Troubleshooting

Having trouble? Here are solutions to the most common issues. Many entries include a deep link you can tap on your iPhone or iPad to jump straight to the relevant screen.

Scores Not Syncing

Symptoms: Games or scores on one device don’t appear on another.

Solutions:

1. Check that iCloud is enabled for Keeping Score! — go to Settings -> [your name] -> iCloud -> Apps Using iCloud and ensure the toggle is on.
2. Make sure both devices are signed into the same iCloud account.
3. Check your internet connection — sync requires network access.
4. Open the app on both devices — foregrounding can trigger a sync.
5. Wait a few minutes — large sync operations may take time, and CloudKit can be eventually-consistent.

If an item seems stuck as an “orphan” (a player with no game, etc.), note that Keeping Score! runs its own two-phase orphan cleanup at launch to catch CloudKit’s unreliable cascade deletes — reopening the app on both devices usually resolves it.

Duplicate Personas

Symptoms: The same persona appears twice in your library.

Solutions:

• The app automatically merges duplicate personas silently in the background. Matching is case-insensitive — “Alice” and “alice” are treated as the same persona.
• Duplicates most often occur when the same persona is created on two devices before they sync.
• If duplicates persist, ensure both devices have a network connection and open the app on each.

Learn more about deduplication.

Timer Not Working as Expected

Symptoms: Timer seems stuck, doesn’t resume, or didn’t auto-complete the game.

Solutions:

• Timer paused? Check if the timer is paused — tap the play button to resume.
• App closed? Timer state is saved to the database and survives app restarts.
• Calculator open? If the calculator is open when the timer expires, game completion is deferred until you close it.
• Game reopened? Reopening a completed game suppresses the timer expiry so you can continue playing.
• Missed the alert? If the app is backgrounded when the timer expires, a local notification fires — make sure notifications are allowed in Settings -> Notifications -> Keeping Score!

Widget Not Updating

Symptoms: The Home Screen widget shows stale scores.

Solutions:

1. Open the app briefly — this triggers a widget refresh.
2. Remove the widget and re-add it.
3. Check that the widget is configured to show the correct game (edit the widget and pick the pinned game).
4. Restart your device if the issue persists.

Widgets refresh on a system-managed schedule, so there may be a brief delay after score changes. Live Activities on the Lock Screen / Dynamic Island update in real time for up to 4 players.

Game Not Appearing in Spotlight

Symptoms: A game doesn’t show up when searching in iOS Spotlight.

Solutions:

1. Open Keeping Score! — this triggers reindexing.
2. Wait a moment — Spotlight indexes content asynchronously.
3. Try searching by player name in addition to game title.
4. Check that Spotlight is enabled for Keeping Score! in Settings -> Siri & Search.

App Feels Slow

Symptoms: The app is sluggish, especially the game list.

Solutions:

• Many active games? Finish completed games — the Playing filter shows only active games for faster browsing.
• Clean out Settings -> Data -> Recently Deleted — soft-deleted items stay around for 30 days.
• Close and reopen the app to clear any cached state.
• Ensure your device has available storage — very low storage can affect all apps.

Can’t Connect to AirPlay

Symptoms: The TV leaderboard doesn’t appear when connecting to AirPlay.

Solutions:

1. Make sure both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network.
2. Try disconnecting and reconnecting to AirPlay.
3. Check that your AirPlay receiver is powered on and available.
4. Restart both the iPhone/iPad and the AirPlay receiver if needed.

The app detects external displays automatically via three independent checks (scene delegate, launch scan, and activation reconciliation) — no configuration is needed within Keeping Score!

Sounds Not Playing

Symptoms: Score change, round end, or timer sounds are silent.

Solutions:

• Check the device isn’t in silent mode. Keeping Score! uses an ambient audio session, which respects the silent switch.
• Open Sound Settings and confirm the specific event is enabled.
• If another audio app (music, podcasts) is playing, Keeping Score! mixes rather than interrupts — lower or pause that audio to hear app sounds.
• Custom sound missing? Custom recordings are capped at 30 seconds; re-record if it was longer.

Kids Mode Won’t Turn Off

Symptoms: You can’t exit Kids Mode.

Solutions:

• A 4-digit parental PIN may have been set. Enter it to disable Kids Mode.
• The PIN is stored in the iOS Keychain and synced across your devices via iCloud — if you set it on another device, it applies here too.
• Forgotten the PIN? Open the iOS Settings app -> Keeping Score! and switch Kids Mode off there. That toggle is intentionally off-only — you can disable Kids Mode without the PIN but can’t enable it from outside the app.

Camera Access Denied

Symptoms: The Camera tile in the avatar editor (or the in-game memory capture sheet) is greyed out, or tapping it shows a black preview with no capture button.

Solutions:

• Open the iOS Settings app -> Keeping Score! -> Camera and switch access on.
• On a device where camera access is Restricted (e.g. Screen Time → Content & Privacy Restrictions), the tile stays disabled until the restriction is lifted.
• You can still use the Photo tile to pick from your existing Photo Library without needing camera access.

The app no longer launches the camera UI when access is denied — it renders an inline tip explaining how to re-enable it instead of the old silent black-preview state.

Backup or Restore Issues

Symptoms: Weekly backups missing, or a restore didn’t bring back what you expected.

Solutions:

• Backups require iCloud Drive to be enabled. With it off, snapshots fall back to the app’s Documents folder.
• Only the 4 most recent snapshots are kept — older ones are pruned automatically.
• Restore is additive: it merges by stable ID, so existing records aren’t overwritten or deleted. If something isn’t “coming back”, it’s most likely because a current record with the same ID is already present.
• Open Settings -> Data -> Backups to trigger a manual backup or pick a specific snapshot to restore.

Crash on Launch

Symptoms: The app crashes before you can use it, or won’t open at all.

Solutions:

1. Force-quit the app from the App Switcher and reopen.
2. Restart the iPhone or iPad.
3. Check the App Store for a Keeping Score! update — if we’ve already shipped a fix, that’s the fastest route back.
4. Confirm you’re on iOS 18.0 or later.
5. As a last resort, uninstall and reinstall. If iCloud sync is on, games, players, personas, and templates will come back when you sign in again.

Crash-on-launch is hard to diagnose because the app never runs long enough to collect telemetry on its own. If possible, send a diagnostic from another working device via Settings -> Report an Issue, or send one from the reinstalled device as soon as it opens. The bundle includes MetricKit crash data that tells us exactly where the failure happened.

Translation Looks Wrong

Symptoms: A word, sentence, or button label reads oddly in your language.

Solutions:

• Send us the fix via Settings -> Report an Issue. Include the language, the screen, the current text, and (ideally) what it should say. A screenshot is the fastest signal.
• Translation fixes are bundled into the next app release — usually within a week or two.

Keeping Score! ships in 33 languages, and native-speaker corrections are the single best source of quality improvements.

Can’t Send a Diagnostic Report

Symptoms: Tapping Send in Report an Issue fails, or shake-to-report does nothing.

Solutions:

• Check your internet connection — the report uploads to our diagnostic ingest service.
• Reports are authenticated with Apple’s App Attest. The first report after install has to register an attestation key; if Apple’s attestation service is temporarily unavailable, try again in a few minutes.
• If uploads continue to fail, the app will transparently clear the stored attestation key and re-register on the next attempt — usually just retrying from the same screen is enough.
• Shake-to-report requires holding the device and giving it a firm shake while Keeping Score! is in the foreground. If shake isn’t triggering, use Settings -> Report an Issue directly.

Still Need Help?

• Check the FAQ for answers to common questions.
• Contact us via Report an Issue — the diagnostic bundle makes bugs far easier to fix.