Downtime not blocking some apps

[rexone]

Okay, so I have Downtime set on out daughter's phone so nothing bar the essentials should be available after 7pm & before 7am.
I have added the required apps to the access at all times list.
Out of hours the restricted apps show the little hourglass beside them. All but Instagram.
It is not in the allowed list yet it keeps showing up.
This has to be a bug of some sort.
I've tried adding it to the list & removing it. Rebooting the phone etc yet still it shows up when it is not supposed to.
Any suggestions? Of all apps it's the one I really do want blocked!!!

 

[rexone]

Gets weirder.
I totally turned off settings in Do Not Disturb & Screen Time.
I then went through & set everything up again.
Instagram was then restricted, as it should be, as it was not on the 'Allowed' List.
Now, 24-hours later, it is back as accessible despite still not being in the allowed list!!!
Seriously... w... t... f...

 

[kmichalec]

Do “All apps and categories” and make sure “Block at End of Limit” is on under the App Limits section. Works flawlessly for me. Could it be that you don’t have this checked? If so, the child is presented with a message saying the limit has been reached, and do they want to ignore the limit? If they click ignore, it lets them right back in.

My only gripe with Screen Time is when my child requests more time, she has to do it one app at a time, as I can’t find a way to grants her additional time for All Apps with one approval.

 

[rexone]

Do “All apps and categories” and make sure “Block at End of Limit” is on under the App Limits section.

Thank kmichalec, I have all that set yet Instagram just keeps ignoring the settings.
I have just reset the whole of Downtime etc [yet] again & it is now blocked but what has typically happened is that on the next Downtime cycle (i.e. - tomorrow night) Instagram will not respect the setting & will be available again.
I'll see if it does this [yet] again.

 

[rexone]

Okay. A few hours after my last reset & post and Instagram is again not respecting settings and is available to use despite being on the blocked list.

 

[kmichalec]

Hmmm. That's interesting. To clarify, are you setting it up using the All Apps & Categories setting, or are you setting it up using the Social Media category? Obviously, using the All Apps & Categories setting should block everything, but wondering if you get any different result is you use Social Media specifically? (Just thinking out loud)

 

[rexone]

Hmmm. That's interesting. To clarify, are you setting it up using the All Apps & Categories setting, or are you setting it up using the Social Media category? Obviously, using the All Apps & Categories setting should block everything, but wondering if you get any different result is you use Social Media specifically? (Just thinking out loud)

This is where the whole thing gets very confusing as you have to set so many things in different places...
- DownTime is set for 7pm to 7am.
- Only Apps in the 'Always Allowed' list are Phone & Messages.
- 'Block at end of limit' is set in both all apps & social (but this has to do with daily limits NOT DownTime)

I have;
- Totally reset ScreenTime, DownTime, App Limits & Always Allowed multiple times.
- Everytime I do this I reboot the phone.
- I have deleted & reinstalled Instagram.

I give up.
There must be something in Instagram that is causing it to ignore the DownTime command because as you can see from the attached screen shot everything else is behaving as it should!

 

[Emaweb]

This is where the whole thing gets very confusing as you have to set so many things in different places...
- DownTime is set for 7pm to 7am.
- Only Apps in the 'Always Allowed' list are Phone & Messages.
- 'Block at end of limit' is set in both all apps & social (but this has to do with daily limits NOT DownTime)

I have;
- Totally reset ScreenTime, DownTime, App Limits & Always Allowed multiple times.
- Everytime I do this I reboot the phone.
- I have deleted & reinstalled Instagram.

I give up.
There must be something in Instagram that is causing it to ignore the DownTime command because as you can see from the attached screen shot everything else is behaving as it should!

Did you work this out? I have the exact same problem with insta and Tik tok?

 

[SusieRW1]

I am having the same problem with Instagram.

 

[rexone]

I've never been able to work it out.
I'm assuming that there's something in the apps coding that means it doesn't respect, or some how side-steps, the Downtime and Screentime commands.
Who do you report it too?
Instagram don't care, they want you to be always-on, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually intentional.
Apple's feedback system is a pointless blackhole so just a waste of typing.
Fact is there are probably a lot of folks have this problem but don't even realise it.
I mean really, your kids are hardly going to come running to you & say '...hey, I thought you'd blocked Instagram, well the block's not working. Can you block it please...' are they...

 

[Liran Cohen]

Hi, did you get it fixed by any way?
I have the same problem but also with Tik Tok and Whatsapp.
On my daughter's iphone 8 it has this problem but not on my other daughter's phone which is an iPhone xs max

 

[rexone]

Hi, did you get it fixed by any way?

Hi Liran,
No. It persists despite updates etc.
I have sent product feedback to Apple multiple times but we all know how much of a pointless black-hole that is.
Seems to me that the app developers are writing code that is intentionally ignoring iOS functions as it always seems to be apps that want you to be 'always on'.
There would be a lot more parents out there that have this issue but they just wouldn't realise.
I mean seriously, how many kids are going to go running to their folks & say 'Hey look... you know how you wanted to restrict my use? It doesn't work & I have access 24/7...'

 

[Liran Cohen]

Hi, thank you for your response. Well, I guess we'll have to monitor our kids manually

 

[Lois Hickey]

Did anybody solve this issue? I’m having same problem and it’s driving me crazy.
All is set correctly. The only thing I can think of is, I had the passcode turned off recently and she had over ruled the limit on certain apps. And now I’ve put the passcode back on downtime isn’t blocking these apps.

 

[Remivavr6]

Has anyone figured this out? I’m having the same issue with my daughter’s phone. TikTok and YouTube are ignoring downtime—Even though it’s setup properly. I think my daughter figured out how to override it somehow.

 

[Christopher Byron Johnson]

check the phone

Is it in low power mode? Instagram disables background app refresh when in low power mode, which seems to be how the data is monitored by screen time. So if your kid puts their phone in low power mode, it stops your phone from tracking the app via data flow.

Had this same issue with my child’s Instagram app being active past downtime. I checked Instagram settings and saw background app refresh was off while phone was in low power mode.

Switched phone out of low power, went to Instagram app in iPhone settings and enabled background app refresh.

Went back to screen time and enabled block when time expires. Set time to 1 min. After 1 min, Instagram was blocked.
hope this helps.

 

[Mario Pavlou]

I am having the same problem with Minecraft. I think this explains it https://www.cultofmac.com/579662/screen-time-restrictions-workarounds/

Downloading previously installed apps during lockdown are not effected by the downtime schedule. Haven't found a solution.

 

[rexone]

I do find this whole situation baffling.
Why can Apple not just have a straight-forward set-up function where you can say 'This is a managed device' and it allows you to set system wide & app-by-app restrictions?
I know I'm not a programmer but surely it cannot be that hard to do.
I would have thought Apple had enough clever people on-staff and that such a feature would be a definite sales plus for parents, carers, even businesses.

 

[C DM]

I do find this whole situation baffling.
Why can Apple not just have a straight-forward set-up function where you can say 'This is a managed device' and it allows you to set system wide & app-by-app restrictions?
I know I'm not a programmer but surely it cannot be that hard to do.
I would have thought Apple had enough clever people on-staff and that such a feature would be a definite sales plus for parents, carers, even businesses.

They have MDM support that's generally there for business and educational type of environments: https://support.apple.com/guide/mdm/

They also have Apple Configurator: https://support.apple.com/apple-configurator

 

[dmniels]

I have had this incredibly frustrating problem twice now -- I've actually had two problems: 1) not all apps are blocked at downtime 2) apps aren't blocked after the time limit is reached. But now, after HOURS of wasting time trying to fix the problem, I finally figured out something that worked! In the hopes that this might help others, I wanted to post my solution.

Step 1: from the parent's phone, turn off screen time for the child's account. Settings->Screen Time->Child's name->Turn Off Screen Time (scroll to the very bottom to find this)

Step 2: from the child's phone, sign out of the phone. Settings->Child's name (at the very top)->Sign Out (at the very bottom). This didn't change any of the contents of the phone (at least it didn't for me), it just removes your child's apple ID from the phone.

Step 3: (this one might not be needed, but I did this part too, so just in case) power down the child's phone and keep it off for one or two minutes.

Step 4: power the child's phone back up, and sign back in using the child's apple ID. Settings->Sign in to your iPhone (at the top).

This completely cleared all the Screen Time settings from the phone and reset it back to what it looked like when everything was new. From there, I just went through the normal steps for setting up Screen Time for the first time. When it was set back up, the problem with screen time not blocking apps was gone ... at least for now.

My child only has one Apple device (the phone), so I don't know if it would be more complicated with more devices. Maybe you have to do it for all of them simultaneously?

At any rate, good luck -- I hope this helps!

 

[obladi]

I tried @dmniels method and it didn’t work for me.

For my case the app ignoring all settings is Chrome. Oh no. It is a door to everything.

Anyone yet for any other solutions?

 

[dmniels]

For my case the app ignoring all settings is Chrome. Oh no. It is a door to everything.

For what it's worth, the way Screen Time manages Safari is not by blocking the app itself, but blocking it from loading webpages once it is launched. I have no idea if that's how it manages Chrome as well, but it might be worth checking.

 

[Mickeyd2608]

The methods above didn't work for me either. I can’t block YouTube or Chrome. What is weird is in a single App Limit I select other items than just YouTube and it will block those, but ignore YouTube. Ugh...UPDATE...After cycling through a Downtime period, it started blocking YouTube. I wasn't able to block Chrome. I also figured out there is a way around Downtime in that the kids just uninstall the App, then reinstall it and it bypasses screen time restrictions until the next Downtime cycle. I uninstalled Chrome, then removed their ability to Install/Delete Apps under Content Restrictions. I think they also may have an app that simulates screen time passcode entry and records the new passcode because almost immediately they wanted me to give them more time, but use their devices to enter the passcode and extend the time.

 

[JohnnyWalker]

Just put a "Downtime" block on the App Store, then they can't re-download the app after deleting it. It's probably good practice to block the AppStore for any children's phone. If you block Safari they can just download Chrome. If you download Chrome they can download Firefox. If you block Firefox they can download Opera... etc.

For some reason Chrome is presently not on the list or covered by Downtime is any fashion at all. It was in iOS 13. It's utterly baffling

 

[aldoofbanga]

This bug persists for years even on ipados 14. Only screentime that works is lock and key. Ridiculous that kids can still find so many hackarounds.