Family Apple Watch location sharing toggle won't stay on

Latest update on my end. Apple sent me a new watch. Mostly because the glass was scratched and they charged me the AppleCare price. I very much doubt the issue it was sent in for was looked at because again…this all seems like a software bug. I have narrowed down when the issue of the Share My Location toggle switch not staying on happens. Whenever the watch battery dies, or is manually restarted it will not stay on. The only fix for me has been to unpair the watch and set it up fresh (meaning not restoring it from an iCloud backup). I was on the phone with someone at AppleCare for quite a long time documenting, sending screenshots and videos of the issue. While he didn’t have the answers, he was getting the issue sent up the flag pole. During our conversation, he assured me that, while there is no fix as of yet, it’s a known issue for many people who have reported it. Most of us can see our family setup children’s phones under devices in the Find My app but it doesn’t update under People. Which means any custom notifications like Notify Me Every Time child leaves school doesn’t function. I have had to start her watch from scratch so many times now. Don’t get me started on Xfinity trying to add the cellular plan to the new watch. They created a new phone number…then deleted my wife’s watches cellular plan and my daughter still had two numbers. Ughh.

There is one more place where you can check, -> Screen Time -> Content & Privacy Restrictions -> Privacy -> Location Services -> Allow, -> Share My Location -> Allow

Just adding in to the thread. It is indeed a problem when the phone dies or is turned off and back on. Unpairing and pairing again is the only fix. The solution of “never turn it off” is not a good one. Example, the other day, cellular wouldn’t connect. The usual, toggle airplane on and off or toggle cellular off and on to force a connection don’t work. Had to restart. Engineering knows this is a problem as I’ve learned through long conversations with AppleCare. For them to promote this feature on the Apple Store website and not have a solution is bad. It clearly started with the May update. Now, when I do a complete new setup of the watch, my every time she arrives or leaves designated areas will work a couple times then stop. If I setup a location notification for one time instead of every time it seems to work. This way does not require the person wearing the watch to accept the notification. Just have to add it every day.

Not sure if this is the same issue. I could not even turn on the share my location button on the watch. It was greyed out.

I have twins. One of the watches worked fine. It shows the watch in Find My and I was able to toggle on the share my location button on his watch. The other one, nothing would work.

I figured out that my one son that it didn’t work on couldn’t even see the watch on his phone.

So I checked both watches again. The one where it worked showed his name at the top when you go to settings. The other did not.

The one that did not work was not actually signed in completely on the Apple Watch.

We went to the watch app > general > Apple account. Then signed him and everything worked.

Again, this might be a different issue, but I found this thread and thought maybe someone might have the same issue.

The easiest fix would be disabling Location Services on her watch, force restart the watch by pressing the Digital Crown and the Side button together for about 10sec until the Apple logo comes back, and then enabling Location Services, Share My Location and Find My network again.

I would imagine it is in fact a weird glitch. I was an Apple “Genius” for many years (before the watch existed). What I know is that the Genius Bar response will be that it’s software related and not cause for a hardware replacement. They would have you set it up as a new watch (not from a backup) to rule out corrupt data. I have done this 3 times in the last day and a half. I too can see the watch location in the devices section of “Find My” app but it will stop updating under people. This defeats the whole purpose of me getting my kid a watch. I had setup up notifications for multiple locations so it tells me when she arrives and leaves. Now none of it works. I’m going to try and get a hardware swap anyway.

Still no fix. They are aware as the AppleCare support person found "knowledge base" articles about it. That is their internal system of notes related to known problems. They are supposed to be sending me yet another express replacement because the last replacement is having cellular connectivity issues. It has been 8 days and they haven't even shipped the replacement. My kid is going to a summer camp and I really needed this resolved. The OS 26.5 update is clearly what broke this feature. Hope they get it straightened out soon. Could have easily gone with a BARK watch or something similar but chose Apple because 1. I worked there for many years and it's supposed to just work which is their mantra and 2. I know how to operate that ecosystem. Very frustrating.

Are there any restrictions set up in Screen Time which prevent changes in the Account settings?

Everybody having similar problems should report this directly to Apple Techs by using the Feedback link.

This is the only way to make them aware of watchOS issues.

Feedback - Apple Watch - Apple

Same here. Kids watch has been working fine for months. Suddenly every time I go to the setting, share my location is toggled off and won't stay when I toggle it back on. If I unpair from my phone and set it all up again, it works for awhile then stops working again.

Did you find a solution? I brought the watch to an Apple Store Sunday. The person who took in the watch wrote the notes down wrong and said "location services" keep turning off rather than share my location. He set it up to send in for repair or replacement. I have a feeling they are going to read the note and say location services stay on just fine when in fact it's the "share my location" setting that is jacked up. We'll see what happens.

have the same problem, it was working fine for a couple of days after I setup my son's watch with a family member plan, and today suddenly the settings went off and doesn't wanna stay on. I reported it to apple.

Thanks for the response! I would do that as well, except that her location won't update using the Find My app either, when she is away from home (which is when I would want to track her, of course). Really hope Apple gets this fixed as it is a major bug and defeats the purpose of getting an 11 yr old an Apple Watch.