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

[Jason_G]

I raised this again with Apple support last Tuesday (after initially raising it with them in February). Not heard anything since then but will update here if there’s any progress. Even providing a link to this thread to show that others are affected too!

 

[rjpalumbo24]

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

I have literally the same issue as you, as well as basically every issue reported by everyone else in this thread. I have tried everything everyone else has tried with absolutely no luck.



currently running iOS 14, iPadOS 14, watchOS 7.0.2, and the latest macOS Big Sur public beta.

My most recent attempt is as follows:

1. Deleted all reminders from iCloud, and edited to confirm all reminders disappeared from iCloud on Mac an iPad

2. Turned off Reminders in iCloud for all devices

3. Deleted Reminders app from iPhone (and consequently Apple Watch) and iPad

4. Reinstalled Reminders on iPhone

5. Manually replaced all lists and reminders

6. Turned Reminders in iCloud back on, and “merged” local reminders with iCloud

7. Turned Reminders in iCloud back on on iPad and Mac

So at this point, while on my work network (which doesn’t always play nice with iCloud) it took about 2 h for Reminders to sync to Mac and iCloud.com. Nothing synced to iPad. Originally about half of these new reminders synced to Apple Watch, but then the synced lists and reminders disappeared, and were replaced with a”Reminders” list, which also showed up as a local list on iPhone. Making any changes to this list synced to Apple Watch within a minute or so (which makes sense, since Apple Watch for whatever asinine reason gets Reminders from iPhone, not iCloud directly). Anyway, I went home, and turned Reminders in iCloud off and back on on iPad and Mac, and now my new lists and reminders synced almost instantaneously. However, making a test reminder on every device (e.g. “Testing from iPhone”) did not sync. If I repeated turning Reminders in iCloud off and back on again on iPad and Mac, *sometimes* changes made to lists on iPhone would sync; on other attempts no changes within the past hour or more would sync (though I have not tried since, to spare what little remains of my sanity vis a vis this issue). And still, no reminders in iCloud have yet synced to my Apple Watch. I may try uninstalling and reinstalling on iPhone to see if that sparks anything on Apple Watch again, but I doubt it would last.

So basically what I’ve found is that Reminders *can* sync to at least iPad and Mac after turning Reminders in iCloud off and back on again, but after those initial reminders sync, all subsequent changes on any device are not synced to the cloud.

I’ll also mention that while I probably had minor issues before the iOS 13/macOS Catalina Reminders app upgrade, this has been basically the norm for the past year: if I stick with one device (iPhone, obviously), then the Reminders app works flawlessly. Asking it to work with others devices, is asking for a hole in your head.

All that said, I may just switch to using local reminders, as at least that seems to be compatible with Apple Watch, and admittedly iPhone and Apple Watch are the devices I use 99% of the time for managing reminders.

Still—it’s the principle of the thing.

What truly concerns me is that others here are finding that creating a new Apple ID solves this issue…I sure hope that doesn’t mean that certain folks’ Apple IDs are irreparably corrupted…

I’ll be watching this thread in case anybody has any breakthroughs.

If only Todoist didn’t require premium for Notifications, then I’d probably be OK—syncs instantly to Apple Watch, as one would hope. But at $3.99/month until Apple fixes this…it might be worth it

 

[rjpalumbo24]

I have literally the same issue as you, as well as basically every issue reported by everyone else in this thread. I have tried everything everyone else has tried with absolutely no luck.



currently running iOS 14, iPadOS 14, watchOS 7.0.2, and the latest macOS Big Sur public beta.

My most recent attempt is as follows:

1. Deleted all reminders from iCloud, and edited to confirm all reminders disappeared from iCloud on Mac an iPad

2. Turned off Reminders in iCloud for all devices

3. Deleted Reminders app from iPhone (and consequently Apple Watch) and iPad

4. Reinstalled Reminders on iPhone

5. Manually replaced all lists and reminders

6. Turned Reminders in iCloud back on, and “merged” local reminders with iCloud

7. Turned Reminders in iCloud back on on iPad and Mac

So at this point, while on my work network (which doesn’t always play nice with iCloud) it took about 2 h for Reminders to sync to Mac and iCloud.com. Nothing synced to iPad. Originally about half of these new reminders synced to Apple Watch, but then the synced lists and reminders disappeared, and were replaced with a”Reminders” list, which also showed up as a local list on iPhone. Making any changes to this list synced to Apple Watch within a minute or so (which makes sense, since Apple Watch for whatever asinine reason gets Reminders from iPhone, not iCloud directly). Anyway, I went home, and turned Reminders in iCloud off and back on on iPad and Mac, and now my new lists and reminders synced almost instantaneously. However, making a test reminder on every device (e.g. “Testing from iPhone”) did not sync. If I repeated turning Reminders in iCloud off and back on again on iPad and Mac, *sometimes* changes made to lists on iPhone would sync; on other attempts no changes within the past hour or more would sync (though I have not tried since, to spare what little remains of my sanity vis a vis this issue). And still, no reminders in iCloud have yet synced to my Apple Watch. I may try uninstalling and reinstalling on iPhone to see if that sparks anything on Apple Watch again, but I doubt it would last.

So basically what I’ve found is that Reminders *can* sync to at least iPad and Mac after turning Reminders in iCloud off and back on again, but after those initial reminders sync, all subsequent changes on any device are not synced to the cloud.

I’ll also mention that while I probably had minor issues before the iOS 13/macOS Catalina Reminders app upgrade, this has been basically the norm for the past year: if I stick with one device (iPhone, obviously), then the Reminders app works flawlessly. Asking it to work with others devices, is asking for a hole in your head.

All that said, I may just switch to using local reminders, as at least that seems to be compatible with Apple Watch, and admittedly iPhone and Apple Watch are the devices I use 99% of the time for managing reminders.

Still—it’s the principle of the thing.

What truly concerns me is that others here are finding that creating a new Apple ID solves this issue…I sure hope that doesn’t mean that certain folks’ Apple IDs are irreparably corrupted…

I’ll be watching this thread in case anybody has any breakthroughs.

If only Todoist didn’t require premium for Notifications, then I’d probably be OK—syncs instantly to Apple Watch, as one would hope. But at $3.99/month until Apple fixes this…it might be worth it

Just to update, while all of the above is true, since I mainly use my iPhone and Apple Watch for reminders, I turned Reminders off in iCloud, and then just recreated all my reminders locally. As one would hope, the syncing between Apple Watch and iPhone or these reminders (new, completed, etc) is instantaneous.

Moreover, battery drain on both devices has been alleviated. By Apple Watch would routinely go from 100% to 0% in 5-7 h, even without actually using it for anything. Now my apppe watch loses battery at a consistent 3.9%/h with everyday use, which is spectacular if you assume about 16-17 h of wear/day. I haven’t calculated it for iPhone since my usage of that varies drastically daily, but I can tell that the battery drain is nevertheless reduced.

So it seems that indeed, Reminders in iCloud are not only somehow corrected for me (see my OP), but the source of the battery drain. Turning off just this component of iCloud restores the devices to within or above advertised usage parameters.

All that said, I may still spring for Todoist, if I feel I need reminders on iPad and Mac.

 

[Jason_G]

Just to update, while all of the above is true, since I mainly use my iPhone and Apple Watch for reminders, I turned Reminders off in iCloud, and then just recreated all my reminders locally. As one would hope, the syncing between Apple Watch and iPhone or these reminders (new, completed, etc) is instantaneous.

Moreover, battery drain on both devices has been alleviated. By Apple Watch would routinely go from 100% to 0% in 5-7 h, even without actually using it for anything. Now my apppe watch loses battery at a consistent 3.9%/h with everyday use, which is spectacular if you assume about 16-17 h of wear/day. I haven’t calculated it for iPhone since my usage of that varies drastically daily, but I can tell that the battery drain is nevertheless reduced.

So it seems that indeed, Reminders in iCloud are not only somehow corrected for me (see my OP), but the source of the battery drain. Turning off just this component of iCloud restores the devices to within or above advertised usage parameters.

All that said, I may still spring for Todoist, if I feel I need reminders on iPad and Mac.

Hi just trying to make sense of this, are you saying that you deleted all reminders on all devices and in iCloud.com and then manually created them again, they now sync across devices and iCloud.com?

If so, did you export your reminders first? I have a few with alerts/notifications including a few recurring reminders so this would be handy if possible. From what I’ve read this option was removed in Catalina 🙄

 

[rjpalumbo24]

Hi just trying to make sense of this, are you saying that you deleted all reminders on all devices and in iCloud.com and then manually created them again, they now sync across devices and iCloud.com?

If so, did you export your reminders first? I have a few with assets including a few recurring reminders so this would be handy if possible. From what I’ve read this option was removed in Catalina 🙄

Sorry for the confusion. I am *not* using Reminders in iCloud. After all the goofing around I did, I left them in iCloud, just in case some miraculous day it works for me again—but turned it off on all devices. Now when I add reminders to iPhone, they’re just stored on the device, and since watchOS currently (and stupidly) can only get reminders from iPhone, those local reminders on iPhone also sync to Apple Watch. So basically, I’ve just decided to concede and use (local) Reminders on iPhone and Apple Watch only. Mac and iPad (and iCloud.com) were still completely out of sync, and this was causing battery drain on these devices as well [I should mention it was also affecting iPad and MacBook battery, but with Reminders in iCloud turned off, they have much better battery use).

Also, indeed: reminders cannot be exported. In fact, you *must* merge local reminders when turning reminders in iCloud back on, or conversely, you must delete all iCloud reminders when turning it off—unlike say contacts or calendar, which gives you the option (or used to, I haven’t checked) which allows you to just keep iCloud events and contacts stored locally.

All that said: yes, after turning off Reminders in iCloud, I had to manually renter all 52 of my recurring reminders (which at this point I could essentially do from memory since I’ve done it so many times).

 

[Jason_G]

Sorry for the confusion. I am *not* using Reminders in iCloud. After all the goofing around I did, I left them in iCloud, just in case some miraculous day it works for me again—but turned it off on all devices. Now when I add reminders to iPhone, they’re just stored on the device, and since watchOS currently (and stupidly) can only get reminders from iPhone, those local reminders on iPhone also sync to Apple Watch. So basically, I’ve just decided to concede and use (local) Reminders on iPhone and Apple Watch only. Mac and iPad (and iCloud.com) were still completely out of sync, and this was causing battery drain on these devices as well [I should mention it was also affecting iPad and MacBook battery, but with Reminders in iCloud turned off, they have much better battery use).

Also, indeed: reminders cannot be exported. In fact, you *must* merge local reminders when turning reminders in iCloud back on, or conversely, you must delete all iCloud reminders when turning it off—unlike say contacts or calendar, which gives you the option (or used to, I haven’t checked) which allows you to just keep iCloud events and contacts stored locally.

All that said: yes, after turning off Reminders in iCloud, I had to manually renter all 52 of my recurring reminders (which at this point I could essentially do from memory since I’ve done it so many times).

haha ok understood, I can see why you’ve settled with the local reminders actually. For me, I don’t use reminders on my watch at all, I ‘need’ them to sync between my iMac and iPhone so I’m still suffering this issue for about 9 months now. Sudden battery drain on my watch is what alerted me to this issue in the first place and I still notice it now and then so I just restart my watch to get it out of whatever loop is causing it. I now wonder just how much it must be affecting my iPhone battery though, not out and about much these days so hard to tell but likely draining that too

 

[rjpalumbo24]

haha ok understood, I can see why you’ve settled with the local reminders actually. For me, I don’t use reminders on my watch at all, I ‘need’ them to sync between my iMac and iPhone so I’m still suffering this issue for about 9 months now

I truly feel your pain. I’ve been messing with the free version of Todoist. Very good with language recognition (or whatever it’s called) and syncing is seamless. Of course you have to get premium to actually get notifications at the time of a reminder—otherwise you’d have to just keep checking the app to make sure you’re not missing anything. But if anything at this point I’d pay for premium just to feel like I was biting my thumb at Apple—even though that in the grand scheme of things accomplishes nothing save to improve my sanity at the expense of a few bucks a month. How this is still going on umpteen iOS updates later AND with iOS 14.1, again, makes me worry that this is due to corruption to my iCloud account/Apple ID…which hopefully is not permanent.

 

[Jason_G]

Sorry for the confusion. I am *not* using Reminders in iCloud. After all the goofing around I did, I left them in iCloud, just in case some miraculous day it works for me again—but turned it off on all devices. Now when I add reminders to iPhone, they’re just stored on the device, and since watchOS currently (and stupidly) can only get reminders from iPhone, those local reminders on iPhone also sync to Apple Watch. So basically, I’ve just decided to concede and use (local) Reminders on iPhone and Apple Watch only. Mac and iPad (and iCloud.com) were still completely out of sync, and this was causing battery drain on these devices as well [I should mention it was also affecting iPad and MacBook battery, but with Reminders in iCloud turned off, they have much better battery use).

Also, indeed: reminders cannot be exported. In fact, you *must* merge local reminders when turning reminders in iCloud back on, or conversely, you must delete all iCloud reminders when turning it off—unlike say contacts or calendar, which gives you the option (or used to, I haven’t checked) which allows you to just keep iCloud events and contacts stored locally.

All that said: yes, after turning off Reminders in iCloud, I had to manually renter all 52 of my recurring reminders (which at this point I could essentially do from memory since I’ve done it so many times).

haha the irony of you having to remember your reminders! I have about 400 across numerous lists

 

[rjpalumbo24]

haha the irony of you remember your reminders! I have about 400 across numerous lists

And now I see why my compromise couldn’t work for you anyway—with no way to export reminders…you’d have to input 400 duplicates. How lousy. Can’t even export reminders. What kind of nonsense is that??

 

[Jason_G]

I truly feel your pain. I’ve been messing with the free version of Todoist. Very good with language recognition (or whatever it’s called) and syncing is seamless. Of course you have to get premium to actually get notifications at the time of a reminder—otherwise you’d have to just keep checking the app to make sure you’re not missing anything. But if anything at this point I’d pay for premium just to feel like I was biting my thumb at Apple—even though that in the grand scheme of things accomplishes nothing save to improve my sanity at the expense of a few bucks a month. How this is still going on umpteen iOS updates later AND with iOS 14.1, again, makes me worry that this is due to corruption to my iCloud account/Apple ID…which hopefully is not permanent.

Yep agree. Hoping to get my iPhone 12 Pro tomorrow so I’ll give that a bit of time to sync, for what it’s worth and chase my support case on Monday which will have been almost two weeks since raising and yet without any progress or update

 

[Jason_G]

And now I see why my compromise couldn’t work for you anyway—with no way to export reminders…you’d have to input 400 duplicates. How lousy. Can’t even export reminders. What kind of nonsense is that??

exactly! also worrying was when requesting my data, the section I was able to download for reminders (which happens to come with calendars) showed warnings/errors so I fear there’s probably something not right with my reminders in iCloud.com either of their own process to export my data can’t see all these items.

if I knew deleting all and recreating would fix the issue I’d actually take the time out to do it, maybe I’ll just screenshot them but just find the whole thing so annoying, especially given how well this feature worked in the past and all gone wrong some after the reminders upgrade

 

[rjpalumbo24]

Yep agree. Hoping to get my iPhone 12 Pro tomorrow so I’ll give that a bit of time to sync, for what it’s worth and chase my support case on Monday which will have been almost two weeks since raising and yet without any progress or update

I have given up on Apple Support. I also have the issue where my MacBook hangs if I try to turn in “unlock with Apple Watch” only for it to say my watch isn’t on, isn’t unlocked, and my iPhone isn’t unlocked—which is not the case for any of those requirements. I’d already tried the usual suspects but they were stumped. Turns out deleting ~/Library/Shared/AutoUpdate, as well as any Keychain files named “autoupdate” or “auto update” fixes the issue. Found it on some obscure forum from a post from years ago. I mean, I guess Support can’t know what they themselves haven’t fixed but. Come on. You’re a multi billion dollar company that doesn’t have a knowledge base of how to fix simple device communication issues?

 

[rjpalumbo24]

exactly! also worrying was when requesting my data, the section I was able to download for reminders (which happens to come with calendars) showed warnings/errors so I fear there’s probably something not right with my reminders in iCloud.com either of their own process to export my data can’t see all these items.

if I knew deleting all and recreating would fix the issue I’d actually take the time out to do it, maybe I’ll just screenshot them but just find the whole thing so annoying, especially given how well this feature worked in the past and all gone wrong some after the reminders upgrade

I honestly wouldn’t touch a thing. I’d ride it out as long as your sanity holds and see if a fix ever comes down the pike—lest you lose those 400 reminders

 

[Jason_G]

I have given up on Apple Support. I also have the issue where my MacBook hangs if I try to turn in “unlock with Apple Watch” only for it to say my watch isn’t on, isn’t unlocked, and my iPhone isn’t unlocked—which is not the case for any of those requirements. I’d already tried the usual suspects but they were stumped. Turns out deleting ~/Library/Shared/AutoUpdate, as well as any Keychain files named “autoupdate” or “auto update” fixes the issue. Found it on some obscure forum from a post from years ago. I mean, I guess Support can’t know what they themselves haven’t fixed but. Come on. You’re a multi billion dollar company that doesn’t have a knowledge base of how to fix simple device communication issues?

i had exactly the same issue since a recent update and found exactly the same fix! (Think it was watchOS 7 that did it)
[automerge]1603410451[/automerge]

I honestly wouldn’t touch a thing. I’d ride it out as long as your sanity holds and see if a fix ever comes down the pike—lest you lose those 400 reminders

that’s my only concern, just don’t want to lose anything!

 

[rjpalumbo24]

i had exactly the same issue since a recent update and found exactly the same fix! (Think it was watchOS 7 that did it)

Oh wait you’re right. It wasn’t an old article. That was for something else—that I can’t remember. But yes the actual article I was thinking of: people started seeing weird sh*t in Console when trying to turn that feature on (which is how I identified some error messages that I could search for). And it seems the consensus is that it seems to have cropped up in one of the early watchOS 7 developer/public betas and was never fixed. It is also still not fixed in watchOS 7.0.2 because every time I unpair and repair, I have to go through the rigamarole again

 

[Jason_G]

Oh wait you’re right. It wasn’t an old article. That was for something else—that I can’t remember. But yes the actual article I was thinking of: people started seeing weird sh*t in Console when trying to turn that feature on (which is how I identified some error messages that I could search for). And it seems the consensus is that it seems to have cropped up in one of the early watchOS 7 developer/public betas and was never fixed. It is also still not fixed in watchOS 7.0.2 because every time I unpair and repair, I have to go through the rigamarole again

Oh great, so I’ll have to go through that again this weekend when I change my phone!

 

[pizzasauce]

Oh great, so I’ll have to go through that again this weekend when I change my phone!

I was having the exact same reminder problem as you and u/rjpalumbo24 and I was glad to see I’m not alone. I called Apple Support a few months ago and ultimately never received a resolution so I recreated my reminders in TickTick (also explored Todoist) since it was free and had notifications. Recently, I uncovered an issue where my iPhone storage was being dominated by “other” and the solution from Apple Support was to erase my phone and restore from iCloud back-up. So, I did that and it fixed the “storage” problem. However, it appears to also have fixed the reminder issue. I mainly use my iPhone for reminders, but also have my Watch, Mac Mini, and iPad synced and those all appear to be working, some more instantaneously than others. Just wanted to share my experience. Maybe setting up a new iPhone 12 Pro will help you with that process. Fingers crossed!

 

[Jason_G]

I was having the exact same reminder problem as you and u/rjpalumbo24 and I was glad to see I’m not alone. I called Apple Support a few months ago and ultimately never received a resolution so I recreated my reminders in TickTick (also explored Todoist) since it was free and had notifications. Recently, I uncovered an issue where my iPhone storage was being dominated by “other” and the solution from Apple Support was to erase my phone and restore from iCloud back-up. So, I did that and it fixed the “storage” problem. However, it appears to also have fixed the reminder issue. I mainly use my iPhone for reminders, but also have my Watch, Mac Mini, and iPad synced and those all appear to be working, some more instantaneously than others. Just wanted to share my experience. Maybe setting up a new iPhone 12 Pro will help you with that process. Fingers crossed!

Glad yours is sorted, although I’m not too hopeful. If you see my original post, I tried that with a few devices, so now I’m thinking it’s not just about whether there’s some form of corruption with the AppleID.. feels like it’s not even that simple as it was resolved for you with a backup/restore, some ppl just had to go to the iOS14 beta, some to the final release, and some like me have tried everything this thread has come up with, but still no joy! 😭

 

[iOnAsJ]

Oh wait you’re right. It wasn’t an old article. That was for something else—that I can’t remember. But yes the actual article I was thinking of: people started seeing weird sh*t in Console when trying to turn that feature on (which is how I identified some error messages that I could search for). And it seems the consensus is that it seems to have cropped up in one of the early watchOS 7 developer/public betas and was never fixed. It is also still not fixed in watchOS 7.0.2 because every time I unpair and repair, I have to go through the rigamarole again

Hi guys, sorry I join 'late' in the conversation, but what have you done exactly?
Do I understand well you've deleted your reminders, stopped using reminders via iCloud as there still seems to be a weird issue with the syncing?

I have to admit I'm not convinced this issue has been solved with the latest OS.
First of all, I've been experiencing very bad battery life with both my Watch S5 and now S6.
Secondly, from time to time reminders don't pop up the time there supposed to.
I'll wait for Watch OS 7.1, but if the issue isn't fixed then, I'll start using another reminders app as this is simply too frustrating.

 

[iOnAsJ]

I have literally the same issue as you, as well as basically every issue reported by everyone else in this thread. I have tried everything everyone else has tried with absolutely no luck.



currently running iOS 14, iPadOS 14, watchOS 7.0.2, and the latest macOS Big Sur public beta.

My most recent attempt is as follows:

1. Deleted all reminders from iCloud, and edited to confirm all reminders disappeared from iCloud on Mac an iPad

2. Turned off Reminders in iCloud for all devices

3. Deleted Reminders app from iPhone (and consequently Apple Watch) and iPad

4. Reinstalled Reminders on iPhone

5. Manually replaced all lists and reminders

6. Turned Reminders in iCloud back on, and “merged” local reminders with iCloud

7. Turned Reminders in iCloud back on on iPad and Mac

So at this point, while on my work network (which doesn’t always play nice with iCloud) it took about 2 h for Reminders to sync to Mac and iCloud.com. Nothing synced to iPad. Originally about half of these new reminders synced to Apple Watch, but then the synced lists and reminders disappeared, and were replaced with a”Reminders” list, which also showed up as a local list on iPhone. Making any changes to this list synced to Apple Watch within a minute or so (which makes sense, since Apple Watch for whatever asinine reason gets Reminders from iPhone, not iCloud directly). Anyway, I went home, and turned Reminders in iCloud off and back on on iPad and Mac, and now my new lists and reminders synced almost instantaneously. However, making a test reminder on every device (e.g. “Testing from iPhone”) did not sync. If I repeated turning Reminders in iCloud off and back on again on iPad and Mac, *sometimes* changes made to lists on iPhone would sync; on other attempts no changes within the past hour or more would sync (though I have not tried since, to spare what little remains of my sanity vis a vis this issue). And still, no reminders in iCloud have yet synced to my Apple Watch. I may try uninstalling and reinstalling on iPhone to see if that sparks anything on Apple Watch again, but I doubt it would last.

So basically what I’ve found is that Reminders *can* sync to at least iPad and Mac after turning Reminders in iCloud off and back on again, but after those initial reminders sync, all subsequent changes on any device are not synced to the cloud.

I’ll also mention that while I probably had minor issues before the iOS 13/macOS Catalina Reminders app upgrade, this has been basically the norm for the past year: if I stick with one device (iPhone, obviously), then the Reminders app works flawlessly. Asking it to work with others devices, is asking for a hole in your head.

All that said, I may just switch to using local reminders, as at least that seems to be compatible with Apple Watch, and admittedly iPhone and Apple Watch are the devices I use 99% of the time for managing reminders.

Still—it’s the principle of the thing.

What truly concerns me is that others here are finding that creating a new Apple ID solves this issue…I sure hope that doesn’t mean that certain folks’ Apple IDs are irreparably corrupted…

I’ll be watching this thread in case anybody has any breakthroughs.

If only Todoist didn’t require premium for Notifications, then I’d probably be OK—syncs instantly to Apple Watch, as one would hope. But at $3.99/month until Apple fixes this…it might be worth it

I exactly tried to do the same.
I use reminders quite often (e.g. groceries, but a lot of recurring tasks as well), so definitely worth the try. On top of that, I'm also convinced that I (and most of us?) the iPhone/Watch more than the iPad/Mac to keep reminders up to date.

I'll see what impact this might have on battery life/usage of the reminders app as well as the devices and will update this thread.

Side note: why can't Apple seem to solve this? It goes way back...

 

[rjpalumbo24]

I was having the exact same reminder problem as you and u/rjpalumbo24 and I was glad to see I’m not alone. I called Apple Support a few months ago and ultimately never received a resolution so I recreated my reminders in TickTick (also explored Todoist) since it was free and had notifications. Recently, I uncovered an issue where my iPhone storage was being dominated by “other” and the solution from Apple Support was to erase my phone and restore from iCloud back-up. So, I did that and it fixed the “storage” problem. However, it appears to also have fixed the reminder issue. I mainly use my iPhone for reminders, but also have my Watch, Mac Mini, and iPad synced and those all appear to be working, some more instantaneously than others. Just wanted to share my experience. Maybe setting up a new iPhone 12 Pro will help you with that process. Fingers crossed!

I DFUed my iPhone, set up as new—no dice. Wiped my MacBook Pro clean in recovery mode, reinstalled Catalina—no dice. Just did this with Big Sur beta 11; have not tested reminders yet, though I doubt it’ll work. Will report back if indeed it is corrected at least for Big Sur/iCloud.com compatibility

 

[pizzasauce]

I DFUed my iPhone, set up as new—no dice. Wiped my MacBook Pro clean in recovery mode, reinstalled Catalina—no dice. Just did this with Big Sur beta 11; have not tested reminders yet, though I doubt it’ll work. Will report back if indeed it is corrected at least for Big Sur/iCloud.com compatibility

This is just absolutely crazy that Apple can’t seem to resolve it seeing as so many people are having issues! I’m also not convinced my “fix” actually fixed the root cause either. I, too, am afraid that something may be corrupted with our AppleIDs/iCloud...

 

[iOnAsJ]

I’ve been trying out the workaround of @rjpalumbo24 and it actually seems to work!

Here’s what I’ve done:

1. Deleted all my reminders on every device (iPhone, iPad, MacBook)
2. Stopped syncing reminders in iCloud
3. Rebooted iPhone
4. Un-pair & re-pair the Watch.

The results so far are simply stunning.
Before, my Watch didn’t even last a day (approximately 12h standby, up to 2h of usage). AOD off.

Right now I have 49% battery left after 21h of standby and 2h30 usage. If this goes on, I’ve doubled my battery usage, AOD on!

Will share the results the next few days. If it seems stable, will share this with Apple to. I can imagine it might solve a lot of battery problems.

 

[Jason_G]

I’ve been trying out the workaround of [mention]rjpalumbo24 [/mention] and it actually seems to work!

Here’s what I’ve done:

1. Deleted all my reminders on every device (iPhone, iPad, MacBook)
2. Stopped syncing reminders in iCloud
3. Rebooted iPhone
4. Un-pair & re-pair the Watch.

The results so far are simply stunning.
Before, my Watch didn’t even last a day (approximately 12h standby, up to 2h of usage). AOD off.

Right now I have 49% battery left after 21h of standby and 2h30 usage. If this goes on, I’ve doubled my battery usage, AOD on!

Will share the results the next few days. If it seems stable, will share this with Apple to. I can imagine it might solve a lot of battery problems.

When you say stopped syncing reminders in iCloud, you mean disabling Reminders on all devices, right? (within iCloud settings on the device)
Also (maybe it's just too early on a Sunday morning for me), what does AOD mean? All other devices?
Doesn't the un-pair/re-pair process solve many normal battery issues anyway?
Lastly, are your reminders now syncing across all devices/iCloud.com ?

Feels like I should start looking at some kind of manual way of backing up my 400 reminders

 

[iOnAsJ]

When you say stopped syncing reminders in iCloud, you mean disabling Reminders on all devices, right? (within iCloud settings on the device)
Also (maybe it's just too early on a Sunday morning for me), what does AOD mean? All other devices?
Doesn't the un-pair/re-pair process solve many normal battery issues anyway?
Lastly, are your reminders now syncing across all devices/iCloud.com ?

Feels like I should start looking at some kind of manual way of backing up my 400 reminders

Yes, I’ve disabled the syncing of the Reminders app via the iCloud settings, after deleting them on all devices.

AOD refers to the Always On Display on the Apple Watch. Due to the serious battery drain, I thought I should disable it, but now it seems that the Reminders syncing issue caused this draining.

Apple indeed referred to the unpairing - re-pairing to solve current battery issues with the Watch. However, without doing anything else (cf. this reminders issue), it didn’t make an impact for me.

Correct, I stopped using the iCloud syncing for reminders for now, until they finally solve this problem that has been on for a while. Battery usability is more important to me than the syncing of reminders, mainly because I almost always use the reminders app on my iPhone.

Conclusion: definitely worth a try if you experience serious battery draining ánd you’re a Reminders app user. Even if you have all these reminders.