Screen Time sharing across devices is a mess

[Mack87]

So, I have a problem with Screen Time on my devices - iPhone 13 running iOS 15.1 and iPad Air 4 with iPadOS 15.1. The feature is extremely inconsistent across my devices. For example, I used my phone for 1,5 hour, but Screen Time on my iPad shows only 55 minutes. The other way around is even worse - tha tablet was used for 2,5 hours today, but iPhone tells me that it was only 15 minutes! Tried rebooting devices, turning Screen Time and its sharing on both, but nothing seems to help. Dunno if it started with iOS/iPadOS 15, didn’t really need the feature before.

Anyone else experiencing same issues?

 

[Mack87]

Any ideas, ladies and gents?

 

[TimFL1]

All I know is that Screen Time takes a while to propagate here and it also doesn‘t refresh that often, requiring you to open the Screen Time settings pane to force an update.

 

[Mack87]

The problem still persists. Anyone also noticed it?

 

[Morac]

It was working somewhat for me, but since erasing my iPad and iPhone and restoring an icloud backup it’s completely broken. My MBA (12.2.1) can only see data from my iPhone. My iPad (15.3.1) can only see data from my MBA. Only my iPhone (15.3.1) can see data from both my iPad and MBA.

 

[Morac]

It was working somewhat for me, but since erasing my iPad and iPhone and restoring an icloud backup it’s completely broken. My MBA (12.2.1) can only see data from my iPhone. My iPad (15.3.1) can only see data from my MBA. Only my iPhone (15.3.1) can see data from both my iPad and MBA.

Apple appears to have finally fixed this.

After upgrading my iPhone to iOS 16 I noticed its data started showing up on my iPad. My MBA could only see my phone, but after the iPad upgraded to iPadOS 16.1, it’s data started showing up on my MBA (Yosemite), though i had to reboot my Mac to get it to update Screen time data.

 

[garethjs]

No they haven't

I have 3 devices Mac OS ventura, iOS 16.1.1, iPadOS 16.1.1

At one time only 2 devices appear

Meaning I can only get it working between iPhone and iPad or iPhone and Mac

Can't get all 3 devices appearing.

I've turned it off on all and re-enabled on each one on different days to check which was was causing a problem. It seems no matter, screen time won't work with more than 2 devices enabled.

 

[Morac]

They fixed part of it and broke something else. I did get all 3 devices to show up, but on my Mac after awhile Screen Time would stop loading until I logged out and back in. My iPad and iPhone worked, but stupidly I turned off screen time on all three devices and back on. After that Screen Time on all 3 devices would periodically stop working until the device was restarted. Looking at the logs the problem appears to be that there’s an event in the iCloud data that has no date and time and that causes Screen Time to fail to load.

I ended up enabling shared Screen Time only on my iPad and iPhone. On my Mac I enabled Screen Time, but disabled sharing with other devices. That “works”, but obviously my Mac isn’t included in the time shown on my iPad and iPhone and vice-versa. The iPad and iPhone times are the same though.

 

[garethjs]

It would stop working periodically because the 3rd device would appear in the list of devices. Only a reboot would clear the list and re-populate it hence it would start working.

Once u start using the 3rd device again the screentime usage syncs and the other devices pick up the device however the data isn’t processed as you pointed out

Again only fix is to reboot and repopulate the list