Level 1

1 points

Family Sharing error in iPhone app store

I set my wife and I up on Family Sharing as a test before setting it up for my whole family. I invited her iCloud account, she accepted and verified it, and when she is in the app store on her iPhone if she chooses an app I have already purchased she gets the message that it was already purchased and asks if she wants to download it. Great. If she tries to buy a new app, it downloads. Great. On MY phone, if I go in the app store and go to Updates - Purchased, I see me and I see her, and I can tap her and see the new stuff she downloaded.

However ... on HER phone, if I go int the app store and go to Update - Purchased there is a message on the screen saynig that Family Sharing is set up on her device using a different iCloud account. There is a link for More Info. If I touch that it takes me to the Family Sharing setup screen in her iCloud section of settings. And there I can see that her iCloud account is the exact same one she is invited with. It makes no sense at all. All the email addresses match up. It's driving me nuts.

Anyone else seen this happen?

Posted on Sep 18, 2014 8:54 AM

Top-ranking reply

Richell_2000

Level 1

55 points

Posted on Sep 28, 2014 10:23 AM

I was able to fix the issue. We have shared one Apple ID for the longest time. When we finally created individual accounts, something was left on the phones (in my opinion) triggering the message to be prompted in the App Store (which probably puzzled the Apple Engineers since they do not have direct access to our phones) When I restored the phones before, I restored it from backup. What I did this time was go to Settings>General>Reset>Erase All Content and Settings. This of course erased everything on the phones. Then, I set them up as new Phones (not from backup), established the individual Apple IDs/iClouds on each phone (since our accounts were already set up with Family Sharing, Family Sharing was automatically set up). I then checked the App Store and was able to see both of our purchases with no message. All other Family Sharing features worked fine, too. Problem with this solution was that I had to manually download/sync all Apps, music, movies, ringtones, etc. and manually redo all settings on both phones. If you decide to do this, I recommend syncing everything to iTunes, just in case.

Note: Still waiting on Apple if there is another solution. Last I heard from them is when they wanted a screenshot of the message since they have not seen it.

View in context

29 replies

Sep 30, 2014 1:14 AM in response to joernb

I have this issue. The error message is showing up on my new iPhone 6. I am the organiser and am being told my iTunes account is set up to use family sharing with a different iCloud account than my 4 year old son's? But I'm the organiser!

Painful as I cannot access any of my purchase history.

Oct 1, 2014 8:46 AM in response to asmacumber

Update: I emailed Apple the solution I provided above and requested to take my accounts out of troubleshooting mode if the engineers did not need anything else from me. I then received a call from them. They have decided to take my accounts out of troubleshooting mode since this issue was fixed for me, however, they took the input I provided and are still researching as to what is causing the problem and are looking for a better solution. Apple Tier II said that this case/issue is huge, a lot of people are affected by this and will notify me if there are any updates. If I get any, I will post.

Oct 1, 2014 10:08 PM in response to Richell_2000

Many thanks for taling thuis effort - highly appreciated. My daughter really wasn't in for a full reset, as having to re-input the iTunes password for Every. Single. Download is quite annoying even for me. One Apple resolves this swiftly as "it just works" clearly did not apply here. M

Oct 2, 2014 12:16 PM in response to maikel_tralala

I have the exact same problem with my family. They are all getting the message "This iTunes account is set up to use Family Sharing with a different iCloud account than etc. etc." That's not the case though as they are setup in my family and I have turned on to share my purchases with them (as the organizer).

Clearly, this whole shared purchases and Family Sharing is not working.

asmacumber Author

Level 1

1 points

Sep 18, 2014 9:21 AM in response to JohnnyG76

Yeah. that has nothing to do with my error. You may want to to start your own thread about that.

asmacumber Author

Level 1

1 points

Sep 18, 2014 11:21 AM in response to asmacumber

Anyone else having this issue?

Sep 18, 2014 11:32 AM in response to asmacumber

I was having the same issue with my fiance! And now she can't Family Share for a year! I'm so upset.

asmacumber Author

Level 1

1 points

Sep 18, 2014 11:34 AM in response to KevinCast89

Why can't she family share? What happened?

asmacumber Author

Level 1

1 points

Sep 18, 2014 2:44 PM in response to kluvsflipflops

I feel your pain. It's mainly an annoyance as we can install each others apps, but c'mon apple ... help us out!!!

asmacumber Author

Level 1

1 points

Sep 19, 2014 7:50 AM in response to cfromiowa

Thanks, but unfortunately this didn't work for us.

asmacumber Author

Level 1

1 points

Sep 21, 2014 3:04 PM in response to cfromiowa

My wife was out of town in a poor service area. When she got home I followed the steps cfromiowa suggested and now it works.

Thanks!

becca619

Level 1

4 points

Sep 23, 2014 11:57 AM in response to Richell_2000

Thanks for all the information! Turning the parent/guardian thing off then back on had worked for me, but now that isn't even doing anything. Quite frustrating :-/

Sep 23, 2014 6:03 PM in response to asmacumber

Got the Call from Apple. Our accounts are now in Troubleshooting mode and the issue is now in the hands of the engineers again. Waiting for a call or email.

Sep 28, 2014 10:36 AM in response to cfromiowa

This worked for me also. Thank you.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Family Sharing error in iPhone app store