Touch ID unlock stops working after five minutes

I'm sick and tired of having to deal with bugs after an iOS upgrade. Fix it please Apple. At least this is not as as bad as the bug of several years ago, which sent emails to recipients after their email address had been removed. That was very embarrassing when it happened to me. I'm also cheesed off at having to visit a Genius Bar to have these bugs fixed. We are not all software engineers.

I have had this issue since the 15.7 update. I can confirm it's a software issue, nothing to do with cleaning the sensor etc. The problem is that the prompt takes a long time to come up. I have a 2019 MBP with touch bar. I was able to get the prompt to appear by pressing ESC to exit login, then waking the screen by pressing the touch bar. It doesn't work every time, but it's quicker than waiting five minutes for the prompt.

Another issue, probably related, is that the user's name can be slow to appear. It usually appears straight away with the user photo and password box, but sometimes there is a few seconds' delay before the user's name appears.

Yep, MacBook Pro 2019 for me too.

The last thing I tried, was to shutdown completely with a saved fingerprint which worked previously but ceased. Then boot into Safe Mode. On Apple Silicon you hold the power Touch ID button and then hold shift to click on Macintosh HD and you'll see a Continue in Safe Mode button. On Intel, just hold Shift while powering on. It is normal to have to login twice when entering Safe Mode. Give it about 5min in Safe Mode logged on. Then just restart. Login once to enable Touch ID.

It seems to be working again. Time will tell if sticks or encounters the problem again. It may take a day, two or three to determine if the issue is resolved. If it comes back again, then it's a bug and let's hope it's fixed in 26.1 or soon thereafter.

My thinking is that Safe Mode runs a lot of regular maintenance tasks when it boots. Caches are flushed, etc. Booting into Safe Mode and then just restarting normally; can fix bizarre issues.

I also submitted a bug report via Apple's Feedback. I recommend others submit so it raises awareness at Apple.

These community forums are for Apple customers and the only Apple employees are some moderators. Feedback is not collected on these forums.

Hours later Touch ID is still working. I'll follow up in a day or two to let you know if Touch ID is back to being reliable after doing the Safe Mode boot which executes a bunch of maintenance tasks such as deleting caches, etc.

I have some customers who may be experiencing this glitch after macOS 15.7. It's not just the MacBook Air's it's all Apple Touch ID so Apple keyboards and MacBook Pro's as well.

Unfortunately, the "Safe Mode fix" did nothing for my MacBook. Thanks for trying.

CONFIRMED THIS IS A BUG

If you are experiencing the Touch ID ceasing to work after a period of time and no matter how many times you unlock with your password, it does not enable Touch ID again. I have to remove the fingerprints, shutdown, boot up and re-add Touch ID fingerprints. Then it works for an indeterminate length of time and it stops working again.

Please submit bug reports if you are experiencing this problem. It should get fixed in a dot release update.

Feedback - macOS - Apple

Use 'Bug Report' and detail the scenario. If enough people submit it will raise the priority with Apple Developers to fix it.

This is for macOS 15.7 as it was not a problem on 15.6.1. If you experience this issue with Tahoe 26 be sure to submit it as well.

Installed 15.7.1 today. The touchid problem remains.

Do we need to submit bug report? I was wondering if Apple already knows about the issue and if they are going to fix it.

So far, it's been days and macOS 15.7.1 is working for me and appears to have resolved the Touch ID issue ceasing to work after a relatively short time period. Touch ID will normally prompt for the password to enable Touch ID if you haven't used it for a couple of days or after a cold boot. The bug is when Touch ID becomes disabled and no amount of entering the password nor rebooting resolves. Removing finger prints and re-adding resolves temporarily. For me installing 15.7.1 appears to have fixed the problem for me.

Steps I followed:

1. Remove the fingerprints from Touch ID settings
2. Shutdown completely and power off
3. Boot into Safe Mode (hold power while booting, hold Shift while clicking on Macintosh HD to boot safe mode)
   1. Clears caches and temporary system files, etc.
4. Shutdown completely again
5. Booted and installed the update to 15.7.1
6. Re-added the Touch ID fingerprints

It's been over 24 hours and Touch ID is working after wake from sleep, hibernation, and screensaver lock. This is for a 2023 16" MacBook Pro w/M2 MAX running macOS 15.7.1.

I followed the "safe mode steps" provided, except for step 5. I had already installed 15.7.1.

Unfortunately, this did not fix the the problem. The behavior previously noted is unchanged.

2019 13" macbook pro.

Steps followed...

1. 1. 1. Remove the fingerprints from Touch ID settings
      2. Shutdown completely and power off
      3. Boot into Safe Mode (hold power while booting, hold Shift while clicking on Macintosh HD to boot safe mode)
      4. Clears caches and temporary system files, etc.
      5. Shutdown completely again
      6. Booted and installed the update to 15.7.1
      7. Re-added the Touch ID fingerprints

Yep, no matter what steps you take or how many times you boot in safe mode, the bug still exists in 15.7.1.

MacBook Pro 2018 with Touch Bar.

Dang it. After another 24 hours the Touch ID is not enabling after entering password. So it's still a problem on 15.7.1. I've already submitted a bug report.

If you have the same problem where your Touch ID is failing to remain enabled after a given amount of time. Please submit feedback. The more feedback the more visibility the problem will receive.

Feedback - macOS - Apple

MacBook Pro, 15-inch, 2019.

I noticed this bug as well after I upgraded from 15.6 to 15.7.1 a few days ago. After I played with it for a few days, here is the details and my 'workaround':

1. If my MBP goes to sleep (on its own or through manual lock screen) less than 5 minutes or so ago , the 'Touch ID or Enter password' label remains under the login password field and Touch ID still works in lieu of password to get past the lock screen
2. If my MBP has been sleeping for a while (> 5 minutes or so), when I wake up MBP (by touching any key (I usually hit the 'return' key) on the keyboard), the 'Touch ID or Enter password' label does NOT appear. Touch ID won't log me in - typing in the password is the only (immediate) way to log in.
3. However, in step 2, after I wake my MBP up, if I wait about 5 or 10 seconds before doing anything else, the 'Touch ID or Enter password' label appears eventually on its own - at that point, Touch ID login works again.

In other words, in my case the behavior in 15.7.1 seems to be that Touch ID login functionality does not 'wake up' immediately after my MBP is woken up - it takes another 5 to 10 seconds for the Touch ID login feature to wake up ... lame...

Thanks for pointing this out. I waited 10 seconds before using Touch ID and it worked, whereas since the update to 15.7.1, I had been attempting to use Touch ID immediately. So, your workaround works for me too.