Apple Screen Time app limits not working

I’ve been having the same issue , it’s just not logging changes that you make. Problem started about same time

as you. Must be something an update caused .

was there a solution to this? Have you found a fix?

We’ve been fighting this for months.

4 devices (2 parents, 2 kids).

We’re all on the same iOS version (16.2 - right now) but the problem has reoccurred with every version since July-ish.

We’ve factory reset and reconfigured all 4 devices.

We’ve removed and re-added each child to our family account.

I’m at a loss here. I’m not a Google fan but at least FamilyLink is a working and stable product. This isn’t acceptable and we’re clearly not alone here. Apple’s lack of response and transparency is very disappointing.

That's....horrifying. A fundamental parental control feature is clearly breaking and the solution from Apple is to revert to factory settings on all family devices?! Do better, Apple.

We've now updated every phone/ipad in our house to the latest iOS version, and we're still hitting the same issue. If I'm going to have to wipe every device to maybe solve the issue, I might as well just sell them and move to Android.

Chris, when will Apple be addressing this? It is clearly a known issue - I have found multiple threads of these discussions with no help from Apple. There is an issue with screen time, specifically downtime settings and app limits. They are disappearing after being set up. Fix this for families, please.

I've read several topics on this issue now and I can't believe the only response so far from Apple is a link to a standard tutorial of how to set up limits. It's clear we all understand perfectly how the settings work and most people here, including me, tried lots of things to solve it. It's clear there is a major issue in the software with this. I've been having the same problems for weeks now and it keeps coming back. Why doesn't anyone of Apple properly respond to this?

Have you tested this and waited for a few days to see if the problem returns?

I'm very hesitant to do this, because ...... well, do I really need to explain this? Erasing all settings means ALL SETTINGS will be set to default as far as I know. So that means you'll lose screen settings, sounds settings, focus settings, privacy settings, etc... So many things on my phone are not default anymore. I really don't want to go through all settings again to fix one problem.

This is just another way of Apple ignoring the bug. They simply say "start from scratch".

I have the same problem. It looks like children devices randomly loose info on limits, which is pulled from iCloud. I did call Apple support and they basically suggested to turn screen time off and on again on every device. It didn't really help. I have a suspicion that there's something fishy on the Apple backend side.

I'm supposed to call back if it doesn't help and then Apple engineers will start debugging the problem.

Same issue here. This has been happening for months. I have reset my kids App Limits at least 20 times and they still disappear after several days. I’ve updated the passwords and I know my kids aren’t circumventing the controls. The cynic in me suspects that Apple may not want our kids time spent on their devices to be limited. Fixing this clearly is not a company priority.

The child’s device and any device that can control the child’s screen time must be reset, according to the directions that I saw on here. I followed the directions from that screenshot that I uploaded.

Follow up on this:

After we ‘reset settings’ none of us were receiving texts to our AppleIDs. Also our two parent phones weren’t receiving requests via text (which Apple shoved down our throats without option).

I went into Settings-> Messages->iMessage and enabled the Send/Receive to AppleID (in addition to the phone number(s), which were present).

iMessages started working again. First Screen Time request came through and I approved of it. It didn’t work for the child device. She requested again. I approved again. This one worked but… APP LIMITS DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY for both kids a few minutes after that. Back to the drawing board for us.

Still broken.

We have 10 iOS devices plus a couple of osx, resetting them has taken a lot of time and setting them back up longer.

Before I reset them screentime was completely useless, the activity screen updating could take several minutes each time you open it and to change any settings, you had to turn the device off and on again, often only lasting a few seconds and the changes usually didn’t stick.

After I reset all the devices it started working more quickly, I thought it was fixed. A day later all the old settings came back. I focused on fixing App Limits settings, I deleted all settings in the morning and waited, in the afternoon with still no setting I set up new ones, the next day all the old settings were back. There is a long list of other issues and bugs and am giving up.

Apple usually have a good track record of fixing bugs, but this has been going on for months and there have been a number of releases in the meantime and none with fixes.

Very disappointed with Apple on this. There are some really good third party apps with better functionality as well, but can be a pain to install and maintain and kids can more easily work around them, but at least they work.

This was my experience as well. After reset, I was pretty hopeful because the Screen Time module was noticeably more responsive and less finnicky. We still lose App Limits after certain ‘triggers’ (changes to content/restrictions, unanswered app requests, certain downtime changes, etc.) but it seems a little more stable.

It’s comical that we’re all publicly and openly troubleshooting a widespread Apple software issue on an apple.com forum but without the assistance of Apple… To be honest, I’ve found more answers on Reddit than on here which speaks to the broken state of Apple’s support and public communications. Even a rep sliding into this forum to say “We’re aware of the issue and are working on a patch/resolution” would go a long way.

I filed a formal complaint today. It is a widespread issue they have known about for months. It feels criminal at this point. I hope you didn’t reset everything. It just isn’t a fix for this. Usually it is helpful, but at this point they know they have a widespread issue. They are choosing not to acknowledge publicly; which is sad, as they’ve sold their product with family settings.

Was the the fix pes1 used for one child with the same Apple ID on all devices? I ask because I put different apple ids on different devices. This way I used to be able to have different limits on each device because one is used for school--iPad. The phone is not for school.)

Even though there are two different apple ids, the screen time "app limits" is a complete mess on the phone. Old App limits will not delete. Downtime reverts to off. When I reset, everything reverts back to the mess. The iPad seems to work ok.

My son noticed that there are two different apple ids on the phone -- one for purchases through Family Sharing and one for the screen time, photos, etc. Does anyone else have this issue?

My experience is that sometimes if the device is just left on and doesn't power or log out, then it still looks like it's been running. Also the time could be for something you've allowed all the time.. if for example, music is running in the background. A lot of the time looks like "Entertainment" which includes music. Have her quit all of her apps and try again on a new day.