Q: I cannot delete iPhone keyboard shortcuts. They keep restoring.
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Jun 3, 2015 9:35 AMby crmac,Not to cask a pall of gloom and doom, but we're not, any of us out of the woods yet. We just have a lot of people new to the problem/discussion who naturally proceed with great hope and energy -- and no small amount of faith -- that someone, somewhere at Apple must know his/her way around this problem.
See my overly long post on 5/29, as well as all the earlier, hopeful posts here. And all the related threads. This ain't fixed.
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Jun 3, 2015 12:14 PMby cfront,After 3 phone calls over 3 days with an apple tech support rep, we seem to have solved the problem. It's been two days, with multiple iPhone and iPad reboots and so far the zombies have not reappeared.
We were unable to determine which of these steps was essential so there may actually be an unnecessary step involved, but this combo did work. (I'm 95% I've got the order right. Hopefully someone can confirm for everyone else that this works for them too and it's not a fluke.)
- delete all the shortcuts on all of your synced devices (including MacBooks and desktop computers on your iCloud account.)
then do the following on each iDevice
- go to settings -> general -> keyboard -> keyboards -> add New Keyboard (and any apple keyboard other than the one you usually use for which you speak the language. I used English (Canadian)
- delete your original English dictionary (or whichever one you were using) [It can't hurt to delete any 3rd party keyboards here and reinstall them later)
- then you can add it back.
- delete any iCloud backups for this device. (settings -> iCloud -> storage -> manage storage -> choose device you are on -> delete backup)
- then do an iCloud back up (settings -> iCloud -> backup -> back up now) - (make sure every app that has data you want to keep is backing up to iCloud before doing this!!!)
- repeat for other idevices
go to any desktop/laptops synced with iCloud
- settings -> keyboard -> input sources ->
- + (add English (Canadian) keyboard)
- - (English keyboard)
- + (add) English keyboard
- - (delete) English (Canadian keyboard)
Now you'll need to reformat your iPhone (AND iPad if you have one - if you only do one of your devices, the shortcuts will return) This isn't an issue as long as you've completely backed up everything you want to save other than it being very time consuming if your internet is slow and you have a lot of data and apps on your phone.
- go to settings -> general -> reset -> erase all content and settings
- restore from iCloud back up (the one you created above without the shortcuts) on all your devices
This is time consuming (and I accidentally lost a few photos because my iPhoto app was accidentally not backing up to the iCloud), I had to do it twice to my phone because my iPad was harboring the annoying zombie shortcuts), but like I said, it has worked now for over 24 hours. You may have to redo some of your basic settings, but it was worth it for me.
Best of luck!
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Jun 3, 2015 12:34 PMby pagemakers4,Cfront- good for you posting this but if Apple think this is a fix they are living on cloud cuckoo land.
I've done pretty much all you have several times and after a few days all the shortcuts are back. I don't backup to the cloud so that step would be interesting for me. I only backup to iTunes.
It will be really interesting to see if you have any shortcuts return in the next few days.
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Jun 4, 2015 8:45 AMby Pickinic,This is my first time posting, but I have had this recurring shortcut issue for years. After reading "LookInToMyEyes" (Chris's) post I used his method several times and had some limited success, but the shortcuts kept reappearing after a reboot or within minutes, hours or days. I recently realized that I had an additional file when looking at my backup (both iPhone and iPad) through the icopybot program. This file that I had that did not appear on Chris's screen shot was yet another CloudUserDictionary.sqlite file appearing right above the CoreDataUbiquitySupport folder. This file was dated as created in 2013 which was a red flag to me since that's about when these shortcuts were originally created (or earlier). I took a chance and deleted that file along with the CoreData... file and suddenly the old shortcuts that have been haunting me for years were able to be deleted and gone! They have not come back in weeks or after many reboots on both devices. It took awhile for the iPhone and iPad to start syncing shortcuts together (days), but they are in sync now and no more zombie shortcuts. I don't know if this is the same for others and I wish I had taken a screenshot before I deleted the CloudUserDictionary file so you could see what it looked like, but I didn't. I've tried every other idea I've seen on these posts and this is the only thing that has worked. I know you'll be skeptical as I was and I've waited to see if they reappear before posting this, but I can say that they are now gone for good. I felt obligated to post this fix and I hope this helps someone.
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Jun 4, 2015 10:35 AMby Pickinic,Yes, I performed Chris's procedure again on both devices just adding the removal of that extra file that I found along with the CoreData file. If others have that very old file there in that location, that Chris's example was missing, I believe that is the key to the solution.
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Jun 4, 2015 10:59 AMby Pickinic,For clarification, I had both the multiple mobile files that Chris's original posted screen shot showed below the CoreData file PLUS the additional CloudUserDictionary file above the CoreData file. It's the CloudUserDictionary file above the CoreData file that needs to be deleted along with the CoreDataUbiquitySupport folder.
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Jun 4, 2015 2:01 PMby Pickinic,I'm at work and can't do that at the moment, but will try to later. Basically it's just Chris's solution with the addition of deleting that extra file that he didn't have in his example. I'll check in periodically if there are further questions. I'm no expert, but that one file just stood out and seems to be the root of all evil in this zombie shortcut horror (at least in my particular case).
