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golfextreme Author

Level 1

41 points

Find my live tracking isn’t working

I’ve upgraded mine and my family’s iPhone 11 and 12 to iOS 15 yet live tracking isn’t working on any of them in the find my app. It is working exactly as it did before. It would show a location and then a minute or so later would update the new position but no live tracking.

iPhone 12

Posted on Sep 25, 2021 5:45 AM

Top-ranking reply

COcruzin

Level 1

8 points

Posted on Dec 7, 2021 9:15 AM

My wife and I both have new iPhone 13 pro max phones. We both drive for Uber part time and was totally thrilled to see that the find my app had added the live functionality to the app - while it worked at least. It only worked for a short period of time. Then it went back to the old update method. In trying to troubleshoot and trying to figure it out I have found that the “Live” function works for everyone in my list except for people that have a iPhone + Apple Watch w/cellular. If they have the Apple Watch w/o cellular or just the iPhone it works perfectly. Talking and trying to work with Apple tech Support has gotten me nowhere. I would really like to get this resolved as my wife and I really need it. I hope this sheds a little light on the issue.

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30 replies

May 15, 2022 2:33 PM in response to imad296

I was able get 2 of my iPhone live location worked. Only 2 that are paired with Apple Watch, I cannot get live location work following the provided steps.

COcruzin

Level 1

8 points

Dec 7, 2021 10:07 AM in response to golfextreme

Update: I doing some more troubleshooting I know that I stated before that the “Live” function was not working if the friend ha a Apple iPhone + Apple Watch w/cellular. Well all of a sudden I looked at him on the app and he did go to “Live” status. I called him to see what setting that he might have changed. He stated that he had changed no settings but that his Apple Watch had shut off last night due to low battery so his Watch had been shut off all night. Once he turned the Watch back on it no longer showed “Live” and went back to “Now” status and had to wait to update.

Flory14

Level 1

12 points

Feb 22, 2022 11:58 AM in response to brennajoesadie

The „problem“ is definetly the apple watch cellular. I have tested this with some friends. When you use a apple watch cellular, the location tracking runs always on apple watch (also when the watch is connected to the iphone). You can not choose between iphone and apple watch. When the apple watch is powered off, the live tracking works because then it will be use only the iphone.

apple watch without cellular works fine.

i hope apple will fix this shortly.

714a

Level 1

14 points

Feb 28, 2022 9:57 PM in response to Flory14

so out of 11 people on 3 different family plans of which I’m on one of them.. I can track the same person someone else is tracking and I’m on refresh and sometimes it takes over 3 minutes to refresh. While Everyone else sees that same person live instantly. Doesn’t matter which settings cuz we all match.. I’m literally the only person who has refresh. I don’t own an Apple Watch or an Apple iPad or anything but the apple phone. Most of the devices mentioned are iPhone 11 and higher.. except for 3.. which are all 8s. & I’m an 11.. sooo yeah idk what is happening. I talked to Apple and they said restore. But I don’t want to have to do that when obviously it’s some weird glitch on their end. And having to reset and restore is absolutely irritating and extremely time consuming especially since it took me forever to get my phone the way I want it. So 🍏 should try to figure out what’s causing it without having everyone screw up their whole phone just to get one thing working. It’s just annoying all the way around. & I’m sure everyone without it needs the live to work right..

imad296

Level 1

12 points

Mar 15, 2022 11:43 AM in response to golfextreme

The common thread for our family is Apple Watch Cellular (with AT&T NumberSync). The ones with this are NOT Live. All the others have Apple Watches, WiFi only, and we ARE Live.

iOS 15.4 did not fix this.

rvlaz

Level 1

8 points

Mar 25, 2022 9:02 AM in response to snephs

this happened to me as well. i didn’t have this problem until i updated it and took my phone to the apple store on monday and that’s when all this started. i’ve tried restoring my phone and everything, even contacted apple support and they opened a ticket with a technician but this is not working

gerylie

Level 1

8 points

Apr 2, 2022 2:42 AM in response to TuanDo1814

Got a new iPhone 13 and when finished setting it up, live tracking was lost but remained on my Mac laptop (but now texts don’t sync w my new phone) Updating to the new phone has been extremely buggy and not a smooth transition. Not impressed- wish Apple support would provide update that would fix this live track issue. It was my lifeline to college kids on my old iphone8 and you’d think w a newer phone you wouldn’t lose this feature!

snephs

Level 1

9 points

Apr 2, 2022 5:14 AM in response to gerylie

not that this is super insightful but when I open “find my” - everyone who still updates as “live” updates with their location immediately. Everyone who I lost live tracking on, spins for a longer period of time before it updates their location.

The live people are more real time in the full list and the now people are often listed as “5 minutes ago” etc. until I click on them and manually force the update.

nothing makes sense as to why just these two people are no longer live - it’s not related to which phone they have, what iOS they have or what watch they have.