Can't re-enable COVID-19 exposure notifications or tracking

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Level 1

33 points

Can't re-enable COVID-19 exposure notifications or tracking

I live in London, where there was no COVID-19 exposure notification app until today. To see how the technology works in other jurisdictions, I installed Beat COVID Gibraltar on 18th June 2020 and COVID Tracker Ireland on 6th July 2020. Although both apps worked fine and were tracking exposure, I couldn't do much with the apps, given that nobody around me was using apps from Gibraltar or Ireland. Instead of deleting the apps, I disabled exposure notifications in iOS.

The option to re-enable exposure notifications (or possibly a slightly different previous phrase) has disappeared in iOS 14 or probably in an earlier iOS version such as 13.6.1. After I installed England's NHS COVID-19 today, 24th September 2020, and deleted the Gibraltar and Ireland apps, the England app told me "Unfortunately, you can't run this app. This could be due to: A restriction in your settings; Another app on your phone using the same technology and stopping this app from working".

Obviously it's not the latter reason, because I deleted the Gibraltar and Ireland apps, so it must be my earlier disabling of exposure tracking that is causing the issue.

I get similar issues if I install the Ireland, Scotland or Gibraltar apps (on their own without the other apps). The other jurisdictions' apps give more explicit error messages. For example:

The Ireland app tells me "Service is not active. To update your permission settings, go to your device's app settings".
The Scotland app tells me "Tracing is not active at the moment but you can fix this later" and "Exposure Notifications are required. 1. Go to device Settings. 2. Switch on COVID-19 Exposure Notifications. 3. Re-open this app".
The Gibraltar app tells me "Exposure notifications are required. 1. Press 'Go to app settings'. 2. Switch on COVID19 Exposure Notifications. 3. Re-open this app, and it will be activated".

If I go into Settings, Exposure Notifications, Turn On Exposure Notifications, it just takes me to a country selection page, where it prompts me to download the app for my country or region, which I have already done. It doesn't re-enable exposure notifications, and this remains off, even if I re-download and re-install each app. There seems to be a hidden setting pre-iOS14 or pre-iOS13.6.1 that I can't undo.

I spoke to Apple Support, who focussed on irrelevant matters such as wifi profiles. They also wanted me to "reset all settings", which would permanently delete a huge amount of my data such as hundreds of wifi passwords (with no way of restoring the data), and they wanted me to back up and restore the iPhone, which is extremely onerous with little prospect of success.

Therefore how do I re-renable exposure notifications or exposure tracking?

iPhone 8

Posted on Sep 24, 2020 7:42 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

bart94

Level 1

4 points

Oct 25, 2020 5:23 AM in response to robbie296

No, this issue is a different one than the one described in the BBC article. Meanwhile got an 12Pro and can confirm that's it's really related to the user data. Had the new phone sync my data, coronalert (Belgian app) still didn't work. Bit the bullet, reset Privacy&Location settings and it instantly started working... Clearly an apple issue. You'd think this would have top priority given the circumstances.

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Answer 2

Sep 30, 2020 7:17 AM in response to NFH.

OK I've taken one for the team here... I deleted the NHS Covid app, did as suggested, re-downloaded the app and eureka, it now works

Still think this is an iOS bug (or at least unintended consequence of iOS 14 removing a feature that existed in iOS 13.x) as you cannot really ask your users to reset all settings just to toggle on contact tracing.

but at least we've identified a path for those willing to take the plunge. thanks for pushing on this with both Apple and the NHS!

note for other people encountering this issue and wanting exact instructions, here is the description from Apple's website:

If you would like to reset all of your location settings to the factory default, go to Settings > General > Reset and tap Reset Location & Privacy.

When your location and privacy settings are reset, apps will stop using your location until you grant them permission

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Answer 3

Oct 7, 2020 2:48 PM in response to bart94

Well it’s what I did last and then the app worked. So I think the answer is yes, though I cannot say for sure as a few days earlier I followed the original guidance and reset both my network settings and my general settings.

so theoretically it’s possible that you’d need to do a combination of resetting privacy and one of those other things.

but my hunch is you’ll be ok if you reset privacy settings

good luck!

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Answer 4

Oct 24, 2020 11:38 AM in response to NFH.

And this article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54675352 pretty much confirms that this was a bug that’s now widespread as people start to upgrade their iPhone hardware

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Answer 5

NFH. Author

Level 1

33 points

Sep 26, 2020 1:30 PM in response to robbie296

robbie296 wrote:

I have also rebooted the phone, reset network settings and done a general settings reset.

none of those has made any changes.

Thanks. That's very helpful to know. It proves that Apple's instruction to carry out these data-destructive steps would have been ineffective. So I'm glad I resisted.

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Answer 6

NFH. Author

Level 1

33 points

Oct 20, 2020 11:53 AM in response to NFH.

I upgraded last week from my iPhone 8 to a new iPhone SE 2020. All my data was transferred from the old iPhone to the new iPhone, including the "Exposure Logging" setting that I had disabled in iOS 13.5.1 or 13.6. Therefore these exposure notification apps don't work even on my new iPhone.

However, as I will wipe my iPhone 8 soon, I decided to test the NHS's above solution of resetting location and privacy settings on my iPhone 8. It cured the problem. All these apps now work, including NHS COVID-19 and COVID Tracker Ireland. I was hoping that iOS 14.1 would cure the problem on my new iPhone SE 2020, but unfortunately Apple neglected to include a fix in iOS 14.1, despite my having told Apple three weeks ago how to reproduce the bug:

Under iOS 13.5.1 or iOS 13.6, install the COVID Tracker Ireland app.
In Settings -> Privacy -> Health -> COVID-19 Exposure Logging, disable Exposure Logging.
Update to iOS 14 (or later).
Remove the COVID Tracker Ireland app.
Install and open the NHS COVID-19 app.
The app will give an error, because there is no way to re-enable Exposure Logging, even though there is a way to enable Exposure Notifications (which is unsuccessful).

The proven solution is as follows:

Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Location & Privacy

However, this will delete some of your data, specifically all the location and privacy settings that you have configured for all your apps.

In my case, this affects over 500 apps. I therefore have the choice between protecting my health and retaining this data. I am not impressed by Apple's repeated failure to fix this health-related issue, despite Apple having the benefit of the above steps to reproduce it. I am also disappointed that Apple's technical support focussed on wifi profiles and other irrelevant settings.

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Answer 7

NFH. Author

Level 1

33 points

Oct 24, 2020 11:52 AM in response to robbie296

robbie296 wrote:

And this article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54675352 pretty much confirms that this was a bug that’s now widespread as people start to upgrade their iPhone hardware

The article says:

This can easily be addressed by making a change within the Settings menu.

Users should:

select the Notifications listing

then tap on Exposure Notifications

then turn on the Allow Notifications option

As we know, it's not as simple as "Turn on Exposure Notifications". Tapping on this only takes you to a menu to download one's country's relevant app. I suspect that older iPhones have "exposure logging" disabled by default, and that Apple neglected to re-enable it when copying the user data to a new iPhone.

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Answer 8

Sep 26, 2020 1:03 PM in response to NFH.

I have exactly the same problem

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Answer 9

bart94

Level 1

4 points

Oct 7, 2020 1:36 PM in response to robbie296

So i have exactly the same issue but with the Belgian app (previously had the Swiss app). Just to clarify was deleting privacy and location data sufficient?

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Answer 10

NFH. Author

Level 1

33 points

Nov 5, 2020 11:47 AM in response to NFH.

This bug is still not fixed, even in iOS 14.2. This is a disgraceful failure by Apple, because evidently health is not its priority.

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Answer 11

NFH. Author

Level 1

33 points

Sep 24, 2020 2:36 PM in response to NFH.

I've found the cause, but not the solution. The slightly different phrase to which I referred above was "exposure logging". In iOS 13.5, this was accessed in Settings -> Privacy -> Health -> COVID-19 Exposure Logging:

I disabled the above "Exposure Logging" option in iOS 13.5, but the option no longer appears within Health or anywhere else in iOS 14. Therefore how do I re-enable the option in order to make these apps work again?

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Answer 12

NFH. Author

Level 1

33 points

Sep 26, 2020 1:20 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Lawrence Finch wrote:

Go to Settings/General/iPhone Storage and look carefully for a notification app that you may have missed. And have you restarted your phone?

Of course I would not have posted such a detailed description of the problem if I was not 100% sure that I had deleted all four of the COVID-19 tracking/notification apps and had restarted my iPhone many times. Even after updating to iOS 14.0.1, I still experience this issue. The cause of the issue is that Apple implemented the "Exposure Logging" option in iOS 13.5, allowing users to disable it, and then removed the option in a subsequent iOS version, thereby preventing users from re-enabling it.

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Answer 13

Sep 26, 2020 1:26 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

In my case, I only ever had one other exposure app and that was the Italian one (Immuni). I had removed it under iOS 13, and disabled exposure logging. Now with ios14 installed, I cannot re-enable exposure logging.

I have tried with both the new NHS COVID-19 app and by reinstalling the Immuni app. Neither helps.

I have also rebooted the phone, reset network settings and done a general settings reset.

none of those has made any changes. I am pretty sure this is a bug in iOS 14

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Answer 14

Sep 26, 2020 1:27 PM in response to NFH.

I’m happy you did what you say now you did, but my mind reading skills are a little rusty, so until you just explained I had no idea how thorough you were. And looking in Settings/General/iPhone Storage is a worthwhile exercise because an app may have left some background process installed. So if you didn’t delete it in that location specifically part of it might still be there.

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Answer 15

NFH. Author

Level 1

33 points

Sep 30, 2020 5:48 AM in response to robbie296

Apple's technical support are still focussing on irrelevant settings such as wifi profiles. The NHS technical support team, despite the issue neither being caused by their app nor affecting only their app, are far more helpful

and knowledgeable. The NHS's latest suggestion is to reset location and privacy. As I have hundreds of apps with carefully-tuned privacy settings, I'm reluctant to do this unless it will definitely fix the issue.

@robbie296, as you've already tried resetting network settings and all settings, I assume you might be happier than I am to try resetting location and privacy? Would you like to try this?

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Can't re-enable COVID-19 exposure notifications or tracking

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