Keyboard shortcut problems in iPhone 5S with iOS 8 update

Keyboard shortcuts are still failing here, randomly and intermittently, day-to-day.

{{ iOS 8.1; iPad Air }}

I sync or backup {{ iOS 8.1 on iPad Air 128GB Wi-Fi + Cellular, Verizon }} to my MacBook Pro via USB cable using iTunes, several times each week. I do not want to use iCloud for my complete backups, but the keyboard shortcuts still seem to be synced with iCloud for sharing.

Apple doesn't seem to have a clue about this keyboard shortcuts bug in iOS/ iCloud ... I spent an hour on the phone with Apple support, they finally told me to just "do a backup and a restore, new" — take an aspirin, and call back in the morning... With dozens of discussion topics here, and numerous other discussion topics on many forms, there are many hundreds of people facing this problem now. But Apple won't even acknowledge it.

Seems that it may be a random, intermittent bug in iCloud/iOS?

https://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html

The more reports, the more likely it will get fixed.

I Know what you mean. They want to give me a new iPhone 6 saying its a hardware problem. It's nit. It started doing ot in my iPhone 5 and then my iPad and now it transferred over to my Iphone 6.

THeyll figure it out. May take a while but it's a serious issue.

For now im ok but no access to shortcut preferences. Can't delete or change what's there

Wanted to update my experience with this issue. After enabling iCloud Drive on all devices my shortcuts did return. However, I started to have several duplicates appear across my iPhone and Mac, as well as old shortcuts that I had deleted a long time ago. Though I had access to shortcuts, the old one reappearing constantly were a nuisance. Oddly, after I restored my iPhone to remove an ungainly amount of "other" space, everything began working across my Mac and my iPhone and all duplicates disappeared. Everything is working as expected. Obviously this is unique to me, as the issues persist with others and some have restored devices with no luck. I obviously had cached data that was hijacking my sync. Text Expander is a great substitute. If you have a handful of critical shortcuts that you need for you iOS device only, and your list is not too long, an app called Clips (a copy and paste manager) is a great substitute. It has a custom keyboard and an amazing widget integration in iOS that unique. I hope resolution to this issue for everyone comes sooner rather than later. I blame iCloud Drive personally as well as the growing list of half-baked cookies that came with iOS 8 and Yosemite.

It's a syncing issue with iCloud "Dictionaries" which is a hidden folder in the iCloud Drive folder. If you're a dev or comfortable using Terminal, the following command will place a "real iCloud drive" folder on your desktop which will allow you to see ALL the items in iCloud Drive. Inside this folder is the folder called "Settings" and then "Dictionaries". You can then see other nested folders from each device ID (Macs, iOS) that write to iCloud.

This is not a fix but here's the steps to view those:

1) In terminal:

ln -s ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/ ~/Desktop/Real\ iCloud\ Drive

2) You will now have an alias on your desktop to the iCloud Folder (you must choose to view it in a Finder window as list view)

Drill down until you find a file with the extension .cdt

3) Duplicate that file onto your desktop and CHANGE the extension to .zip and unzip it.

4) ADD the extension .plist to the end of the UNIX file that was unzipped and then you can view it in text edit app and see the shortcuts info.

Again, not fixing anything, but trying to narrow it down and hope that some developer/programmer out there with better knowledge than mine can help!

Just a reminder to everyone to report the issue to Apple and go to Genius Bar if you have the time and call Apple Support:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html

Very interesting, some useful stuff in there, thank you.

Throwing my hat in this ring as well.

Just got a iPhone 6 today. After some tinkering, I was able to get my passbook to sync (though one at a time, or something odd?) But I've still not been able to get my keyboard shortcuts to sync (despite them being on my iPhone 5 (8.1), Mac (10.10.1), and iPad (8.1.1), all using iCloud Drive.)

I've tried every suggestion in this thread, to no avail. I'm tempted to start trying to recreate them, but I don't want to start adding new ones that don't get synced.

I tried to edit my previous post, but it won't let me.

Apparently the iPhone 6 I got today was still running 8.1. It just prompted me to update to 8.1.1. So I did. Upon it rebooting and stepping through the few setup items again (among them, signing into iCloud,) my shortcuts have decided to show up. We'll see how long they last, based on some of the replies in this thread, but this is somewhat promising.

Just upgraded my iPhone6 to 8.1.1 and although shortcuts work, in that I can use one - if I try to go to edit them in Settings->General->Keyboard->Shortcuts it crashes and take me back to the home screen!

Does not do that on the iPad Air 2 that I upgraded over the weekend (and didn't from the very moment I'd updated).

So it's getting worse!!

David,

I have the same problem.. and iPhone 5 and then the upgrade to iPhone 6 settings crash at Shortcuts. But my iPad 2, using ios7, also crashes when I go to the shortcuts SETTING.. I have a feeling on yours, that it's possible once you go into the shortcuts on your iPad 2, that it MAY start crashing once trying to sync. Not sure, but that's what happened with mine.. IT worked for a while, and then it too, crashed on settings leaving the entire shortcut idea useless for making changes. IF my phone number should change, I'll have a permanent shortcut in my shortcuts with a wrong phone number since I can't make changes to it and there's no way to keep it from working with what was already in there.

Not a problem at this time, but this can be a major pain and will be eventually.. if not to me, to others with the same problem..

I'll keep you informed.

FIXED!

Tell everybody to STOP SPECULATING!!

remove ALL your third party keyboards!!

SWYPE was my culprit.

Nope. Only solution for me right now is to turn off iCloud drive. Turning it on will result in a laggy keyboard and my keyboard shortcuts will disappear and I can't and any new ones.

Delete ALL YOUR THIRD PARTY KEYBOARDS!

I reinstalled SwiftKey and I'm using it just fine with my shortcuts.

I'm a happy camper now.

Í

Really? That worked? So I dump 2 third party keyboards and then I'd have access to the shortcuts settings again without it freezing and going back to home screen?