Troubleshooting Microsoft Family Safety
Here are the most common issues you might encounter with family safety features and how to resolve them.
Common issues
If you or your grown-up child wants or needs privacy, you can remove them from the Family Group. Learn how.
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If you are an adult but have the wrong birth date on the account, you need to change the account information as if you were a child.
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Go to Sign in and select Learn more about parent/guardianconsent at the bottom of the information prompt.
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On the next screen, click Update account information.
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If prompted, enter your name and click Update to see the screen to update your date of birth.
Here are the steps you can follow to remove members:
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Sign in to family.microsoft.com using your Microsoft account.
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Select the member you want to remove.
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Remove consent for any child accounts by selecting Remove consent next to their name.
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Navigate back to the family group and select Remove from family group to complete the removal.
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Remove and Re-add Limits: Try removing the screen time limits and then adding them back. This can sometimes clear any glitches.
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Change your passwords: Children and teenagers can be remarkably resourceful and devious. Keep your devices safe and ensure only you and trusted adults in the house can access your accounts.
Other issues
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Set their account as a standard user: Your child might be set as an Administrator on the device. As an administrator they can change or break the Family Safety settings. Open your Other accounts settings below then choose your child's account > Change account type > In the dialog choose Standard user and select ok to save the change. Open Settings
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Verify that your child's Microsoft account didn't expire: Have them sign in with their Microsoft account on their device. Select Start > Settings > Accounts Select Verify and follow the prompts to verify their account. If you don't see the Verify option, open Microsoft Edge on their device and verify the account at https://aka.ms/familyverify.
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Your child may have turned off activity reporting: Kids who are 13* or older have the ability to "opt out" of sharing usage data with adults in their family. Check their activity reporting settings at family.microsoft.com or on the Family Safety mobile app. If activity reporting has been turned off, then your child has opted out, and you will need to regain their consent before you can turn it back on.
*Age 13 in the United States. This age may be different in other countries based on local regulations.
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The activity shown does not seem to match what I see in real life: Time limits are enforced based on when they are signed in (even idle time), but idle time is not counted in the device usage report. For example, if your child's allowance is 2 hours, and they sign in and don't do anything, the child would be locked out after 2 hours, but the device usage report may show as little as 1 minute of usage.
Additionally, if your time zone is set incorrectly, then device usage may show up under a different day in your activity report. You can validate the time zone on your Microsoft account to make sure activity reports are showing usage accurately.
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Make sure everyone signs in correctly: Xbox allows multiple users to sign in at once. It can help to make sure each user signs in with a PIN (so family members are not able to log in with another user’s credentials to bypass the settings).
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Use content restrictions: When your kid's time is up, and they are signed out, they will still be able to access certain apps and games. Use the Signed-out content restrictions feature to limit what they can do when nobody is signed in.
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Youngest child age restrictions: If more than one user is signed in, the youngest child or family member's age restrictions will take effect for games. A parent can bypass the limit, or just sign out the youngest family member's account.
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Sign out to save screen time: Any time a child is signed in, their screen timer is counting down, even if a game is paused, or they are not actively participating while someone else plays. They will want to make sure to sign out when they’re done to save their screen time.
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Turn on or allow all permissions for Family Safety to work: See which permissions are needed for the Family Safety app on Android
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Android device screen time is not yet supported but you can still set screen time limits on their apps and games.Set app and game limits
Get more help
We do our best to make the Family Safety experience great but sometimes there could be issues, and we want to help resolve them.
Send an error log from the Family Safety mobile app
If you have the Family Safety mobile app open and are experiencing issues, you can send us feedback or your logs and we'll review. Tap the home icon > Help & Feedback > Underneath troubleshooting select Send logs.
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