If tapping Answer to unlock closes the app, or seems to do nothing at all, the diagnosis is nearly always the same: Tollgate’s notifications are off.
Why notifications are the unlock mechanism
Apple does not allow a shield to open another app. When you tap the unlock button, Tollgate’s shield cannot launch Tollgate for you. What it does instead is post a notification, “Answer a question to unlock →”, and tapping that notification is what lands you on the question. Full explanation here.
Take away the notification permission and the shield has no way to reach you. The only thing the unlock button can still do is close the guarded app. Which is exactly the behavior you are seeing.
The fix
- Open iOS Settings → Apps → Tollgate → Notifications (or Settings → Notifications → Tollgate).
- Turn Allow Notifications on.
- Open Tollgate once. This step matters: the app rewrites the shield’s button behavior when it sees the permission change, so a quick open re-arms everything correctly.
You can also do the whole thing from inside the app: Settings → Unlock notifications shows On, Off, or “Blocked in iOS” and walks you to the right place.
If notifications are already on
- Check that Focus is not silencing Tollgate. A Focus mode that only lets certain apps notify will swallow the unlock notification. Add Tollgate to the allowed list of any Focus you scroll under.
- Scheduled Summary can delay it. Make sure Tollgate’s notifications are delivered immediately, not bundled into a summary.
- Then try the pillar checklist in The shield isn’t appearing, since a wedged Screen Time daemon can produce odd button behavior too. A restart fixes more than anyone likes to admit.