Touch ID being Erratic

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

1. Verify that you are using the latest version of iOS.
2. Ensure that your fingers and the Home button are clean and dry.*
   Note: Cover the Home button completely. Don't tap too quickly, don't press down hard, and don't move your finger while Touch ID is scanning.
3. Tap Settings > General > Touch ID & Passcode > Touch ID and verify that:
   1. iPhone Unlock or iTunes & App Store is enabled.
   2. One or more fingerprints have been enrolled.
4. If one finger isn't working, tap Edit in Settings > General > Touch ID & Passcode > Touch ID > Edit to delete and then reenroll the finger.
5. If that finger still isn't working, try enrolling a different finger.
6. If you are unable to enroll any of your fingers, take your iPhone 5s to an Apple Retail Store, Apple Authorized Service Provider, or contact AppleCare for further assistance.

* 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

I am having the same problem. It recognizes the fingerprint the first few times, and then it won't recognize it anymore. This is very frustrating.

Have you read the troublshooting steps just above your post? The problem is likely related to any one of the conditions listed next to the *.

Cheers,

GB

Thanks Gail. That's a lot of conditions that affect whether or not it will work! They might as well just say it won't work if you're awake or breathing! I do have dry skin, but that still doesn't explain why it will recognize a new print easily at the beginning and then stop recognizing it.

My mother has just bought a 5S and we are exasperated with the Touch ID. We have tried all her fingers, deleted and started over and she is successful one out of every 25 attempts. Ready to give up. We are frustrated and very disappointed with Apple.

very frustrated with the fingerprint ID. I have tried multiple fingers LH , RH. Erased all mulitple times and started over after each OS update. I even set my right thumb to all 5 finger ID's several days apart hoping that 1 in 5 print would trigger some effectiveness in the print ID with very little success. Without fail 2 - 3 days at most will it function on the 3 or 4 try at best and then stop working all together. I live in a dry climate and work a lot with my hands so i would expect some issues but I have to print ID every day for work and that print ID never fails for me, so it must be something with the technology apple is using. Next step is to take the phone back to apple and see if it's a hardware issue.

Do this.

First do full back up in iTunes and iCloud.

Then do Erase All Content and Settings.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2110

When done set up your iPhone again, right from iCloud. Set up Touch ID again.

See if that resolves it.

I don't think it's necessary to "Erase All Content and Settings." That's a quite a hassle. I'd try "Reset All Settings" first.

I just wanted to give a quick thanks to Mrsnork, as she has been able to help me the most with my TouchID problems. I was ready to take my phone back for a replacement when I started reading this thread. Thanks to Mrsnork, I found there were a couple of problematic apps and some low memory issues by looking at the diagnostics page. I uninstalled those apps, reset all settings, and restarted the phone. I set up a new touch ID, only once, on my thumb. So far it's been working great and it's been about four days now. Before, whenever I would set up TouchID, it would work perfectly for the first couple hours, and then greatly diminish after that to the point where a couple days later it was not worth even trying. Now I would say I get around 9 times out of 10 with dry hands, which I am happy with as long as it does not start to degrade again. If it does start to act up again I will first restart the phone and see if that solves it. But so far so good. Hopefully Apple comes out with a fix for this soon or they will be getting a lot of phones coming back to them.

For all those who haven't read her experience, start at around page 3. I don't think you need to do a clean install of the iOS on your phone. Maybe not even reset all settings, I'm not sure. I'd start with looking at your diagnostics for any apps that may be crashing, or low memory issues. Uninstall those, and restart your phone. Try your fingerprint again and see if it works. If not, erase it and start a new one. Wait and see if that works for a while. If not, then you may want to take the additional step of resetting all settings.

I have a 10/2013 build 5s and have the same problem. I set up touch id, it works great for any finger I set it up for initially and then 1/2 hour orlater it stops working, so the problem still exists.

Anyone find out anything ele? How about a report back from some of the people who think they found a solution?

Still working very well for me. TouchID is just as good or better than when I initially set it up almost a week ago. Check your diagnostics and go from there.

There are some crash reports in the diagnostic log and I deleted one app that in particular had frequent crashes (interesting that there is also an itunes store crash). I also did a soft reset (home + sleep) and after restarting it seemed to recover 1 out fo 3 fingerprints I recorded this morning. I deleted the two that were not recognized and rescanned them and will see what happens in a little while. Otherwise, I'm going to make a trip to the apple store for a little conversation with them.

I'm sorry, but I have difficulty believing that application crashes have anything to do with TouchID. Making an appointment with a "genius" if possible might be a good idea.

I tend to agree with that because one thing should have nothing to do with the other. However, some people have reported that deleting crashing apps (among other things) improved touch id.

I would normally agree with you. I don't know if it was that specifically or one of the other things I tried. But now that it's working better than it ever has I know for a fact that at least something I did worked. Here are the steps I took.

1) Deleted two apps that showed up in diagnostics. Haven't tried re-installing them yet.

2) Reset all settings. Kind of a pain, but not too bad.

3) Restarted phone (home + sleep)

4) Input new thumb print per recommended methods. Only one finger and only once.

Voila! Working great.