iOS 17.4 iCloud tabs syncing bug

[Morac]

iCloud tab syncing was working fine until I upgraded to iOS 17.4 on my iPad and iPhone and now the way it works has changed.

If i close Safari with tabs open it works the same way it used to. My other devices, including my Mac on 14.3.1 will show those tabs as iCloud tabs on my other device.

Now though, if I close all tabs and close Safari, instead of the other devices showing no open tabs on my device, it just shows the tabs that had been open.

Syncing isn’t broken per se as opening new tabs and closing Safari will remove the old tabs, but basically tabs won’t sync if there are no open tabs. Effectively that makes clearing out the closed tabs from other devices impossible. icloud tabs has effectively become currently open or recently open tabs.

Basically tabs only sync when at least one is open.

 

[Lee Eel]

I noticed this and I'm glad it's not just me!

 

[13paul13]

If it is indeed a change made by Apple and not a bug, I’m in the ‘dislike’ camp and hope for it to be restored to its previous way of working.

 

[gwang73]

I'm seeing the same issue. I can't remove the last closed tab in iCloud tabs, but they do sync when there are open tabs. Syncing isn't broken like before but definitely a behavior/bug change. Funny thing is tabs on Mac Safari sync perfectly. When there is no open tab in Mac Safari, nothing shows on iPhone or iPad.

Seems to be an iPhone/iPad issue at the moment.

 

[garethjs]

yes confirmed I just noticed this too. Finally after it was working for a couple of months its broken again

So ive tested this out

if I open 1 lonesome tab on iOS, it gets reflected as being open on my iOS device in safari on Mac OS

if I close that 1 tab on iOS, it stays open on MacOS

if I now open a new tab in iOS, it replaces it on macOS and updates accordingly

Now if I open several tabs in iOS, it updates macOS accordingly but I have to manually close each tab for it to be deleted in macOS but the last tab will still remain as being opened....

Now if I try to use the close all tabs option on iOS, none of the tabs get closed on MacOS

how do they implement this without noticing it doesn't work is beyond me

Thankfully it works in the opposite direction as in if I open a tab in safari on the Mac and close it iOS reflects accordingly.

 

[exi]

Also interested.

"BNN Breaking" linked in the OP appears to be an AI-driven, dubious website. But, since updating, my iOS 17.4 device's previous tabs still carry over to Ventura and Sonoma machines on the same Apple ID even though they're closed, and they cannot be permanently closed as of this post by right-click -> close on those machines as you can with iCloud tabs in general.

Bookmarks also are not currently syncing properly to the iOS device, but they are in sync on the desktop machines. Are others seeing this problem also?

 

[XRC771]

I can confirm the reported bug. It appeared after 17.4 update.
It was too good to be true...month of well functioning Safari tabs sync...gone 🤦‍♂️

The problems is somehow tied to iOS devices sync. Their synced tabs on Mac seem to be open forever even if they are not anymore.

 

[theDCbelle]

Want to add in here, with the iCloud syncing + overall iCloud Apple ID issues across the board since updated.

 

[XRC771]

The problems to me seems resolved, likely on the iCloud infrastrutture side.

 

[xpxp2002]

The problems to me seems resolved, likely on the iCloud infrastrutture side.

I just retested with my iPad. Still seeing the same behavior. The last tab/tabs open stick around in iCloud on other devices even after they’ve been closed.

 

[winburn]

Since updating ipads to 17.4 there has never ending problems syncing the Notebooks App to iCloud. it is some iCloud issue, it's amazing how such a huge company, with so many thousands of employees, and huge profits, can still create new OS that are problematic.

 

[exi]

Just curious if people are still seeing this persistence of iCloud tabs from a device. I am but just want to make sure it isn't something I can be working on myself / is a backend issue with Apple/iCloud.

 

[xpxp2002]

Just curious if people are still seeing this persistence of iCloud tabs from a device. I am but just want to make sure it isn't something I can be working on myself / is a backend issue with Apple/iCloud.

Yes. It's still an issue with 17.4.1.

Haven't heard if anyone on the 17.5 developer beta has verified whether it's fixed or not.

 

[twintin]

Since updating ipads to 17.4 there has never ending problems syncing the Notebooks App to iCloud. it is some iCloud issue, it's amazing how such a huge company, with so many thousands of employees, and huge profits, can still create new OS that are problematic.

I don't think issues magically decreases just by throwing more money an employees on a project (not from my experience with SW development). Solving issues are seldom that easy. But the complexity of writing services increases with number of users and code base size (scalability issues).

 

[Morac]

I don't think issues magically decreases just by throwing more money an employees on a project (not from my experience with SW development). Solving issues are seldom that easy. But the complexity of writing services increases with number of users and code base size (scalability issues).

iOS 17.4 was rushed out as there was deadline to release it set by the EU. It’s fairly obvious Apple didn’t want to push it out that early considering they didn’t push out the iOS 17.5 beta 1 until a month later. I’m hoping Apple has this fixed by iOS 17.5, though my guess is they aren’t even aware of the problem as it seems like the Apple engineers don’t even use the products they are working on.

 

[xpxp2002]

iOS 17.4 was rushed out as there was deadline to release it set by the EU. It’s fairly obvious Apple didn’t want to push it out that early considering they didn’t push out the iOS 17.5 beta 1 until a month later. I’m hoping Apple has this fixed by iOS 17.5, though my guess is they aren’t even aware of the problem as it seems like the Apple engineers don’t even use the products they are working on.

I just don't understand how they even break something like that in that way. I mean, there's no new functionality in iCloud Tabs between iOS 17.3 and 17.4. They shouldn't have even been touching it. Especially knowing how fickle iCloud Tabs has been in the past.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[Morac]

I just don't understand how they even break something like that in that way. I mean, there's no new functionality in iCloud Tabs between iOS 17.3 and 17.4. They shouldn't have even been touching it. Especially knowing how fickle iCloud Tabs has been in the past.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Apple had to redo a lot of browser related stuff because the EU mandated that 3rd party browsers be allowed to use a rendering engine other than WebKit. That could explain how they broke it.

Plus Apple software people don’t seem to be as good as they used to be. They broke a lot of stuff in both iOS 17.4 and MacOS 14.4.

 

[Lee Eel]

Just curious if people are still seeing this persistence of iCloud tabs from a device. I am but just want to make sure it isn't something I can be working on myself / is a backend issue with Apple/iCloud.

I still see this. But the frustration is far lower as I turned off iCloud tabs from the start page settings

 

[scouser75]

I still see this. But the frustration is far lower as I turned off iCloud tabs from the start page settings

How do you turn off icloud tabs?

 

[Lee Eel]

How do you turn off icloud tabs?

For iPad and iPhone. It’s not really turning them off as such, they are still there, and still work as described in this thread. But I simply can’t see them and in turn can’t be frustrated by this.

 

[BriceApp]

I have 17.5b1 on both my iPad and iPhone and I think they fixed this. iCloud tabs match what is open and then they disappear when the tab is closed on the other device.

 

[gank41]

Regardless of however which way I've been able to "fix" my iCloud Tabs issues over the last couple years, it happens again and I end up getting a number of phantom tabs on one or all of my 4 devices. Try and close tab, boom- it pops right back up. In some cases the phantom tab is a specific Macrumors Post which helps pinpoint the date it occurred. And so far the only consistent "fix" has been restoring "the device" until it happens again.

 

[scouser75]

Can someone confirm please if I'm doing the correct thing to save Bookmarks to a Bookmark tab. When I did this a couple of weeks ago the tabs would save,but not any more.

Click Add Bookmark and then select the tab you wish to save to and then Save?

 

[scouser75]

And a new annoyance with Tabs has cropped up!

I just went to edit my Favourites and noticed all the Tabs I was trying to save under Tabbed Favourites "Stairs" have gone straight to my Favourites section.

As I was constantly trying to find a fix to get these Tabs to go to "stairs", I now have a fair few saved in Favourites. But when I go to delete them, they don't delete.

 

[blotchy-veil]

I'm seeing the same issue. I can't remove the last closed tab in iCloud tabs, but they do sync when there are open tabs. Syncing isn't broken like before but definitely a behavior/bug change. Funny thing is tabs on Mac Safari sync perfectly. When there is no open tab in Mac Safari, nothing shows on iPhone or iPad.

Seems to be an iPhone/iPad issue at the moment.

+1 macOS Safari is working correctly, it's only iOS/iPadOS that's broken syncing.