spinning wheel icon next to wi-fi indicating network activity

Machine_Ruse, sorry for delay in reply. I guess I was lucky in the context of this discussion - my restore (from backup) worked. So it was not a full factory reset - which I was tempted to do, but because I'd invested a lot (way too much) time in setting up a desktop theme with new icons / shortcuts, I thought I'd try the short route first.

I still got a lot of the usual prompts related to initial device setup - this time I decided not to opt out of some of the system options that I normally opt out of due to privacy concerns - for example I accepted 'hey Siri' voice option (and turned it off later).

So far so good - I have had the spinning icon two or three times over the past week, but clicking the home button and the Siri screen dot at the same time (as I had read about elsewhere) immediately dismissed the spinning network icon and it doesn't come back. Last time I had to do the home button thing was probably four days ago. So thankfully I have not had to go the full restore route! Hope this helps a few people.

I've been on 14.3 for a few weeks and the update did not fix the problem for me.

Also, for clarity, I've been able to get the icon to stop spinning by simply holding down the home button until the Siri globe/oracle/bubble comes up, and then waiting while that globe shrinks back down a little bit and eventually goes away. I've never spoken to Siri, I just let the globe come up and go away. It usually works on the first attempt, but sometimes has taken two or three. It's possible those times were due to background noise.

When I see the spinning wheel on the top of the phone, I hold the home button down to engage the Siri Oracle. As it stays up and is spinning, and even changing size from larger to smaller, I continue tapping it with my finger. Sometimes I tap about 10 times. Very rarely do I have to repeat this before the spinning wheel stops. Usually though it stops within the first go-round. Occasionally Siri says “ i’m sorry. I do not understand“ because it thinks I am trying to talk to it. I hope this is clearer. Post back if it is not.

The spinning has not stopped for me either. Enacting Siri and getting the spinning Siri circle to go from large to small stops the spinning. Or, activating Siri and tapping the spinning wheel until it changes from large to small and then stops will also stop the spinning wheel/ battery drain.

The trick is to train myself to ALWAYS check for the spinning wheel after using voice to text !

Hi everyone

Just for the record, I have a new iPad Air 4th gen and upgraded to the latest 14.4.2

I can confirm that I get the spinning wheel after using dictation to text when in Messages. Even if you quit messages completely by removing it from recents etc you still get the spinning wheel next to the wifi indicator. Asking Siri something does seem to clear it but it is not ideal - sometimes I have to do a restart which is even more of a pain

I cannot remember if this used to happen before I upgraded to 14.4.2 - that's the annoying part.

I have now reverted to just typing my messages to avoid this.

P

Yes exactly. I don't want Siri listening to me anyway - I would rather push a button when I want it to listen to me. I disabled 'always listen for hey siri'.

all I say is “ hey Siri “ and then once she answers I click the home button and it stops

I have the same iPad Pro 12.9 iPadOS 14.1 and have seen the same perpetual spinning network activity since I started using the dictation. You can stop it with resetting the Network Settings or restarting the iPad but invariably (and it does not matter if it is using Safari, Chrome or Firefox....) it comes back. I even got it to trigger by doing voice dictation in Notes. If you do one quick dictation it does not trigger it all the time but repeated dictations with short pauses between “thoughts” does trigger it. I’ve been on the phone with Apple Support and they suggested I do a complete reset at this point :/

And have you tried the troubleshooting steps I posted 6 days ago, and repeated 2 days ago:

Turn Wi-Fi OFF. Go to Settings/Cellular and Reset Statistics. Use the phone for a while, then check which apps have used data.

And have YOU also tried the troubleshooting steps I posted 6 days ago, and repeated 2 days ago:

Turn Wi-Fi OFF. Go to Settings/Cellular and Reset Statistics. Use the phone for a while, then check which apps have used data.

This may be of assistance to some. I read on a different forum that if say "hey siri" and then "never mind" the spinning wheel will stop. I found this to be effective if all apps and pages are closed on Safari 75% of the time. This is not a totoal fix but is still much better than having to restart. I suspect their is a connection to what's app but have not been able to nail it down. I have told apple about the 'hey siri" thing and they are still trying to sort it out. Funny side story. The upper level tech support guy I have been dealing with said that since he talked to me about this problem he noticed that he has the same problem. Hopefully this will be incentive to work a little harder on the problem. I am expecting them to get back to me this week. Will keep you all posted.

Interesting find. I switched back to the stock keyboard, disabled WiFi, and then dictated a couple of messages. The spinning indicator never came on. I tried a couple of times.

I then turned WiFi back on, dictated a message and the indicator immediately displayed and stayed on. I turned WiFi off and the indicator has stayed persistent, so I am going to let it spin for awhile to see if anything shows up in the cellular data stats.

At this point though, I think it's noteworthy that the indicator never came on for me if the dictation was done while WiFi was turned off. Can anyone else check to see if they have the same behavior?

SravanKrA, thank you for your attempt at assisting, but I do not believe you’ve read this entire thread, because the discussion you linked to is not a solution that is going to help anyone who is experiencing this problem.

That discussion simply provides steps on how to restart your phone, reset your modem, and how to do a factory restore. As already stated numerous times in this discussion, any of those actions will only temporarily stop the symptom of the persistent spinning network activity indicator. As soon as the user utilizes dictation, the problem will return.

This problem is clearly linked to using Apple’s dictation services.

Here’s a different view of the spinning icon. There is nothing “pushing” it to spin. It is a standard animated GIF used in many places on iOS devices. It spins entirely on its own. Some function starts it spinning, it then continues on its own until some function stops it from spinning by canceling it. If it continues spinning that means that the function that started it didn’t stop it, it does not mean that something is pushing it to keeping it going. So it doesn’t necessarily mean that anything is happening, just that whatever started it didn’t cancel it. If what started it is dictation, then the dictation “listener” is still running, but (in iOS 14, at least) if the orange dot near the battery icon isn’t on then the microphone is off and nothing is listening, the process is still running, however.

@Halliday, I traded in my iPhone 7 for the SE 2020. It still does it. initially Apple recommended that I remove all my widgets. I did. It’s still spun when I would use Voice to text. Then it was recommended that I delete my Facebook app because that was the issue. I did. It’s still spun. Then I was told it was unique to my iPhone 7 so I went to have it fixed and they said there was no problem and it must be one of the apps because they had not heard of anything like that before. I eventually upgraded to the iPhone SE 2020 9 months ago. It’s still spins. It’s random and I have to catch it or it will run down my battery very quickly because it will go all day if I don’t make it stop.