iPhone Screen time keeps auto resetting

@trackpoint

So I did what you recommended back on your post on the 17th.

Except, I did this for only one of my kids phones (iPhone 14…latest software)

First - On my phone (iPhone 14 Pro Max), I went to general - clicked (about) and changed my phones name at top.

Second - I went to settings. Clicked name at top. Clicked (name, phone numbers, email) - clicked my name at top and changed.

Third - went on only one of my kids phones (iPhone 14…updated software because it was not updated 🤦🏻‍♀️). Changed his device name in settings - general - about - name.

I did all of this on March 17th when you posted about what was recommend by an Apple support rep.

The only other thing I did was what @akrussell mentioned about signing out of iTunes and back in, which I did only on my device. I did this as well on the 17th after seeing akrussells post.

So far since then, everything has been working! Now the only thing I do still notice is the delay when showing the set limits for screen time. After a few seconds (always feels longer, but definitely less than a minute) the set limits I set show up.

After the limits I have set eventually shows up, the content & privacy restrictions show back up to what I have set.

Now I mentioned I only did this for one of my kids. I am happy to report this has been working for all of my four kids devices 😊 Even though I only did this on one kids device. So strange!

Now I need to go find some wood to knock on and hope I didn’t jinx myself 😄

Sorry I mean the iTunes Store. It’s one of the apps that comes preinstalled on your phone when you get get it. Did you remove it? If so, add it back and sign in.

Wait a couple of days and see if the issue is still happening. If so, sign out and back in.

Click on (Apple ID) at the bottom to sign in and out.

I honestly don’t know if that is what helped fixed the issue or not, or maybe it was me doing both iTunes sign out/back in and the name change. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Ok thanks.

I have re-renamed my iCloud name and I logged out from "iTunes store" and relogged in again, just in case and so far it didn't reset anymore...for two days I think lol. I think just changing the iCloud name of yourself will temp fix...

As it seemed to fixed the issue, I've changed downtime setting to "daily" and made one change on two kids on saturday ending time... and it started to reset the whole setting again. (It was the same thing I did last time too, and same problem happened again.) So it seems that when I change something inside the downtime, it starts to reset again....so far.

Well I've set it again to "daily" on all three kids as it's setting were cleared, and changed my name again.

This time I don't logout on iTunes Store.

Apple should really fix it but they don't say any words on this weird.

@trackpoint

How long do you wait to see if the device ends up showing the limits you set after you are in down time?

Asking because I am still having a delay, but I am noticing more of a delay with one kid one night and then another kid a night or two later. Sometimes the delay seems longer than the night before.

However, so far nothing has reset.

Maybe wait and see if the down time limits you set appear. Like a good minute to 1 1/2 minutes. I’m starting to wonder if during that delay and depending on how long of a delay people have, that’s where a lot of people (including myself) say it’s not working. It shouldn’t take that long, but I know when I saw it was reset, I was clicking right away and resetting.

Just another thought of mine as to why down time is acting up 🤷🏻‍♀️

Hi

After changing just the name, it did started to reset after 3 hours or so.(kids were able to play games and watch Youtube forever lol). So I've setup the downtime daily setting again and logged out from iTunes Store and logged in again, and everything is working fine for few days now.

The delay until it shows up the correct downtime setting varies...sometimes it shows the correct data right away, sometimes 2-3 seconds, sometimes 30 seconds. But I always wait until the circling icon disappears and check kids iPhones to be sure it's really resetted.

Thanks Sls096, iTunes Store relogging seems to be one of the best fix I found so far.

I set screen time restrictions during school for my kids and initially I can tell it is working because the first day I get a complaint or two. Then I forget about it for a couple of days and have had no complaints during school so I check the settings and the screen time restrictions I created are gone and it is as if I never set anything.

This has happened for months and I’m ready to give up on setting screen time restrictions. They don’t stay like I set them and it does take a few minutes to create it all over again.

I have no reset after re-login into iTunes Store app every time I change something on screentime.

My “Always on”

setting got cleared every hour but this was fixed as well after iTunes Store re-login. Try it out if you have problem.

@Marney1959

What trackpoint said! I haven’t had any issues since I did that. Also, there seems to be a delay after you click on downtime under screen time. So give it a minute (or what feels longer) and see if it shows up to the settings you had set.

But…the iTunes logout seems to have been the best fix for now at least 😊

Updated all apple devices to 16.4.1 but my kid’s phone shows Turn Off Screen Time Family Sharing which not only resets all screen time and app limit restrictions, it also unlocks permissions on account, allowing her not only to change the passcode on the phone, but also turning off location sharing. Dangerous biz, apple. She was honest enough to tell me she is able to reset and have total control just by clicking this everytime. I don’t care about the phone use anymore, but as my kid is battling depression and anxiety, I cannot have her going dark on find my phone. Please help.

I'm also having the same problem with my kids screen time apparently randomly resetting and/or reverting to previous settings. For example, some settings I've had to set, and re-set, and re-set again perhaps 20 times over and over again during just the past 2 weeks of time. Apple's screen time is a real and true failure, and obviously is not a very high priority for them since if it was, they would have debugged all of these issues by now.

I'm trying a few of the options above. For those of you trying the "itunes store" option on the iphone, what you do is open up the "itunes store" app, then hit the bottom left "music" button, then scroll all the way to the bottom and you'll see an "Apple ID: <username>" field that is grey. If you tap on that, it should give the option to log out and then in again. I had trouble finding this. I'm not sure if this approach works however, but at least this is how you find it.

I have spent a long time on the line to Apple support about this, but as I could not re-create the error at the time - not surprising when the problem is intermittent - I could not progress the case forward.

Apple support requested I do something to address: Immediately after noticing the problem, make contact with them, so they can analyse the logs on the device I am on from the previous minutes.

There are a few problems with this - getting escalated to someone who trusts that you aren't making a bone-headed mistake is not easy at all. Tier 1 support staff ask the most tedious questions, seemingly based on the premise that most problems are caused by user-error... So, you need time and patience to make the report at the time it happens, when all that's really on my mind is securing the iPhones, iPads, MacBooks and HomePods my kids have access to.

Further, I'm skeptical that the logs of the precise device I am using at the time will show anything - who knows which device made the change? And when? I'm not an expert, so perhaps the device's own logs would be useful, but there are a multitude of devices involved in the problem and there's no way of knowing for how long the settings have been wrong.

This is a serious problem for families who trust that the Apple products and services they are using and paying for have their back when it comes to kids' online safety.

Please, when you notice this, call Apple about it. Who knows how well-monitored this forum is by staff, and we need multiple voices letting Apple know there is a serious problem.

Just as an update, the "itunes store" option mentioned above did not work for me at all.

I ended up contacting apple support about the problem. After spending some time explaining that this has been a problem for several years, and that I'm having it on multiple devices, that I've tried many different fixes, and it has been going on through multiple different iOS versions, they acknowledged that they know about the problem and that the engineers are working on it, but they were not able to give a time of any fix.

I agree that this does not satisfy the "it just works" mantra that people used to associate with apple. Also, it's a major hassle since I have to constantly monitor the children and it is particularly bad since I can't get messages to shut down past bedtime (so I have to physically take the phones away when the kids go to sleep).

I noticed it resets when I give them an extra hour of screen time. Please apple fix this glitch, it’s annoying to set the screen time and downtime settings just cause you allow them an extra 15min or hour.

I got it fixed when I had everyone log out of every device and upgrade every device to current iOS.

Then one morning it stopped. Bingo. My iPhone had updated overnight again. Turn off auto updates. Apple sucks.