Screen Time: Apparent bug with Content & Privacy Restrictions

I have dealt with this for a while and just stumbled onto the answer that solved it for me.

We have 4 iPhones, my Xs is the main one with the iCloud family account and controls. My wife has an X with no need for restrictions, my daughter has an Xr with restrictions that have had no issues like this one, and my son has an Xr that does have this problem, where the switch for turning on Content & Privacy Restrictions won't stay on.

Every time I've worked on this, I am working from my phone, where the restrictions should be setup and changed from. Today I decided to sign out of iCloud on my son's phone, the one with the issue, and sign back in. That did no good. From my phone, the switch still wouldn't stay on.

I decided I would at least turn on some restrictions from his phone. I went to Settings > General > Restrictions, but it wasn't there. I remembered that it's probably under Screen Time on his phone now as well, so I went to Settings > Screen Time.

Now, he also has an iPad Mini signed into the same account, but which he never uses, so whenever I go to Screen Time for him on my phone, I have to select his iPhone Xr device to see that data, because that is what he uses these days. I started to wonder if the dual devices had something to do with it. Back on his phone, in Screen Time, I noticed at the bottom of the main screen, a switch for "Share Across Devices", which, when turned on, will combine the screen time reports from both his iPhone and iPad into one total report. I enabled this switch. I DO NOT think this made the difference, but wanted to point it out incase it did affect anything.

On his phone, I chose Content & Privacy Restrictions, figuring I'd just set them up there, and once I chose it, entered my Restrictions password, then flipped the switch to on, and began looking through the settings, I noticed that on my phone, which still had the screen lit up and on the Content & Privacy Restrictions page for his phone, that the switch was on and the settings were updating as I changed them on his phone. I think what had happened, is that I previously had Restrictions setup on his phone, with a passcode, and after the update to iOS12 with the Content & Privacy Restrictions settings across iCloud Family accounts, his phone still respected the Restrictions passcode that had been previously setup. Once I entered that passcode on his phone, it released the control of the Content & Privacy Restrictions to my phone, the master family account phone.

So, that is how I got it working, hopefully that helps some of you.

We've been dealing with this issue on my son's iPad for more than a year now, and it seems like I've finally landed on a workaround this morning.

Two approaches were successful for me:

1. Simultaneously switch on the Content & Privacy Restrictions toggle in screen time for all owner/parent/child devices. And when I say simultaneously, I mean literally tap the switch at exactly the same time on all of the devices. This gets tricky past 2-3 devices.
2. If you have so many devices that simultaneously toggling the settings switch is not possible, disconnect all owner/parent/guardian devices in the sync group from all data connections (WiFi and/or cellular data) and flip the Content & Privacy Restrictions toggle to "on" for the child device (which should still be connected to WiFi or cellular data). It should stay toggled on. Next, switch the Content & Privacy Restrictions toggle to the "on" position for one of your owner/parent/guardian devices while the device is still disconnected from all WiFi or cellular data. Once you turn WiFi or cellular data back on for the device, the switch should stay on and Content & Privacy Restrictions settings should properly sync. Repeat this process for each of the remaining owner/parent/guardian devices.

I don't think it matters that you start with any particularly device — the critical piece of the workaround seems to be that any device that needs to participate in Content & Privacy Restrictions settings sync for the child account should have the toggle switched "on" locally while disconnected from any data connection before restoring the data connection so that iCloud can resume syncing the child account's Screen Time settings.

I was successful using a combination of these approaches this morning across two iPhones and three iPads distributed across three iCloud accounts for me, my wife and my son. My process looked like this:

1. Turn off WiFi for one of the parent iPads.
2. With the remaining devices all connected to WiFi, I simultaneously switched the Content & Privacy Restrictions toggle to "on" using my index and thumb on both hands for two iPhones and two iPads.
3. With the remaining iPad still disconnected from WiFi, I switched the Content & Privacy Restrictions toggle to "on" for the device, then reconnected the device to WiFi.

All five devices are now properly syncing Screen Time settings (including Content & Privacy Restrictions) for the child account.

Hopefully this works for others — I continue to be baffled that Apple has allowed such a severe defect in a heavily marketed iOS feature to persist for more than a year.

For me this has been resolved by resetting al settings. General > Reset > Reset all settings.

It's a pain to lose settings but it works.

This solution came after I called Apple support. Excellent service they phoned within 2 minutes.

Hi. I just had this problem on my sons iPod and fixed it.

When into iCloud and family sharing, then removed screen time from family share. Waited 1 min until data sent across to his iPod. Went and logged into his iPod and went to screen time and reset up again and all it working.

I have read all the posts below, tried several solutions and finally came across one that worked for me.

I have iPhone 8 set as organizer and iPad Air logged into the same Apple ID.

Set the family cloud with my wife (iPhone 6), 2 children (iPhone 4 and 6) and their iPad (as another child).

I have successfully toggled on and off at will the restrictions for my children's iPhone 6 and iPad (iPhone 4 was not not set to screen time - too old iOS). And then came this strange bug toggling off the screen time restrictions button after few seconds. It worked the same (or didn't) when I tried to set it from child's device.

And then I tried to set it from my iPad Air logged into the same Apple ID as my "organizer" iPhone.

It worked. And after this setup, my iPhone allowed me to toggle on and off the screen time again.

I do not know if it solved all the cases but you could also check your other devices logged in as above.

Good luck!

I think I have found the issue.

If you previously had an earlier model of an iPhone, and before upgrading didn't turn off the Restrictions, then these are somehow still kept online (presumably upont the Cloud) and will forever interfere with your current iPhone's screen time restrictions.

The Solution is to either (assuming you have access to the old iPhone still) to turn off all restrictions, sync to iCloud, and merge with your current iPhone. Or, sadly and perhaps simpler... just setup a new Apple Identify account, and merge the phone's settings with the new account's iCloud. Apple, are still looking into the issue I raised, though ... they currently think it's only me having this issue :-(

I have solved this by signing up for another Apple ID, logging out (and keeping data on the device) and logging in with the new Apple ID. It seems the bug is linked to the Apple ID rather than the device. Is that correct?

I appreciate this only works easily for users without data stored in iCloud - but my child just uses hers for web browsing, Spotify, and games with locally stored data. Even if not it may be a relatively small price worth paying to get it active again.

I can't think of any other problems with this solution in my case ..are there?

Just spent most of my afternoon trying to fine tune my Family Sharing settings so as to manage my teenager’s Screen Time. Developed the same problem with sliding button when it came to ‘Content & Privacy Restrictions’ (it had worked fine in the past!). Went through every possible idea provided here to no avail.

Finally what worked was quite simple:

From main mobile device go in to Screen Time/ Tap on the child’s name under ‘Family’ Turn OFF Screen Time. Now open your child’s mobile device and tap on Screen Time -create settings on the device. If you feel happy to not fiddle with the parameters you set, I cannot see why this may not be a good solution-just forget trying to reset their device from your own device and forget overseeing each day. The parameters should give enough peace of mind.

I set it up on my iPhone...it all worked fine on first setup....then had to factory reset my lads iPod.....after that it wouldn’t set up from my iPhone or his ipod......so I tried to set it up via my wife’s phone who is also part of the family sharing and bingo.....that worked and has stayed on. Try it in a second family/parent device

If there’s more than 1 adult on your family sharing delete them all so there’s just you as organiser left plus any children; this worked for me. Once you’ve set the kids’ ipads downtime / content restrictions and stuff up just add the adults back on again.

As noted, this seemed to work for me so good luck!

Nick

All, as I was just starting a chat with Apple on this issue, I logged into my iCloud account on my desktop computer. I went through the motions on my iPhone in order to articulate this issue, and all of the sudden everything worked (Murphy’s Law). It seemed the action of logging in iCloud on a desktop reset everything correctly.

i’m pretty sure my daughter had the passcode and was turning the restrictions off. so I changed the passcode and set the downtime to on at 8 pm and off at 7:50 pm. basically all day long, but the combination of new passcode and those times worked.

Unbeknownst to you, she/he might have your passcode and be turning it right back on (they're sneaky critters, those offspring). Try changing your passcode, then change the Downtime Settings as follows: Start to 8:00 PM and the End to 7:50 PM. Worked for me.

Same issue for me removing the account from an old phone and resetting it still did not work. Even removing the child account didn’t make a difference as someone else said earlier I had to create a new child account/Apple id to get around this. I’m not sure they will fix this as I see the thread is from late 2018...

Update- Today Apple worked with me for an hour or so trying resolve this with me remotely. The problem has now been referred to their engineers and hope to explore the solution tomorrow. May be able to post a solution here!

Temporarily I have signed my child’s iPhone out of iCloud (so we cannot share and I cannot alter her screen time remotely). however, not having her mobile linked in to iCloud has enabled me to reset Screen Time on her mobile using a passcode. So o have been able to save all the setting that i want

including the ‘Content & Restrictions’ not switching off. For her to change any settings or ask for more time requires my passcode. Now our only problem is that her phone is not signed in through iCloud.