Where do Ask to Buy requests go after the banner disappears?

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Level 1

30 points

Where do Ask to Buy requests go after the banner disappears?

Hello. I've got a Family Sharing setup with me as the primary and my under 13 son as a child on the account. When he makes an Ask to Buy request, a banner appears on my phone and ipad where I can approve or deny the request, as expected. If I catch the banner while it's still on the screen then everything works like it should. However, if I don't catch the banner before it retreats into the background, then the request seems to disappear on my side, I can't find it anywhere. It doesn't appear in the Notifications section, or on the Today screen. I've been through the settings, but nothing seems off to me. Any ideas?

Thanks for your time!

-Jason

iPhone 6, iOS 8.3

Posted on Jun 14, 2015 12:20 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

sterling r

Community Specialist

Jun 16, 2015 11:58 AM in response to Jasonlseward

Hey there Jason,

It sounds like you are trying to find the notification about one of your family members asking to buy something. If you check after 24 hours has passed, then it disappears and goes away making it necessary to make the request again:

If the organizer doesn't make the purchase or decline the request, it will be deleted after 24 hours, and the child will need to make the request again.

Request and make purchases with Ask to Buy

According to that same article, it should appear in the Notifications section of the Notification Center for 24 hours.

If you're the organizer, you can use these steps to make or decline the purchase from your iOS device with iOS 8 or Mac with OS X Yosemite:

Open the notification to see the item that your family member wants to get. (See your notifications on your Mac or iOS device.)

Approve or decline the purchase.

If you approve, you need to sign in with your Apple ID and password to make the purchase.

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

Regards,

Sterling

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Answer 2

Jasonlseward Author

Level 1

30 points

Jun 17, 2015 8:48 PM in response to sterling r

Hello Sterling, thanks for the thorough reply. I read through the article you cited and double checked my settings against it, everything seems to be in order there. I haven't yet found a solution to my problem though, unfortunately.

You're correct about my setup. I'm the Family Organizer. I've got my under-13 son on the account, Ask-To-Buy enabled by default, and I double checked under Settings > iCloud > Family > Member that the Ask-To-Buy switch is indeed enabled.

So, order of events: Let's say he puts in a buy request for Random App. Within a few seconds I'll receive the "XYZ Child wants to buy Random App, Approve/Deny" banner on my phone/pad, which will generally be locked and holstered at the time. If I happen to hear the alert, and manage to get my phone into my hand while the alert is still visible on the lock screen, I can then swipe right on the banner, approve or deny, everything's groovy. However, if I see the alert but don't manage to execute the swipe before the 30 seconds, or whatever the interval is, has past then banner auto-hides itself and seems to disappear.

When I swipe down to expose the Today/Notifications screen, the request isn't there. Even if I check it immediately after failing to catch the banner in time. At most I've missed it by minutes, never 24 hours or more.

I checked Settings > Notifications, there doesn't seem to be an item for 'Family' or 'iCloud' but notifications are enabled for 'App Store' and 'iTunes Store', if that's relevant.

Also, I should have mentioned initially, I'm used an iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2, both running iOS 8.3. He's using an iPad Mini 3, iOS 8.3.

Thanks again for your help!

-Jason

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Answer 3

sterling r

Community Specialist

Jun 18, 2015 2:32 PM in response to Jasonlseward

Thanks for the update! That seems to indicate a software issue to me, and I would next quit all the running apps on your device:

iOS: Force an app to close

Double-click the Home button.

Swipe left or right until you have located the app you wish to close.

Swipe the app up to close it.

When you have done that restart the device and test the issue again:

iOS: Turning off and on (restarting) and resetting

If the issue persists, backup your device to iTunes, then restore it as new and verify that it works.

How to erase your iOS device and then set it up as a new device or restore it from backups

If it does, then restore your backup to either verify it still works and the software just needed reinstalled, or isolate the issue to the backup file itself.

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Answer 4

Luv2toy

Level 1

13 points

Aug 26, 2016 8:11 AM in response to sterling r

We just started to use the family sharing and i have the same problem jasonlseward has, i find it hard to believe that all of my devices have a software issue (iMac, iPhone and iPad) i see this post is from June 18th and we are having this issue today 8-26. please tell me Apple has a fix for this now? and yes i did reset my devices.

Thank you, Marty

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