Airtag not synced among all my devices

Well, after 1 year probably is a nonsense to you, but I would like to know if it happened again after July.

My cat's Airtag got lost, it shows my address as last location, but also it updates eventually like once a day and it shows pretty same spot, my guess is under my neighbors garden.

BUT what is interesting is I have 2 iPhones and for a couple of days the newer one didn't show any update on the "last seen" time on Find my, but the older one (iPhone SE first gen) got updates twice, both using the same wifi network, same apple ID.

I am wondering if maybe the Airtag network behave worst outside the US. I am in Chile.

Hello Bernhard Walzl,

AirTags will rely on the devices around them to produce details on the location as the AirTag won't be able to produce its own location data. If the location appears incorrect it may be the result of the data being produced incorrectly by the nearby device.

When the AirTag is next to you, try checking the settings of the iOS/macOS devices around you to ensure they're configured correctly.

For iOS you may try the following:

1. Open Settings > [name] > Find My
2. Make sure Find My [Device] and Find My network are both enabled. Toggle off then on again.
3. Open Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services.
4. Make sure Location Services is on. Toggle off then on again.
5. Check to see if the device is capable of displaying its own location in Maps or Find My

Cheers.

This indeed seems odd.

3x Questions of unknown significance or relevance:

Was the AirTag in your example really moving or at a fixed, unmoving location?

If moving, was the Airtag indeed at the two different locations approximately at the times indicated in FindMy ?

Are you or the AirTag near (< 25 mi) from any time zone boundaries ?

Thanks.

The different locations and timestamps on the different devices is indeed odd. 🤔

Presumably, at any given time, one would expect the same location data for any one tag to be supplied to any FindMy query.

I’d suggest going “one more step” than BW’s reply and actually logging each device “out” of iCloud and back “in.”

While this shouldn’t make a difference, it’s been thought to help in other areas involving multi-device iCloud synchronization.

As long as each device has GOOD data connectivity, they presumably should all display the same data.

HOWEVER, understand each device is recovering the location data from Apple’s servers, decrypting it, and displaying the geographic position independently of the other devices

Each device is also downloading MANY other tag locations, and thru cryptographic processes, is discarding those positions which can’t be yours. (as they can’t be decrypted)

So as you can see, it’s not as “simple” as a common Apple “web page” which each device then renders onto the device’s screen.

This also does leave open the possibility that different iOS / iPadOS versions might behave differently.

Another thought …

Does refreshing FindMy perhaps seem to update the “stale” reported position?

[Either fully closing FindMy (by “swiping up and out”) or power-off restarting the device]

Thanks for the follow-on info.

I would agree that something certainly seems off-normal. 🤔