Accessibility setting keeps turning off

[Eskibrew]

I have a Vodafone Smart N1 mobile running android 8.1 and I'm trying to use an app which requires the Accessibility Settings to be on so that it can observe what is being done on the phone.

Annoyingly I find that something keeps disabling the accessibility settings and I can't work out what it is!  I thought it had something to do with Smart Manager but I have tried all sorts of things in there.

The app is a parental control app to limit screen time - the idea being that the app watches what is being used and when game time is up for the day, it prevents games from being used.  I have tried about 5 different parental control apps now and all of them use the same Accessibility Settings to "see" what is being used and on all of them, the Vodafone keeps turning off the Accessibility setting for the app after a period of time.

Does anyone know how to stop this behaviour?

[hrym]

This isn't something I use, so I'm groping around in the dark a little, but let's have a look at a few possibilities.

1. Is there anything buried in the app's advanced settings (if they exist) that limits the time this is active?
2. Is something else activating on a timed basis (ege Do Not Disturb, though probably not that specifically) that could be over-riding the accessibility settings.
3.  Could it be the parental control apps themselves (again, check all settings options)?
4. If all else fails, find the accessibility app in the apps list and clear its data.   That sometimes resets weird issues.

Finally, does this happen when the phone is on, or only after a restart?

[Eskibrew]

Thanks for replying 🙂

1) There's nothing deliberately limiting it from the proint of view of the app, these apps are designed to run continuously otherwise they wouldn't be able to monitor screen usage.

2) There's nothing deliberately activiting that I know of - I've certainly not enabled anything to get it to do this.  Both my sons have the same model phone and both do it.  I've tried it on my Huawei and it does not do it.

3) I have tried tech support on all the apps I've tested and of the ones that reply, they are unable to work out what the problem is.  One suggested Google Family Link could be the issue but removing that is not trivial.

4) I'll give this a go.

It happens when the phone is on and from my experimenting, only after another app has been in use - for example, the ScreenTime parental control app will sit and run all day in the title bar, that's great but as soon as my son fires up "My Talking Tom2", within minutes, ScreenTime disappears from the title bar and if I check I find that Accessibility Setting has been disabled.  Similar happens with "Geometry Dash" game.  I did wonder whether it could have anything to do with those games running in full screen mode?

[hrym]

It could well be that those games are over-riding other settings to provide full functionality - or even just to allow themselves facilities that would be blocked by parental control.

At this stage, I'd be inclined to go back to the parental app developers with this information and ask if there's something that can/should do to stop this happening.

This is only peripherally related, but sort of feeds in: I had an issue with an old phone that would suddenly lose all permissions for all apps - never did find the cause, but suspect a cleanup/booster app.   That this could happen suggests that there's a central database of permissions that maybe doesn't stop one app interfering with another.