Family parental control settings keep disappearing

Same issues. The settings/limits just don’t hold.

Some of this is related to a race condition. If the current limits don’t FULLY load before modifying, the save does a partial overwrite and will randomly remove settings. If I select a child then wait 1/2 hour before making mods—or I do the change ONLY on the child’s device, it works. Edits to the child profile from the parent phone is the main issue.

The complexity and number of settings also appear to influence reliability. For example, when first selecting a child profile (from parent phone) limits are shown to be non-existent. But wait some time and the profile fully loads and limits are there.

If the problem can’t be fixed or addressed by the engineering team, could they create a template functionality with a set restore time—say the middle of the night?

Or is there an API for this functionality to read/write child profile screen time parameters?

There is definitely a problem, but things are worse when:

1. There is an apple update and the kids/adult phones are not the same version.
2. We make an adjustment on the parent's phone, but do it before the kid's profile/usage settings fully load.
3. We're using a kid filter DNS manager like Bark.

We have minimized problems by removing the Bark VPN and only making profile changes on the kid's phone--use your adult phone to monitor usage. But, if you make a change on the adult phone, it may get applied to the kid phone or it sometimes blows out/turns off the limits.

Hello KMcln,

We would like to see how we can help you with Screen Time not working as expected. Just to confirm, are you resetting the Screen Time password when this happens? Check out this link for help setting up that password: Use Screen Time on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

"Set a Screen Time passcode

You can set a passcode so that only you can change Screen Time settings and allow more time when app limits expire. Use this feature to set content and privacy limitations for your child's device. The steps to set up a Screen Time passcode depend on whether you're using Family Sharing.

If you're using Family Sharing to manage a child account

1. Go to Settings and tap Screen Time.
2. Scroll down and choose your child's name under Family. 
3. Tap Turn on Screen Time, then tap Continue. 
4. Set up Downtime, App Limits, and Content & Privacy with the limitations that you want for your child, or tap Not Now. 
5. Tap Use Screen Time Passcode, then enter a passcode when prompted. Re-enter the passcode to confirm. 
6. Enter your Apple ID and password. This can be used to reset your Screen Time passcode if you forget it. 

If you're not using Family Sharing to manage a child account

1. Make sure that you're on the device used by the child.
2. Go to Settings and tap Screen Time.
3. Tap Turn on Screen Time. 
4. Tap This is My Child's [device].
5. Set up Downtime, App Limits, and Content & Privacy with the limitations that you want for your child, or tap Not Now. 
6. Tap Use Screen Time Passcode, then enter a passcode when prompted. Re-enter the passcode to confirm. 
7. Enter your Apple ID and password. This can be used to reset your Screen Time passcode if you forget it."

Cheers!

Your suggestions DO NOT WORK. I have tried everything to address the issue being described. I have 3 kids that I manage screen time for...and regardless of rebooting, turning screen time on and off, updating ios, all of the above...the system will randomly remove any "allowed apps" that I have restricted - also allows the app store (which was previously restricted). All of the parental settings I choose, get reset on a random and periodic basis. This needs to be fixed! The whole purpose of this platform is to give parents some control over the content that their kids can access on these devices. Please get a fix for this!

Hello Apple, this is a well known bug in the user community. A quick search will find this has been an ongoing issue since late 2022 and many parents are frustrated and while the kids are happy. Have the Apple kids taken over the ScreenTime engineering Team?

What is an ETA on bug resolution? Is there even a bug recorded on this? If not, please report ASAP.

Hi,

The issue of parental settings disappearing/defaulting has been ongoing for a long time and needs to be urgently rectified by Apple. One of the reasons for paying more on Apple devices, is because of the promises around good security etc. Parents need to rely on these settings and when paying significant money on an phone and iPads, I expect these settings to work and to be able to trust them.

Please can you (Apple) provide a timeline for fixing this bug? I’d also be happy to beta test if you need ‘real world’ input.

Thanks,

Andy

The Downtime control on my kids iPhones keep turning off recently. Every night I have to reschedule my kids downtime many times because it keeps turning off after I reschedule. Sometimes when downtime is on, my kids can still use their iPad or iPhone. Feel so disappointed at Apple.

I am using iPhone 11, my kids are iPhone SE2. All we use ios16.

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Thanks,

Apple Support Community Staff

Apple I am absolutely livid! This has been an ongoing issue from what I have seen going back to 2021. We purchased our iPhones and iPads with the promise of awesome parental controls. Instead I am CONSTANTLY rechecking that my app limits and content restrictions haven’t been completely randomly wiped. This last week I missed it, my very difficult 10yr saw something about pee humor in a YouTube video (that he shouldn’t have been able to watch!) and then went to safari and used google to search that. Now I had 3 days of a 10 year old looking at h*rdc*re sc*t p*rn because I didn’t catch that my content restrictions had gotten wiped.

HOW ABOUT YOU GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER and fix this darn bug! I am so angry you don’t even know! The whole reason we bought these products was to avoid an issue like this! You know this is an issue, multiple parents have told you, you give the same script answer back. Your products aren’t cheap, so they should work as we are promised!”

Response to deletion of post:

NO APPLE! Don’t you DARE sweep this under the rug. Take responsibility for your features not working.

Just to add to the post above...I have gone so far as to completely reset and start over with all iphones in our family! None of this fixes the issue going on.

@Sean_b1 and Apple support

This behavior of all screen time settings for my 3 children is NOT caused by me resetting the Screen Time passcode. It does happen at random times and seems to be almost every time I run individual App Updates and iOS General Updates. Please fix as it drives me bananas. It is already hard enough managing kids screen time.

I start each morning checking what’s going on in that settings 😔

Terrible experience.

The only reason I bought quite expensive Apple devices for the kids was “ease of control” via family sharing settings. But this has gone away one day and is not getting fixed. I’m disappointed.

This is driving me insane! I have 4 kids and really rely on this feature to keep them from being on their screens all the time. This needs to be fixed ASAP. I have used Circle as well but they just keep turning their VPN off. The reason I'm paying for 4 kids to have iPhones is for the Family Sharing features, especially Parental Controls!

My issue is that the settings > screen time doesn’t respond on my phone and doesn’t update or do what I am telling it to do. I have to force close the app between kids and sometimes that will work. For example: the downtime is set to 9pm right now. I go in and change to 8pm and it doesn’t respond. It does nothing and the time does not get changed. I force close the app and try again. Still not working. So I’ll continue to force close the app on my phone until it finally does. Talk about infuriating.

I wish I could say this was fixed with an upgrade but it’s not STILL! I am with you on it just not working properly and finding my kids on things I have restricted them. Tried removing them from the fam, added them back, again and again. Still turns off after I go in and reset it. So over this issue with apple they need to fix it.

[Edited by Moderator] 

I thought that this issue would improve with the new iOS but no, still the same problems. Apple, please FIX THIS. It is already hard enough to manage the screens. This software failure allows kids virtually unfettered access to the internet.