Family Safety location tracking not working

Anonymous
2023-03-05T01:16:51+00:00

Hello. I have two children with Android phones (Samsung S21's). We have used Microsoft Family Safety for a few years and location tracking has worked perfectly until a few weeks ago when it stopped updating their locations.

I looked at every setting on both their phones, making sure all of the recommended location settings, security settings, battery settings were correct. Still couldn't get their location which showed they were both "In the house" when they were actually at school.

I uninstalled the app from both phones and reinstalled it. I followed all of the security prompts for the recommended settings. Both phones started to report their location again.

However... one of my children is on a school trip. Their phone last reported in five hours ago from a service station 250 miles away. They are now at their destination, but the Microsoft Family Safety app still shows them where they were five hours ago (extremely worrying for a parent).

Looks like the probkem has happened again. This must be a Microsoft problem What are the chances of both my kids phones stopping reporting their location at exactly the same time?

Come on Microsoft please fix this. Our children are very important to us and the app is called Microsoft "Family Safety".

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Family and online safety

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-03-09T16:39:54+00:00

    I have exactly the same problem, the app is still reporting screen time when I look at the list view, but everyone in my family says "We couldn't find their location"

    This worked perfectly until maybe a couple of weeks ago, however I have some location alerts configured and the weird thing is I still get them so it must be partially working, but I can't see their location on the map.

    I'm an IT veteran and know how to troubleshoot, I've done the usual including uninstall/reinstall etc, Everything worked fine until recently and nothing has changed on my side.

    Logging into the Family on a browser however does show the location, so the issue must be the Android app - but the last time it was updated on the Play store was 15 Dec 2022 and it's been working after that until late Feb / early March.

    I've emailed the team directly using the email address provided in the Play store, maybe worth others doing the same familysafetyfeedback@microsoft.com

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-03-10T03:29:26+00:00

    My family is having the same problem with Android phones. Both pixel phones and 1 of the samsungs are not sharing locations any longer. My phone data location is 16 days old... the other pixel was the same, but then intermittently re pinged this morning, once, for a minute.

    This is frustrating as it's how we make sure our kids make it to/from school safely.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-03-10T06:58:47+00:00

    Unfortunately I can confirm the issue of location tracking ceasing quickly and randomly. Reinstalling of the app usually helps - but only for a short time (few hours - 1 day...). It would be important to fix this since parents rely on such functionality....

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-03-10T10:35:29+00:00

    Logging out and then login again also seems to work.

    Additionally the webversion (or widget) seems to display the correct location.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-03-10T17:23:27+00:00

    Here the same problem. Lease fixe these issue Microsoft.

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