    Hope that helps.