AirTag tracking not synced

Thanks. I only wish we could better answer “why” … 🤔

My only “theory” is that some “bits” were somehow “dropped” or “mangled” in the AirTag pairing and private key distro process to all the Trusted Devices.

My thought as to a possible “fix” is to:

• Get all the trusted devices together in one place; all logged-in, and all online with solid connectivity.
• Remove all of the AirTags from the AppleID.
• Verify that all of the AirTags are indeed removed from FindMy on every Trusted Device.
• Re-pair the AirTags to the AppleID; being careful to give a new and unique name to each AirTag.
• Verify that the “newly paired and named” AirTags appear in FindMy on each trusted device.

Remove an AirTag or other item from Find My on iPhone – Apple Support (AU)

Add an AirTag in Find My on iPhone – Apple Support (AU)

The Apple AirTags rely on Bluetooth and the Apple Find My Network, which literally consists of millions of iPhones, to relay the tag's ID (along with the phone's GPS location) to the Apple servers over the Internet. Since there are a number of factors in-play, those updates don't always occur.

In theory then, each of your Apple devices, that you log in with the same Apple ID that you originally paired the tag with, should all get the same location updates ... but not necessarily simultaneously. In reality, this is often not the case. This is where, if you want to track a vehicle in real time, you should consider using a dedicated GPS tracker, like the LoJack.

Perhaps “RTC drift” within the AirTag ??? (although I’d think that this aspect would have been considered early-on in the architectural design)

“… Approximately every 15 minutes, the public key is replaced by a new one using an incremented value of the counter and the process above so that the user can’t be tracked by a persistent identifier … “

Source: Find My security – Apple Support (AU)

@Chattanoogan

Excellent summary of this AirTag feature! Thanks!

Tim Soderholm wrote:

How I think it works (correct me if I’m wrong):

AirTag pings an in-range iPhone

iPhone uploads location and time of update to Apple’s FindMy service

I check the FindMy app, which queries the FindMy server

Server reports last recorded update time/location

Almost perfect! ... except the first item is not quite correct. The AirTag has a Bluetooth beacon. To conserve battery life, that beacon broadcasts once every 3-5 mins. Thus, an iPhone in-range, must be so during one of those broadcasts.

Why would any given device not get the latest available information from the server?

Great question and one I would ask as well. My answer, honestly, is I don't have a reasonable explanation as to why this is so.

Re: “… I check the FindMy app, which queries the FindMy server

Server reports last recorded update time/location …”

Not exactly.

Apples server’s have no idea where ANY tag is. The location data is encrypted and ONLY YOUR devices hold the key. Each device figures it out independently.

Each of your devices reaches into the server and grabs a bunch of encryped tag reports which might be yours.

The device’s FindMy app then begins decrypting the reports.

Only your own tag’s position(s) will successfully decrypt on your device; the others are discarded.

This explains HOW different devices can get different answers … still unknown is WHY they apparently aren’t all retrieving the same batch of tags and decrypting them to get the same answer.

See more detail from the sources from which the above was extracted here:

Find My security – Apple Support (AU)

Using Find My to locate missing Apple devices – Apple Support (AU)