I cannot delete iPhone keyboard shortcuts. They keep restoring.

I have 2 iOS and 2 OS X devices.

I can confirm I have tried EVERY fix in this thread. Some (Chris's) several times and now after a week I have more duplicate shortcuts than I ever have.

This seems like another bug that Apple are never going to fix.

I've given in and now just accept the mess that this bug creates.

Oh my. At least I'm not alone. And I know it's "just" chat, but wouldn't it be great if Apple techs cared about spelling and grammar? Maybe this is why the shortcuts issue keeps falling off the map: Apple doesn't care about language.

sigh...

My sentiments, pagemakers4 -- almost exactly.

It does seem, however, that clearing all iCloud backups of the iOS devices from the Air, then doing a hard wipe of the text replacements from the Keyboard function on the Air IS keeping the nasties from reappearing there. I cleared that list entirely, even deleting Apple's silly "omw!", so now it's an empty list. This is a marker of sorts for me, because any clean install, guest user, or test user (one was created on the Air during all this tech intervention) pulls up a new basic list of its own, one that includes the "omw!" by default. So, that my Air list staying empty tells me is that I'm controlling the function -- but I still don't know how or why. I'm signed in on the Air, so am tied into the same user ID as I was before. The only thing I haven't done on the Air since the cleanup is hardware the iP to iTunes, and if I have to keep avoiding that, it's going to make photo management unnecessarily complicated.

One other thing that's making this difficult, by the way, is that in all the fuss about aligning functions between the OS and the iOS, making sure messaging and photos all work the same way, etc., Apple hasn't aligned the names of this particular function. In the iOS these are called quite specifically "Keyboard Shortcuts," but on the OS they are under KEYBOARD and TEXT, where one selects "replace" and "with" options, while right in the tab next to TEXT is something categorized as SHORTCUTS (thus, KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS), which controls an entirely different set of functions. So, are these SHORTCUTS, TEXT SHORTCUTS, KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS, TEXT REPLACEMENTS, or what? It's too confusing -- and all we really know is they don't work as they should.

As for the iOS devices, I'm trying the workaround of the Canadian keyboard (yah, eh...), and will see if that works. And I'm still not hopeful, because every time it has seems that I (or any of us) have this figured out, it reverts. It's like trying to nail Jello to the wall.

Sheesh.

CRMAC

Chris explains what is happening at the top of Page 7 I think.

He reckons the iTunes backup is corrupted and multiple copies of the iPhone shortcut database are residing locally on the phone, so no matter what you do, they will remain unless you hack the backup and restore to the phone (I have done this 3 times and by shortcuts re-appear after a couple of days).

Have you tried to re-boot your iOS devices? Your shortcuts should come back after the phone re-boots. Can you confirm...

I have done hard reboots (holding both power and home buttons until it shuts off) on both the iPhone and iPad. I think both have had clean erase and reinstalls as well. I know the Air has had those.

I don't particularly want to hack my phone, beyond going into the iCloud record and clearing out those old backups I can see.

Is that what you mean?

Remove the keyboard. It might need at least one there in order to do so. So add the English (Canada or UK) keyboard first. Then remove the default English one. Delete all the shortcuts. Delete your iCloud backups. Hard Reset Reboot. Upload new iCloud backup. Do the same on all apple devices. Your welcome Apple. You can pay me now instead of your worthless developers.

Worth noting that I used a custom keyboard (via an app) first before I found that the Canada version fixed it too. I highly doubt you need to do it in that order, but if you find it doesn't work going strait to Canada version then try the custom app born keyboard first like I did.

The reason most aren't screaming to the heavens is because most didnt create hundreds of shortcuts. If they only have a couple they prob don't even notice. But if you have hundreds which are no longer relevant to you then it makes typing painful

I understand that Apple has decided not to provide the public with a log of known bugs. But shouldn't the Apple staff that I speak or chat to be able to find out what others around the world are trying? Even if we imagine that this problem is experienced only by the users who have posted here and elsewhere online, there are at least a hundred or so users affected. (I am confident that there are many, many more - I'm just speaking conservatively.) The Apple staff who have fielded enquiries about this problem should be able to compare notes, and therefore hopefully realise that it's a bug that needs to be fixed, not a problem that can be solved by resetting, restarting, or re-anything.

IIt's been about 5 days and they aren't comming back on all three of my apple devices. I used a custom keyboard via an app for the first 2 days on both mobile devices. I deleted the iCloud backups and re-synced and reboot while I had the custom keyboards on the devices. Then on the 3rd day I started using the Canada keyboard. So maybe that routine has something to do with it. Because others have reported success with this method as well. Make sure you do it to all devices at the same time.

And now one by one, they have started to return back.

Oh well.

Take a read of the first post on page 7. I think this is what's going on. However his fix didn't work for me either.

PS: these forums are absolutely terrible to use with an iOS device. Typing replies here is a horrible experience, but that's the subject of a whole other topic!

The AppleCare Senior Advisor is sending the problem to the engineers. I will let you know when I hear again from Apple.

(By the way, I didn't have any iCloud backups on my iPhone, but the advisor did ask me to look for those and delete them.)

Well I thought I had it but like everyone before me, they just came back a week later. However I still think using a custom keyboard (via an app) instead of one of iOS built in keyboards may fix the issue. But that's not worth it for me. Typing on those is painful. You don't realize how much iOS fixes while you type. Turns out I can't type a single word correctly without assistance. lol. So the balls in your court apple. FYI it's been there for about 2 years now. You might want to put the ball back into play or people might get bored watching a one sided game.

Their customer service consits of listening >> acknowledging >> empathy >> and finally the end blow off. Everyone of those convos, including my own, are carbon copies of each other. The end result is always thinly vailed fartt laden air.

From one of the many Apple Senior Advisers I've been speaking to since November...

"Hello Nina,

I’ve inquired with some team members and engineers on this. There’s no solution for saving your custom keyboard shortcuts other than iCloud backups. I’m sure there are some third party keyboard apps that allow you to export the saved settings. I’d consider migrating to one of those apps.

Otherwise, a restore as new is your only option in resolving the myriad issues you’re exhibiting with your phone.

Best,

Jim"

Alas, I think we've all been connected with empathetic/sympathetic advisors all up and down the support food chain. Many really do try to help, and think they are helping, I'm sure. Some of us, myself included, have even had our cases routed to "engineers," or so we are being told. But the problem persists and the fixes don't stay fixed.

Speaking iOS, I thought that if the shortcuts are attached to the keyboard, then of course changing from the US keyboard to the Canadian one should fix it. And it did. It stayed fixed for days. Then even with only the Canadian keyboard installed on my phone, the shortcuts came back en masse. I would think that lends credence to the theory that the shortcuts are somehow tied to the user ID, but...

The same timing and replacement of keyboard (to Canadian only) were applied to my iPad and -- as of now -- the shortcuts are still gone. As far as the OS is concerned on my Air, the keyboard text replacements have stayed gone since wiping them all out and not connecting my phone to the Air since. That's been about two weeks now. Same user ID all around.

This just makes no bloody sense. And specifically because it's so weird and yet so pervasive, Apple should be able to scope it out and fix it.

I Have been watching these thread for a long time since last year because I am suffering the same issue. Last night, as usual, I deleted all my shortcuts from all my devices and hope there is miracle.

AFter 7 hours, no shortcuts come back again. It is the first time the deletion last that long. Crossing my fingers and hope they are not coming back again today.....