I cannot delete iPhone keyboard shortcuts. They keep restoring.

Email exchanges:

29 May 2015

Julius: Sorry for the delay in responding Peter. I’ve been trying to get an approximate time frame on the removal of the keyboard shortcuts but have not received a reply yet. As soon as I have information I’ll contact you through email or by phone.

Peter:

The delay is not your fault. There are only two assumptions I can make: either the engineers are unable to estimate the time involved (which means the bug is more complex than the patronising Apple advisors implied), or the engineers are unwilling to provide me with an estimate (which means that my problem is unimportant to Apple).

Doing without iCloud Drive is inconvenient. If the engineers don't know how to delete the zombie shortcuts, perhaps I could turn iCloud Drive back on until they know what they are doing? I understand that the engineers don't/won't communicate directly with users, but if they don't/won't communicate with you as an advisor, then the Apple system of help is broken.

30 May 2015

Julius: Hello Peter. I understand you must be very frustrated and inconvenienced by the inability to use iCloud Drive. If there was a way for me to speed up this process I most definitely would. The engineering department assure me that they will have a solution as soon as humanly possible. I am also working on a prorated refund for your iCloud storage to help compensate for your inconvenience.

Peter (to Sameer at Consumer Relations, who does not work on weekends so no reply yet, CCed to Julius):

This is not good enough.

1. Will the delay be days, weeks, months, years? (Julius originally estimated 30 minutes.)

2. Why are the engineers unable or unwilling to give Julius an estimate of the delay?

3. Do they care so little about users?

4. Are they busy working on more important issues, such as more emojis?

5. Or is the bug so complex and pervasive that they are unable to find the source of the bug? (If so, I would like an apology from the patronising advisors who merely told me to submit online feedback or asked me to again reboot my iPhone.)

Peter, to Julius and to Consumer Relations: Please pass on this case number [from crmac's post] to the engineers so that they can see what else has been tried. I believe it's time that Apple tried a co-ordinated response.

Julius: Thanks for the extra information Peter. I will take a look at this case number and see what steps have been taken and they will help in removing the shortcuts from your Apple ID/ device. I have also received a copy of your communication with Sameer from Consumer Relations. I do not feel the engineers are unwilling to give me an update on how long it will take to resolve the problem with removing the shortcuts from your apple ID as well as all the others who are experiencing this problem. I do think that the delays may be due to the volume of users that are having the same issue. I do not know the exact number of customers that have reported this issue, but I’m positive that the engineers are doing everything they can to fix the problem.

Peter:

Okay. When I'm angry, I get legalistic and pedantic. I actually think it's reasonable for me to ask for an estimated timeframe, and I can't understand why the engineers won't give you an estimate. But as you are my conduit to the engineers, I have to trust your opinion that they are doing their best. (This is difficult for me.)

I believe that Apple is taking two approaches to this bug simultaneously, and that's what's fueling my anger: (a) it's a trivial glitch that can be fixed by rebooting or by turning iCloud settings off and on (see my awful chat with Josh); and (b) it's a complex bug that engineers need a lot of time to work on, even though Apple was informed of the bug in, at least, November 2014.

I will try to leave you alone and let you get on with your work; I guess I don't like asking questions that don't get answered or acknowledged. I do appreciate your help, but I also genuinely feel that Apple is treating its users with disdain.

Julius:

I completely understand your frustration with this problem. It has taken quite a long time and there is still not a solution. I apologize for the time it has taken and I feel bad for not being able to resolve the problem myself. As I am working on your refund for iCloud storage fees, I have also made a request to offer you a gift from the online store to help compensate for the time you’ve spent dealing with this issue as well as the inconvenience you’ve been through... I know it doesn’t fully make up for the frustration and stress you’ve been under but its something that I would like to do for you.

pagemakers4, just to be accurate, I let Apple know that I had turned iCloud Drive off at 4:41 pm (Australian Eastern Standard Time) Tuesday 26 May. That's 5 and a half calendar days ago, including a weekend.

I am trying to walk a fine line between not giving up, and not over-reacting!

Chris, you are a superstar if this works! Both my kids share my Apple ID and they made cute/silly shortcuts for my name and my partners name. Meaning that when I type my name, "Mummy" comes up and a whole bunch of other ones. I have also made some myself on my iphone and ipad. SO, we have 2 kids ipad, my ipad and my iphone all with shortcuts. Do i have to do this process you have posted on each device? The **** shortcuts even come up on my Macbook too! Please advise and thanks in advance.....Carol-Lynn

CHRIS is amazing! I am a Primary School Teacher in New Zealand and for the past year have been looking for a solution from Apple, for this issue! To those who might be skeptial and worried something might go wrong - If I managed it.....then you must. I had never restored my iphone from a backed up copy and I must admit I was a little nervous BUT - it is exactly as it was! It appears that the shortcuts have been deleted... so ..... Thanks Chris! This has been a real problem for me!

Cheers

Peter thanks for keeping us updated with your ongoing communications with Apple. Like me you must be getting sick of their smily, happy excuses. It's drives me insane. I really do hope something positive happens soon.

As for Chris's solution. I'm glad it's worked for some. I've tried his solution half a dozen times now and after a week every single shortcut returns.

I sent another email to the Apple Consumer Relations guy I'm dealing with, then spoke with him later when he phoned me. Here are my questions from the email, with responses that I typed while speaking with Consumer Relations. Once again, I read back my responses for the Consumer Relations guy to confirm that I was paraphrasing accurately, which he did. I emphasised to this guy that Apple's system of dealing with users is clearly broken, and that it is unbelievable to me that Apple non-engineering staff are unable to easily communicate with the engineers.

I am repeating two of my questions (the most urgent) since I heard nothing from you or any other Apple staff yesterday.

1. Will the delay be measured in days, weeks, months, years? (Julius originally estimated 30 minutes.)

The advisor does not know and cannot currently find out. The advisor, who works in Adelaide in South Australia, told me that he and his colleagues have no way to telephone the engineers, who work somewhere in North America. He can only contact them through an internal electronic system. It is normal for someone in Consumer Relations to not be able to contact the engineers directly. The problem of the shortcuts is in Apple’s issue tracker, which only happens when multiple users have a problem.

2. Why are the engineers unable or unwilling to give Julius an estimate of the delay?

(See previous email for questions 3-5.)

The advisor does not know and cannot currently find out.

I am having a lot of trouble dealing with Apple staff's inability/refusal to answer my questions. When Apple staff repeatedly ignore my question is, I assume that Apple does not care about my issues. For example, I had to ask Julius four times about how to escalate this problem before he told me about Consumer Relations; and I received no response at all from you yesterday to my 5 questions.

7. Have you made your supervisor/manager aware of the two issues I'm having: the shortcut problem AND the problem with Apple staff treating me disdainfully?

His supervisor is undertaking staff training until Wednesday.

Peter. A couple more days have passed. Any news?

I love the way the "friendly" advisor is buying you off with the "I'm working on a refund" routine. Surely that's just a single button press away, or is it another 7 day, 30 minute process?

Update.

I tried again on 05/26. I deleted all the keyboard shortcuts on each of my Macs and leaving all the computers awake with keyboard shortcut preference dialog box on the screen. I also deleted all the keyboard shortcuts on all my iOS devices and leaving the keyboard shortcut screen overnight.

Today is the 8th day and crossing my fingers nothing coming back yet.

Not to cask a pall of gloom and doom, but we're not, any of us out of the woods yet. We just have a lot of people new to the problem/discussion who naturally proceed with great hope and energy -- and no small amount of faith -- that someone, somewhere at Apple must know his/her way around this problem.

See my overly long post on 5/29, as well as all the earlier, hopeful posts here. And all the related threads. This ain't fixed.

Cfront- good for you posting this but if Apple think this is a fix they are living on cloud cuckoo land.

I've done pretty much all you have several times and after a few days all the shortcuts are back. I don't backup to the cloud so that step would be interesting for me. I only backup to iTunes.

It will be really interesting to see if you have any shortcuts return in the next few days.

Less NFL, more Speilberg, but still well played, I hope. Oh, and I happen to have two X chromosomes, but compliment taken. Now if I were only able to type other acronyms without the dreaded shortcuts kicking in, life would be just spiffy...

This is my first time posting, but I have had this recurring shortcut issue for years. After reading "LookInToMyEyes" (Chris's) post I used his method several times and had some limited success, but the shortcuts kept reappearing after a reboot or within minutes, hours or days. I recently realized that I had an additional file when looking at my backup (both iPhone and iPad) through the icopybot program. This file that I had that did not appear on Chris's screen shot was yet another CloudUserDictionary.sqlite file appearing right above the CoreDataUbiquitySupport folder. This file was dated as created in 2013 which was a red flag to me since that's about when these shortcuts were originally created (or earlier). I took a chance and deleted that file along with the CoreData... file and suddenly the old shortcuts that have been haunting me for years were able to be deleted and gone! They have not come back in weeks or after many reboots on both devices. It took awhile for the iPhone and iPad to start syncing shortcuts together (days), but they are in sync now and no more zombie shortcuts. I don't know if this is the same for others and I wish I had taken a screenshot before I deleted the CloudUserDictionary file so you could see what it looked like, but I didn't. I've tried every other idea I've seen on these posts and this is the only thing that has worked. I know you'll be skeptical as I was and I've waited to see if they reappear before posting this, but I can say that they are now gone for good. I felt obligated to post this fix and I hope this helps someone.

Yes, I performed Chris's procedure again on both devices just adding the removal of that extra file that I found along with the CoreData file. If others have that very old file there in that location, that Chris's example was missing, I believe that is the key to the solution.

For clarification, I had both the multiple mobile files that Chris's original posted screen shot showed below the CoreData file PLUS the additional CloudUserDictionary file above the CoreData file. It's the CloudUserDictionary file above the CoreData file that needs to be deleted along with the CoreDataUbiquitySupport folder.

Ok, once more into the breach...

Can one of you who've done this whole process do a comprehensive list of steps, please? I know my way around these Macs, but not when it gets into this level, and I want to give this nuking one more try. Thanks.