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iCloud tabs not syncing

iStorm said:
Oh man, I fixed it!! I posted earlier I had phantom tabs showing up on my new iPad Pro from my three existing / "rogue" devices. I wasn't quite up for the task of signing out of iCloud and removing them from my Apple ID since I would have needed to do it for each of those three devices. Plus, I didn't want to run the risk of potentially introducing new issues, or setting up my cards in Apple Pay again, among other things.

Searching the web about this issue indicates that an Apple support page apparently used to state "If you can't access the device that shared the tab, the tab will automatically be cleared from the list after 14 days if the tab isn't updated."

I was going to wait a couple weeks to see if they would disappear on their own even though I still had my devices, but then I thought what if I just change the date on my iPad to the future? So I did just that. I set my iPad Pro to July 1st, opened Safari, and BOOM...the phantom tabs were gone! I set the date back to the current date, they're still gone and the correct ones are still showing/working.

Obviously YMMV, but this may be another/simpler option to try rather than signing out of iCloud if you have phantom tabs (or just wait a couple weeks). I do realize some people don't like changing the date, but I've never had any implications from having done that several times in the past for other reasons. I figured this was worth a shot before trying other things that would have been a bit more involved.
Click to expand...

This actually worked. I had some stuck tabs from my MBA on my iPad only (not on any other device). Any attempt to close them would immediately open them again. I tried turning off iCloud Safari on my iPad, rebooting and turning them back on, but that didn't help since the bad data was on the iPad itself.

As such I decided to try this. To be safe I closed all open tabs on my MBA and other devices, so only the phantom tabs were left. I then changed the date to July 1st. The phantoms were still there, but when I swiped to close them they didn't come back. I even force killed and reopened Safari to make sure they stayed gone.

I then set the time back to automatic and they are now gone and new tabs I open are syncing properly.

There were a few side effects of doing this:
  1. The iPad put a push notification and budget on settings that I hadn't backed up my iPad in over 4 weeks. Forcing a backup cleared out the badge.
  2. I got a Screen Time report push notification from June 30th which I cleared.
  3. All my existing push notifications got cleared out.
I hope changing the time didn't mess up backups and screen time. In the future it might be better to wait the 2 weeks.
 
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I think there are several reasons why this is happening, but I don't think account creation date is an issue, I am sure they run a migration script everytime they change protocol, it's just too much work to keep all protocols up-to-date, and/or working. Then again, since Apple is a very closed box, who knows...

On iOS this trick won't work (unless jailbroken I guess?), only for OSX, since all apps on iOS, especially system apps like Safari run in a very tight sandbox -- afaik. At least with this workaround, I am hoping devs at Apple can roll out a quick fix.

My tab syncing issue was solved a few months ago. This fix relates to phantom tabs that got stuck on my MacBook, which to be honest, was very annoying. When you create a new account everything is fresh so you don't carry over problems like this, at least for some time. At the end of the day, it's obvious this feature is very problematic, has poor test coverage (considering the issues people are facing), and is not prioritized at Apple. Our best hope is that it gets covered in the media/forums, otherwise, it will always be in the backlog.
 
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My issue was fixed a few months ago, but lately I’ve seen stuck tabs on occasion. I’m pretty sure this is caused by a glitch in the syncing process.

Apple appears to give a unique identifier to each tab on each device. This is why you can have the same web site open on multiple tabs and they will all show up.

What should happen is that when you close a tab on one device, it should send a message that that tab is closed to all other iCloud devices as a behind the scenes push notification. If the device is offline it should get it when it comes back online.

Likewise if you close a open tab on one device from a different device, it sends a message up to the cloud which then goes to that device which then removes the tab triggering the process above.

When things run into a problem is when the tab isn’t open on that other device. This causes the tab to come back as a phantom tab. How they get out of sync, I’m not sure. Maybe a process crashes before it has a chance to mark the tab as closed. Who knows.

If the tab still exists in the closed tab list you can just reopen and close it to fix that since the ID should still be there. If the tab isn’t in the closed tab list, that’s when it becomes a phantom tab.

Previously you could just close these phantom tabs to get rid of them, but I’m guessing Apple decided that was causing more problems since if those messages were never received things could get way out of sync. My guess is the “fix” was to not allow “closing” tabs unless the device that the tabs are on allows it. In the case that a tab became a “phantom tab” that didn’t exist on the server, Apple would allow removing these after 2 weeks without a server side update.

Honestly knowing phantom tabs will go away on their own and everything else still works makes me less worried about them.
 
iStorm said:
Oh man, I fixed it!! I posted earlier I had phantom tabs showing up on my new iPad Pro from my three existing / "rogue" devices. I wasn't quite up for the task of signing out of iCloud and removing them from my Apple ID since I would have needed to do it for each of those three devices. Plus, I didn't want to run the risk of potentially introducing new issues, or setting up my cards in Apple Pay again, among other things.

Searching the web about this issue indicates that an Apple support page apparently used to state "If you can't access the device that shared the tab, the tab will automatically be cleared from the list after 14 days if the tab isn't updated."

I was going to wait a couple weeks to see if they would disappear on their own even though I still had my devices, but then I thought what if I just change the date on my iPad to the future? So I did just that. I set my iPad Pro to July 1st, opened Safari, and BOOM...the phantom tabs were gone! I set the date back to the current date, they're still gone and the correct ones are still showing/working.

Obviously YMMV, but this may be another/simpler option to try rather than signing out of iCloud if you have phantom tabs (or just wait a couple weeks). I do realize some people don't like changing the date, but I've never had any implications from having done that several times in the past for other reasons. I figured this was worth a shot before trying other things that would have been a bit more involved.
Click to expand...
Thank you! That was an easy and fast fix.
 
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Morac said:
Previously you could just close these phantom tabs to get rid of them, but I’m guessing Apple decided that was causing more problems since if those messages were never received things could get way out of sync. My guess is the “fix” was to not allow “closing” tabs unless the device that the tabs are on allows it. In the case that a tab became a “phantom tab” that didn’t exist on the server, Apple would allow removing these after 2 weeks without a server side update.
Click to expand...
Yes, each tab has a unique identifier so even if you open the same page on the device, you can't close it as it will generate a new identifier. I don't buy the 'more trouble' argument, if the device is online and is telling you its state (I don't have these tabs), you should just remove it from the list. Cloud services like tabs (or todo lists, etc...) use a merging strategy since you can edit the same list on multiple devices (offline/online), in this case, it's (Apple's merge conflict resolution strategy) bad and buggy, it needs to be fixed.
 
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I strongly suspect one of the main reasons that we have not seen a comprehensive fix for this yet, after so many months, is that it straddles two potential 'departments' within Apple's engineering teams: iCloud and Safari. I can already envision the iCloud team trying to pass the buck to the Safari team and vice versa. What a mess.
 
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Phantom iCloud tabs said:
It's also weird that it hasn't received the attention of the MacRumors editors, who might have been expected to write at least a brief story on it by this point.
Click to expand...
I think just the fact that it is such a sporadic issue with some “fixes” working for some and not others, makes it a hard issue to report on. There’s a number of other persistent issues with the M1 MacBook Airs and Pros that haven’t really gotten front page news, either. Again, some “fixes” working for some and not others. And with WWDC2021 right around the corner, I feel like I’ll just be fighting an uphill battle.
 
I wonder if anyone has experienced this particular issue: The other day, I received my new 2021 iPad Pro, and I was given an option to restore it from an iCloud backup from my phone. I opted to do this, and ever since then, I've been unable to get iCloud Tabs working.

Currently, iMessage syncing is working on iPhone and Mac, but not from either device to my iPad.

I have tried:
* Signing out of iCloud on my iPad then signing back in
* Signing out of iCloud on my Mac then signing back in
* Signing out of iCloud on my iPhone then signing back in
* Rebooting all 3 devices multiple times

Should I just bank on this being resolved in a future software update, or is there something else I can try?

Thanks!
 
Morac said:
This actually worked. I had some stuck tabs from my MBA on my iPad only (not on any other device). Any attempt to close them would immediately open them again. I tried turning off iCloud Safari on my iPad, rebooting and turning them back on, but that didn't help since the bad data was on the iPad itself.

As such I decided to try this. To be safe I closed all open tabs on my MBA and other devices, so only the phantom tabs were left. I then changed the date to July 1st. The phantoms were still there, but when I swiped to close them they didn't come back. I even force killed and reopened Safari to make sure they stayed gone.

I then set the time back to automatic and they are now gone and new tabs I open are syncing properly.

There were a few side effects of doing this:
  1. The iPad put a push notification and budget on settings that I hadn't backed up my iPad in over 4 weeks. Forcing a backup cleared out the badge.
  2. I got a Screen Time report push notification from June 30th which I cleared.
  3. All my existing push notifications got cleared out.
I hope changing the time didn't mess up backups and screen time. In the future it might be better to wait the 2 weeks.
Click to expand...
This worked for me as well! I patiently waited two weeks for them to auto-clear and it never happened. Jumped to July 1 and boom, all tabs gone. Thank goodness. Thank you!
 
Belazor said:
I wonder if anyone has experienced this particular issue: The other day, I received my new 2021 iPad Pro, and I was given an option to restore it from an iCloud backup from my phone. I opted to do this, and ever since then, I've been unable to get iCloud Tabs working.

Currently, iMessage syncing is working on iPhone and Mac, but not from either device to my iPad.

I have tried:
* Signing out of iCloud on my iPad then signing back in
* Signing out of iCloud on my Mac then signing back in
* Signing out of iCloud on my iPhone then signing back in
* Rebooting all 3 devices multiple times

Should I just bank on this being resolved in a future software update, or is there something else I can try?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
This is the exact point I’m trying to make regarding why this issue hasn’t garnered more attention overall:

@Belazor, what you’re describing that didn’t work for you, DID work for me in a way. I’ve restored my iDevices and that didn’t fix the issue but then restored them later and then my issue DID get resolved. So as to why it didn’t work for you, that is where the mystery lies.
 
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Morac said:
My issue was fixed a few months ago, but lately I’ve seen stuck tabs on occasion. I’m pretty sure this is caused by a glitch in the syncing process.

Apple appears to give a unique identifier to each tab on each device. This is why you can have the same web site open on multiple tabs and they will all show up.

What should happen is that when you close a tab on one device, it should send a message that that tab is closed to all other iCloud devices as a behind the scenes push notification. If the device is offline it should get it when it comes back online.

Likewise if you close a open tab on one device from a different device, it sends a message up to the cloud which then goes to that device which then removes the tab triggering the process above.

When things run into a problem is when the tab isn’t open on that other device. This causes the tab to come back as a phantom tab. How they get out of sync, I’m not sure. Maybe a process crashes before it has a chance to mark the tab as closed. Who knows.

If the tab still exists in the closed tab list you can just reopen and close it to fix that since the ID should still be there. If the tab isn’t in the closed tab list, that’s when it becomes a phantom tab.

Previously you could just close these phantom tabs to get rid of them, but I’m guessing Apple decided that was causing more problems since if those messages were never received things could get way out of sync. My guess is the “fix” was to not allow “closing” tabs unless the device that the tabs are on allows it. In the case that a tab became a “phantom tab” that didn’t exist on the server, Apple would allow removing these after 2 weeks without a server side update.

Honestly knowing phantom tabs will go away on their own and everything else still works makes me less worried about them.
Click to expand...
While I was having this issue, the tabs that were showing as open for me were tabs that would have been open for over 1½ to 2 months.
 
Mlrollin91 said:
This worked for me as well! I patiently waited two weeks for them to auto-clear and it never happened. Jumped to July 1 and boom, all tabs gone. Thank goodness. Thank you!
Click to expand...

A side effect of this appears to be that reoccurring reminders no longer get push notifications. At least my daily one didn’t this morning.

edit: turning off Reminders in iCloud settings, restarting iPad and turning iCloud Reminders back on, fixed this.
 
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gank41 said:
While I was having this issue, the tabs that were showing as open for me were tabs that would have been open for over 1½ to 2 months.
Click to expand...

Like I said the change Apple made was relatively recent. My guess is it’s related to the iCloud tab fix they put into iOS 14.5 (specified in release notes).
 
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gank41 said:
I think just the fact that it is such a sporadic issue with some “fixes” working for some and not others, makes it a hard issue to report on. There’s a number of other persistent issues with the M1 MacBook Airs and Pros that haven’t really gotten front page news, either. Again, some “fixes” working for some and not others. And with WWDC2021 right around the corner, I feel like I’ll just be fighting an uphill battle.
Click to expand...
MacRumors routinely writes stories about bugs or other issues that affect only some users, that have no clear or an inconsistent "fix," etc. Take the story from this morning about "some users" experiencing significant battery drain on iOS 14.6. There's probably some thread here on the forum about that issue, that has a few hundred comments after a week or two of discussion. Meanwhile, this thread has more than 1k comments after 7 months of discussion. It really just seems to me that they dropped the ball.
 
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Phantom iCloud tabs said:
MacRumors routinely writes stories about bugs or other issues that affect only some users, that have no clear or an inconsistent "fix," etc. Take the story from this morning about "some users" experiencing significant battery drain on iOS 14.6. There's probably some thread here on the forum that has a few hundred comments after a week or two of discussion. Meanwhile, this thread has more than 1k comments after 7 months of discussion. It really just seems to me that they dropped the ball.
Click to expand...
Or this one with over 2700 comments:
forums.macrumors.com

ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written

@Mike Boreham - Sorry, I missed your previous request. Although there does seem to be a small varaiability in the numbers, mine is roughly consistent. I was concerned about TBW at the time, so I was checking on a regular basis to see when it changed to 1%. I checked at 14.85 and it was still at...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

Sorry, don’t mean to get off topic here. But FWIW Since this issue was resolved for me, I’m finding iCloud Tabs syncing across all devices pretty quick. I am still seeing delays in the Photos app updating and the Files app syncing up, or uploading files shows 0kb of whatever for quite a while and then just shows as completed. It’s definitely not perfect.
 
gank41 said:
Or this one with over 2700 comments:
forums.macrumors.com

ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written

@Mike Boreham - Sorry, I missed your previous request. Although there does seem to be a small varaiability in the numbers, mine is roughly consistent. I was concerned about TBW at the time, so I was checking on a regular basis to see when it changed to 1%. I checked at 14.85 and it was still at...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
Click to expand...
That thread generated a couple of stories I believe. My best guess about why this issue has been buried under others is that most Mac users don't use Safari as the main browser, and those who do don't use the tabs feature.
 
iStorm said:
Oh man, I fixed it!! I posted earlier I had phantom tabs showing up on my new iPad Pro from my three existing / "rogue" devices. I wasn't quite up for the task of signing out of iCloud and removing them from my Apple ID since I would have needed to do it for each of those three devices. Plus, I didn't want to run the risk of potentially introducing new issues, or setting up my cards in Apple Pay again, among other things.
Click to expand...

I had iCloud tabs from a few months ago on the new iPad Pro I just got and restored from a previous backup from those months ago. Manually moving the date forward by a month and reverting removed those
 
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Manually moving the date forward by a month and reverting removed fantom tabs that my iPhone has shown from my Mac. Then after I turned on Mac I started showing fantom tabs from my iPhone, so basically I reversed the situation...

Then I have repeated the process on my Mac (moving date) but this time I didn't have my other device turned off and it fixes the fantom tab situation without creating problems on other device.

When I returned current date everything returned to normal.
 
Mine were working fine until I logged out and back into iCloud on all my devices a few weeks ago to get automatic switching for AirPods to work. It was the only solution that worked. Fix one problem, cause the next one 🤷‍♂️😭
 
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This problem fixed on it's own for me in recent weeks. It's immediate between devices now like it used to be years back.
 
iCloud tabs are not showing up on my iPhone or Mac. I've recently signed out and signed back in and that does not fix it.
 
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