ms family account screen time limits not working

Anonymous
2019-11-03T16:29:00+00:00

Hi

Despite trying all the suggestions I can find online to fix it screen time limits have not been working for months. The limit is set correctly but Windows appears to ignore it. Family activity reporting shows that the activity duration is greater than the limit set.

Thanks

Mik

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Family and online safety

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Anonymous
2020-09-26T00:35:11+00:00

I too had struggled to get this feature to stick properly to one of my three kids. Two were working fine, one not. All identical hardware, so it was highly irritating one was out of alignment to the others. 

Reinstalled the OS on his PC, still no joy. Removed him from family group, tried everything on the suggestions and they all were useless. 

What I noted was that the time limit that I setup was being ignored but there was still a time limit. Instead of 1.5 hours, it was 4 hours per day. No matter what I set it to, it remained. However, if I turned off limits on his account, instantly the setting on his PC was aware that the limits were removed. When I imposed them once more, the same 4 hour limit (rather than the 1.5 hour limit) was turned back on. 

I concluded that in my case, the time limits set on the website were being ignored or overruled by something on the PC. The feature was linked though, reporting functions worked, and clearly when I switched the time limits off, they applied so no issue with the account itself. 

I searched around a bit more, and saw this bit of advice:

Delete the Parental Control Settings in the following path:

  • On the Start screen, type C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Parental Controls and press Enter.

Delete the folder and files under this location. When the user logs in again, it will force a check with the settings stored online and redownload the settings. 

The reason this didn't get fixed when I did a reinstall of the OS was that I kept files/settings and it never got wiped in the OS re-install. 

As soon as I did this, the correct time limit and schedule was finally applied to my son on his PC. No idea why it got stuck, or why it would never overwrite, but it cleared it. Hopefully future adjustments to the time limits and schedule will work as normal from now on.

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-01-26T20:28:03+00:00

    It stopped working around the same time here. I now found out that the machine stays locked if I grant any time less than or equal to an hour. Granting two hours or more works fine. 

    Has a tinezone issue been introduced with the latest updates? Amsterdam time here.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-01-20T16:02:49+00:00

    Time limit was working until about 4 days ago and suddenly stopped working.   He got his first computer for x-mas so it is a totally new setup less than a month old.

    I have tried:

    1. Checked and double checked to see if activity tracking is enabled on his MS account
    2. All the suggestions on https://support.microsoft.com/en-ph/help/4026901/microsoft-account-fix-screen-time-limits-not-working
    3. Deleted "c:\programdata\Windows\parentalcontrol".  Then rebooted.
    4. Deleted his account from the computer and then re-created it.

    None of that worked.

    Any help would be appreciated.

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