Touch ID being Erratic

kmpa43 wrote:

Just got off line with applecare. They have to call me back tomorow when sr advisor can talk to me. Too late tonite i guess. They wanted me to go to local applestore, I said im not spending my time and $ to travel an hour and pay for parking for your mistake. The guy understood and said he would have sr advisor call me at around 330pm est tommorow. I will re upate after then. If anyone has any help please let me know.

Thanks for pushing this through to a higher level. I wish I had been able to do that myself.

I have some thoughts because I've run a lot of tests. Let me write it up and I'll pst it here later.

smilleresq wrote:

I think I'm going to register my right thumb only at different times during the day to have 5 versions of my thumb print and we'll see how that works.

I already tried that and it failed. The scan I had working 100% on the first night never worked on the second night. So I believe once they stop working, there's no way to bring them back.

Joe_Fo wrote:

Can you take a picture of the touch ID screen with your thumb positioned on the home button in the same position that you used to registered it, and post it here?

I gave up trying .. I guess I need a tripod setup. But, remember, I had the Genius audit mine and show me his method, and he said it was ok. Actually, it's very similar to your tip.

Just use the second phone to take the picture. Also, don't rely on what the genius did as it was only a temporary test, right? "Here, I'll register my print to show you it works." Okay, we here all know we've done that and it does indeed work. For a short time, that is. Also, some have better luck than others it seems. Us old guys (well, me at least) have almost smooth as a baby's bottom prints that seem to require more meat than others. At least that's what I found helped me after 2 weeks of getting beat up by the phone.

I redid right thumb and index fingers Oct 23 as a test to do a video for YouTube (never did the video as I needed more hands than I had at the time) but they're still unlocking at almost 100%, sometimes needing a second try after the button depress followed by resting there failed. What I find is that I fall back to using more of the tip than where I registered and have to adjust. The only time I've had to use passcode was a few times while driving and was being sloppy about placement.

I'll take a pic next to show where I register and post it later. I don't see an option to attach a file on my iPad for some reason. Might be a java issue...

kmpa43 wrote:

Just got off line with applecare. They have to call me back tomorow when sr advisor can talk to me. Too late tonite i guess. They wanted me to go to local applestore, I said im not spending my time and $ to travel an hour and pay for parking for your mistake. The guy understood and said he would have sr advisor call me at around 330pm est tommorow. I will re upate after then. If anyone has any help please let me know.

Ok, here's my thoughts of the issues we're encountering:

Most of us here probably have the worst fingers to begin with. That's why we only get 9 out of 10 successful openings on a finger recognition. However, I think all of us would be happy to live with 90% success if it lasted forever.

The problem is that the success rate drops to zero within hours or days. It’s different times for different people. Odysseus and paulfromhere both have it fail after about 12 hours. paulfromhere waited more than a day after it failed to see if it would come back on it’s own, but it didn’t. Once that finger print fails you have to create another one, and then see it fail over time. It’s a never ending chore of recreating the prints every few hours.

Another problem many of us have is that the finger print never works for 5 minutes or so after washing our hands. After those minutes pass, then it works fine. This is contrary to what the instructions say, that washed hands should improve recognition.

One forum poster on macrumors took his phone back 4 times and claimed that the 5th phone worked perfectly. He said the problems with no recognition after hand washing stopped as well as the problems with the print going bad over time. Several of us have had our phones replaced and the problem recurs on the replacement phones. Jo_flo, odysseus and paulfrromhere have had replaced phones be as bad as the original phones. No one here has had 5 replacements yet.

As far as we know, no one from Apple has taken a returned phone and tested it for days to see the problem happen. We certainly have no feedback.

If others want to add to this, please do so.

I have a Genius appointment for Tuesday afternoon, so if you don't have success with the Sr. Advisor, I will continue this discussion at that time. I would prefer that Apple just mail me a replacement and save me the time .. I guess we all would. Or if it's a software problem, get someone working on it.

HTH, mnpa43, thanks for the push. If this doesn't get results, then we all may need to start a mass return until we get a good phone or be stuck with it.

My thinking is if I register a print every 3 hours or so until I get 5 maybe that will work.

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.

Okay, thanks. While it's difficult to tell from that distance but here's 3 observations:

1 Try a flatter finger, not angled down like that.

2 try pressing lighter! The tip under your nail is white, meaning too much pressure pushing the blood back. Not good for scanning. Was that more of a home button depress instead of a scan perhaps?

3 Try more of an overlap. From what I see, and based on my experience, that position _always_ failed for me days, hours or worse case, minutes later.

Here's what I recommend you try when registering:

Okay, I give up! I do not see an option to attach a picture, even with the advanced editor, on my iPad. Will have to post pic from a PC I guess. Windows to the rescue...

Yes 16k and growing. I admire the tenacity of the group going through hoops and workarounds, but it's really a waste of time, effort and just increases frustration. No workaround will improve TID until a iOS/Firmware update is issued, or another fully functional replacement. I've pointed this before.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. If TID fails from low memory leak issues reboot. (such as using Dynamic Desktops on both Lock and Home Screen or errant apps that causes memory leak and crash)

Usually a crash will not necessarily cause TID to fail immediately as iOS tries to recovery elegantly, but occasionally it happens.

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

I add myself to the discussion. I buy my iPhone 5S on 10 October, I had a problem, some squares appeared on the screen when i listened to music. I replaced it. With the second iPhone I had the Touch ID problem. If the sensor wasn't perfectly cleaned, touch id didn't work. I re-replaced one week ago. For the week just passed the "new" iPhone worked fine. Yesterday i discovered another time the Touch ID problem, the same of the second 5S i had. If is not perfectly clear, the sensor doesn't work. It also rarely succeded the fingerprint registration, it always said me that i move the finger during the registration and at the end said "iPhone is unable to set this fingerprint, try with another thumb". I have an appointment at the Apple Store for next Sunday.. I'll see, i don't want to replace it another time because i'm pretty sure that's not an hardware problem because this week worked so fine and because i had the same problem with the second iPhone and is strange that all iPhones are broken! I tried every kind of tips that i found in this big discussion, but the good effect eas only for 1-2 hours..

Any help?

-Edoardo.

edoardovicoli wrote:

have an appointment at the Apple Store for next Sunday.. I'll see, i don't want to replace it another time because i'm pretty sure that's not an hardware problem because this week worked so fine and because i had the same problem with the second iPhone and is strange that all iPhones are broken! I tried every kind of tips that i found in this big discussion, but the good effect eas only for 1-2 hours..

I think your wrong .. you should replace it. If I lived closer to a store, I would probably return them daily until I got one that worked. Just my opinion, partially because I'm on my 4th phone with no improvement and it's a 2 hour drive each way for me. I'd consider the mail, but I don't want to give up my phones for nearly a week to make the change. Has anyone been able to get them to send you the replacement by mail and let you send yours back after you get it? Just curious?

If you have applecare they do an express replacement. You give them a credit card, and they put a hold on it for some crazy number like 700$ for the phone. Then they send you a new phone, and you send yours in to them in the box that came with the label. I had that arranged today but cancelled it to keep trying this phone, ill go to verizon store or apple store this week if it keeps up. I am very fusturated, i rescanned my prints last night and they are starting to fail now. it worked good for 10 or so hours but now its crapping out again.

I've had an iPhone replaced where they shipped it by FedEx or UPS in the past. They asked for a credit card to put a hold on it until they got the old one back. Not that I think it will help you. 99% sure it's software related. For me, over the last month the only time I have had any hint of trouble is when there is a low memory warning in the diagnostic log--which is almost daily. Killing apps in the multitasking mode seems to do the trick. I've had the same four prints register for over a month this way, and Touch ID works almost perfectly. iOS 7 has some major memory leaks, and it seems to impact Touch ID. I am almost certain that's what most people on here are experiencing. It's hard for Apple to diagnose it because everybody is running a different combination of apps in various configurations.

Thanks for that info. I am not very smartphone software (esp IOS) knowlegable, I have dove into blackberry software in the past but not ios. and blackberry is known for memory leaks so i totally understand what your saying. Part of the reason i cancelled the repair is that i dont think its a hardware issue. I just re registered 4 prints (thumbs, and pointers). I am going to see how that works.