iPad Pro touch screen intermittent unresponsive

This issue started appearing one month after I bought my 2018 iPad Pro 12.9. About every second day I had intermittent touch issues, exactly as described here. I didn't want to exchange it to a refurb one, as I thought the new one would exhibit the same problems.

I tried a lot of things, one of these worked. I haven't had a single touch issue for 3 months now:

1. I no longer use the charger which came with the iPad, instead I'm using my old iPad Air2's charger. It's slower, but does the job too.
2. I turned off Tap to Wake.

I don't know which one was the remedy, but the problem which appeared every second day, hasn't appeared for months now, so I dare to risk that it won't happen again. I don't know which workaround fixed the issue, but I don't want to debug anymore, as I really enjoy a flawlessly working iPad. I hope this helps you all.

In September of 2019 I bought a gen 3 iPad Pro 12.9. Out of the box there were no problems.

Starting in late October I was having issues with the iPad not recognizing touch. By late November it got really bad, sometimes lagging 3 seconds just to swipe up to go to the homescreen, keyboard entries not being recognized and touch not working correctly in many apps.

Restarting would fix it but only for a few minutes. I updated to iOS 13.2.3 a few days ago and that did the trick! All problems are gone. Hopefully it will stay that way.

Some exciting news! I think I found the source of the problem and the solution. I don’t want egg on my face, so I will say it again, I **think** I've found the source of the problem. I will need your help to confirm it.

First, make sure you are having the same touch issue commonly described here. Specifically, you touch something actionable on the screen and nothing happens. You’ll often get an auditory feedback when you type, but nothing shows up on the screen. Eventually you’ll get a response after several tries, but sometimes you will have to reorient the screen, touch another location on the screen or kill the app. If you’re having the same symptoms, then this might work for you.

The solution is very simple, but I don’t know if many of you can live with it. Are you ready......drum roll.....

DELETE THE YOUTUBE APP!!!

That’s it. Will the problem go away 100%? Not really, but at least 95%. I occasionally get a key press drop, but not nearly as often as before. The performance is also much zippier. I was wondering if the iPad Pro was overhyped and even considered downgrading. Now, however, I am seeing significant speed improvements over my old iPad 4.

Try this solution and report back. You may also want to restart your iPad for good measure just to clear out all the evil YouTube bits and bytes that may be still lurking in the system. This might explain why some people don’t have this problem while others do. You’ll have to watch YouTube from the browser, which really sucks.

Hi my friends.

I think I found a new solution.

I disabled all my iPad notifications and the issue apparently went away. Turned off all, including basic native notifications: find my device, notes, calendar, etc.

I based myself on one of the probable past solutions, where one of the users succeeded in uninstalling the YouTube App. I thought about some feature of the app that was deleted together and motivated the solution for that user. "Notifications" came to mind. This would explain why it works for some and not for others. If so, the problem would be linked to each app that uses notifications and somehow overloads the screen and its sensitivity to Apple Pencil and fingers.

Typically, the solutions I tested earlier and failed, worked for no more than 2 minutes.

Today, turning off ALL notifications, I am already more than 10 minutes without having the touchscreen issue again. It took some time, as there is no way to turn off ALL notifications at once. You need to turn off app by app.

Please, guys, try this... and tell me if it works for you too and report your experience.

I will continue to use the device and testing to see if the problem is really gone and talk to you again.

I have a couple theories about this....none of the solutions suggested here or elsewhere worked for me with my iPad Pro 12.9”. After trying everything on the list that everyone has posted including hard resets, removing the screen protector etc, on my iPad Pro, total restore.....I have narrowed this down to one or two things...after reading about how using the smart folio solves the problem, the possibility that touching the smart connector or pressing on it is somehow interfering with the touch screen...won’t go into what I think is happening technically...but I put a piece of electricians tape over the connector. Seems to make the problem better somewhat. My other theory is that something is happening when the iPad overheats. I removed my iPad’s case and that also seemed to improve things...but then I noticed that when my screen became unresponsive the back of the iPAD became warm. Is here a chance that these iPad’s are throttling down and depending on what else it’s doing it’s simply freezing as the downthrottled processor tries to catch up? I’d be interested if anyone else notices whether their screens become unresponsive when their iPads heat up with use as well. Anyway removing the cover and taping the smart connector have helped. It’s not freezing nearly as much. Please let me know your experiences with the throttling.

Okay, I tried all of the usual things on my new iPad Pro 12.9” - removed screen protector, removed case, hard restart, closing all open apps, taping my contacts, nothing seemed to work consistently and the problem soon returned. I posted here previously that when my iPad Pro’s screen stops responding, the back gets pretty warm.

So operating under the assumption that maybe an app was running amok and overheating it, and then the iPad was throttling, I reset all settings under General>Reset>Reset All Settings. This does not erase any apps or data but resets them to default.

So far I have not had a recurrence of the issue and the back of the iPad has remained cool. I also noticed that my battery seems to last longer-makes sense if an app runs amok because it would be burning power in the background.

my theory on the reason that backing up and restoring doesn’t fix the problem is that you are copying all settings when you back up and just writing them back when you restore.

Please let me know if this fixes the problem for you.

this is easy:

our problem is related to electrostatics. the cover closes access to the metal case, touching which you ground the device.

you can even return the case back. it is enough to slip a piece of foil under it so that part of it sticks out. and touch this part while working. this will also help.

this will help in a large number of cases. however, according to my observations, the problem becomes more noticeable over time and even a completely removed cover will not solve the problem completely.

as far as I can judge from my own experience (and it turns out that it is reliable, the problem was found and confirmed by engineers on two different models that I bought), the problem became noticeable after about 3-4 months of usage. my devices were still in perfect condition by this time. not any single scratch.

despite the fact that users use iPads in different ways, you will not find a single person who does not use a virtual keyboard. much less use external keyboards.

the problem has nothing to do with the processor, as it affects models released before the A12.

from experience, the problem appears much more often if the iPad is on charge, or it is slightly tilted, being in landscape orientation. try to lie on your back without a pillow and take the iPad in landscape orientation in front of you (it will be tilted to your eyes for some degree from vertical), try typing something on the keyboard in this position. both of my devices showed the problem instantly. i can assume that this has something to do with the gyroscope.

one of the first temporary fixes found was a 180-degree rotation of the screen. for a while, this provides a solution to the problem. which also proves that the problem is related to the gyroscope.

I had the same issue and just installed ios 12.2. Seems to have fixed it so far!

Have you tried toggling OFF the Tap to Wake feature in Settings, Accessibility?

This is a known, good temporary fix for the 2018 iPad Pro models.

Agree with the ‘Tap to Wake’ turned off. I’ve had it off for a while now (latest 12.9 iPad Pro) and it has essentially resolved my touch screen issue.

Disconnecting my apple pencil solved the problem for me.

I have an iPad Pro 11 inch and this problem started with iOS 12.2 for me. The iPad was working perfectly, then as soon as I updated I have periods of not being able to interact with anything on the screen. If I turn off the screen and then unlock it again, that helps a bit for a little while. Over time, it gets worse and worse until I have to shut down the iPad completely and restart it. Just typing this message the screen has stopped responding several times. Sometimes things on the screen will seem like they know a touch event has started, but it seems to never finish. It seems to me that Apple messed up the touch input driver, and I’m shocked they haven’t issued a hot fix since so many people are having this problem.

This is NOT any type of hardware issue.

This is an iOS 12 software issue/bug.

Apple can keep sending ya’ all new or refurbished 2018 iPad Pro model replacements as much as they want and as many as they want.

The fact is that this unresponsive touch issue is an iOS 12 software based bug, as it affects ALL 3 years of iPad Pro models!

Over a few weeks, all of your new or refurbished replacement 2018 iPad Pro models, you get from Apple, are going to keep getting this unresponsive touch screen issue UNTIL Apple fixes this in iOS!

Period!

A new or refurbished replacement, 2017 or 2018 iPad Pro is NOT going to solve this issue.

Sorry, it is NOT!

Apple needs to fix this issue from inside iOS 12.

After months of living with this issue, i am 100% sure it's hardware related (at least in my case). I noticed that when the ipad becomes a little hot the issue starts.

To force raising the temperature, i would run a gpu demanding app/game and in a couple minutes i start losing touch.

Locking the ipad for a couple seconds, then unlocking it (which cools it does for a bit) would bring back touch responsiveness but only for a few seconds, and the cycle repeats.

I have mentioned that earlier in a post, however if i keep the ipad unlocked when touch is no longer responsive and keep the app/game running, the ipad shuts down (i also hear a blip from the speakers).

Once it reboots, i get the attached screen a couple seconds after the apple logo screen appears.

Anyone experiencing that?