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iPhone Reminders on iOS/iPadOS not syncing to/from iCloud/other devices

Jason_G

Jason_G

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 24, 2009
126
57
London, UK
Hi,

I've noticed that since around 29th Jan my Reminders no longer sync from my iPhone 11 Pro to/from iCloud and therefore to my iMac.

I upgraded my Reminders on my iPhone when iOS 13 was released in September and iMac when Catalina was released.

I've tried all the usual things Apple would typically recommend (I await a reply to this with their standard response directing me to their standard template article on these kind of issues, but I've already been through them all!)

This issue persists with the following troubleshooting I've tried.
  • Signed out of iCloud and back in on my iPhone 11 Pro
  • Signed in to another device (iPhone 6s) as a new iPhone (NOT restored from a backup)
  • Signed in to another device (iPad Air 2) as a new device (NOT restored from a backup)
  • Signed in to another device (iPhone 8) as a new iPhone (NOT restored from a backup)

  • Tried turning Reminders off under the iCloud settings on all of those devices (waited approx 30 mins, turned phone off/on). Then turned back on again and waited DAYS (even tried not allowing the device to auto-lock the screen after a minute to give it full focus/priority on the device).
  • Tried uninstalling the Reminders app and reinstalling (waited approx 30 mins, turned phone off/on in between).
  • Tried creating new lists and reminders across various devices but that still doesn't help trigger anything positive. Any reminders and/or lists I create or updated between my iMac and iCloud.com are fine and sync within seconds.
A few of the times some Reminders do initially come back down in the scenarios above but not recent ones. Most of the Reminder lists do not show with their correct names either, they just appear as 'New List'.

This issue also persists regardless of me being on my wi-fi connection at home or 4G on EE.

I have been using Reminders for years and had therefore accumulated many 'completed' reminders, which as advised by Apple, I have now deleted.

Apparently, this has become an issue that engineers are aware of and I am to wait for them to provide a fix, but I am not convinced that is the case, given that I can not find anyone on this forum or anywhere else I've looked, with the same issue.

This issue persisted across iOS 13.3 & 13.3.1.

I first noticed this when my Apple Watch Series 4 battery was draining rapidly all of a sudden for about a week since that 27th Jan. That seemed to have settled down, but this sync issue still remains. Apple Watch shows a different number of Reminders to my iPhone too, and they both show a different number to my iMac/iCloud.com.

Anyone else with this specific issue, especially in the last month or so?

Cheers
 
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Same issues here.
Such a shame, as I use the reminders app a lot.
Next to the syncing issue, I've been experiencing serious battery drain, even though on screen time of the app is quite low (even in battery saving mode).
reminders.png
 
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Thanks, good to know others are affected too. Yes I have battery drain issues on my phone and watch, looking at the watch logs I can see remindd as contributing so it clearly is trying to do something in the background but not getting very far. Every few days I notice a slight change in the overall number of reminders and maybe even one of the lists gets updated from 'New List' to the name of the list it should be.

Really annoying as I have become quite dependent on Reminders syncing across devices.
 
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Exactly the same here.
I just wish they'll be able to fix it soon, because I don't want to end up with another 'to do' app.
It's been ok in the past, how did they screw this up?

Side note: has this been reported yet?
 
iOnAsJ said:
Exactly the same here.
I just wish they'll be able to fix it soon, because I don't want to end up with another 'to do' app.
It's been ok in the past, how did they screw this up?

Side note: has this been reported yet?
Click to expand...

The entire rewrite of Reminders doesn't seem to have gone too well. It's limited, but worked well for me before that.

I raised this as an Apple support case and was told that it has been reported by other people so they're aware of it. All that meant though, was that they would no longer help me fix it.

I'm still not convinced that a fix will appear anytime soon, as I can not seem to find anyone else on any other forums with the same issue. Thankful in a way that you're having the issue just so I know I'm not alone!

Have you reported it to them as a support case?
 
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My wife's iPad and iPhone stopped syncing Reminders with eachother a few days ago. The problem lies in icloud. If we goto icloud.com and look at her reminders there, they are WAY different that what is on her devices.

How can I get the icloud.com version of Reminders to kind of resync with at least one of her devices?
 
I've have the same problem across all my apple device, after some research and lot of test, i've figured that the problem is caused by the reminders upgrade, if I login with new appleId account, reminders works well , the process monitor in mac os show a normal usage. But if I switch back to my old appleId account, the problem is back.

My only solution is to turn off the iCloud reminders.

Switch to new iCloud account is a lot of pain, I really don't new what to do, I'm not sure if apple support can do something about it, I need to talk to a senior advisor to hope a fix in my iCloud account. For now that it, any thought anyone ???
 
It is unbelievable to me that a company as large and wealthy as Apple cannot fix this problem that has screwed so many people over in such a long period of time. And we don’t even have the option of using more than one iCloud account. I’ve used Reminders extensively and now I am still at a loss for a worthy substitute. Come on Apple get with it.
 
matyqb said:
I've have the same problem across all my apple device, after some research and lot of test, i've figured that the problem is caused by the reminders upgrade, if I login with new appleId account, reminders works well , the process monitor in mac os show a normal usage. But if I switch back to my old appleId account, the problem is back.

My only solution is to turn off the iCloud reminders.

Switch to new iCloud account is a lot of pain, I really don't new what to do, I'm not sure if apple support can do something about it, I need to talk to a senior advisor to hope a fix in my iCloud account. For now that it, any thought anyone ???
Click to expand...

Did yours break as soon as you upgraded? Mine was working fine after upgrading and only stopped working around the end of Jan

I raised a support case with Apple and was told it would be fixed in a future update, which means nothing really, could be iOS 14 for all I know!
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frjps said:
It is unbelievable to me that a company as large and wealthy as Apple cannot fix this problem that has screwed so many people over in such a long period of time. And we don’t even have the option of using more than one iCloud account. I’ve used Reminders extensively and now I am still at a loss for a worthy substitute. Come on Apple get with it.
Click to expand...

Do you have the exact same issue as I've described above? I take some consolation knowing that others have the same problem at least.
 
It's a beautiful app and I tried my best to use it but,
  • This sync issue
  • no integration between calendar
issues made me switch to Todoist(Student discount, paying 2-3€ for 2 people and have google cal sync to shown my tasks on google calendar, removed after I complete)
 
Just a theory, but do any of you experiencing the same issue use third party apps for calendars or Reminders that use your AppleID?

I use Fantastical on my iMac and iPhone, I wonder if that has done something to contribute to the issue. Although, using the same AppleID on a clean iOS on a separate iPhone didn't help kick things into life either so maybe it's irrelevant.

Was considering uninstalling them from all devices but not sure it'll make any difference.
 
Jason_G said:
Just a theory, but do any of you experiencing the same issue use third party apps for calendars or Reminders that use your AppleID?

I use Fantastical on my iMac and iPhone, I wonder if that has done something to contribute to the issue. Although, using the same AppleID on a clean iOS on a separate iPhone didn't help kick things into life either so maybe it's irrelevant.

Was considering uninstalling them from all devices but not sure it'll make any difference.
Click to expand...

Same issue here, and indeed using Fantastical on iMac, iPhone and iPad. iMac is only device currently correctly syncing reminders with iCloud and updating in near real time. Tried every suggestion, to no avail. Will now try to uninstall Fantastical on iPad and see if it makes a difference.
 
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Jan Stevens said:
Same issue here, and indeed using Fantastical on iMac, iPhone and iPad. iMac is only device currently correctly syncing reminders with iCloud and updating in near real time. Tried every suggestion, to no avail. Will now try to uninstall Fantastical on iPad and see if it makes a difference.
Click to expand...

Very interested to hear how you get on, I think you'd want to give it a few days to a week to be sure of any difference either way, feels like the whole Reminders sync process has more to it behind the scenes and perhaps certain things only happen once a day etc.

I'm going to try and do the same thing later today (sign out/remove AppleID/iCloud accounts from Fantastical across all platforms, uninstall) and give it until next weekend see if it helps in any way
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Anyone else reported this to Apple through a formal support case? Got any other useful info from them to set expectations?
 
Patrick Mitchell said:
Jason_G, I am having the exact same issues. Reported to Apple, still no fix. Patience is wearing thin...:mad:
Click to expand...

Did they at least acknowledge it as a known issue that they're actively trying to resolve?

Was hoping a fresh attempt to turn Reminders off in iCloud on my iPhone and then wait a few days, then re-enable would do the trick now that I've been on 13.4 for a while, same old thing.

One thing I have noticed is that it gets to the same total amount under the 'All' category, but still doesn't go any further and doesn't name the numerous lists I have, they are all just set as 'New List'.

Whatever has happened must have happened at a point in time and it just won't sync anything since then.
 
Do you have any MacOS devices? I have both a MBP and and a MacMini. Reminders works fine on both of them. My iOS / iPadOS devices are the ones not working. The "totals" on my iPhone / iPad are both well short (77 on them vs 101 on my MacOS devices).

The Apple tech I had been working with did acknowledge an issue, but I sent him a note last week after the 13.4 update and he has not responded. That worries me.
[automerge]1586187872[/automerge]
Oh and one more interesting anomaly: The shared lists that my wife has created -- those are up to date on my iOS devices! Like you, most if not all of my lists are just "New List".
 
Patrick Mitchell said:
Do you have any MacOS devices? I have both a MBP and and a MacMini. Reminders works fine on both of them. My iOS / iPadOS devices are the ones not working. The "totals" on my iPhone / iPad are both well short (77 on them vs 101 on my MacOS devices).

The Apple tech I had been working with did acknowledge an issue, but I sent him a note last week after the 13.4 update and he has not responded. That worries me.
[automerge]1586187872[/automerge]
Oh and one more interesting anomaly: The shared lists that my wife has created -- those are up to date on my iOS devices! Like you, most if not all of my lists are just "New List".
Click to expand...

Yep all good on my iMac.

I think they're pretty quick to close off calls if they can so it helps their resolution stats.

I'll get mine to create a new Shared List and see if that works too.

The one and only good thing is that others like you have the same issue, but what is worrying is that it doesn't seem to be many people and clearly no fix in over 2 months!
 
I'm having the same issue as you guys. Once thing I have noticed though is that randomly reminders will sync fine. Then just as you get excited, BANG! the sync has gone again!

This issue also applies to Calendar notifications if you Snooze them.

Edit: Try this guys - when you have a new reminder alert on any device, click Remind me in 5 minutes, chances are it won't sync across devices, then send yourself an email to the address linked to the same account. You might then see that the reminder alteration will sync across devices.

Let me know how your results.
 
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