Roblox App Not Affected by Screen Time

I had the exact same issue till yesterday: The Roblox, Youtube, Youtube Kids, Minecraft could not be blocked by the Screen Time on my kid's iPad Pro with the latest iOS 16. No matter what I did with screen time remotely or locally, the issue could not be solved.

The quick solution I did to make it working today:

Turn Off Screen Time (remotely) -> Sign Out kid's Apple ID (In my kid's iPad) -> Sign In kid's Apple ID (In my kid's iPad) -> Turn On Screen Time (remotely) -> Check the Always Allowed page and remove the unwanted apps

In the last step, I found those apps appeared in the Always Allowed page, which I could not find before signing out Apple ID. After I removed them, the screen time started working with these games.

If your kid can ignore the time limit from his own iPad, you may try the following:

Turn Off Screen Time (In the kid's iPad) -> Turn On Screen Time (remotely)

Note: always use your own devices to turn on the screen time for your kid's iPad.

If still there is some issue, try to log out Apple App Store and then re-login in you kid's iPad.

Hope this help.

This kind of response, over and over from Apple, isn't helpful. I've called in and spent hours on the phone with tech support, and they even escalated it up to a senior engineer. And it seemed like they'd never encountered the problem before (which clearly from this thread, they have.) It was never solved and I spent at least 9 hours on it. It really can't be that hard. Screentime should be straightforward, and yet I agree with the other posters that it's inconsistent at best. You should be able to set the settings and leave it and not worry about it, but this isn't the case at all. It's very frustrating.

@Adrian97c look at the thread above “I found out my child had place Roblox and YouTube on the always allowed section under screen time. Once I deleted it from there, it now is blocked once again during screen time. Hope this helps!”

I had suggested using a firewall or router service before but I wanted to add some further information because you can block it this way along with several other apps that have been listed in several of these posts.

I have EERO from Amazon. I use the paid program for 100$ a year. My network and every device I owned was compromised in 2020. I wasn’t sure where I picked up the problem or how it was introduced so I wanted very detailed control over any connections or device interactions to my Wi-Fi network. After paying thousands to replace everything 100$ a year to try to keep control was worth it to me personally. So I’m not sure what comes with the free version with the purchase of a EERO router but that would be a personal judgement call based on your homes needs.

First the app can be downloaded from the Apple Store and kept on your main device. Your setup will make you the administrator, but you can add a second person to make changes if you have another adult in the house to add the app to their phone.

I am clueless with other routers and how they can be customized through a web page, so I needed something that I could figure out through something simple in an app like way of preferences.

To set up a Profile to individualize what can be blocked or have a scheduled pause timeframe you have to connect the device(s) to the main Wi-Fi connection that allows it to see other connections on the network. Anything that you don’t want to be able to interact with anything else should be given the guest network which is also password protected. It doesn’t matter which one it is connected to if you want to apply pause or block the device.

For many of the issues I am seeing in this post I think you would need to go with a profile and add any devices that you want to have limits applied to control the connection. Roblox is listed as an app that can be blocked directly under games along with game systems and game companies. You can block YouTube and social media directly by just selecting them in the block apps section of the profile settings to apply to all devices assigned to that profile. That allows you to use certain web connections on the adult devices set up under a different profile. You can block or allow sites and control content types by age groups. You can further manage the device by time by setting up a scheduled pause that will block any Wi-Fi connection during a certain time. If the device has cell service then further turn off the app under cellular settings from connecting when not connected to Wi-Fi.

I know it is something that costs money and not part of the Apple Settings. So I know this will not be the right solution for everyone. It is however the best way I have ever found to really control my home network as a network systems dummy. It has also given me a control freaks dream way to micro manage things that I can’t stop any other way. Everything I own is Apple except for this router, so I’m very pro apple when possible btw.

I hope this helps someone!

I was having this issue. I was unable to get Roblox and a few other apps to work even after I had them on the approval list. How I fixed it was by turning screentime off, turning it back on and changing the age limit to a higher age.

I HATE SCREEN TIME EITHER TAKE IT OFF OR IDK OK BUT PlS PLS PLS WITH A CHERRY ON TOP TAKE IT OFF AND I THINK I SPEAK FOR ALL KIDS WHEN I SAY APPLE BAN SCREEN TIME

Thank you

-your fellow child, Thea

I tried the suggestion of signing out of my kids Apple ID on her iPad and then signing back in and it worked. After re-enabling screen time from my iPhone, Roblox is now blocked when I turn on down time. I’m not sure how it got to this point but hope it doesn’t happen again.

As of today screentime still doesn’t affect Roblox…I have noticed that that when screentime is ON Roblox remains available. When screentime is OFF Roblox not available. A work around is to change the age setting to 9+ which hides the app (regardless of screentime is on or off) So in summary; turn on screentime and change age to 9+ to stop Roblox been played when screentime is on. Do the opposite to make it available (turn off screentime and change the age setting to 12+).

Turn off Screentime, Sign out of Apple ID, Sign back in to Apple ID, Turn on Screentime, set limits for Robox, Roblox is now under Screentime limits again. However sometimes when you adjust Screentime settings then Roblox may not be affected again so you need to repeat the reset process again.

I also had this issue but realised that Roblox was somehow in the Always Allowed list, meaning that any limits are ignored.

You can check this on the Parent device by going to:

Settings > Family > (Childs Name) > Screen Time > Always Allowed then simply remove it from the ALLOWED APPS list.

This worked for me, hope it does for you too!

Guys. Your kids are clicking “ignore app limit for the rest of the day” when their time is up. This is not a roblox issue.

I have downtime set up from my device, to have my child’s devices “shut down” at a specific time and not wake up until the time I choose. This is only accessed from my device by passcode, or her devices- but only if she has the passcode, which she does not.

but she was spending too much time on her screens so then I set up app limits and gave her a little time daily on each app. I set it up for her 2 main ones, not realizing I need to just set it up for the entire device. So she got through those 2 and moved to another, so I set a limit for that and when she got to another app I was like NO, and had it all shut down.

So then I go to her device and she has complete access to app limits. No passcode needed. I set it up on my phone for me and when you reach the limit, you get 3 options- 1- ignore for 1 more minute 2- ignore for an hour 3- ignore for the rest of the day.

This is not a roblox issue. They are not bending the app limits- your children are. This is absolutely an apple issue. If we can set up downtime for our kids devices, we should be able to control the app limits.

What's maddening about this is that it is incosistent, and some days/weeks it doesn't work (either because the screen times are not reported correctly, or just because it doesn't get stopped even when going over the limit) and some days it works just fine, even for Roblox, on both iOS and macOS. On macOS it sometimes has a weird issue where if RobloxApp is fullscreen when the limit hits, it will bounce back and forth between time limit screen and the app, never letting one be clicked into before the other takes over, and usually necessitating a hard reboot. I am going to try rebooting all the devices at the same time (including mine, which I saw somewhere else as a suggestion); I'd prefer not to have to sign out and sign back into iCloud accounts but that might be necessary too.

This is a major problem for us. We don't allow our 10-year old to be on this game for too long... long enough for fun, but we try to limit it before it affects him negatively. This is the way of the present with parenthood. These kids want to play games, but we need to help curb it to ensure they have proper development.

Apple needs to address this issue. It's your product, your design to have parental controls. Roblox is one of the biggest games for kids and the only application that bypasses screen time. It's not fair to the kids or to the parents. It's hard to blame my son for going past his time b/c he's just a kid and I know how fun games can be.

Please fix this issue. It's driving us nuts and the only solution is to threaten to take the iPad away if he goes past his time. This is silly!

The best way to manage this issue is to block the age restrictions in the apps. It immediately removes the app if you change the restrict to under 12 years old during downtime or block time. You can change it back when it is screen time.

What is working perfect for you?

THIS IS STILL A PROBLEM FOR US!

I want Roblox blocked at screen time, the right way.

Any specific suggestions anyone has to offer, without saying "THIS" worked for you? What's "THIS"?