Keyboard shortcuts driving me up a WALL

[Matth3w]

I use the keyboard shortcut functions of iOS 8 extensively. I'm in the military and I'm stationed in Hawaii...which means a lot of names of things that the stock keyboard doesn't recognize, and a lot of military acronyms. I have iCloud backup turned on. My wife uses the same iTunes account on her phone.

I have a ton of shortcuts but let's just use a random example. I have a shortcut "un" that shortcuts to my standard forum username Matth3w. She hates this shortcut, so I deleted it and she deleted it off the phones.

IT KEEPS FREAKING REAPPEARING!!! I delete the goddamned thing once a day and it keeps coming back. I've verified it's off both phones. WTF is going on?

Doesn't iCloud and keyboard shortcut syncing work like Dropbox/Google Drive? Where the latest change is the one that is sync'd across all devices??? If I have Drive installed and I delete a file it certainly doesn't put it back on my computer again randomly each day, it DELETES it from the other devices/computers using Drive.

How can I get the shortcuts to sync properly? It does it even if I turn off iCloud backup!!

iOS 8.1 although this has been going on since I can remember. iOS 7 or 8.

 

[Cmd-Z]

Try signing out of iCloud on all your devices, reset them, then sign back into iCloud to see if that corrects it.

 

[Matth3w]

I've tried that. I've also noticed that the issue reoccurs every time I reboot. So I can delete the shortcuts, but as soon as I reboot, they come back.

 

[Matth3w]

Bump, what does it TAKE to delete these?!

I even tried redoing it. So instead of just deleting the shortcut "un" I redid it to make it something else like abc = ABC. But on reboot, it simply downloads and ADDS the shortcut. So now I have like four shortcuts for "un". Obviously it's an iCloud issue, as you cannot add multiple of the same shortcut on your own, it gives an error message.

 

[jahall05]

Try deleting the most recent back up and then signing in and out of iCloud. I think it is syncing through documents and data though. Really weird that it saves that after being deleted :/

 

[J.C]

Have you tried deleting the Shortcuts from your Mac (assuming you use iCloud for Documents & Data on the Mac)?

I know you shouldn't have to, but they're very buggy. As OS X and iOS synchronize these Shortcuts I often find I need to delete them from OS X as well.

System Preferences > Keyboard > Text.

 

[Matth3w]

Have you tried deleting the Shortcuts from your Mac (assuming you use iCloud for Documents & Data on the Mac)?

I know you shouldn't have to, but they're very buggy. As OS X and iOS synchronize these Shortcuts I often find I need to delete them from OS X as well.

System Preferences > Keyboard > Text.

Thanks, I don't use a Mac anymore.

Try deleting the most recent back up and then signing in and out of iCloud. I think it is syncing through documents and data though. Really weird that it saves that after being deleted :/

That shouldn't be it though...because the backup only occurs over WiFi, and this occurs over both Cell and WiFi...so if it was a bad iCloud backup, it's not like it's restoring from there over cellular, is it?

 

[J.C]

I think it's just another bug rather than a configuration issue. iCloud is crud.

 

[Sharkey311]

having the same infuriating issue. I am at a loss as to how to replace other than resetting all my devices/using a new Apple ID. I shouldn't have to do this though.

 

[Matth3w]

You're right, this is stupid to have to even worry about with such a large and successful company. It seems very amateur. Apple support telling me: "Go ahead and set up a new Apple ID" (assuming that doesn't eventually screw up as well) is the equivalent of the 1990s "format c:" with Packard Bell technical support.

 

[brbigs]

Sounds silly but give it a try

Tap settings > general > about > name

Change the name of your device. Wait approx 30 seconds, then add a new shortcut to the list. Watch the change take place on all other devices, and the rest of the shortcuts will come rolling in as well. On my MacBook Air 2014, iPad Air 2, and iPhone 6. Finally all in sync.

I've been up the wall and back again trying to fix this shiz. Amazingly, after doing this, things worked. I have no idea why, but I thought I'd share.

 

[Matth3w]

This actually seemed to have worked!

 

[jerparker1]

Tap settings > general > about > name

Change the name of your device. Wait approx 30 seconds, then add a new shortcut to the list. Watch the change take place on all other devices, and the rest of the shortcuts will come rolling in as well. On my MacBook Air 2014, iPad Air 2, and iPhone 6. Finally all in sync.

I've been up the wall and back again trying to fix this shiz. Amazingly, after doing this, things worked. I have no idea why, but I thought I'd share.

This didn't fix it for me. The old ones came back shortly after rebooting.

 

[Matth3w]

UGHHHHH This worked for me for two MONTHS and now the $%#$%#@%$% things are back!!!

This is the dumbest goddamned problem ever for a major corporation to freaking have. ARGH.

 

[PicnicTutorials]

Whats mind blowingly irritating is that Apple is fully aware of the bug. But instead of acknowledging it and telling the public they are working tireiously to fix it they just put their heads in the sand and play dumb. I talked to customer support about it and they claimed it was the first they heard of it. I was like come on don't feed that line of crap. This bug had been around well over a year and its driving everyone crazy. Most its a minor irritant. But to people like OP and me that made many shortcuts it makes typing painful.

I've read people chiming in saying that their kids thought it would be funny to pull a prank and make shortcuts like n for yes and y for no. s for sex with me and so on. And they cant delete them. Now that is redic.

I think I have narrowed it down and found a temporary fix for it. But I refuse to do apples job for them by posting it. And I refuse to be like the 500 people before me that say they fixed it only to 5 pages later in the same thread post back and say nope they came back.

 

[luckman212]

Picnic

Can you please post your fix? Apple obviously has their head up their @sses and will not fix this anytime soon. They are too busy making their laptops 0.0001" thinner etc. If you don't want to post it publicly can you at least PM it to me..... this shortcut thing is driving me MAD!!

 

[C DM]

Whats mind blowingly irritating is that Apple is fully aware of the bug. But instead of acknowledging it and telling the public they are working tireiously to fix it they just put their heads in the sand and play dumb. I talked to customer support about it and they claimed it was the first they heard of it. I was like come on don't feed that line of crap. This bug had been around well over a year and its driving everyone crazy. Most its a minor irritant. But to people like OP and me that made many shortcuts it makes typing painful.

I've read people chiming in saying that their kids thought it would be funny to pull a prank and make shortcuts like n for yes and y for no. s for sex with me and so on. And they cant delete them. Now that is redic.

I think I have narrowed it down and found a temporary fix for it. But I refuse to do apples job for them by posting it. And I refuse to be like the 500 people before me that say they fixed it only to 5 pages later in the same thread post back and say nope they came back.

You realize these are user-to-user forums, they are here for people to help each other. Saying you can help but don't want to kind of seems the opposite of what places like this are for.

 

[Chundles]

Stop using the same iCloud account.

You can still use the same account for the iTunes store but you can both have separate accounts for iCloud.

It's a workaround, not a fix but you shouldn't really have the same iCloud account anyway.

 

[luckman212]

Stop using the same iCloud account.

Don't think that is a viable "fix" - the popups alone will just kill you constantly prompting for one account or the other. It's bad enough with just a handful of devices sharing one account, with 2 or more accounts it would be a nightmare.

 

[Chundles]

Don't think that is a viable "fix" - the popups alone will just kill you constantly prompting for one account or the other. It's bad enough with just a handful of devices sharing one account, with 2 or more accounts it would be a nightmare.

I said it wasn't a fix. I said it was a workaround.

I don't know what pop-ups you're talking about but it's very very easy to have an account for iTunes so you can share your purchases and a separate account for iCloud so you DON'T have to share your contacts, emails, messages, preferences etc.