Downtime contact issue

I have the same problem. "Community Specialist" is missing the point ENTIRELY. A lot of people having the same issue. Even if an app is "Always Allowed", we cannot restrict it to "Specific Contacts". It just doesn't work. Rebooting/restarting, etc do NOT fix the issue.

Hey kn31,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities! I understand you are having an issue with the Screen Time settings working as expected. This is a great feature, and I definitely want to make sure it's working as expected.

It certainly sounds like you have the correct settings, so that's great. Let's also make sure that under "Always Allow" you have messages showing there. Unless you only want phone calls available, and if that's the case let us know if you're unable to call them, they can't call you, or both?

Let's also have you turn off Screen Time for both devices, restart all devices, and then enable that again. Let us know if the same behavior continues after that.

You can see how to disabled/enable Screen Time here: Use Screen Time on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Thanks again, and have a great day!

In case anyone runs into the issues this is the solution I came up with. If you go into screentime and always allowed. I then removed messages and then re-added it. Insanity, I know.