Touch ID being Erratic

It seems to me that how a fingerprint is registered should not matter because if it recognizes it that should not change over time. Since in fact it does for many people, myself uncluded evidently the software is screwy.

And as for me,after redoing it per the posted instructions, it is not working as well as it did earlier today. When first redone, it opened every time. Now its hit or miss. Probably tomorrow it wont work again.

This thread is getting stale.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5537445?tstart=0

And you think the silly thread you started is more helpful then this one? If so, there is nothing for you to see here. Move right along.

I too am having the same issues with my Touch ID. It's so hit or miss that I've gotten used to using it but then when it takes it's little spells where it won't work it aggravates me to no end. Especially when I need to get into my phone real quick. I've gotten so tired of seeing the words "try again" shake back and fourth at the bottom of my screen. It almost never works if my hands are the least bit clammy or very warm and the sensor always has to be completely clean. Erasing and resetting my fingerprints has proved to have some success but not for long. I've also noticed that setting my fingerprints is getting to be harder because it just simply will not read my fingerprint and I get the message "fingerprint cannot be scanned" or whatever that message says when it won't accept a new fingerprint. Recently after trying for almost half an hour to get it to redo my right thumb print I managed to get it so it only knows the tip of my thumb. The Touch ID seems to be working better since I did this but I am still disappointed. The Touch ID is one of the main reasons I bought the phone.

Sounds defective. Exchange it.

Cold, warm, dry or damp finger should not matter, at least that's how my 5S has been working.

If you are getting intermittent response from the scanner when trying to register a finger,

then it sounds like an intermittent connection to me, FWIW.

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?

If everyone keeps posting the same thing then this is going to go nowhere.

At the moment there are 2 problems...

1.Your finger print stops working or it takes a lot of attempts. You get asked to "try again" a lot.

2. Sometimes, randomly, the phone doesnt respond. It seems like the scan worked, you do not get asked to "try again" and it wont unlock until you enter passcode / or it has unlocked and swiping takes you to home.

Both of these can easily be software based. Swapping hardware numerous times will not help you and it would be best to wait for the next software fix.

This is new technology and its the first time its been in the wild like this. I do not think a similar tech / finger print scanner was pushed to such a wide user base in such a small time, and after some very secret and small scale testing.

Possible identification of the 2 points above

1. The software is messing up over time. As a programmer its quite easy to have code that looks like it works, but when the sample data is replaced with real world data, other bugs show up. As the phone tries to learn more about your finger it could be corrupting the stored data and as such, eventually it's record of the finger print doesnt match the actual finger print.

2. As this only happens very randomly and doesnt not correspond with the loss / corruption of stored finger print info this must be a software bug. Apple has had so many problems with the unlock screen over the years, multiple bugs, that is not a leap to consider this another one. This will helpfully be addressed as well as TouchID is improved.

You have a 1 year warrenty and so it might be best to wait a bit. The first batches of any hardward product usually have both hardware and software issues which are fixed in further revisions, not like iPhone 5 > 5S, just small revisions in hardware design or the software controlling it.

People must also consider that this came with iOS7 which has lots of bugs as well. Older apps are causing crashes, memory leaks and other problems. The OS seems unpolished in places.

Matthew Pringle wrote:

If everyone keeps posting the same thing then this is going to go nowhere.

At the moment there are 2 problems...

1.Your finger print stops working or it takes a lot of attempts. You get asked to "try again" a lot.

2. Sometimes, randomly, the phone doesnt respond. It seems like the scan worked, you do not get asked to "try again" and it wont unlock until you enter passcode / or it has unlocked and swiping takes you to home.

Both of these can easily be software based. Swapping hardware numerous times will not help you and it would be best to wait for the next software fix.

[snip]

Perhaps your opinion is right, perhaps it's just your opinion.

Empirical evidence tells me otherwise. While I fully understand H/W - S/W bugs, some are seeing issues with not much running, yet scanning craps out. I, nor my wife's 5S, do not have problems with the scanner refusing to register when a finger is ready to scan, and more importantly, have not had any problems unlocking with TID once registered in the way I've been stating for weeks now. To me, IMHO, it's either technique, or a really odd S/W bug with uncommon apps some are running causing some to have problems. If neither, it might be H/W, in a small percentage of cases. Again, in my opinion. And yes, I have tried to stress the system running a ton of apps using large datasets, and could not get TID to fail.

Few people on services like this ever post abaout a problem thay don't have, right?

I've also had problems. It is frustrating. I remade my IDs a few times. I've been trying different "touch" approaches for the past week with success. What I find is the less deliberate I am the more successful the Touch ID is on the first attempt. Also, a push of the home button, and a very short delay keeping my thumb on the Touch ID for like a 1/10 of a second, and that seems to get me in almost always. The faster the better with the briefest pause. Seems to be true with all the fingerprint ID's I've registered.

Well an opinion is an opinion. I was not refuting your 'technique'.

To me if you need to use a certain 'technique' to get it to work then its probably software as you can set it up again and again and it works first time for a bit. It will have been programmed to work in lab conditions and the finger prints used were probably test dummies and would have been applied at certain test conditions, over and over.

The algorithmes Apple bought and shrank into a mobile device will not be mature, in fact quite the opposite.

People always forget every generation has problems when new hardware is incorporated with software.

For example some people had problems with the ambient light sensor not working and shutting the screen down when the iPhones first came out. This was not hardware, the sensor was fine. The code was not sensative enough and the testing, probably again in standard conditions ( people have very different head sizes ), would have used certain standardised models and not the full spectrum of real world conditions.

Another example, for the recently released MacBook Pro 13" laptops. "This update addresses an issue where the built-in keyboard and Multi-Touch trackpad may become unresponsive."

So here we have a comparable example. The touch input becomes unresponsive over time. Its not the track pad / hardware fault. Apple would have tested the hardware, and its not exactly new tech, but in the wild the issue revelaled itself.

The next fix for iOS is in testing and will probably be released soon. It is probably best to wait until then if you are having problems that manifest over time.

Forgot to add 2 points:

1. TID should be more forgiving to slight movement when scanning (settle should be made longer perhaps?) as this WILL cause misreads.

2. Apple SHOULD have provided more detail on how to use TouchID. With tons of cash on the books, and with the number of folks here having problems, it would have been Real Nice if they put a detailed video on-line, you know, like a real HOWTO.

My $.02, FWIW.

Keep in mind TID is designed to work without the need to change your actions in order to make it work. Once imprinted TID will recognize your print upside down, sideways, slightly on spot and slightly imperfect tips.

If your backup to iTunes then iCloud then Erase All and Restore still doesn't solve TID, exchange it till it works the way it's designed. Or wait for iOS firmware update to address TID Sensitivity Sensors from the build variations from the sensor ring and sapphire crystal layers affecting the scan.

If TID fails from low memory leak issues reboot.

SuperSizeIt wrote:

Keep in mind TID is designed to work without the need to change your actions in order to make it work. Once imprinted TID will recognize your print upside down, sideways, slightly on spot and slightly imperfect tips.

[snip]

Read this and thought, huh? Upside down? ***? Then I tried it. So glad I didn't respond with ***?!?

Okay, I'm outta time and hate making this thread even longer, but what you said made me think of how I've been using TID. May be something, may not be...

I've never given thought to fingerprint scanning, and never had to write a program to do so, but when I thought about the "learning over time" feature, if I were to write S/W to do TID, I'd throw awar the outside highs and lows case, or those aspects of the print, once recorded, that's never or rarely seen again. With that in mind, I started to register with as much variation within reason and have unlocked the phone with those same or close to the same finger placements as possible. The thought being, give the algorithm more to work with so that it isn't constrained to a small area which would require exact placement ofer time, something which I read here some are experiencing.

Count me in for having similar problems. For me the problems are getting worse not better. For the first few weeks it worked well, but now it has become so bad that I have disabled it. I can erase and retrain a finger and it will help for only a day at best. It is getting colder and my hands are becoming dry & chaped. Maybe this is contributing to the problem.