IPad Pro is not responding to touch

Try a Force Restart and see if this works: Force restart iPad - Apple Support

This is exactly the problem I have. A second generation 12.9 inch iPad Pro. It’s obviously a software issue because it will just randomly start ignoring touch inputs. Can’t swipe can’t click anything. Happens greater than 50% of the time. It’s to the point now where it’s virtually unusable. Tried everything including force restarts, turning on touch accommodations and all that. Has no effect. It’s as if the processor has temporally been distracted or got off into the weeds and just ignores touch inputs for 10 to 15 seconds then comes back and let you hit a couple of keys. Only started doing this after updating to the latest software updates. Maybe downgrading will help.

From reading many posts in the forums it seems to be happening with the larger touchscreen iPads. Interesting. Because just who is it that can afford to purchase the larger touchscreen pro versions? Maybe people who Apple thinks can afford to upgrade? How convenient is it that some annoying little things begin to happen that causes people to think their product is old and needs to be upgraded? Operating system is proprietary so there’s no way to look inside and see just what kind of tinkering they are doing to make you think it’s time to upgrade. Just my conjecture here, but as a design engineer myself I know all about “designed in obsolescence “. It’s truly a thing.

This touchscreen issue does NOT happen with ALL larger screen iPad models ( mostly the 10.5, 11 and 12.9 inch screen model iPad Pros and Air models ).

It is a small, but growing percentage of these models over a 3-5 year product span.

I own two older 2015 and 2016, 12.9 inch screen iPad Pro models that have never exhibited this intermittent, unresponsive touch screen issue.

Many millions of later iPad Pro and Air users have not had this issue.

This touch screen issues appears to be a totally and completely random issue/occurence with no real solution/s from Apple in almost 4 years.

If this intermittent, unresponsive touch screen issue has been fairly constant, then this is NOT something you are going to want to read, but these are the facts/issues, as I know them, for the past 3-1/2 years, or so.

The intermittent, unresponsive touchscreen issues with higher priced, larger screen iPad Pro and iPad Air models are a well known and well documented, here, in the iPad support communities.

This affects a still small, but continually growing minority of random 2017 through present iPad Pro and iPad Air models and its user base.

Now, after 3 years of this nonsense, there is still no confirmed cause and fix/solution from Apple.

NONE!

Getting one of these defective units is very random and is ONLY one of a small handful of issues going on with higher priced, larger screen iPad models that has prevented me from purchasing a new iPad Pro or new iPad Air for the past 2-3 years.

Apple and Apple support have no real fixes or solutions to this issue.

If you have a screen protector on this iPad Pro, remove it as the screen protector makes the touch screen and Pencil experiences worse.

Also, try removing your iPad's case ( it maybe too tight a fit ) and try using your iPad without it to see if this helps, or not, with your iPad touchscreen issue/s

There is absolutely no solution/s to these later iPad Pro/iPad Air touch screen issues.

Apple support can only offer superficial, “band-aid” bandage-like advice/fixes/solutions.

You can contact Apple support, but your iPad Pro/later iPad Air model maybe too old for Apple to offer any type of free or in-warranty iPad replacement and Apple will ONLY offer “band-aid“-like advice/fixes/solutions to this issue.

Apple support is pretty much clueless to this issue and Apple, itself, has never, publicly, acknowledged this issue or issued any type of device recalls.

This is something you probably didn't want to learn, but doesn't change any of the currently known facts.

So Sorry & Best of Luck to You!

Oh dear…. (or words to that effect, but much cruder). I suspected as much as it is such a totally random issue as to when the touch screen software decides to stare out the window and not respond (I can’t find a pattern, at any rate). This fault begins to mirror my experience of Microsoft; both its products and its attitude to users infuriated me — ‘have you tried turning it off and on again?’ and ‘tough’. So sad. I don’t upgrade unnecessarily and I’m always annoyed when a fully functioning machine is made unusable due to corporate greed-driven decisions, but I used to have a spring in my step when I got the new device home anticipating the promised ‘better’. No longer. Sad face.

Here’s another idea. The touch system is capacitive. Which means the touchscreen needs to feel the electricity coming from your hand in order to know where you are touching it. The bigger the iPad the bigger the capacitor. But people all come in about the same size and a human body has a fixed amount of capacitance.

if you have a screen protector on your iPad your finger is that much further away from the screen, which reduces the amount of energy you can transfer to the screen. The larger the iPad, the more this will be a problem.

An iPad with a screen cover and protective back cover would make this problem even worse if I’m right.

Try taking off the screen cover and any rear protector and see if that improves the touch experience.

No protective back cover should affect the actual front sceen capacitance layer of the iPad's screen.

None.

A front glass screen protector? A strong maybe, but most glass screen protector makers know the thickness limit that they can produce and have a capacitance touch screen still work/function.

I usually advise that users switch from either a thick glass screen protector to one that is produce at a thinner thickness or switch to a thin plastic film screen protector.

If NO screen protectors involved, then this is still the nearly 4-year old touch screen issue, for sure.

Most users having this issue have NOT had any glass OR thin plastic film screen protectors on the iPad's front glass screen.

No screen protector on mine! I even cleaned the screen to see if it was the smudges interfering, but to no avail. It’s an intermittent fault (the worst kind, of course) and seems to affect random areas of the screen. At least there is no pattern I can discern. Maybe I just don’t have enough electricity in my fingertips? ;-)

It was just an idea but I tried it myself and after a couple of days it does not seem to have helped any. No screen protector, and I took the iPad out of its enclosed cover so I could hold it in my hot little hands. Still massive problems.

I found an app called active touch and it’s sole purpose in life is to show you where you are touching the screen. It can handle one finger, two finger and three finger gestures. It puts a dot under your finger and shows you the XY coordinates of your touch. Interesting that while running this program there seems to be less of an issue but it is still present. I’m going back to the idea that it’s a software issue where the touchscreen Interface just runs off the road into the weeds quite often. Why, when and how it does this there’s a mystery. Amazing that Apple isn’t interested in fixing this Kind of makes me say “hmmmmmm….”

just while typing this out I had an awful time on the keyboard. Had to resort to Siri to finish this message.