Ask to buy approval screen does not come up spins forever

Tried 15+ times on both my phones to approve. tried putting one in airplane mode. Updated os. Signed out and back in to apple store several times. Request appears but clicking on the link shows a blank screen with a spinner and all I can do is cancel. Any way to approve on the web or something.

iPhone 8 Plus, iOS 11.2.6

Posted on Feb 21, 2018 7:24 PM

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12 replies

Feb 22, 2018 2:04 PM in response to sisyphus6

Hello sisyphus6,

It looks like when you receive an ask to buy request, you are unable to approve or decline it as the request never fully loads. I use ask to buy with my family as well, so I can certainly understand the concern and would want to get this resolved as well. You've done some great things in order to resolve this. I'll be happy to provide some additional steps that you can try.

What I'd like to have you do is to Reset Network Settings.

If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch won’t connect to a Wi-Fi network

Reset your Network Settings. Tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings. This also resets Wi-Fi networks and passwords, cellular settings, and VPN and APN settings that you’ve used before.


Once the Network Settings have been reset, please have a new request sent to you and see if you are now able to view the entire request.

Let me know how things go after this step.

Have a wonderful day!

Feb 22, 2018 5:38 PM in response to Joseph_S.

I ended up disabling ask to buy to get around this. Definitely wasn’t the network because the cancel did work fine. I think it may have been that I needed to enable user change so I could accept new App Store terms of service. Haven’t tried since, but this is clearly a fault in Apple service to not provide some message (or even a timeout) about why it isn’t working.

Aug 29, 2018 6:41 PM in response to Bekhardt

I’ve got the same problem with the approval screen just showing the spinning “Loading” icon. I’ve tried this from different devices, iPhone, iPad etc, restarted them etc and get the same result.


It doesn’t happen all the time, some apps work fine, but most of the time it’s failing and all I can do is cancel. As a work around I’ve started logging to iTunes on my phone as my kids, which is real pain but the only way I can approve an app for them.


Only other thing I’ve noticed is my daughter has a MacBook and it seems that any request she makes from that fails to load.


Given family share has been around for years, I’m still surprised Apple haven’t made the whole approval process more user friend, or web based.

Sep 21, 2018 3:10 AM in response to sisyphus6

The same here.

This is _absolutely_ ridiculous, dear Apple. It worked perfectly but simply stopped working some weeks ago. Logged in and out on both devices with our AppleID's, restarted, whatever - but still the same.


But even worse, posting advices here about network settings... Come on guys, you are selling handheld devices over 1000 USD, developing your operating systems for decades, and that's the best you can say, "reset your network settings".... "Sic transit gloria mundi", if it does ring any bell over there.

(An other) shame on you, Apple.


But I guess what's wrong here. I'm still using my iPhone6, whilst my son is on his Iphone5S. We didn't invest enough in new devices recently. Our problem, shame on us.

Jul 26, 2018 7:51 PM in response to sisyphus6

I think the issue relates to the device you are using. Was the ask to buy request made from an ipad?


I have found that requests to buy an app from my daughter's ipad behave as you described if I try to approve on my iphone. The same request usually works on my ipad. The problem is I do not always have the ipad with me.


It makes sense as I can view iphone apps in the app store on my ipad but I cannot view ipad apps on my iphone.


However I cannot understand how this could get past rudimentary testing.

Sep 26, 2018 1:16 PM in response to sisyphus6

Tried turning off devices, disconnecting/connecting to wi-fi, connecting to different wi-fi, connecting to same wi-fi, on cellular. Unfortunately I don’t have a iPad set up to give permissions, only my iPhone which circles/loads and doesn’t go anywhere. The only thing that worked was to turn off ask to buy. You would think Apple would not have a problem with something as simple as this.

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Ask to buy approval screen does not come up spins forever

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