Q: I cannot delete iPhone keyboard shortcuts.  They keep restoring.

So, at the moment I have and iPhone, iPad, Mac Pro and MacBook all playing together nicely.  No duplicate shortcuts.  Everything synching fine.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.  I’ve been here before - So many times before.

If this doesn’t work, that’s another evening I’ve wasted on this stupid problem of Apple's

On 4 Jun 2015, at 12:34 pm, Julius wrote:

 

Case#*****

 

Hello Paul. I have just received conformation from the engineers that the shortcut container has been removed from your account. They have instructed me to have sign out of iCloud on all devices, then sign back in and enable icloud drive. I also would like to know if you have chosen an item from the accessory section of the Apple online store? I’d like to get the process started to get the item ordered and sent you as soon as possible. Thank you

Email from Peter to Julius just now:

I followed your emailed instructions. I signed out of iCloud on all devices and Macs. You didn’t mention shortcuts, but I deleted all shortcuts from my phone, and deleted all text substitutions from my work Mac Mini. (I didn’t delete them from every device, because I didn’t intend turning iCloud back on for every device/Mac until I saw the result.) I then turned iCloud back on only on my work Mac Mini and on my iPhone. My work Mac Mini had most but not all of my text substitutions, including 3 “zombie” ones, which I have deleted again. My iPhone appears to have all shortcuts again, including all zombie shortcuts.

I appreciate your offer of an accessory. I was waiting until the process was complete before I made a choice. It is a very low priority for me at present.

Despite my lack of confidence in this latest work-around, I still hoped that it would work. As you can imagine, I am extremely disappointed and frustrated. I’m not entirely sure that the engineers understand how shortcuts work - was there a reason that they didn’t ask me to delete any? Did they think that their deletion of the “container” would solve this problem?

I look forward to your response.

[End email]

It's petty, but I have spoken to this advisor numerous times, yet he still frequently calls me by my partner's name in emails. (Both names are on our Apple ID.)

<Personal Information Edited By Host>

(Perhaps I could have waited a little while before sending my earlier email.)

I deleted the unwanted shortcuts from my Mac and iPhone, and they have not returned. I know it's only been 2 hours, so it's too soon to crack open the champagne, but I've been experimenting... I deleted one shortcut from my iPhone at 12:11, and by 12:14 it was gone from my Mac. I deleted another shortcut from my Mac, and less than a minute later it was gone from my iPhone - basically the kind of syncing one would expect.

I created a new shortcut on the Mac; it appeared within moments on my iPhone. I created a new shortcut on the iPhone; it appeared a few minutes later on the Mac.

My fellow from Consumer Relations phoned me. I told him that the zombie shortcuts have not returned for a couple of hours. He said that it's too early to get excited, but he is pleased. He asked me to let him know if they return. He said that the engineers told him that if their latest fix (outlined above: sign out of iCloud everywhere, then sign back and turn iCloud Drive on) doesn't work, it will have to wait until a software update!

<Edited by Host>

That's great if it's a permanent fix!  If not and you have the file I mentioned, then delete it and you should be fine.  If you don't have that file showing up, then I'd recommend Peter's solution.

Good news Peter.  Give us an update in a couple of days.

An update on my “fix” from yesterday.

It’s been 12+ hours now and after several reboots I can confirm that not a single shortcut has come back.  I know I’m not of of the woods but it looks promising.

All shortcuts say deleted and are now synching across all devices.  If this changes I’ll let you all know.  Kudos to Chris and Picknik.  This is mostly their work.

Most of the fix is found at the top of page 7.

I have an iPhone, iPad, Mac Pro and Macbook.  You don’t need to do anything with the Macs themselves.  They are not the problem.  Also note I have never backed up to iCloud.  I don’t have that feature tuned on.

1. Backup iPhone to iTunes (I used encrypted backup. The only reason for this is because encrypted backups also save Apple Watch health data).
2. Open this app after installing on your Mac
3. Navigate to System files > KeyboardDomain.
4. Delete Delete "CoreDataUbiquitySupport” folder.
5. I had a couple more keyboard sounding files from 2013 in the KeyboardDomain folder.  One was CloudUserDictionary.sqlite (I forget the other 2).  I deleted those.
6. Exit icopybot.
   
7. Restore the iPhone backup created in step 1.
8. Do the same process for the iPad.
9. When done reboot both Macs.
10. Clean up your shortcuts on all devices inc Macs - They may not be the same.
11. Go to bed!  Stuff takes a long time to fully sync.
12. 12+ Hours later and several iOS reboots to confirm, no zombie shortcuts are back.

If this works it’s only taken me 12 months of constant messing about to fix it.  I wish I was a “glass half full” kind of person!

<Link Edited by Host>

I'm glad that worked for you!  I think the missing link for everyone was that 2013 file that Chris apparently didn't have lingering in his backups.  Thanks for putting those steps online as well.  I was going to do that myself today and you beat me to it.  I've been struggling with this like everyone else for years and have put in countless hours using every method discussed in this thread trying to get it fixed.  Chris is to be commended for showing us the way and sharing the icopybot program that allows us to fix this mess FOR APPLE!  I do see that Apple engineers may never see that file since it is stored locally on everyone's device, but by now they should have come up with a fix.  I'm glad we found a "non-nuclear" option and I think we can finally declare this one fixed.  If anyone needs clarification, I'll check this thread occasionally.

Jim

I have three devices, iMac, iPad mini, and iPhone 6 Plus, all signed into iCloud. Do I sign out of the other devices while I perform the steps? I want to do the steps perfectly the first time. Or am I able to just back up my iPhone and iPad, perform the steps on my phone, then my iPad without shutting anything off? What will rebooting the Mac do?

Steps on the iOS devices, when they both restore from back up, restart Mac and then proceed to delete the shortcuts off all of the devices? then reboot all devices? I'm sorry I'm a bit confusing, I just don't want to do something wrong

Just follow the steps as I have indicated.

There is no need to sign out of iCloud and no need to reboot your iOS devices.

You can reboot them the following day just to check the zombie shortcuts don't come back.

Well it's been a few days now and not a single zombie shortcut has returned. I actually think I'm fixed no thanks to Apple.

Peter, how's your fix going on?

No zombies here either!  And no nuclear option necessary...

Ok, I'm reluctant to be messing around with 3d-party stuff just to solve something Apple should solve itself, and I'm not confident that the solutions we're finding will hold and not cause other issues, so I buzzed back to "my" tech rep with a plea for help. Below is a redacted version of what I sent, received, and replied:

START OF COMMUNICATION ---

 

Where are we on this, please, Jonathan? It seems the hive has come up with what might be a solution (see link), but it would be great to hear from Apple. Please advise. Thanks.

 

https://discussions.apple.com/message/28367255?ac_cid=tw123456#28367255

FROM TECH, JONATHAN:

Catherine,

I have been reading the articles you linked to me.  After looking at the solution given i can see how it could fix the issue, but with it using a 3rd party program to access system files on an iPhone/iPad/iPod it is something that we do not support.  I will be forwarding the information to engineering though to see if they can come up with a solution that falls into our support methods.  The only thing that i can think of that we could do until then would be to restore the phone back to factory and manually put information back onto it. 

FROM ME:

I haven’t been able to follow exactly what the various hive solutions have been, and — trust me — I don’t want to be integrating any third party programs to solve this either. But I honestly don’t see why Apple can’t solve it. They SHOULD solve it, because it’s an Apple problem, and apparently a rather pervasive and persistent one. Aren’t you all sick of hearing about this?

However, what I can glean from all those community threads is that it is a problem definitely linked to user backups (iCloud or otherwise), backups that somehow lurk out of user reach and that will persist no matter whether the phone (or iPad, or whatever) is restored and rebuilt (which in itself is a heinous thing to ask someone to do with what is essentially a new phone). In other words, erase and restore won’t solve the problem on its own. We’ve all learned that. If I’m being asked to erase and reinstall, I would prefer — and will push for — a brand new phone with a restart on the warranty period. Not sure what to do about the iPad.

What about that note to "remove the shortcut container from the iCloud account" from the thread? Can that be done? As an end user, I can’t get to that element.

Really, I’m not demeaning your individual efforts, and I realize that you’re hamstrung by what’s possible from your support level, but I am requesting that you please, please connect me with someone who has the resources, information, access, and latitude to actually fix this problem. I don’t want to speak with another rep who is lateral to you, because that would serve no purpose. I would like to be escalated to, or moved closer to, engineering itself. This is a terrible, terrible waste of time, and is costing me money as well.

Please advise as soon practical, and if possible by end of business Monday 6/8.

END OF COMMUNICATION---

And so it goes...

Hi Catherine,

While I shared your concern about using a 3rd party program to fix the issue, I can tell you from personal use that it has definitely solved the problems on my iPhone, iPad and iMac.  There have been no issues whatsoever in regard to this fix and I firmly believe it is now a permanent fix.  I respect your fears and wish you the best of luck pursuing this with Apple, but as far as I'm concerned we've found the solution and I've never been so happy as to get rid of those x!?*ing zombie shortcuts.  I also don't believe that Apple reps. have a clue how to fix this and I wish I had taken a screen shot before deleting that file that finally fixed the problem.  There are several different threads citing the same problem and I've directed them to this thread for the solution.  Good luck with Apple...

Jim

P.S. Chris is a saint for providing the initial solution!

pagemakers4: No zombie shortcuts have returned! I think the deletion of the "container" did the trick.

crmac: (1) Well done for trying to get Apple to do their job properly. I would be very surprised if you managed to have direct communication with the engineers. It seems that even Apple senior advisors are only able to contact the engineers electronically, not via telephone. And it feels like the engineers dictate the terms of communication with the advisors.

(2) Jonathan is incorrect in suggesting that a factory restore will solve the problem. It didn't for me. I believe that Apple staff are lazy and patronising in the way they frequently advise users to restore, restart, reboot.

(3) You certainly have the communication skills necessary: do you also have the _time_ to contact Consumer Relations? It's exhausting and frustrating, but I don't know how else Apple will get the message that treating users the way they do is not a useful way to do business.

Pagemakers4 - it's been over a week, with multiple shutdowns/reboots on all devices and theyve still not returned. So while this was a pain, it seems to have worked.

The key step was having a backup with NO shortcuts to restore from. I'm pretty certain that this has to so with a cache on one of my devices storing the old shortcuts NOT iCloud, as along the way, they reappeared on my iPad while it was not connected to the internet.