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Wife and I got iPhone 5s units at the same time. She has had hit and miss success with touch ID. I am golden with mine, and also hers when I put a finger into her phone data. She is frustrated, and will delete fingerprints and resestablish on her phone. Her finger scan will work for a few times, and then it gets to be like it doesn't recognize her finger (left thumb or right thumb). Is anybody else having some issues like this?
iPhone 5s, iOS 7.0.2
I had the same problem - I'm posting what I did today, which seems to have fixed it (after being very frustrated with many re-enrollments).
When I got my new 5S I restored it straight away from my old iPhone backup. The TouchID successes were about 50%. I was so fed up with putting in my passcode (after TouchID failing) I rang up customer services this morning - their suggestion (before going any further):
I wiped the iPhone and tested a vanilla phone. It seemed to work better (and even unlocked reliably upside down).
I wiped the iPhone again and then instead of "Setting up a new Phone", I restored from my iPhone backup.
I re-enrolled two of my fingers in the newly restored iPhone, I've been locking/unlocking it repeatedly at various orientations and it has not failed yet.
The above process is the first thing they will ask you to do if you call up support - so far TouchID seems much more reliable than before (and I'm surprised a reinstall has been useful).
Hi mbzowner,
See if any of these troubleshooting steps helps to resolve your issues (see especially the little *Note at the bottom):
Troubleshooting Touch ID
* Moisture, lotions, sweat, oils, cuts, or dry skin may affect fingerprint recognition. Certain activities can also temporarily affect fingerprint recognition, including exercising, showering, swimming, cooking, or other conditions or changes that affect your fingerprint.
Cheers,
GB
Just to update, almost a day later since I redid it and it seems to be working slightly less well as it did last night. It is again requiring almost an exact placement of my finger(s) to open, whereas when I first scanned it would open with almost any placement similar to how I scanned the print.
Again, why the degradation in the capacity to read your print (especially when its supposed to get better with use)?
Apple, are you listening?
Since a picture is worth 1K words, this might help.
As long as I avoid the end of any given finger when
registering, it works without failure.
Testing today, I have 20 apps in the background, several
which have push enabled, several with large graphics
displayed, several which can access the speaker (waze,
trip talk, etc and I can not get Touch ID to fail.
If anyone has an app that crashes and can cause TID
to fail, please post the app name. Thanks.
HTH,
Joe
Finger moved to show relationship with sensor during training.
Joe_Fo wrote:
Just use the second phone to take the picture.
Still a bit blurry
and it appears to have flipped on it's side when I uploaded it. This was a successful touch because I erased my phones earlier and want to have some failed examples to show the Genius on Tuesday. In my case, when I leave the failed prints in place after creating the new one, I clearly see all the prints fail to highlight except the most recent.
So I'm not a backetball player, but here's a hoop that works _reliably_ for me at least. Works with just washed hands, dry, damp, hot or darn near frozen. Haven't tried while jumping though, so that I can not attest to...
Should add: note the overlap of the home button. Was important for me to get to 100%. Or there's always the Kool-Aid one can drink.
Message was edited by: Joe_Fo
Joe is correct in that regardless of anything else, if you have not enrolled the finger properly it will absolutely fail over time. Look at the photo he posted earlier in this thread...you have to get the center of your print on the sensor during initial training. If you look at your print, find the "swirl" or "loop." A good portion of the loop must be on the sensor during training. For example, if using your thumb, try to completely center your nail on the button when training as Joe does in the photo. If you just use the very tip it will undoubtedly fail after a few hours, or days at best. With this method, I've had the same prints successfully enrolled for over a month without having to delete and redo them.
That said, I still occasionally get a few failures (maybe 10-15%) when I've got a low memory situation, but when I clear out the open apps in the multitasker it returns to near 100%. Look at settings->General->About->Diagnostics & Usage ->Diagnostic & Usage Data. The log will look like this:
You see I get a a low memory situation almost daily. This is a combination of issues with iOS 7 and third party apps. With all due respect to Joe--because he is absolutely correct about training of the prints--there could still be situations where the print is trained properly and you get some level of failure, and even though Joe has tested it extensively on his device he can't possibly know what apps and settings your particular phone is running. There are just way, way too many variables.
In my experience, with Touch ID properly trained per Joe's instructions, I get no more than 10-15% failure rate even with the low memory issues and other OS and app crashes, and when I free up memory by closing out apps it works almost perfectly. I never have to delete and re-enroll the print.
As I've written before, I still think it has something to do with the algorithm Touch ID uses to "learn" the print over time. As Joe touched on, the more of your print you give it to learn from at the initial training, the better it will work over time.
i2 wrote:
[snip]
"Cleaning the Touch ID sensor" worked for me. If you hold the iPhone up to the light at the right angle you will probably see a grasing-looking smudge all over and around the sensor. This would be a no-no for the extremely high resolution scanning process. I just wiped the area with a soft dry cotton towel and the smudges came off easily. The phone now responds to every touch again. I would like to hear if this has worked for anyone else.
My phone, clean out of the box, had Touch ID fail within an hour of setting it up. Very frustrating couple of weeks went by before I hit on a solution that works.
I rarely clean the screen or home button. Prints register and unlock fine. Kind of gross under harsh light and magnified!
Joe_Fo wrote:
Based on the picture you posted on Nov 10, if you have not changed the way you are positioning you thumb, both during training and unlocking, it is going to fail.
Here's a new try at this. I deleted all my scans and the one for this is basically just as seen in this pic .. no turning on the sides or edges .. just the flat fat par. And, at least initially it works 100% (about 20 attempts so far). It's a bit awkward, but the best I can do with one hand while holding the phone.
I received my metal bumper case and am giving an update as promised. Understandably there have been many skeptics but, for those of you who haven't been following, I have theorized that the issues with TouchID are related to static electricity (and the evolution of fingerprint scan data) - installing the metal bumper case is an attempt to address this.
With the new case, the first thing I have done is, of course, remove the leather Apple case I had on my phone. In addition, I have gone ahead and removed my screen protector... As electrically insulated materials, I believe that these devices have contributed to static issues that may have effected TID on my phone.
With the new case put on my phone, I have washed my hands, cleaned my screen (and home button), and followed Apple's normal enrollment process for four fingers... Although I believe careful scanning is important, I decided not to do that because I want to get an idea of what effect the metal bumper case has on my TID experience.
So, what have I found? Well, I haven't had the new case on for long enough to draw any conclusions (it's been three hours) but I have made some interesting observations. First of all, after setting up TID, my unlock rate was only about 50% but it seems to have improved greatly over the last few hours as I have played with it. Secondly, unlocking seems to work best when I have part of my finger resting on the case and the tip of my finger touching the steel ring of TID. Thirdly, the case effects the way my finger contacts the sensor because, instead of laying my finger flat on the sensor and pressing down, the case pushes the tip of my finger forward for better contact with the sensor. Lastly, after playing with things for awhile, I noticed that I could get TID to work reliably for up to 20 attempts in a row and then I would have multiple fails in a row... Doing the "Control Panel Calculator hack" would usually resolve this.
What does this all mean? For now, I need to use this setup more to know for sure but TID does seem to be working quite well. There are a few holes in my experiment (such as adding a new case and taking off my screen protector at the same time) but I do have a life and am trying to balance fun with my responbilities. My experiment also raises some other questions: What effect does the pressure with which you are pushing down have on the reliability of TID? What effect does angle have? Could background processes really be having that much of an effect on reliability?
In the end, my answers to these questions will sound subjective but you guys can figure out whether or not any of this works for you. Ultimately that is all that matters because theories are just theories and most of us just want to be able to use our phones reliably. Further experiments are to come though.
I am glad your method works for you (and I have nothing against it) but it doesn't work for many of us on its own.
Also, whereas your post (#2) seems to imply that enrolling your finger with your case off can contribute to failure, I have had a different experience... I think it is up to the people who we are supposed to be helping to decide for themselves what works for them.
That being said, I have an observation and request for those who care to listen...
My observation is that, having put a case back on my phone*** (but not a screen protector), my TID has continued to improve to what seems like 90%+ reliability. What is interesting about this result to me is that it is completely unexpected. In otherwords, after I got past the initial 24 hours of worrying about static electricity (whereby I took off my screen protector and electrically insulated case), my choice of cases seems not to matter... It is as if the initial enrollment and subsequent unlocks in the following 24 hours are most critical to success.
My request follows this line of thinking... Would anybody else care to test my theory? Would anybody be willing to remove their case, remove their screen protector, carefully clean their phone, wash their hands, get off the carpet onto a less staticky surface, enroll their fingers as described by Apple and keep the plastic/rubber/wood case/screen protector off their phone for 24 hours? Is there anybody with nothing to lose (who understands that doing this experiment is their choice and I am not responsible for dropped phones)?
I think many of us would be indebted to such a person... (As of right now, their are a lot of detractors to my theory but nobody else has a solution good enough to resolve the issue for everybody.) Why not find out if I am a kook or not for the sake of the discussion?
***Note: My case is carbon fiber with a polymer coating - there is an outside chance that it is conductive... I also still don't have a screen protector so that may play into varying results.
Hi All,
First of all thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thead, much appreciated.
I've been reading as much of this thread as I can and thought I'd chip in what I've noticed. I've been having the same issues as everyone else so when I found this thread yesterday I re-registered a single thumb (right) as I only ever use that one. It worked OK for an hour or two and then started failing so I registered it again. I did this 2 more times with the last time being an hour ago.
I went to the last page (56) of the thread and found the link to the troubleshooting page where Joe_Fo tells us how to register the finger correctly. So I thought I'd simply delete all 4 previous prints and start fresh. Now when I try to register the thumb it starts OK, scans and vibrates maybe 6 or 7 times then a message pops up saying 'Try using a different finger, this fingerprint cannot be read'. I work in an office so don't have rough hands or prints and my hands are clean, certainly in a very similar state of cleanliness and dryness when I registered the print yesterday :-).
I have an appointment on Saturday at the Apple store in Glasgow (the only one in Scotland) so I want to make sure I've done everything they may ask me to try before I get there as I am in Edinburgh. I was very hopeful last night that this may have been fixed as I had a very high success rate but this morning the failures were back with avengance so thats why I decided to delete all and start again. I was going to cancel my Apple store visit but am definately going now as this is really annoying.
elishia6 wrote:
Sometimes when you perform a software update kinks are left on the hardware try to erase a all finger print data then go to setting>general>reset all settings. After signing back into Internet and in with your Apple ID make sure you establish a finger print that is clean and connects with the whole button but within the button.
Resetting all setting will have absolutely no effect on resetting the fingerprints, esspessially network setting, since the fingerprints are not stored on any network, which you suggest by saying that you have to sign in with your Apple ID.
" ... your fingerprint data is never accessed by iOS or other apps, never stored on Apple servers, and never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else. Only Touch ID uses it and it can't be used to match against other fingerprint databases."
From http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5949?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Another follow-up, and perhaps final thoughts on this issue:
Into the next day now with a new phone and clean install, setup as-new, not from a backup and the Touch ID is working as designed. That is to say, I'm getting about 90% or better on all prints. I have not seen any degradation since yesterday. If anyone is still having problems, I suggest a clean install of the software using iTunes (not OTA) and setting up the phone as-new. If that still doesn't work, call Apple or visit an Apple Store and have them swap out the phone. There's either a hardware issue or corrupted firmware that can't be fixed by a restore (or some other issue that Apple has yet to solve).
When you set up the prints, make sure the sensor is clean and dry and your hands are relatively clean and in the state they will be in most of the day...not too wet or dry. Follow the directions here to setup the prints properly: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5883. The biggest source of failed recognition seems to be wetness (like after a shower or excercise) or very dry skin. After a shower or bath, it make take quite a while for your prints to get back to their regular state where Touch ID will again work reliably.
Incidentally, in my earlier post about calling Apple Care, I wrote that when the tech ran a remote diagnostic it showed the phone running iOS version 7.0.1, even though it was at 7.0.2. This was a red herring. The Apple Genius at my local store said their diagnostic tool was making that error on all phones, so it had nothing to do with any corruption in my particular setup.
In the end, this technology is new to iPhone, and as with anything, it will improve with future software and hardware updates. It works pretty well, but it's not perfect. However, it is better than anything else out there because at this time no other phone even has fingerprint recognition. It makes the phone a lot more secure for those that previously did not use any passcode lock at all, which apparently was more than half of iPhone users.
I will post again if I have any further trouble, but I think my issue is about as solved as it can be. Thanks to all.
I figured it out!
Check the following web pages: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5883
That page provided the answer for me as to what I was doing wrong. This is part of the instructions that cleared it up for me:
"You can use Touch ID to unlock your phone without having to enter your passcode every time. There are two ways you can unlock with Touch ID:
- Press the Home button once to wake iPhone 5s and keep your finger lightly on the Home button.
- Press the Sleep/Wake button once to wake iPhone 5s, and then touch your finger lightly on the Home button."
and the fact that you HAVE TO MAKE CONTACT between the home button and the metal ring around it, which I found on this page: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/8
"Behind the Touch ID sensor is a similar feeling mechanical switch to what you’d find on the iPhone 5 or 5c. You still get the same click and same resistance. The only physical differences are a lack of the home square printed on the button, and the presence of a steel ring around the button. The steel ring ACTS AS A CONDUCTIVE SENSOR for your finger. Make contact with the steel ring and Touch ID wakes up (presumably when your phone is in a state where Touch ID interactions are expected). Without making contact with the ring, Touch ID won’t work (I confirmed this by trying to unlock the 5s with my pinky and never touching the ring)."
Touch ID is now 100% successful for me. Every time!
Touch ID being Erratic
