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iCloud tabs not syncing
- Thread starter Morac
- Start date
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From my Mac I cannot see any open tabs on my iPhone. And my iPhone shows a bunch of phantom tabs that come back as soon as I open Safari on my Mac. I have tried rebooting many times, turning Safari sync on/off, etc. It seems it syncs one way, because in addition to phantom tabs on my iPhone, if I open a new tabs on my Mac, I can see it and close it from my iPhone, but it doesn't show any open iPhone tabs. The bookmarks and reading list sync without any issues.
I had this working OK by taking the rather drastic step of getting a new MacBook! However since the update to iOS 15 I'm now seeing months old tabs from my iPad.
Is there anyway to turn off the tabs sync without also turning off the sync for bookmarks, reading list, passwords etc?
Is there anyway to turn off the tabs sync without also turning off the sync for bookmarks, reading list, passwords etc?
Never had an issue with iCloud tabs on my iPad Pro 2020 + iPhone 8 on iOS 14.x.
Recently updated to iOS 15 and got an iPhone 13, now iCloud tabs don't work anymore:
-on the iPP 2020: NO iCloud tabs from the phone show up
-on the iPhone 13: about 7-8 old tabs from the iPP show and I can delete them but they come back quickly, sometimes even while I am still deleting them the ones that I just deleted pop back into the list
-only these old tabs show, no new ones at all
I tried a lot of the suggestions here: force closed Safari, rebooted, disabled iCloud/Safari syncing on both devices .. no change.
This has to be an iOS bug for sure. I disabled iCloud tabs on the start page because it's just too annoying. :-(
Recently updated to iOS 15 and got an iPhone 13, now iCloud tabs don't work anymore:
-on the iPP 2020: NO iCloud tabs from the phone show up
-on the iPhone 13: about 7-8 old tabs from the iPP show and I can delete them but they come back quickly, sometimes even while I am still deleting them the ones that I just deleted pop back into the list
-only these old tabs show, no new ones at all
I tried a lot of the suggestions here: force closed Safari, rebooted, disabled iCloud/Safari syncing on both devices .. no change.
This has to be an iOS bug for sure. I disabled iCloud tabs on the start page because it's just too annoying. :-(
My tabs are working correctly and have been since June, after eight months of malfunction, but I think it really needs to be pointed out: every day we are still getting people in this thread reporting that their iCloud tabs are not syncing properly across their devices. This thread has received 1,355 posts since late last year. It is probably one of the top threads on the forum in terms of volume.
Let that sink in.
Safari is arguably the most important program in Apple's ecosystem, and cloud syncing of open tabs is a standard feature, which every other major browser is able to provide (in slightly different ways) without these incessant, weird bugs. Yet Apple seems completely incapable of making this function work for all of its users.
What on earth is happening in Cupertino?????
Let that sink in.
Safari is arguably the most important program in Apple's ecosystem, and cloud syncing of open tabs is a standard feature, which every other major browser is able to provide (in slightly different ways) without these incessant, weird bugs. Yet Apple seems completely incapable of making this function work for all of its users.
What on earth is happening in Cupertino?????
What is happening is that Apple went from "it just works" to "it just doesn't work." Greatness is not easy to maintain without an inspirational leader.
"When MobileMe launched in the summer of 2008, it was plagued with problems. People had trouble getting their data to sync to the cloud and across their devices.
The press, including the WSJ's Apple enthusiast Walt Mossberg, slammed MobileMe as an unfinished product.
To address the problem, Jobs gathered the MobileMe team in Apple's auditorium and asked: "Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" When the team gave their answers, Jobs replied, "Then why the f**k doesn't it do that?"
Jobs then fired the MobileMe boss on the spot and replaced him with Eddie Cue."
Sounds like they need another meeting, but I can't imagine Mr. Supply Chain Guru doing something like that.
The press, including the WSJ's Apple enthusiast Walt Mossberg, slammed MobileMe as an unfinished product.
To address the problem, Jobs gathered the MobileMe team in Apple's auditorium and asked: "Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" When the team gave their answers, Jobs replied, "Then why the f**k doesn't it do that?"
Jobs then fired the MobileMe boss on the spot and replaced him with Eddie Cue."
Sounds like they need another meeting, but I can't imagine Mr. Supply Chain Guru doing something like that.
Nice story while drinking the Steve Jobs koolaid but he was far from perfect. It needs some reality. (PS - I am a big Steve Jobs fan but this aura of being perfect where no one else lives up to it is ludicrous)
MobileMe Failures Were All Steve Jobs' Fault, Says Former Apple Engineer
Before the disastrous launch of Apple Maps, one of Apple's biggest failures of all-time was the launch of MobileMe. Apple set a group of engineers out to
www.cultofmac.com
In a earlier post of mine, I said that I solved the problem with the phantom tabs by renamining the safari folder. This was true, but recognized that the iCloud tab groups stopped working. I didn’t want to fully log of from iCloud on my Mac and tried several things. I created a temp user and to test the sync and it was working. After that I searched a way to reset safari. The official way by cleaning the history and cache was useless. Apple said that Safari can only be reinstalled with the full MacOS. This was no option for me. But finally I was able to reset all settings with one of the following commands and steps (some of them I had to manually)
mv ~/Library/Safari ~/Desktop/Safari-`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Cache/*;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Cookies/*;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.binarycookies;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.LSSharedFileList.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebFoundation.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginHost.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/PubSub/Database;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Safari/*;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.Safari.savedState;
mv ~/Library/Safari ~/Desktop/Safari-`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess
rm -Rf ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.binarycookies
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.LSSharedFileList.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebFoundation.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginHost.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/PubSub/Database; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.Safari.savedState
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari*
rm -r ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari
rm -r ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari
mv ~/Library/Safari ~/Desktop/Safari-`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Cache/*;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Cookies/*;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.binarycookies;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.LSSharedFileList.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebFoundation.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginHost.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/PubSub/Database;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Safari/*;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist;
rm -Rf ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.Safari.savedState;
- Quit Safari
- Turn off iCloud sync for Safari from Preferences -> Apple ID -> iCloud -> Safari
- Make a backup folder for the files : mkdir ~/Documents/iCloudTabsBackup
- Go to your Safari folder, it should contain files such as CloudTabs.db : cd ~/Library/Safari
- Move all the related files into the backup folder mv CloudTabs.* ~/Documents/iCloudTabsBackup/
- Turn on iCloud sync from Preferences -> Apple ID -> iCloud -> Safari
- Open Safari
mv ~/Library/Safari ~/Desktop/Safari-`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess
rm -Rf ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.binarycookies
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.LSSharedFileList.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebFoundation.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginHost.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/PubSub/Database; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.Safari.savedState
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari*
rm -r ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari
rm -r ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari
Well, I’ve got the sad honor of joining the ranks of the iCloud-Tab-Impaired.
It’s been happening to me since before iOS 15 (I was hoping the update to iOS 15 would fix it). I sent feedback through the Feedback Assistant today and also searched some forums, and here we are.
My phantom tabs are quite a few tabs from my MacBook Pro showing on my iPhone 8 Plus. I’ve tried a few things suggested here, save for signing out of iCloud because I don’t want to deal with that. To no avail obviously.
It’s been happening to me since before iOS 15 (I was hoping the update to iOS 15 would fix it). I sent feedback through the Feedback Assistant today and also searched some forums, and here we are.
My phantom tabs are quite a few tabs from my MacBook Pro showing on my iPhone 8 Plus. I’ve tried a few things suggested here, save for signing out of iCloud because I don’t want to deal with that. To no avail obviously.
I currently have this issue of old iCloud tabs appearing under ‘From iPhone’ on my iPad… if I manually delete them all as soon as I close and restart Safari on my iPhone they all appear again.
I have seen a suggestion online that it is due to devices being named the same as older devices you used to own… so they have suggested….
1. Rename the device the tabs are showing from to something else… in my case I need to rename my iPhone.
2. Turn off safari in iCloud on all devices and turn it back on.
3. Go on a device in which the tabs are showing and remove all the tabs.
4. Go back to the device the tabs were showing from change its name back.
This apparently works… I am going to try it later.
I have seen a suggestion online that it is due to devices being named the same as older devices you used to own… so they have suggested….
1. Rename the device the tabs are showing from to something else… in my case I need to rename my iPhone.
2. Turn off safari in iCloud on all devices and turn it back on.
3. Go on a device in which the tabs are showing and remove all the tabs.
4. Go back to the device the tabs were showing from change its name back.
This apparently works… I am going to try it later.
This is just ridiculous. After months of trying to fix this issue, I tried this and... it did work. Thank you so much!
For everybody else still looking for a solution, here are some of the things I tried without success:
- Signing out and back in of iCloud on all my devices (I waited 2 hours before signing back in)
- Deleting CloudTabs.db while iCloud sync is disabled on my Mac, then turning it back on
- Closing each phantom tab everywhere I could
- ...
My situation:
Phantom tabs originating from my iPhone A, showing up on my iPhone B, iPad and Mac. The phantom tabs were not exactly the same on each device, so each device was keeping a different collection of tabs in memory.
What I did to fix the issue on all devices: On my iPhone B:
- Changed the date from Oct 2nd (today) to Oct 30th
- Opened Safari
- Closed Safari via App Switcher (force quit)
- Opened Safari (all phantom tabs were gone, on all devices!)
- Changed the date back
Incredible...
Last edited:
I know I'm likely yelling into the void here, but signing out of iCloud then back in on the device where the phantom tabs appear will likely fix your issue. The problem is that the CloudTabs.db file that Safari is using on your phone is corrupted and needs to be deleted/rewritten. Signing out and then back into iCloud will do this.
This has hurt me before. I’ve lost message threads and photos from doing this. So, again, what works for one person might not work for another.
THIS WORKS!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH FOR POSTING THIS!!!!
YESSSSS IT WORKED!!! Thank you iStorm. After months of despair (mild annoyance) - I've made an account on Macrumours specifically to say thank you.
Had to make both devices go forward in time for it to work but it worked wonderfully and continued to do so as soon as I returned to "Set Automatically".
For me it’s just broken, it seems.
Thanks for the tip! Probably the most promising for now...
But when I did this on my iPhone, all iCloud Tabs disappeared on that device, but when resetting the time to the correct time, they didn’t return and so far still haven’t. My iPad is still showing a lot of phantom tabs from my iPhone, even doing the same procedure on the iPad doesn’t remove them.
Meanwhile, my iPad has disappeared on all other devices 🥴 The MacBook still seems to sync tabs from my phone, but with a looot of lag. This is just crazy. Doesn’t Apple use their own services?
Thanks for the tip! Probably the most promising for now...
But when I did this on my iPhone, all iCloud Tabs disappeared on that device, but when resetting the time to the correct time, they didn’t return and so far still haven’t. My iPad is still showing a lot of phantom tabs from my iPhone, even doing the same procedure on the iPad doesn’t remove them.
Meanwhile, my iPad has disappeared on all other devices 🥴 The MacBook still seems to sync tabs from my phone, but with a looot of lag. This is just crazy. Doesn’t Apple use their own services?
OMFG after months of frustration iStorm's solution worked for me too. THANK YOU
I had the phantom tab issue months ago and the date change fixed it.
But since upgrading to iOS 15 my iPhone tabs don’t sync to my iPad or iMac. My iMac and iPad tabs sync, but nothing from the phone on either. Date change on my phone didn’t help. It’s all so stupid.
But since upgrading to iOS 15 my iPhone tabs don’t sync to my iPad or iMac. My iMac and iPad tabs sync, but nothing from the phone on either. Date change on my phone didn’t help. It’s all so stupid.
Thanks! This worked for me temporarily, but after a few hours a new phantom tab from my macOS Safari showed up in my iOS Safari again. I delete it, but then when iOS Safari reopens, it's back. Still, at least this is a quicker way to clear out existing phantoms than other suggestions (logging out of iCloud etc).
I could be wrong, but I think the phantom tabs only tend to occur when I close the only tab in a macOS Safari window from within iOS Safari. Closing a macOS Safari tab from within iOS Safari doesn't seem to turn it into a phantom, as long as there are other tabs still open in the same macOS Safari window at the time.
Incredible indeed! I was sure the issue was on the Mac's side, but decided to try this and it worked.
Thank you SO much.
I’m not having issues with iCloud tabs syncing other than an issue where periodically the Mac won’t show updates until Safari is quit and restarted.
I am seeing a problem with iCloud tab groups. Any changes I make on my Mac show up fairly quickly on my iPhone and iPad, but changes I make on those two devices don’t show up on the Mac. They do sync to each other, but not to the Mac. What’s worse is that the Mac’s old tabs sync back to the iPhone and iPad if I open the tab group on the Mac.
I am seeing a problem with iCloud tab groups. Any changes I make on my Mac show up fairly quickly on my iPhone and iPad, but changes I make on those two devices don’t show up on the Mac. They do sync to each other, but not to the Mac. What’s worse is that the Mac’s old tabs sync back to the iPhone and iPad if I open the tab group on the Mac.