iOS 8 Family Sharing "Ask to Buy" not working

I logged out/in, restarted, etc to no avail. Child logged into the iPad Air and 'Ask' to purchase and the notification was not coming through on the MacBook Ver. 10.11.6.

What solved my issue: On the MacBook > System Preferences > iCloud > Manage Family > Child > Ask to Buy > removed the checkmark and a notice received on the iPad, then put the checkmark back on. Fixed.

Hopefully, this will help others, as I was pulling my hair out over this as it was intermittently working (i.e. notification received one day, then not working).

that's odd they said that.. as my main account is both my icloud and app store account (same email address) and my wife has her own icloud account and is using my app store account for purchases. We both get a prompt to verify a purchase one of my kids asks for.

There sticky point appears to be related to what why call the "original" iCloud account vs. a newer iCloud account. In other words only the first iCloud account used to make purchases appears to work with "Ask to buy" feature. In my case I had a very old apple id (@mac, then @me, then @icloud) and after purchasing iPhones for all family members I created a new apple id for me (private backups between my devices). Each of my family members now have their own apple id's. Well, my fairly new apple id (which has payment methods for iTunes/appstore) does not work with "ask to buy" feature. Only the original apple id does. I can't understand why. As an experiment I added the original apple id as a family member in Family share, and set as parent/guardian. That did the trick in terms of receiving ask to buy notifications, but it will remove the ability for me to see shared purchases because there's two" apple ID's set under family sharing.

If somebody figures out how to fix this, please let me know.

Thanks,
Wil

This is the classic Apple fail.

When will they address this purchases transfer issue?

Not of use to OP, but I was having this problem even though my Apple ID is the Family Share Organizer and the original iTunes account. My child requested to buy and I received no message. I fixed it by logging each of us out of iTunes and back on again.

Hello TziporraSmcha,

I did what you said and now I only receive the request on my iPad Mini but not on my iPhone 6+. I turned off the iPad to see if the request will come over to the 6+ but nothing..

There is an easy solution to your problem. Make one of the accounts the Organizer account, you seem to have done that already. Add your other account, as a Parent/Guardian. Now both your previous accounts will be part of the Family account and can share in the purchases and approve purchases of child accounts.

Thanks for the info Gino but the organizer account on my iPhone is the same as on my iPad. I'm using mac.com, also have me.com and could.com accounts on both devices but its no letting me changing either one to Parent/Guardian. Not sure why this has to be so difficult you figure that if you're the organizer then all your devices with that account should be able to receive your child's purchase notifications.

Sorry, is ChicagoJoe2014 and nrod72 the same person?

nrod72, Apple does not see accounts ending in @mac.com, @me.com and @icloud.com as separate accounts when the user name is the same.

In other words, johndoe@mac.com, johndoe@me.com and johndoe@icloud.com are all considered the same account.

Does that clear things up?

No Gino ChicagoJoe2014 and I are not the same person. lol!

I understand that all my accounts are considered the same account and that's where my frustration begins because if that's the case then why am I only receiving my son's purchase request on my iPad and not on my iPhone.

Now where i'm confused here from your instructions is when you said to: "Make one of the accounts the Organizer account, you seem to have done that already. Add your other account, as a Parent/Guardian." the accounts on both my iPad and iPhone is the same account. Are you suggesting to make my son's account Parent/Guardian with the ask for permission request on?

DDid you log out of the App Store on the iphone6 and then log back in? I had to re login to app store on all my devices.

yes i did and still can't receive the notifications when my kids try to purchase

nrod72, the reply, "Make one of the accounts the Organizer account, you seem to have done that already. Add your other account, as a Parent/Guardian." was directed at ChicagoJoe2014.

I would suggest that you compare all settings on the iPhone and iPad and make sure they are set up exactly the same. Make sure both are logged in using the same account in all these services, iCloud; iTunes & App Store; Mail, Contacts, Calendar; Messages, and FaceTime.

Gino, thanks for the help but it's not working. I checked all the settings you mentioned above and they all matched but the iPad still get all the notifications. I give up and hope that with 8.1 coming out later this month it might fix it..