Touch ID being Erratic

odysseus wrote:

Has anyone tried registering fingerprints under difficult conditions when the TouchID sensor fails to recognize one's prints, such as after a shower?

Yes, same experience as you.

paulfromhere wrote:

[snip]

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 ..

[snip]

Just read this again and the "edge" word was confusing to me the first time I used the phone. Poor choice of words by Apple, IMHO. At least I didn't know exactly why they wanted the "edge" (which I read as side I guess) of my finger when it would never touch the sensor in the first place.

I believe they mean the outer area of a finger as placed flat on the sensor, not "rotate the finger and place the side" on the sensor.

Joe_Fo wrote:

but not so much movement that you move totally off of the last spot scanned. My thought here is that it's difficult to build a database without a known landmark between registration scans.

I thought that too and that's why I decided to give it another try. Somebody, maybe you, posted this additional tip about expanding the area after the fact:

touch id: Go into the System Settings —> General —> Touch ID & Passcode —> Touch ID

If you now place your finger on the sensor, the slot that the finger is registered to will flash. If you move your finger a tiny bit every time (wait for it to flash), you can dramatically increase the recognized area. My thumb is now recognized almost from the nail down to the crook of the joint.

The training isn't documented because Touch ID learns "on the job" and improves its accuracy by doing the same thing over time, but it works.

Do you have an opinion as to whether it's true.

Message was edited by: paulfromhere fixed grammer

paulfromhere wrote:

[snip]

I thought that too and that's why I decided to give it another try. Somebody, maybe you, posted this additional tip about expanding the area after the fact:

[snip]

That was smilleresq on Nov 9.

Ooops wrong credit: It was odysseus Nov 8

I mentioned it after that as well, but don't know if it helps or not, but as I said back then, it can't hurt.

I still do it periodically to test the range of movement, just to make sure it not getting worse. Maybe that's why I am still at 100%. Don't know for sure. I still feel it's more about the initial registration that counts in the end.

Message was edited by: Joe_Fo wrong credit

Great discussion now! Cleaning th Touch ID sesor immediately restored both my and my wife's Touch ID button.

After reading some of the posts, there probably are a number of causes and so a number of different solutions. So not a one-size-fits-all solutionl. A lot of emphasis seems to be on re-scanning. I don't see much said in these posts that the Apple recommendation for proper ID sensor cleanliness is understood or is being followed. Remember Apple says to keep the sensor clean so why not? This is neither a secret nor to be unexpected.

Here are quotes from the Apple Knowledge base article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5883:

"Cleaning the Touch ID sensor

A clean Touch ID sensor can read your fingerprint more easily. As needed, use a clean, lint-free cloth to wipe off any dirt or debris from the Home button."

Troubleshooting Touch ID

Ensure that your fingers and the Home button are clean and dry.*

* 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."

Here's my hypothrsis that might explain how a dirty sensor could affect reliability. Joe_Fo in the above post wrote that he re-scanned without cleaning and it only worked for a while before going back to unreliable operation. If you look at his great picture of the greasy mess, you see what the sensor is dealing with. The ID sensor is touch capacitive and is measuring extremely small differences in conductivity as it measures the small varitions in the fingerprint grooves. So it is able to create the proper scan with that greasy mess pattern. Now over time you gradually change the greasy pattern with a resulting change in conductivity. So if you rescan you get different conductivity and theregore the scan once again works for a while.

So with great technolgy comes great resposibility. This means clean the sensor, wash your hands and dry them before scanning your print. And clean the sensor periodically. And consider all the caviots that Apple has said will affect Touch ID. If all this has been been followed and you still have problems, then look for other causes.

Joe_Fo wrote:

After the screen locked, I tried something like 10 minutes later to unlock, and it wasn't reading the print properly, refusing to unlock. Before the 5'th attempt, I swiped from the "Enter Passcode" screen back to the "slide to unlock" screen, pulled up the control panel, swiped the control back away, and placed my finger on the home button. ***The finger was accepted and the phone unlocked***

Good to know. If I get that complete failure again I'll try this. Yesterday nothing I tried worked and I had to wait an hour or so before it would return on its own. FWIW, I did update to 7.0.4 which supposedly addressed a FaceTime hanging issue, so maybe it will work now, but I've been reluctant to try FaceTime again for fear of losing Touch ID for an hour!

Incidentally, I also had a brief Touch ID failure today while trying to unlock during a regular phone call, resulting in having to enter the passcode to unlock. After I ended the call it again worked fine.

My experiences with Touch ID, particularly over the last two days, leads me to conclude that there at least two main software-related issues with TID:

1. Fingerprint accuracy degrading over time. For me, this was resolved by registering the prints per Joe_Fo's instructions, and I have been using the same prints for over a month with no degradation since.

2. Total sudden Touch ID failure due to some software glitch. Sometimes rebooting the phone or closing out apps in multitasking mode restores functionality. If it doesn't, functionality is fully restored after some random period of time between 30 minutes and 1 hour, or thereabouts. Perhaps opening control panel from the lock screen as described above will also resolve it sooner, but I haven't had an opportunity to test that myself.

To follow up on the control panel fix, I just had a failure and bringing up control panel and closing it *did* restore functionality.

paulfromhere wrote:

Joe_Fo wrote:

but not so much movement that you move totally off of the last spot scanned. My thought here is that it's difficult to build a database without a known landmark between registration scans.

I thought that too and that's why I decided to give it another try. Somebody, maybe you, posted this additional tip about expanding the area after the fact:

touch id: Go into the System Settings —> General —> Touch ID & Passcode —> Touch ID

If you now place your finger on the sensor, the slot that the finger is registered to will flash. If you move your finger a tiny bit every time (wait for it to flash), you can dramatically increase the recognized area. My thumb is now recognized almost from the nail down to the crook of the joint.

The training isn't documented because Touch ID learns "on the job" and improves its accuracy by doing the same thing over time, but it works.

Do you have an opinion as to whether it's true.

Message was edited by: paulfromhere fixed grammer

Earlier today I posted that I thought that TID was reading just the "meat" of my finger and not the edges (i.e. the parts of my fingerprint that are further up, around and down from the initial scan). Checking the print in system settings, I was able to get it to start recognizing more of my fingerprint again by starting with the meat and moving incrementally up, down and around, trying and getting recognition. Whether or not it is "learning" more of my fingerprint would be absolute conjecture right now I am hoping that it is.

I'm just excited that it still is working after almost a day and a half; I didnt get results like that up until now.

i2 wrote:

Here are quotes from the Apple Knowledge base article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5883:

This is really weard .. when I click on that link, I get a blank page.

Troubleshooting Touch ID

Ensure that your fingers and the Home button are clean and dry.*

* 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."

I never saw mention of showering and dry(ness) before. In fact, I asked the Genius I talked to why it stopped working after I washed and he said washed hands are best. I wonder if they've been changing this page to address some of our complaints.

i2 wrote:

Troubleshooting Touch ID

Ensure that your fingers and the Home button are clean and dry.*

* 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."

You're right, I did overlook this and it's probably the reason for all my failures. I expected too much, I guess. For me. the temporary change in the print seems to last probably half of my time. For example, I just washed my hands and it's taken about 25 minutes for it to get going normally. I wish they had put this in the opening lines of the page so I and others would have realized how little it can be used.

paulfromhere wrote:

I wonder if they've been changing this page to address some of our complaints.

That page hasn't changed since I got my iP5s a little more then 2 weeks ago.

i2 wrote:

Great discussion now! Cleaning th Touch ID sesor immediately restored both my and my wife's Touch ID button.

[snip]

Here's my hypothrsis that might explain how a dirty sensor could affect reliability. Joe_Fo in the above post wrote that he re-scanned without cleaning and it only worked for a while before going back to unreliable operation.

[snip]

Actually, no, you totally misread what I said. I have no problems with unlocking with TID, greasy sensor and all. Perhaps you were thinking of someone else?

I even stated my phone right out of the box from Apple, clean as can be, failed to unloch after registering my prints. In fact, it was less than an hour after recording my thumb on said spanking clean, new phone. 🙂

My TID works all the time without a problem. All one has to do is use it in the manner I suggested throughout this and other threads.

i2 wrote:

Great discussion now! Cleaning th Touch ID sesor immediately restored both my and my wife's Touch ID button.

[snip]

Here's my hypothrsis that might explain how a dirty sensor could affect reliability. Joe_Fo in the above post wrote that he re-scanned without cleaning and it only worked for a while before going back to unreliable operation.

[snip]

Okay, I sort of take it back. I see which comment you refer to. That's a totally different issue. Some here have experienced a S/W related issue which causes TID to fail. It has nothing at all to do with how clean or dirty the sensor is. It's a S/W bug which Apple has not fixed. The trick of opening the control panel reestablishes the hook in the S/W which smacks TID back in operation again.

Hard to understand it until you experience it, trust me. At least I didn't fully appreciate it until I saw it happen.

mrsnork wrote:

To follow up on the control panel fix, I just had a failure and bringing up control panel and closing it *did* restore functionality.

Ah, cool! Glad that worked. If it works after the FaceTime glitch, that's something Apple can hone in on!

smilleresq wrote:

[snip]

I'm just excited that it still is working after almost a day and a half; I didnt get results like that up until now.

🙂 🙂 🙂