iCloud tabs not syncing

[papbot]

Actually I know this worked for me. When these phantom tabs were showing on my ipad I never saw any real open tabs from my phone. My phone would display open tabs from my ipad. So the tabs syncing (or receiving) was only going one way. Now for the first time since I got my ipad last spring real open tabs from my phone have appeared. So I have to assume that this is actually solved for me. All seems good!

 

[phantom13]

Actually I know this worked for me. When these phantom tabs were showing on my ipad I never saw any real open tabs from my phone. My phone would display open tabs from my ipad. So the tabs syncing (or receiving) was only going one way. Now for the first time since I got my ipad last spring real open tabs from my phone have appeared. So I have to assume that this is actually solved for me. All seems good!

are they still gone(the phantom tabs)?

 

[papbot]

are they still gone(the phantom tabs)?

Yes! And the tabs are now syncing both ways. Previously I wasn’t seeing any tabs from my phone on the ipad, except for the phantom ones. On the phone I did see tabs from the ipad, real ones. So the issue was some problem in iCloud tab syncing from my phone which was cleared up by signing out of iCloud on it. It did seem logical to sign out of the ipad since that’s where the phantoms appeared. But the issue was the phone so signing out of it fixed it.

 

[phantom13]

Just did it and it's knock on wood working. Just wish signing out of iCloud wasn't a pain

 

[Morac]

I updated to iOS 15 and Safari 15 on Mac. The iOS devices are still syncing iCloud tabs like they used to. On the Mac though I have to now quit Safari and run it again for it to update.

 

[sil4s]

My problem was on the Mac Safari. The phantom tabs were never gone, and logout sign in on any device didn't helped.

My last try was to close Safari and rename the folder /Users/%user%/Library/Safari to /Users/%user%/Library/Safari.old
After that it immediately worked and the tabs werde gone.

 

[Phantom iCloud tabs]

I updated to iOS 15 and Safari 15 on Mac. The iOS devices are still syncing iCloud tabs like they used to. On the Mac though I have to now quit Safari and run it again for it to update.

Turning off the new beta iCloud relay resolved this issue for me. However, there is a relatively minor bug that has been a problem since the betas/technology previews. The cloud tabs will display inaccurate information on some sites like Facebook or Twitter, where clicking a link doesn't cause the loading of a new page. Instead of showing the current page on other devices, the cloud tabs will lag one page behind. So for instance, if you browse to twitter on your Mac, then select notifications from the sidebar, the cloud tabs on your iPad or iPhone will show the Twitter home page still. Then if you click "bookmarks" on the Mac, the cloud tabs on those other devices will "catch up" to Notifications, and so on. Kind of annoying, and hopefully they'll fix this with a future update.

 

[Phantom iCloud tabs]

BTW, this thread should probably be relocated or mirrored to the iOS 15 forum at this point, for obvious reasons.

 

[Morac]

Turning off the new beta iCloud relay resolved this issue for me. However, there is a relatively minor bug that has been a problem since the betas/technology previews. The cloud tabs will display inaccurate information on some sites like Facebook or Twitter, where clicking a link doesn't cause the loading of a new page. Instead of showing the current page on other devices, the cloud tabs will lag one page behind. So for instance, if you browse to twitter on your Mac, then select notifications from the sidebar, the cloud tabs on your iPad or iPhone will show the Twitter home page still. Then if you click "bookmarks" on the Mac, the cloud tabs on those other devices will "catch up" to Notifications, and so on. Kind of annoying, and hopefully they'll fix this with a future update.

I don’t have iCloud relay on. It’s weird because any changes in tabs on my Mac show up within a few seconds on my iPad and iPhone. The reverse isn’t the case though. I have to quit Safari and open to see the changes. It’s not stuck, it just doesn’t update. Maybe Monterey will fix that.

 

[commanderclif]

My problem was on the Mac Safari. The phantom tabs were never gone, and logout sign in on any device didn't helped.

My last try was to close Safari and rename the folder /Users/%user%/Library/Safari to /Users/%user%/Library/Safari.old
After that it immediately worked and the tabs werde gone.

DUDE!!! Sil4s you are my FREAKING hero. This is the exact problem that has been plaguing me. Logging out, changing the name, updates, restarts, NOTHING worked. I got a Senior Advisor on the phone at Apple, and this is like a verbatim quote of what I asked, "What FILE do I delete on my MacBook Pro to clear the cache of the bad tabs that keep syncing to the cloud?" The Apple response: "There isn't one." Well there is and while I did my darnedest to try and track down the single file, your Safari.old rename trick here worked like a champ and SUPER SUPER simple. Gratitude!

 

[Phantom iCloud tabs]

DUDE!!! Sil4s you are my FREAKING hero. This is the exact problem that has been plaguing me. Logging out, changing the name, updates, restarts, NOTHING worked. I got a Senior Advisor on the phone at Apple, and this is like a verbatim quote of what I asked, "What FILE do I delete on my MacBook Pro to clear the cache of the bad tabs that keep syncing to the cloud?" The Apple response: "There isn't one." Well there is and while I did my darnedest to try and track down the single file, your Safari.old rename trick here worked like a champ and SUPER SUPER simple. Gratitude!

The Safari iCloud tabs are contained in a series of database files that begin with "CloudTabs." in the Safari library directory.

 

[yustas]

I have tried the "close Safari and rename the folder /Users/%user%/Library/Safari to /Users/%user%/Library/Safari.old," logging out of iCloud, etc. Nothing seems to work. I cannot see open tabs on iPhone from my MacBook Air, but I can see and can close Safari's tabs from my iPhone, and there are a bunch of phantom tabs that show up on iPhone.

Any ideas? Thank you very much.

 

[Phantom iCloud tabs]

Squashed three phantom tabs that popped up today, using the methods I outlined earlier.

 

[Morac]

Rebooted my Mac, iPhone and iPad yesterday and the Mac started syncing iCloud tabs in real time again.

 

[gank41]

I still think we’re in a pretty bad state of affairs when various things work to fix an issue and not another.

 

[commanderclif]

Looks like my MacBook Pro is fixed. However I'm still seeing my old iPhone in my iCloud tabs instead of my new iPhone. Wouldn't care if there had been both devices, I think that has happened in the past, but still seeing the old and not seeing the new is annoying me.

I ended up transferring the old phone to the new phone but something that seems DUMB in that process is that it names your new phone the same as your old phone. In my case, my X was called Clif iPhone X temp (I was borrowing a co-workers till 13 launch cause my face ID camera broke about 2 months ago) so after transfer my iPhone 13 was called Clif iPhone X temp. I changed that to Clif iPhone 13 but what I should do to future proof this problem is just call the device Clif iPhone.

Just need to figure out now how to get it to start showing up again.

 

[donawalt]

This is so weird. So My 2 Macs are on Safari 15, and my iPhone and iPad are on iOS/iPadOS 15, and have been a few days. For just about all of today, tab syncing has been fine - no phantoms! Yet look at this - I didn't see any tabs at all from other devices on my primary Mac - I look at the settings, and low and behold there isn't even a setting for iCloud tabs!

So, I closed Safari and reopened it, and lo and behold, the setting is back:

What squirrelly software...

 

[Phantom iCloud tabs]

This is so weird. So My 2 Macs are on Safari 15, and my iPhone and iPad are on iOS/iPadOS 15, and have been a few days. For just about all of today, tab syncing has been fine - no phantoms! Yet look at this - I didn't see any tabs at all from other devices on my primary Mac - I look at the settings, and low and behold there isn't even a setting for iCloud tabs!

View attachment 1847733

So, I closed Safari and reopened it, and lo and behold, the setting is back:

View attachment 1847734

What squirrelly software...

The tabs option doesn't show up if it's not able to connect to the cloud server to refresh the database (or if there is an error). I had this issue when I had the beta version of iCloud relay turned on. It badly messes with the tabs feature.

 

[Morac]

The tabs option doesn't show up if it's not able to connect to the cloud server to refresh the database (or if there is an error). I had this issue when I had the beta version of iCloud relay turned on. It badly messes with the tabs feature.

I’ve found that the iCloud tab option doesn’t show up in Safari 15 on the Mac if there are no iCloud Tabs regardless if it can connect to the cloud server or not. It’s pretty easy to see.

With no tabs open on other devices open that menu and see the option is missing. Open a tab on an iPhone or iPad and return to the Home Screen. In a few seconds the tab should show up at the bottom of the Safari start screen on the Mac (when it’s syncing in real time which may require a reboot) and at that point the iCloud tabs display option will appear. On the iPhone/iPad go back to Safari, close the tabs and go to the Home Screen. On the Mac, the tab will disappear as will the option to enable displaying iCloud tabs.

 

[donawalt]

I’ve found that the iCloud tab option doesn’t show up in Safari 15 on the Mac if there are no iCloud Tabs regardless if it can connect to the cloud server or not. It’s pretty easy to see.

in my example I had tabs open on other devices, which us why I started looking around when nothing showed up.

 

[Morac]

in my example I had tabs open on other devices, which us why I started looking around when nothing showed up.

Hence my comment about rebooting. I’ve found since upgrading to iOS/iPadOs 15 and Safari 15 that sometimes Safari 15 stops updating iCloud tabs in real time requiring quitting Safari and reopening to get them to refresh. I resolved that by restarting all my devices, but I suspect that’s only a temporary work around.

 

[Phantom iCloud tabs]

in my example I had tabs open on other devices, which us why I started looking around when nothing showed up.

Right - did you have iCloud relay turned on?

 

[donawalt]

Right - did you have iCloud relay turned on?

No. Never have.

 

[commanderclif]

Already documented it was easy to remove the old/unused device by using another device to close to tabs you see. Ended up needing to do a similar process to get the iPhone 13 to show up.

I went in to the Apple ID > iCloud > and toggle off the Safari sync. When prompted I told it to remove the content on the phone instead of keeping it. After a call with Apple they suggest leaving that slider off for at least one minute. When I turned it back on the phone showed up right away in iCloud Tabs but it was showing the tabs from the old X phone. When I quit Safari on the phone it disappeared from iCloud tabs. I kept trying different variations of this process including changing the name while Safari was turned off in iCloud on my phone Apple ID but kept having same issue.

The fix came when I got the phone to show up in iCloud Tabs with the old tabs, I used my laptop to Control click and close the old tabs, and when all the four tabs were gone the device disappeared again. I went back in to the phone, turned off Safari in iCloud settings, waited a minuted, toggled it back on and when the phone showed back up in iCloud Tabs on my Mac it showed the correct tabs.

My assumption is that something in moving from one device to another it carries the old name across so that probably gums everything up.

SO, finally I've got iCloud tabs working for me across all 4 of my devices logged in to iCloud.
No zombie tabs on my MacBook Pro (or any other devices)
No old iPhone X still showing up post moving to iPhone 13
And finally got iPhone 13 to show up with correct tabs

 

[nibster]

The fix came when I got the phone to show up in iCloud Tabs with the old tabs, I used my laptop to Control click and close the old tabs, and when all the four tabs were gone the device disappeared again. I went back in to the phone, turned off Safari in iCloud settings, waited a minuted, toggled it back on and when the phone showed back up in iCloud Tabs on my Mac it showed the correct tabs.

Thank you! This bugged me for hours yesterday and I just accepted defeat. Couldn't see my new iPhone 13 tabs, and couldn't get rid of iPhone X tabs, despite lots of restarts and switching Safari sync on and off. All it took was right clicking and closing the old iPhone tabs on the Mac start screen in Safari, and now it finally shows the new phone tabs. Thank you for sharing!