Parental controls not working

I'm having similar issues. For some reason my son's time often does not get monitored. For a while I thought he'd managed to hack it somehow, but I no longer think think that's the case. When I look at the logs for Application use, it often shows NO application use for that day, yet there are tons of Websites visited, so why isn't Safari at least showing up?

Before Leopard came along we used MacMinder, which worked like a charm. I am thinking of going back to that. It was more customizable to boot.

Similar issue but it seems to work intermittently. I changed my password several times thinking my son (16) might have scammed it but last night I caught him playing world of warcraft at 3AM. I have controls set to kick everyone off after 10PM. He said he found several ways around the system but will not tell me how - so right now my parental control is to manually lock him out of the computer. This touted utility is very weak and I might consider a third party package. Apple, you need major fixes to this software and improvements. For example, I would like to have the ability to restrict apps on different days at different times, ie. World of Warcraft on weekends only and limit time of individual apps.

I'm having just the same problems. Both sons can computer forever with their time limited to one hour a day. On Tiger I used Macminder, but this was also giving problems with WoW. I hope they fix this with an intermediate update.

I'm starting to think that some of the problems are related to permission issues with Leopard. I found that parental controls were different if I signed into them when my son was logged on from those when I was logged in. Not being comfortable with command line usage, I haven't tried correcting permissions with anything other than reinstalling the system and using disk utilities. I also think that World of Warcraft may also purposely make it difficult to use parental control software, especially if you try to limit time instead of banning it completely. I will keep you posted on any solutions.

I tried a new account for my son. Parental controls worked for a day or so, but now it's again unlimited. WoW is certainly bypassing the proxy, but how to prevent this, without making the game impossible?

I am having similar issues with the parental controls and the time restrictions placed on the account. My son has told me that if he logs out when the warning notice says 1 second remaining, it will allow him to log back in with unrestricted time limits. I do not know how to correct this issue.

My son, another Warcraft user, along with no time limits working with Parental controls, also has not logs in the last few months. If I look at the parental control logs, it says he hasn't access any websites or applications in the last month or so. Not sure if this is a bug or he's is somehow circumventing it all.

I have the same issue. According to my son, if he logs out at certain times of the day with a short time remaining, when he logs back on, his time limit is reset.

The magic times appear to be on the half-hour at certain times during the day.

Does anyone know why this happens?

I'm having similar problems with Parental Controls. Three things are happening. First, the time limits only work intermittantly. Sometimes they kick my kids out and sometimes not. Second, the passwords on my kids' accounts periodically become unusable, and I have to reset them in the administrator account. Third, the automatic logout, when it works, sometimes locks up the computer with a blues screen and spinning beachball.
We were really hoping that Parental Controls would work as advertised, but it has been spotty at best. My kids are still young and not that sophisticated with hacking skills, but I'm worried they'll wise up soon.

Hi

Sama problem here. Time limits show different time in Login window and time limit does not cut him off. I have also reset it to with in ten minutes and it still does not function. May if I can find the correct Library preferences that store the setting and delete it the problem by go away. Anyone know the name of the file?

Thanks
Tsofa

Is there any outcome from Apple on this one? We seem to have some issues too with the usage of the computer by our daughters. They each have 1 hour a day and bedtime is set to from 9pm - 6am. Last night one of the kids was still chatting at 9:45 and I am pretty sure she passed her 1 hour limit too? We were so glad to see the parental control feature but we are not sure it is actually doing what it says it is doing. Another thing; one of the kids will have "can login at 6am" after her account name but the other sometimes says "can login at 12am"? what does that mean?

Do the accounts use Spaces? I am having a similar problem, but only for one of two accounts on the computer. Time limits don't work correctly for the account that uses Spaces (one for homework apps and one for email/iChat), but they work correctly for the other account. Both time limits and bed time limits work for the account that does not use Spaces, but neither work for the account that does use Spaces.

I will turn Spaces off and see what happens.

I'm having same issue on 2 of my Macs. The log in limits feature works correctly and will not allow log in after a set time at night, but once a user is logged in earlier, the specific time out-forced log out feature never works.

This is the most important use to me to keep my teenager off after certain set time on school nights and weekends.

I disabled Spaces but that doesn't seem to have made a difference.

This most basic feature of the program simply does not work on either of my Macs.

Last month I bought a subscription to Net Nanny. This program has a new Mac edition which does the job most of the time. I use it in conjunction with Parental controls. Net Nanny to limit the internet-time ( especially World of Warcraft), parental controls to limit the over all computertime.

The time limits seem very flaky. My child (6) has an account which prohibits use at any time of the day (apart from one minute at 3am). When she wants to use the Mac I just log in to her account and authorise 30 minutes or whatever - usually just to remind me that we are meant to be doing something else.

On several occasions when the out of time warning has come up, hitting cancel has just let her continue using the system. It seems fairly rubbish.