I cannot delete iPhone keyboard shortcuts. They keep restoring.

crmac: As far as I'm concerned the problem is fixed for me and I know others that have used Chris's procedure along with eliminating the extra file I found have also had success. In answer to your question, "Then, has anyone tried to newly add a shortcut, then eliminate it? That would be a test of whether the issue is still "active," right?", I have added and eliminated new shortcuts with total success and no zombie shortcuts have ever returned since removing that "remnant" 2013 CloudUserDictionary.sqlite file. I firmly believe that file was the key to the problems as it was obviously storing shortcuts from back in 2013. The file was not located in the correct folder and should have been deleted with one of the ios updates. Everything is now working exactly as it should on all devices and has now for almost a month. I did keep a copy of that file just in case I needed if for something, so I suppose Apple could look at it if it really helped, but I doubt they care to. As far as I'm concerned, this problem is permanently fixed on my devices and Mac and I need no further help from Apple. It's a shame that Apple can't just fix this for everyone and people have to go to these "self-help" threads to find a solution, but apparently that's how Apple chooses to operate. They were of absolutely no help to me when I originally went to the them about a year ago.

Keep fighting the good fight!

Jim

I am another one putting up my hand! Chris's solution appeared to work for me but as others have experienced - they have returned. I agree that someone (maybe you crmac) could be the one to fight this on our behalf. This is absolutely crazy and it needs a fix. WHY are Apple not being quick to fix this problem? Mine cost me time at work as my foolish children created several crazy shortcuts that annoy me daily - My name for one...which always comes up as "Mummy".

Please fight our crusade. If I knew who you were, I'd buy you a coffee. It is ridiculous that this has dragged on so darn long!

Carol-Lynn

Peter - I have used your case number #***** and have spoken to Julius. Was told to off my iCloud on 10 Jun. He mentioned that he had contacted the engineers (on 12 Jun) to ask about the delay and was told that a quick resolution is expected for the removal of the keyboard shortcuts. Hope to have this issue settle soon. I think it would be good that those with this problem stick to referring to this case number to let Apple know about the problem

<Personal Information Edited By Host>

cfront I was told by Apple to reset my phone as new and while that did not bring the zombie shortcuts back it was REALLY UPSETTING to retype over 150 short cuts. I can tell the problems persists because even though I retyped ALL my shortcuts again shortcuts I don't need that I have deleted from the new list are reappearing. What I was given was a band aid fix.

So if I understand your instructions correctly, I need to deleted all of my 150 short cuts? So I would need to retype them all? AGAIN? 😐

Yes, pages 17 & 18 have the solution. However, having the problem fixed and thinking back on it, I'm not sure it's necessary to delete all of your shortcuts. I'm guessing that once you get rid of that 2013 file that contains the zombie shortcuts, they shouldn't reappear and you can probably leave your current shortcuts in place. Since you can now add and delete without them reappearing, it would make sense that deleting all of them may not be required. Since I just deleted everything without trying that, I don't know if it works, but it might be worth a try.

Okay guys if you could give me some guidance here that would be awesome.

I downloaded iBackupBot and even though I get a couple of error messages it finally opens up all of my back ups. They date back to October 2014. I have a total of 13 back ups excluding the latest one...should I delete all of those? Where are these back up stored to begin with? (That's more of a for my knowledge question than anything else.

Okay now back to following the steps. I will let you know who it goes. >>>

I'm surprised you had 13 backups of the same device. I had 1.

You can see your backups by going into iTunes/preferences/devices.

Just make sure that you edit the latest backup and you restore the latest backup.

If you edit backup 3 and restore say backup 2, it's not going to work!

I'm surprised too! There's no need to keep any backups other than your most recent one. It could get confusing. Pagemakers is right, you must only restore from your most recent "clean" backup Or it won't work. The backups and corrupted files are being stored on your iPhone and most importantly in iTunes backups. That's where you need to delete the folders and files.

OMG YOU GUYS!!! This is great. ITS FIXED. I CANT BELIEVE IT. I AM SORRY FOR THE CAPS BUT I'M EXCITED.

This has been bugging me since the iP6 came out...and all my attempts to find a solution had not worked. Why hasn't Apple fixed this? Its just ridiculous. These are extremely expensive devices...you would think this is something that can be easily get fixed...but what the **** do I know. These shortcuts are extremely important to me and having them work effectively was huge. I also created a couple of new ones and deleted them to see if any new shortcuts would rise up from the dead and they didn't. After several reboots...everything looks good.
pagemakers4 and Pickinic, THANK YOU...you guys have made my year.

Dear Chris --

This problem has been driving me crazy for a year now across all my Apple devices. I have spent countless hours searching for a fix in vain when I finally found yours. I tried it about a week ago, and the duplicate shortcuts haven't returned yet, the longest they've ever stayed away. If this turns out to be a permanent fix (and it really looks like it is), I can't thank you enough! What a relief to be rid of those stupid un-deletable shortcuts! Thanks a million!

And thanks also for the clear and easy to follow instructions and detailed information! Of course, I checked off "this helped me", too bad they don't have a "this saved me from landing in the nut house" button for me to click on!

FYI: no fix from Apple in iOS 9 either. Will have to do it this way, but wow - if they are reading this, would not exactly be rocket science to send out a patch to do this for folks who are uncomfortable using Terminal...

I've been dealing with this issue for months! I finally called Apple and then worked with them for over a month and I thought it was a lost cause. I finally stumbled upon this! I followed the instructions to a tee and deleted the CoreDataUbiquitySupport (I didnt have the CloudUserDictionary.sqlite file).

The good news is the duplicated shortcuts on my phone are gone ...

The bad news is the shortcuts aren't synching back to my phone, which means the shortcut list is now blank. Any suggestions here?

Thanks in advance 🙂

I deleted all the shortcuts from all devices, and then every added them all back into my computer because I didn't know which ones were the new ones and which ones are the old ones (I have them saved on my desktop because I have done this so many times lol). I woke up this morning and everything is fixed! I should've followed that last step before typing. 🙂 Thank you! You are awesome!

Yes, it takes a while for everything to start syncing up again. I suppose it takes some time for the new clean folder and files to recreate. I still can't believe Apple isn't fixing this in iOS 9. It's such a simple fix.

I did not touched any of my over 150 shortcuts. I did deleted the zombie ones for the (hopefully) the last time. It has been 3 days and still no zombie shortcuts.

BTW: Who came up with calling them zombie shortcuts? Thats pretty funny. 🙂