Undead Phone Notifications -- Riddle Me This

[TheIntruder]

This keeps occurring, and it's driving me up the wall.

1) Receive phone call (ignore it, because it's usually spam)

2) Clear Missed Call Notification

3) Block "contact" number in Phone app

4) Delete call from history log.

Done and over with, right?

Nope. Anywhere from a few hours later to the next day, that call reappears as a notification, and in the call log, again(!). iOS does remember that the number is blocked, but nothing else.

It's puzzling how a deleted call can resurrect itself, result in another notification, and require deleting it again before it goes away permanently.

At first, I thought I was going crazy, but it turns out that I'm not. Am I missing something in expecting that deleted items, are, well, deleted?

10.3.2 didn't fix it.

Anyone else seen something like this?

 

[BrianBaughn]

No...if only because I've never deleted a call from my history. Do you get re-notified if you don't delete it?

 

[TheIntruder]

No...if only because I've never deleted a call from my history. Do you get re-notified if you don't delete it?

Haven't tried it that way.

I have noticed that these notifications also appear on my Mac, which could be a coincidence, or indicate that something in Apple's cloud is gummed up, and they're not being cleared properly there.

In any case, this should not be occurring.

 

[SumYoungGai]

Something funky must be going on at Apple's end. Some notifications are coming in 30 minutes late, all at one time sometimes.

 

[The Merg]

I do the same thing, but have never had the re-notification. I also do not have a Mac connected to my account, so maybe that might be part of the issue.

- Merg

 

[theshoehorn]

What carrier do you use?

 

[TheIntruder]

AT&T. But I don't think it's their fault.

IME, Notifications (as a whole) haven't always been 100% reliable. Sometimes they're late. Sometimes they appear on one device and not others. I haven't had the desire to try to sort it out.

I find this particular instance annoying, and a bit scary, because of the nature of the calls, and the fact that deleted log entries can be pulled back from the ether unintentionally.

 

[ohio.emt]

Have you tried clearing it from all the devices connected to the apple id at the same time. Maybe icloud isn't syncing the delete action for some reason.

 

[theshoehorn]

AT&T. But I don't think it's their fault.

IME, Notifications (as a whole) haven't always been 100% reliable. Sometimes they're late. Sometimes they appear on one device and not others. I haven't had the desire to try to sort it out.

I find this particular instance annoying, and a bit scary, because of the nature of the calls, and the fact that deleted log entries can be pulled back from the ether unintentionally.

For me it seems to be related to the "wifi calls on other devices" or NumberSync as AT&T calls it. When that's on and I get calls that ring my Mac, the missed call entries show up on my iPhone. Really annoying.

 

[bitslap47]

Yeah that's annoying.

Honestly, I thought this would be a complaint about not having a dismiss all option meaning when I unlock my phone, I have to sit and wait 5 minutes to use my phone.

Why? Well that's problem number 2. Notifications ALWAYS pop up over what I need to touch, the split second I need to touch it, so that an app I don't want to be in opens in the middle of something important.

I know I can turn notifications off... but if we could have a small part of the screen dedicated to notifications and a little creative design... the problem wouldn't exist.

 

[dmillar74]

For the last few days, I keep seeing calls I missed but I had answered them ealier. Talked to my wife for about 10 minutes and about 20 minutes later it said I missed her call on my lock screen. Confused, I called her back. The last few days I keep thinking that I'm missing calls. Something weird is going on.

 

[TheIntruder]

OK, I tried to do things a little differently, by not deleting the calls from the Phone app's log.

By doing so, it seems that the notifications don't repeat themselves a few hours later, or the next day.

Deleting them will cause them to pop up again.

To me, the way it works is like the tail wagging the dog. Logically, the user's actions in handling the call should be the final arbiter in what takes place. If the user deletes the call from the log, it's a safe assumption that the final action has been taken. Notifications should not repeat themselves after such actions, and certainly should not resurrect log entries. That's just wrong on many levels. And, given the integration of iCloud accounts across all Apple devices, that should be that.

The only Notifications I use are for the Phone app. If they're not going to work properly, or at least logically to me, I think I'm better off just turning them off altogether.

 

[HallStevenson]

I've run into this but the situation is a bit more complicated for me....

I have an Apple ID/iCloud account but previously only had an iMac, MBA, and many years ago, iPod touch devices. Our daughter got an iPhone 2+ years ago and I added her to my account using the 'family' option. Word of warning -- that is a big mistake and Apple has done a piss-poor job with this. Anyway, about a week ago, my wife upgraded phones and I took her iPhone 6+. Wiped it fully, set it up, logged in with my Apple ID and the crap started:

• My contacts are filled with our daughter's contacts
• Dozens of Facetime calls appear in the call log
• Related to this topic, I have about 10-12 calls in the regular phone call log - mostly from around June 2015.

I have deleted them 3-4 times and they keep reappearing. Sometimes they come back instantly, other times I don't notice them until later. Usually, I notice them because I have a notification badge on the 'Recent' button.​

I even installed iOS 11 over the weekend, wasn't impressed with it, and wiped the phone a 2nd time. I didn't restore anything either. The calls have reappeared in the call log again.

In my case, it has to be an iCloud issue. I even went so far as to remove her from my family sharing account in iCloud. Problem is, there's no indication or option or setting for backing up call logs, so I can't even disable this !

 

[Mlrollin91]

I've run into this but the situation is a bit more complicated for me....

I have an Apple ID/iCloud account but previously only had an iMac, MBA, and many years ago, iPod touch devices. Our daughter got an iPhone 2+ years ago and I added her to my account using the 'family' option. Word of warning -- that is a big mistake and Apple has done a piss-poor job with this. Anyway, about a week ago, my wife upgraded phones and I took her iPhone 6+. Wiped it fully, set it up, logged in with my Apple ID and the crap started:

• My contacts are filled with our daughter's contacts
• Dozens of Facetime calls appear in the call log
• Related to this topic, I have about 10-12 calls in the regular phone call log - mostly from around June 2015.

I have deleted them 3-4 times and they keep reappearing. Sometimes they come back instantly, other times I don't notice them until later. Usually, I notice them because I have a notification badge on the 'Recent' button.​

I even installed iOS 11 over the weekend, wasn't impressed with it, and wiped the phone a 2nd time. I didn't restore anything either. The calls have reappeared in the call log again. I have 4 different accounts sharing.

In my case, it has to be an iCloud issue. I even went so far as to remove her from my family sharing account in iCloud. Problem is, there's no indication or option or setting for backing up call logs, so I can't even disable this !

That sounds like a weird iCloud problem and I would contact Apple about it. I've been using Family Sharing since it as introduced, never once have had anything like this happen.

 

[HallStevenson]

I dug into this more just this morning (after posting). In various locations (on phone, at www.icloud.com, etc), my daughter's icloud.com email is listed. Worst part is, I can't remove it.... My Apple ID is my gmail.com account and I can only guess that a couple of years ago, Apple made me create an "icloud.com" account and this is where it got screwed up.

Going to www.icloud.com/mail, I can't delete this address. Going to https://appleid.apple.com/account/manage, it shows it as a "reachable at" entry.

From the phone, under Settings>Apple ID>Name, Phone Numbers, Email, it's there as well. When I try to "Edit" it, I get an "i" in a circle and tapping it tells me "Your email address cannot be removed. Use iMessage and FaceTime Settings". Well, there is no "iMessage" settings, just "Messages" and it doesn't have anything helpful. It does have the "Send & Receive" entry, which says "2 Addresses" and when you go into that menu, the top now says "iMessages". It lists my Apple ID (my gmail address), my phone #, and my email address (again, the gmail address). Under FaceTime, the same details are there.

 

[sbailey4]

I've run into this but the situation is a bit more complicated for me....

I have an Apple ID/iCloud account but previously only had an iMac, MBA, and many years ago, iPod touch devices. Our daughter got an iPhone 2+ years ago and I added her to my account using the 'family' option. Word of warning -- that is a big mistake and Apple has done a piss-poor job with this. Anyway, about a week ago, my wife upgraded phones and I took her iPhone 6+. Wiped it fully, set it up, logged in with my Apple ID and the crap started:

• My contacts are filled with our daughter's contacts
• Dozens of Facetime calls appear in the call log
• Related to this topic, I have about 10-12 calls in the regular phone call log - mostly from around June 2015.

I have deleted them 3-4 times and they keep reappearing. Sometimes they come back instantly, other times I don't notice them until later. Usually, I notice them because I have a notification badge on the 'Recent' button.​

I even installed iOS 11 over the weekend, wasn't impressed with it, and wiped the phone a 2nd time. I didn't restore anything either. The calls have reappeared in the call log again.

In my case, it has to be an iCloud issue. I even went so far as to remove her from my family sharing account in iCloud. Problem is, there's no indication or option or setting for backing up call logs, so I can't even disable this !

I dont believe you "log in" with YOUR id. Thats probably where the fail is. When adding someone to family sharing they get the invite notice to accept and BAM its done. Then you have shared calendar, reminder, and can share app purchases etc. But they are logged in with their ID not yours.

 

[HallStevenson]

I think I've figured out what's going on and the only 'solution' would be to create a new Apple ID (account). When I created the Apple ID, using my Gmail email address, it must have made me create an "_____@icloud.com" address. That's where I made the mistake - I used our daughter's 'name'. Now it would seem that this icloud.com email is forever linked to my Apple ID. I don't think there's anything I can do and from what I've read elsewhere, Apple can't (or won't) do anything either. What's really strange is that Apple allows her to use that same email address as her Apple ID ! So I have to wonder what would happen if I did delete my Apple ID and started over, what would happen to that icloud.com 'account' ?

My quick research indicates this is iCloud related. Apple backs up call records and other things that aren't clearly indicated. Not getting into a 'privacy' debate over this but if Apple would allow toggles for what to back-up and/or restore, I could somewhat resolve this. I could turn off call log restoring and not have our daughter's 2-year old calls reappear. Of course, that means my call records wouldn't get backed up/restored if I wanted them to either.

Those 10-12 call records still keep reappearing in my call log too. Sometimes they return right away (minutes later) and sometimes it takes 1, 2, 3 days. I'm just going to ignore them now.