IOS 8 Family Sharing Notification Issues

I receive "request to buy" notifications, from my daughter, on my iPad, but not on my iPhone. If I approve, she receives the notification, but if I decline, she does not receive the denied notification.
Anyone else having these kind of issues?
Until iOS 8, my entire family shared an iTunes account for purchases. I have set up Family Sharing, as the Organizer, and under my iCloud account, but it is not the shared iTunes account. I did pick the shared iTunes account under the Family Purchases section of the Family Sharing setup. I then invited my daughter and set her iPad up to do the family sharing. She is required to ask to make purchases and it seems to work.
Like I said at the beginning of this post, I receive a request notification on my iPad, but not my iPhone. I checked the settings between my iPad and my iPhone and they match exactly. I don't want to tinker around so much because I have the other posts about Family Sharing limitations and lockouts.
I'm afraid to "convert" my son and wife to the new family sharing plan until I know for sure the rest of this system is going to work as advertised.

Already written this entry in another post, but since many people, including me, I post it here, too, but unfortunately no solution:
Same here. What's really strange it the following. I just recently set up family sharing, and have only received 3 requests. First time the notification of the request only turned up on my computer at work, next time only on my phone. The third time only on my computer at home. Whenever I try to approve on any of the computers I get stuck in a sort of loop where I enter my Apple ID. What I do is, the following. I find the notification, and click on it, get to the "info screen" where I get some info on the app and the two buttons deny and approve in the upper right corner.. I decide to approve and is prompted to enter my password, which I do. Then only thing that happens is that the dialog box disappears, taking me back to the "info screen" where I can approve but before I'm able to do anything, the dialog box prompting me for my Apple ID comes up again. I enter the password, and so it goes until I choose "cancel" in the dialog box. I then get back to the "info screen". I've never tried to press the deny button there. The second notification that I got, the one on my phone, worked without any trouble at all. Would be nice if I could get the notification for requests number 1 and 2 (the ones I got on computer work and computer home), but I haven't found any notification on the phone for those two apps.

Similar Messages

Family sharing notifications freezing other devices

Hello,
We are having the strangest problem with family sharing. When my 13 year old daughter, who is set up for Ask To Buy, requests to download an app, or purchase an in-app, my wife and I both receive notifications on our phones and iPads. However when we try to select them from the notification dropdown screen the phone seems to lock up. The top bar with the battery and signal strength meters gets dark and looks distorted and nothing works on the phone/ipad. I can't scroll through the notifications or close the screen. I can push the home button and get back to the home screen but it freezes there for 10-15 seconds. The notifications are not availble under the icloud/family sharing menus in settings like there where originally and the only place I can find the notification is in the pull down screen. Still, touching them freezes the device.
This behavior is occuring on both of our iphone 6's and both of our iPads. Everyone is running IOS 8.1.1. We have four members of Family Sharing (2 adults and 2 kids 13 and 15).
I have no idea what is going on. I even removed each of the kids from Family Sharing and just added one back at a time. Notification behavior was the same.
I also completly deleted the Family Share and then recreated it. Still, all notifications freeze the adult devices. What the heck?

Just figured it out. Family Share does not work for In-App purchases. As soon as my child sent me a request for an app (not an In-App) purchase it worked fine. From my other research on this discussion board it appears that Family Share is not supposed to work with In-App purchases. My guess is that Apple will fix this because Apple (and the app developers) will loose out on a lot of money if families can't easily make In-App purchases.

Family Sharing Notifications not appearing on iphone

I am having an issue with family sharing. I am the organizer of my family share. I have invited all my family who all have their own apple id's and all of them are logged in to itunes and icloud on their devices using their own id's. I have an ipad air and an iphone 5s - both are signed in to icloud with my apple id. I get family notifications to my ipad only - never to my iphone which is what I have on me the most. I have tried logging out and logging back in, restarting my iphone, logging out of my ipad and nothing works. All notifications appear on my ipad - but they never appear on my phone. No ask to buy or anything. I have gone through setting by setting to make sure everything is identical.
Any help would be appreciated. I have see the same question in a few places with no resolution.
Thanks!!

Hello William,
You may need to verify that this functionality is enabled in Settings -> Passcode (or Touch ID & Passcode).
Allow access to features when iPhone is locked. Go to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode (iPhone models with Touch ID) or Settings > Passcode (other models). Optional features include:
Today
Notifications View
Siri (if enabled, see Siri settings)
Passbook (see Passbook at a glance)
Reply with Message (see When someone calls)
iPhone User Guide - Use a passcode with data protection
http://help.apple.com/iphone/8/
Cheers,
Allen

Family Sharing music issue

I have an iPhone 6 and a Macbook Pro that are both updated to the latest software versions. I have family sharing turned on on both and have been able to successful download some music on both devices. There are many songs that I try and download though that are not successful. On my iPhone it just says its unable to download at this time, on my mac it acts like it downloaded and then when I go to play the song it tells me that the computer is not authorized and the box to authorize pops up. This only happens with certain songs other songs play just fine and my computer has been authorized with my apple id forever. Please Help!

Hello Fallik,
I apologize, I'm a bit unclear on the exact configuration you are describing. Family Sharing is normally used to share content between different accounts from multiple people in the same family. Is the content you are having issues downloading or playing content that was purchased by a different member of your Family Group? If so, you may find the information and steps outlined in the following article helpful:
Sharing purchased content with Family Sharing - Apple Support
Sincerely,
- Brenden

Family Sharing setup issues

I can't set up family sharing, it keeps telling me to find my parent to set it up, the problem is that I am the parent. I tried setting up on different devices with the same response. Anyone know what I need to do?

Boy do I feel foolish. I just realized that what I was seeing was all of my other calendar info. When I deselected everything, there was nothing on my family calendar. As Rosanne Rosanna Danna said, "Nevermind".

Family sharing feature issue

I want to add the account of my son's iPad email in my list of family sharing as i will be paying for all purchases and want to share some purchases i have with him. I am using USA account but without credit card as i am using iTunes card for all my purchases.
Now when i try to add his email address in my family sharing, it asks me to update my credit card information even though i have already got 15$ iTunes card loaded in my account.
Please let me know what to do now? Should i add the credit card ? if i will add the credit card then during my next purchase, will it ask me to buy it from my iTunes card or credit card ??? i m confused now.

Hello, I wanted to let you know that when you want to use the function of family sharing it will be necessary to add a credit card to the account, and the organizer of the group is the responsible to do so. Each family member can continue to redeem gift card on account and use that store credit on their own. But in order to actually set up the family sharing it is required that the organizer enter a credit card on the account, Without it you won't be able to set it up.
Now, if you have store credit on your account at the moment, and yo make purchase on your account, the store credit will be charge for the purchases you make on your account before it actually charge the credit card, now if one of your family members does not have store credit on their individual account, then the purchase they make will be charge to your credit card, not the store credit that you have on your account.
This article might be useful since it explain the Family Sharing :
https://www.apple.com/icloud/family-sharing/
Family purchases and payments - Apple Support
Hope the information helps.

Family Sharing, iTunes Account NOT Apple ID

I'd like to turn on Family Sharing.
However, it seems the only way to turn on Family Sharing is through my Apple ID on my iOS device
Settings > iCloud > Family Sharing
The issue I have is that my iTunes and App Store purchases are not using my Apple ID. I created a different ID (long time ago) for iTunes. So, all my purchases are with this ID, not my Apple ID.
For example: on my iOS device
Settings > iCloud > [email protected]
Settings > iTunes & App Store > myitunesid (there is no @email.com associated with this ID)
All my iTunes (music and apps) purchases are with myitunesid ID, not with [email protected] ID.
I'm assuming if I active Family Sharing with my iCloud (actual Apple ID), there won't be any purchases associate with the account. Nor will there be, as long as I keep using the myitunesid account.
Hope this makes sense.

Yes, in fact it's recommended that you do. you can create separate iCloud accounts with separate Apple IDs and still share the same iTunes ID (the IDs do not have to be the same). You should also use separate IDs for iMessage and FaceTime to avoid getting each other's text messages and FaceTime calls. Using your individual iCloud IDs for iMessage and FaceTime will accomplish this.

Calendar Sync Problems on iOS 8 Family Sharing

Before I upgraded my iPhone 5S and my wife's iPad Air to iOS 8, the iPad Air was using my iCloud account so my iCloud calendar was shared with my wife; we only need one mutual calendar that we can both read and write to.
After I had downloaded iOS 8, I read about the new Family Sharing feature of iCloud, which seemed ideal for us, in particular to share apps that one of us has bought which the other would like to use, and also to share a "Family" calendar.
So I deleted MY iCloud account from my wife's iPad and added HER iCloud account, merging the existing data with the new account, switched on iCloud Drive on both devices and then set up Family Sharing from the iPhone with me as the "organiser".
Now the apps and music sharing seems to work, each device can display the purchased items on the others device and download them if required. Very useful!
Unfortunately I can't get the calendar sharing to work on the iPad Air.
Calendars called "Family" have appeared on iPhone and on my "Desktop" Mac Mini (running OSX 10.8.5) and changes are shared. But items entered into the iCloud calendar from iPhone or Mac appear on each other but do not appear on the iPad Air. The iPad Air has no "Family" calendar. The "Notes" app behaves similarly.
I've since learned that I should not have switched on iCloud Drive since this reconfigures iCloud servers and prevents sharing if one of the devices does not have OSX 10.10 Yosemite.
Also the Support Profile at https://supportprofile.apple.com/ shows the iPad Air under MY Apple ID and password, not my wife's. Should I change this?
I've tried switching off iCloud Drive on both iPhone 5S and iPad - this made no difference.
Do I have any course of action other than waiting for the release of OSX 10.10 Yosemite?

I too, shared an iCloud with my husband. I just put us into separate iClouds and the family sharing program. We like to use the notes app to write grocery lists and camping lists etc. I noticed when I switched to family sharing that they would not now share acrossed all 4 of our devices. What I did to work around all of that was I now use my yahoo notes and contacts lists like I did the iCloud when we had the same iCloud. I put the default account on both notes and contacts as Yahoo. That way it would share acrossed all four devices like it used to when it was in iCloud. If I want to share a note or contact with just my phone and iPad then I write it in the iCloud and it just shares between my two devices. Gmail also has the notes and contacts list function. I didn't have any issues with the Calendar I just set the default calendar to family calendar.This worked really well for us, I hope it works for other people as well.

Issue with Family Sharing and unshareable apps

My husband and I just upgraded to iPhone 6's with iOS 8.0. Previously, we both used my Apple ID for all app purchases on our old phones. With iOS 8.0, we turned on the Family Sharing feature. We would both like to install the mobile app for our bank (TD (Canada)). With Family Sharing turned on, this app is listed as one of my purchases. However, it is also listed as "unshareable". I can install the app on my phone, but when my husband tries to install the app, he gets a message saying that the app has already been purchased using a different Apple ID and cannot be installed on his phone. Note that on his phone, he does not even see the app under my purchases when he goes to App Store | Updates | Purchased. However, if he searches for the app in the App Store, instead of a "FREE" button, he sees the iCloud download icon.
Has anyone else run into this problem and figured out how to fix it, or is this just an iOS 8.0/iTunes/App Store/iCloud bug? It actually does not make sense that a free banking app would be "unshareable" under Family Sharing in the first place since several members of the same family will most likely use the same bank.
Thanks for your help!

I have the same issue. I spent an hour on the phone with Apple and they don't have a clean fix for it. The issue seems to be with apps that developers have not yet set the Family share-able flag as yes or no. They said that when developers update the flag this will resolve itself. Meanwhile, if in the app store the details of the app under Family Sharing it says "Not Available" it will be an issue. I found a reasonable workaround for this particular issue by hiding the original purchase and "re-purchasing" as follows: Disclaimer/Note: Not all Apps are share-able, (even free ones.) If the app you are trying to deal with is an actual paid for app, you will be buying it again! Better to wait until the core issue gets fixed, unless you are willing to pay for it again.
1. On a PC or Mac, in iTunes, have the original purchaser log in to the iTunes store, then under Quick Links click on Purchased. Click on Apps at the top and find the app that is at issue. (Hint: The apps are not necessarily listed under the obvious app name. I was looking for Colorspot from SherwinWilliams, and found it under SherwinWlliams, not Colorspot.) Once you find the app, hover over it and click on the X in the upper left corner to hide it. Do this for all the apps that are at issue. (See Disclaimer/Note above)
2. On the iOS device that is having the problem, close the App Store app. (If you have many apps at issue you might make a list, or take a screenshot first)
3. On the same iOS device, find the app and delete it. (not ideal but it works!). Once you have all the apps at issue deleted, reboot, and make sure you are logged in to the iTunes store as the secondary "purchaser", (If you are logged in as the original purchaser you probably wouldn't have the issue in the first place, although to me that means going a bit backwards and not really using the Family Sharing program.)
4. Open the App store app, if you started the whole process with an app that wouldn't update, confirm that the app is no longer listed.
5. Search the store for the problem app as though it was a new purchase (at this point it is.) Once found, it should be listed with the "Free" or a "price" icon. If it shows the cloud and download arrow icon the hiding you did in step 1 hasn't updated yet. Wait awhile longer. (Reboot again? Re-log into store again?) (Also note here, that a properly shared app will show the cloud/download arrow icon and would be download-able without issue.) If it shows as Update, it hasn't actually been deleted from the device. If all is well, you should be able to proceed with a typical "purchase" of the item. (See Disclaimer/Note above) If the family member has multiple devices, repeat 2-5 for each device.
If you have multiple family sharing members wanting the app you will have to repeat step 1, hiding the purchase in each iTunes account until all family members have gone through the re-purchase process. After fixing all of their devices, each person can go back into iTunes, click on Account under Quick Links, go to iTunes in the Cloud section, Hidden Purchases line, click Manage, and unhide the hidden apps. This would be important for future sharing when the bugs get worked out.
Good luck!

"Ask to buy" requests not appearing in notification center (family sharing)

I understand that if one misses an "ask to buy" request from a family member from the lock screen, it is supposed to be available in the notification center. However, these requests are not being logged in my notification center. There doesn't seem to be a setting in Settings to turn on or off these type of notifications.
Any idea why they are not appearing in the notification center?

Hi,
Same issue here. I've logged in and out of the AppStore and still the same issue. I have 3 kids, each with their own device, and each one is REQUIRED to "Ask to Buy". Neither my wife or I get any notification to approve. I've checked my Mac as well as the Family Sharing on both iPhone 6's and everywhere shows our family listings correct.
It cannot be THIS HARD to figure out. Apple must be having some issues, however this is extremely frustrating. No one can buy any apps?!??!?! You'd think they'd like to sell more stuff?!
Please help! Now my son needs apps for school and he cannot get them on his iPad. Even on the App store it says "approve on this device with parent" and that link won't work.
Thanks.

IOS 8 with Family Sharing activated bug

Is anyone else experiencing a bug where music will download from iTunes Match via cellular data through the “Media Services” System Service? Here are the pertinent settings on my iPhone:
Settings -> Cellular -> Use Cellular Data for, disabled: App Store, iTunes Store, and Music
Settings -> iTunes & App Store -> Automatic Downloads, disabled: Music, Apps, and Updates
Settings -> Music -> iTunes Match, enabled
iCloud account: [email protected]
iTunes & App Store account: [email protected]
Family Share "Organizer" account: [email protected]
Before I activated and linked my [email protected] account to Family Share, music did not download over Cellular--which is how it should be with the first three setting above. However, after connecting to Family Share, the iPhone consumed over 1.5GB of cellular data in 30 minutes. When I looked to see what had been downloaded, I discovered that a bunch of music from iTunes Match had been downloading in the background (I do not remember initiating the downloads). Music continued downloading until I completely disabled all Cellular Data (Settings -> Cellular -> Cellular Data). When I re-enabled Cellular Data, music began downloading again. Eventually it stopped because all the free space was filled.
This morning, I deleted all of the music off of my iPhone, disabled iTunes Match, and then re-enabled it. While on a Wi-Fi network, in the Music app, I selected a playlist to download, after a few songs downloaded, I turned off the Wi-Fi, and now the music does not download via cellular data--which, again, is how things are supposed to work with the given settings. I do not know if this means the problem has gone away--I hope so, though because this bug blew through my monthly allotment of "high speed cellular data".

I'm having the same issue. I don't use Family Sharing.
When I updated my 5s to iOS 8, I enabled iTunes Match and downloaded my playlists, then after a little while I discovered that I had run out of space. When I looked in the storage settings, it had downloaded an extra 5GB of music! Fortunately this all happened over wifi.
However, I got my iPhone 6 Plus, and decided to set it up as a new device. When I enabled iTunes match and downloaded my playlists, went out with friends and got a text from EE saying I'd used 80% of my allowance, and then 10 mins later another text saying my allowance was all used up!
Checked under Cellular Data and I noticed Media Services had downloaded 2.7GB of data while I was out and the phone was in my pocket! Went to iTunes Store and saw there was still some pending downloads that had stopped because my data had run out! Really annoying this. My playlists add up to about 4.5GB, but my total music storage is now 10GB. That's 5.5GB of music I didn't select to download! It's sneaky this iOS 8!
Worth nothing that I do have Automatic Downloads enabled for Music and to use Cellular Data. This has never happened before though! I wondered if it was some sort of Genius feature to download more music it thinks you might like. God knows. Hope it gets sorted!

Issues with family sharing - Advice please

I am trying to get family sharing to work and believe I have followed all instructions.
- 2 iphones 6 all on iOS 8
- I have invited to family sharing with my account and turned on sharing. I am signed into the apps/iTunes store wit the same account I am using for Family Sharing
- my spouse has accepted the invite; she has her own Apple ID and iCloud, but is signed in into Apps/iTunes store with MY Apple ID as requested.; she also shares her purchases
I am able to see what she has purchased but she is not able to see mine. She is getting an error message that her account is associated to a different iCloud?
Very confusing. Any solution?

Posted too soon.
Here's what we're running into: He goes to the App store, locates the app, clicks 'Get' and 'Install', is prompted for me to enter the security code for our credit card, etc. Then he receives a message that indicates that a family member has already purchased the app, etc. He clicks 'ok' and the App store seems to try to proceed with downloading it. However, before it can go anywhere, it stalls out with a 'Cannot connect to iTunes' error.
This seems to be isolated to the older iPods. We know the app itself is compatible with v6.1.6, and the device doesn't appear to be having any issues connecting to the iTunes store for any other apps. What should he do?

I cannot view the family sharing invitation. My wife has sent it multiple times Via email and text yet I haven't had a notification, but when I attempt to send to her she receives the notification. Help please?

I cannot view the family sharing invitation. My wife has sent it multiple times Via email and text yet I haven't had a notification, but when I attempt to send to her she receives the notification. Help please?

There are a lot of posts in the forums today with people having problems with iMessage. There was also a published outage yesterday, so it's possible there are still some issues that may be impacting you both.
I would just wait it out - I'm sure it will be sorted out soon.

IOS 8 Family Sharing "Ask to Buy" not working

If it's not one thing with iOS 8, it's another. I have a iPhone 6, iPad Air, and a child's iPhone 5. I'm setup under my iCloud account as the "Organizer" on the iPad Air and iPhone 6, he is setup as a child, with "Ask to Buy" turned on, on the iPhone 5. When he tries to make an app purchase on the iPhone 5, it says that permission must be granted, with a pop-up notification, and then you can select "Ask." Problem is, I never receive the request on either the iPhone 6 or iPad Air, so I cannot grant permission.
Any solutions?

There sticky point appears to be related to what why call the "original" iCloud account vs. a newer iCloud account. In other words only the first iCloud account used to make purchases appears to work with "Ask to buy" feature. In my case I had a very old apple id (@mac, then @me, then @icloud) and after purchasing iPhones for all family members I created a new apple id for me (private backups between my devices). Each of my family members now have their own apple id's. Well, my fairly new apple id (which has payment methods for iTunes/appstore) does not work with "ask to buy" feature. Only the original apple id does. I can't understand why. As an experiment I added the original apple id as a family member in Family share, and set as parent/guardian. That did the trick in terms of receiving ask to buy notifications, but it will remove the ability for me to see shared purchases because there's two" apple ID's set under family sharing.
If somebody figures out how to fix this, please let me know.
Thanks,
Wil

HT1311 Changing Apple ID on IOS Device and Family Sharing

So how does the new Family Sharing feature for IOS 8 fit into changing an associated Apple ID? We set up our daughter's iPod with my Apple ID so that we can share apps and content. If we create her own Apple ID listing it as 'family' and then change the ID on her iPod, what happens to the apps that are already there under the primary ID? Will she lose the status for all of her games?

In short, yes, you can create her own ID, invite that ID to your Family Share, and she will continue to be able to use the apps from your ID without any immediate impacts.
From my experience, logging out of an apple id on a device does not de-authorize or remove apps that are already loaded. In fact, I regularly log out of one ID and in to another in the iTunes and App Stores. The issue you will face in the future with your current approach is your daughter does not own any of the apps you have been giving her via your ID. Way off in the future, when perhaps she is no longer in your Family Share, all the apps she got will stop updating unless she re-purchases them. That may not really be a big risk or concern, but its a reality. The only caveat to keep in mind when logging out and in with different accounts is you want to avoid changing the account used for automatic downloads. Apple (due to licensing restrictions from content owners) does not let you change automatic downloads frequently (you're locked in for 90 days). You can still manually download content from other accounts, just not automatically.
Prior to Family Share I thought of content purchases in 3 buckets: what I want to own with my ID, what they own with their ID, and what we want to share. Therefore, before Apple introduced Family Share I create a "dummy" Apple ID for my family as well as IDs for each of us. I keep the password for this dummy account to myself, and I log all my kids devices in to the App Store using this dummy id (it's got a good name we all recognize that has internal family meaning). We often load up this dummy account with gift cards, and when child wants to buy an app, they ask me to put in the password (so I maintain control of what they buy), and through this ID the app becomes available to all of us. Their own Apple ID is used for all other services and is their main iCloud account logged in on their devices. In time I expect they will start to buy their own content using their own IDs. But they will never lose access to the content on our family dummy account as long as I'm willing to eventually share the password with them.
With the new Family Share we will continue to be able to share their personal content until they grow older and "leave" the Family Share. However, when that eventually happens we will still have the dummy family account and be able to share apps with each other using that if we want. We won't lose the apps we bought on the dummy account we share when we stop using Family Share as long as the password is available to each of us.
There are a few limitations to my approach which the Family Share service improves on so I expect to use Family Share as well (I'm still experimenting with it).
Way more info than you asked for, but hope it's helpful for your planning.

IOS 8 Family Sharing Notification Issues

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