iOS lock screen widget only updates every 30 minutes

[fortris]

This has been tested on both an iPhone 17 with iOS 26.1 and an iPhone 13 with iOS 18.6.2. The lockscreen widget will display out of date information until the current information is 30 minutes old and will then update to show information that is 5 minutes old. I'm unsure if this is a limitation on Apples part or an error with the application. Clicking on the widget to open the app also does not update the information like it does for other existing widgets. The badge number will also display up to date information confirming the app has access to new information and isn't able to display it on the widget.

[dhermanns]

Hi! I would expect this as an apple limitation. The update mechanism is the same for the lockscreen widget and the normal widget. But I will double check this.

[fortris]

Is it a limit on how often new data can be fed to the widget without user input? I have noticed it's started to occasionally update before the 30 minute mark but extremely inconsistently. The widget itself updates in real time (you can see the seconds tick since the last update) and previously I've had widgets that could refresh data when you tapped them so I know it's at least possible to manually fetch current data.

[dhermanns]

I would expect that this is due to a limitation of background updates. A manual refresh could be an option.

But the lockscreen widget would have to be transformed to a live activity for that. And of course a manual refresh is boring ;).