Apple Screen Time app limits not working

I’m with the other users- it has been a known issue for over a year! This has caused SO many unnecessary arguments in my house and HOURS of wasted time updating, researching, trying to find work arounds, etc.

Apple!! Please find a fix!!!!!

Yes!! So glad I am not alone! What seems to be happening now for us anyway…I have two kids when I update one it seems to turn it off for the other…then they start getting mad how come she gets more time than me, blah blah! This is really annoying! Come on Apple!

I thought Apple's Screen Time was protecting my daughter, but little did I know that for a while she was sneakily snapchatting with friends and boys way past her bedtime because Screen Time, and every protective measure within, had quietly failed. 😡

Nothing I've tried has fixed the issue and it's driven me insane fiddling around for hours. I began to think she had hacked her way through the security! The family safety side of iOS is completely broken. On top of that, the "Find my device" tracking is really slow to update. She wants a new iPhone for her birthday but at this rate it's going to be a Samsung.

There have been many iOS updates since the issue was first reported in this thread and not one of them has fixed it. Is this the end of child safety on iPhones or will Apple roll out a fix soon?

I’ve tried this (changing the screen time passcode on my phone) and it didn’t help. I’ve also tried changing the passcode on my son’s phone, nether change the buggy behavior of App Limits constantly disappearing.

Nope. Just changed all the device names and its still allowing half the games i tried to block with app limits🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ pointless controls. May as well let the preschooler have the credit card too.

Does anybody have seen improved screen time behaviour with an update to iOS 17.1? The release notes of this update say that screen time syncing should have been improved. But for the devices of my kids it is still not working. I have updated their and my devices to iOS 17.1.2.

I just got a new ipad 10th gen, and it is on the 17.1… so i updated the 7th gen ipad my grand is on and it’s hit and miss. Sometimes the apps I set a limit on block at the right time, and sometimes all but one go off….🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ dont ask me why. When i reboot they seem to be blocked… but i dont know what is triggering it. I set the facetime to stay on so she can call her mom, but sometimes its blocked when it shouldnt be. 🙄 very buggy still

This is an ongoing problem even with the newest version of iOS 17. This is seemingly purposeful now. Like Apple doesn’t want to fix this bug. How many engineers/coders/programmers do you have? And you can’t fix this? There’s been absolutely no progress on this ongoing problem. Screen Time App Limits continually disappear on a daily basis.

I am ready to switch too. My son needs to have a phone to connect to his life saving medical device but this is a constant battle. I check that the time limits are in place regularly now but he has also figured out how to access YouTube and other apps through his messages (which we need for medical necessity as well). This seems like an easy fix for a tech company. It does seem like they just don’t want to enable a safe environment for our kiddos sadly. I will be looking into Google. I’m glad there is an option

My daughter's tablet just started doing this last week. She'll play on it for about 30 minutes then the screen time locks up her tablet even though she has plenty of time left. Turned it off and back on from my iPhone screen share app for her tablet and restarted everything. All devices up to date. Still having the issue. I'm not factory resetting everyone's device just to fix this this is ridiculous. We were thinking about getting her a larger iPad Pro/Air (she has a Mini 6) next year but maybe not with these issues.

I don’t understand why so many posts are getting scrubbed from this discussion? I get notified of a post via email, click the link to join the discussion and that post is gone. This makes it very difficult to collaborate on community-based resolution.

tjag-gb wrote:

I don’t understand why so many posts are getting scrubbed from this discussion?

Refer to Apple Support Communities Use Agreement - Apple Community

This is a technical Q&A forum. If a post is just complaining about Apple then it isn't really contributing to finding a solution and may be removed.

The screen time limits apparently mean nothing anymore.

”Safari” is set on 1h, yet the daily average is 5h 3m! 😱

The set daily limit for “Social, Entertainment & 6 more” is 1h 30m, but he’s already spent 5h 22m on it according to screen time. I obviously confront him about this and he says that it’s not true. But how can I know!?

The limit for “YouTube” is 15m - but the daily average says 3h 34m!!

How can I even trust that the age restrictions are working?!

A fundamental and very important feature is buggy for years and Apple is ignoring that. My child is using tiktok as much she craves and app limit doesn’t work. More over, if I remove tiktok from her device, she can easily install it without my approval as the app was previously installed.

I just don’t know how to control that and I know it’s harmful. Apple employees, do you have kids? Are you ok with these bugs?

APPLE SUPPORT: you need to care and fix this issue. Screen time keeps turning off. All my son has to do is keep the settings open running in the background and suddenly the screen time will turn off and all the restrictions are gone and us looking at what he’s watching is gone. Your system is built on family and sharing and yet you’ve been doing nothing to fix this issue!!???