Ask to buy notifications not appearing

I've been troubleshooting this for months with many wasted, unsatisfying hours. Finally jumped on the Apple Support chat and they were very helpful. Just like wiggy001 who replied back in December - they advised that I change the name of my phone (Settings>General>About>Name) as well as changed the name of my kids' phones and now everything is syncing up again. It may not be enough to change the name just on one device - do it for all of them who have Family Sharing set up. It worked right away but they said it could take up to 24 hours to reset. I recall that I did change my phone's name a few months back, and if I put 2 and 2 together...it's when the Ask to Buy request suddenly stopped working. Hope this helps!

And if wiggy001’s suggestion above doesn’t work (to rename the parent’s IPhone), on your kid’s device (the one where you want to purchase/install an app), go to Settings, click your kid’s name at the the top (AppleId, iCloud+, etc), then click “Media & Purchases” and select sign out. Now open the Apple App Store, click the user blue user logo on the top right of the main screen (you will notice it’s the generic blue user logo instead of your kid’s picture) and sign back in. Now attempt a purchase and the Ask to Buy should flow through your phone for approval.

Changing the name of my iPhone worked for me as well. Requests are now coming to all of my devices. I wonder why this works though. Why did the name of my iPhone have anything to do with family request notifications…

Yep, changing my name worked. I really didn’t think it’d fix the problem, I only did it so I could check all the boxes off before calling support. Makes no sense whatsoever but it worked! 🙌🏻

I was having same issue and changing name of phone worked for me as well. Thanks so much for posting!

If you have followed all the steps and instructions in -> If Ask to Buy isn't working: If Ask to Buy isn't working – Apple Support (UK) and if you still need help, get more help and assistant from Apple directly, see Contact Apple for support and service -> Contact Apple for support and service – Apple Support (UK) 

I had the exact same thing, the reason I think they stopped showing in my case was I made the mistake of one time using my MacBook Pro to approve a download, since then no notifications came to my phone only my matchbook pro.

Following your steps and changing the name on my phone actually worked.

It won’t let me sign back into the app store. I put the password and it asks for it again and it says it’s wrong, and when i click forget password and put the iphone passcode it says incorrect but it isn’t?

That link simply tells you how to set it up if everything works. It really bewilders me that you support folk don’t help to fix the issue when it broken but simply repeat the instructions for when it’s not .

I was having the exact same problem. Followed your advice on simply changing the name and it worked! Thanks

Thank you for this!! It actually worked for me too!!

Also had the same issue for months, just found your post and did it, works a treat thank you :)

It worked! Thank you so much, changing the name of my iphone, was the trick!