Keep an eye on those. I’ve had Tab Groups get out of sync between my devices several times, too.
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iCloud tabs not syncing
- Thread starter Morac
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I've had this problem for over a year now and it's only the Mac (Ventura and also previous Monterey) that generates the phantom tabs. I've tried all the suggestions from this thread.
The phantom tabs show up on my iPad and my iPhone.
Has anyone any contact with developers at Apple with this issue? I don't want to call support because they will just use hours of my time, when maybe someone else here has a support case going?
The phantom tabs show up on my iPad and my iPhone.
Has anyone any contact with developers at Apple with this issue? I don't want to call support because they will just use hours of my time, when maybe someone else here has a support case going?
I know this is going to be annoying if you've already tried it, but have you tried unchecking the "safari" option under iCloud to stop synching, agreed to DELETE the data when it prompts you, and then turned the iCloud safari option back on? What version of i(Pad)OS are you running?
Yes I done all that multiple times (with Monterey AND Ventura). Always running newest version of everything (I'm a computer engineer).
You said that the phantom tabs appear on your iOS devices. You would need to do what I suggested above on those devices, the devices where the phantom tabs appear. Doing it on your Mac won't have any effect. This can be tricky, because most people's instinct is to think the problem lies with the devices that the phantom tabs supposedly belong to, but the issue is with the .db (database) files that iCloud uses to display other devices' open tabs. So if your iPhone is showing tabs that are no longer open on other devices, the problem lies with the .db files on that device. Hence the need to deselect Safari from iCloud, ensure you select "YES" when it asks to delete offline data, and then turn it back on -- on your iPhone, not the Mac.
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And I tried one more time and suddenly now it's working! Perhaps the latest 16.5 update or 13.4 update made the difference? I have done this so many times before over the two years.
Yes, I think an update this year (iOS 16.1?) modified the behavior of the toggle so that turning off Safari iCloud syncing on an iOS/iPadOS device deletes the database file that is responsible for the ghost tabs. I wish they would implement a similar change in macOS, but progress I guess...
I managed to clear my phantom tabs (again), but I also have another problem: bookmarks and reading list have stopped syncing entirely. (The last time I had phantom tabs, bookmarks and reading list also stopped syncing. However, after I fixed the phantom tabs, syncing resumed normally.)
With Advanced Data Protection off, my bookmarks and reading list are ”frozen” at a specific point in time (roughly two weeks ago when the phantom tabs appeared). No matter how many times I delete the bookmarks manually and toggle iCloud syncing for Safari (whether opting to delete the local copy or not), those same bookmarks reappear the next time I enable syncing.
I have completely logged out of iCloud on every device except my two iPhones (because re-adding all my Apple Pay cards is a pain), but I will try logging out of those later.
If I try to view deleted bookmarks on iCloud.com, it just says “loading” and after a while says there are no bookmarks.
With Advanced Data Protection off, my bookmarks and reading list are ”frozen” at a specific point in time (roughly two weeks ago when the phantom tabs appeared). No matter how many times I delete the bookmarks manually and toggle iCloud syncing for Safari (whether opting to delete the local copy or not), those same bookmarks reappear the next time I enable syncing.
I have completely logged out of iCloud on every device except my two iPhones (because re-adding all my Apple Pay cards is a pain), but I will try logging out of those later.
If I try to view deleted bookmarks on iCloud.com, it just says “loading” and after a while says there are no bookmarks.
What happens with Advanced Data Protection enabled is even more frustrating. With ADP enabled, the frozen-in-time bookmarks aren’t downloaded at all. (I get zero bookmarks.) If I try to load my bookmarks.html and then edit them, Safari reports that they are still syncing. However, syncing never finishes (or even appears to start), and Activity Monitor shows no activity for SafariBookmarksSyncAgent. Restarting the agent does nothing. I have deleted every identifiable file and keychain entry related to bookmarks and even reinstalled macOS to no avail.
Running the latest iOS/iPadOS/macOS, I've had tabs from my MacBook that were stuck on other devices for weeks now.
Interestingly, the tabs stuck on the iPad were not the same as the iPhone. Short of signing out of iCloud and having to go through Apple Wallet madness, I tried everything I could think of with regard to disabling Safari iCloud sync on every device, deleting the CloudTabs.db files, and power cycling the devices before re-enabling. That would work until I relaunched Safari on the Mac, causing tabs to resend and the stuck tabs to return.
But I think I found a consistent way to clear stuck tabs from non-macOS devices. It seems like there's something in the iCloud Backup that Safari might be pulling in the stuck tabs from.
On each device showing stuck tabs, I did the following:
Interestingly, the tabs stuck on the iPad were not the same as the iPhone. Short of signing out of iCloud and having to go through Apple Wallet madness, I tried everything I could think of with regard to disabling Safari iCloud sync on every device, deleting the CloudTabs.db files, and power cycling the devices before re-enabling. That would work until I relaunched Safari on the Mac, causing tabs to resend and the stuck tabs to return.
But I think I found a consistent way to clear stuck tabs from non-macOS devices. It seems like there's something in the iCloud Backup that Safari might be pulling in the stuck tabs from.
On each device showing stuck tabs, I did the following:
- Disable Safari iCloud sync
- Force quit Safari on that same device
- Delete the iCloud Backup from that device, which also turns off iCloud Backup for that device
- Power the device off, then turn back on
- Re-enable Safari iCloud sync, then launch Safari
- Wait for Safari to fully sync with iCloud (takes 1-2 minutes and might require swiping out of the app, then opening again)
- Note that the stuck tabs should not have reappeared
- Re-enable iCloud Backup and force a backup
Got this problem again today where I had a stuck tab appear on my iPad. In the past this would have required doing everything including sacrificing a chicken to get it to go away, but I read that Apple fixed it so that turning off Safari in the iCloud settings now clears out the open tab list for other devices, so I tried that. Sure enough when I toggled it back on the closed tab was gone and the open tabs started syncing properly (though I had to kill the Safari app and restart it).
I’m back to 4 devices all listing each other device with a bunch of erroneous old tabs open. I’ve tried the signing out of iCloud thing, restoring from a backup, even reinstalling macOS. Doesn’t matter. At some point one of my devices will have this issue again and it’ll only get worse. iPhone, iPad, M1 MBP, and a 2018 Intel Mac mini. All different device types and all have this issue. I’ve “resolved” it before and then it happens again…
iOS 17.4 changed the way syncing works. It only syncs when there are tabs open. As such it’s impossible to have all closed tabs on other devices now. I’m assuming that’s a bug.
It’s not the same syncing problem that was reported here as the next time you close Safari with tabs open, the old tabs are removed. As such, syncing “works”, but not when all tabs are closed.
I created a new thread about that since this old one is from iOS 14.
forums.macrumors.com
It’s also been reported elsewhere:
discussions.apple.com
It’s not the same syncing problem that was reported here as the next time you close Safari with tabs open, the old tabs are removed. As such, syncing “works”, but not when all tabs are closed.
I created a new thread about that since this old one is from iOS 14.
iOS 17.4 iCloud tabs syncing bug
iCloud tab syncing was working fine until I upgraded to iOS 17.4 on my iPad and iPhone and now the way it works has changed. If i close Safari with tabs open it works the same way it used to. My other devices, including my Mac on 14.3.1 will show those tabs as iCloud tabs on my other device...
forums.macrumors.com
It’s also been reported elsewhere:
iOS 17.4 iCloud tabs not clearing - Apple Community
Did you do anything after installing the update? I am not seeing this fixed on any of my devices.
not after, but before installing the update. I disabled Safari in the iCloud settings on all my devices (MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone), closed safari, restarted all devices, enabled Safari in the iCloud settings in all my devices again. But after I did this, the problem exists further. Then I read about the 17.4.1 updates, installed them and now everything works. so far
I wonder if that will stick. So there was no macOS update today, but I just closed all tabs in Safari on Mac and it did clean up the stuck Mac tabs on my other devices.not after, but before installing the update. I disabled Safari in the iCloud settings on all my devices (MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone), closed safari, restarted all devices, enabled Safari in the iCloud settings in all my devices again. But after I did this, the problem exists further. Then I read about the 17.4.1 updates, installed them and now everything works. so far
Tried the same thing on my iPad, but no good. Other devices still show whatever was last open before closing all tabs.
I had the problem only on my iPhone. between Macbook and iPad everything worked fine, also before the update.
maybe you'll try to disable / enable Safari in the iCloud settings with a restart after you've installed the 17.4.1 updates?
Mine have been seamless except for one phantom tab from my MacBook Air showing up on my iPhone.
yeah it's like this all over my devices.. lots of phantom tabs all over. I used to be able to resolve it by signing out of icloud and back in but now this doesn't even fix it for long. it happens again within a week.