Touch ID being Erratic

I've just started a new thread. Hopefully it will help those still having Touch ID failing ater hours or days.

-Joe

Just been talking to Apple Europe (Ireland) who, in spite of the gathering evidence if a problem, seem unable to treat customers properly. Apple said they had not "announced" a problem (as they did with Maps) and therefore could not accept the problem existed! Long, drawn out conversation ended with Apple employee who expected me to swap my 8 week old iPhone for an unboxed, unknown, unsealed replacement.

I had the same problem as everyone else - decreasing function of Touch ID. At Apple Tech support request wiped my phone and set it back up again - worked fine for 2 days then Touch ID started failing again. I sent video evidence of what's happening but Apple seem to be in denial. This in spite of authoratative reports of the problem on nasdaq.com, forbes.com, Wall St Journal - with journalists experiencing failure too.

Apple Europe seemed happy for me to take retailer to court rather than accept there is a fault at the time of purchase. I am a committed Apple user but I am worried this is a sign that quality and function are now less reliable. If Customer Service don't care at a senior level what else can we do?

Well, one thing you can do, since you responded to me, is to follow the link in the post above yours, try the advise I posted there, and then make a determination if you have a defective phone or not.

Full disclosure: I currently have no Apple stock or options, nor am I an Apple employee.

lgcebuk wrote:

Just been talking to Apple Europe (Ireland) who, in spite of the gathering evidence if a problem, seem unable to treat customers properly. Apple said they had not "announced" a problem (as they did with Maps) and therefore could not accept the problem existed! Long, drawn out conversation ended with Apple employee who expected me to swap my 8 week old iPhone for an unboxed, unknown, unsealed replacement.

I had the same problem as everyone else - decreasing function of Touch ID. At Apple Tech support request wiped my phone and set it back up again - worked fine for 2 days then Touch ID started failing again. I sent video evidence of what's happening but Apple seem to be in denial. This in spite of authoratative reports of the problem on nasdaq.com, forbes.com, Wall St Journal - with journalists experiencing failure too.

Apple Europe seemed happy for me to take retailer to court rather than accept there is a fault at the time of purchase. I am a committed Apple user but I am worried this is a sign that quality and function are now less reliable. If Customer Service don't care at a senior level what else can we do?

I followed the usual advice to return it, and am on my 5th device. All behave the same.

In spite of getting no information that it's a known problem from Apple Support, I am encouraged by nyfred's comment ( https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5400101?answerId=23854843022#23854843022 ) that people in Cook's office said "they said they are aware and looking into the touch ID problem." Also, a few pages back, a Thailand poster said that the Genius there advised him to keep his phone until a softare fix is issued ... more evidence to wait.

I bought the 5S on the release day from ATT store here in Santa Fe. For the first few days the touchid worked perfectly. Then it became hit & miss for over 50% of the time. After reading many posts on the Internet I deleted all scanned fingers and rescanned using method(s) described. Again, worked perfectly for a few days but then began to fail and got worse and worse. Ive upgraded to 7.0.4 and backed up, wiped, restored and still the touchid is inconsistent.

I bought the 5S primarily for the touchid. I've been a computer consultant for the past 27 years and use my iphone constantly. And this feature is important to me.

I'm taking in to Apple store next week and I expect them to replace the phone and I hope this fixes it.

I'll post my results.

(I don't think Jobs would have allowed this to go out the door without fixing). If it is hardware based then Apple should make good on All flawed 5s phones sold.

Steve Hess

President/Abacus, Inc.

Santa Fe, NM

Don't waste your time. There is nothing wrong with your phone. The problem is the software. Call Apple and open a case for this problem. The more they hear about it, the faster it will be resolved.

I agree. I've been working with an iOS Senior Advisor who said that he's determined to get the Touch ID problem fixed. (I'm on my third 5S and went to the Genius Bar twice.) When I was talking to him, he said that he hadn't gotten any calls about the problem other than mine.This is what he wrote to me (and we followed through on Wednesday):

Just got in for the day and our engineers have gotten back to me. They want us to gather a bit more in-depth information from the iPhone while the issue is occurring. Gathering this information requires downloading a program call the iPhone Configuration Utility, a program similar to iTunes, but is dedicated to configuring the iPhone as opposed to syncing information. All we will need to do is run the program with the iPhone connected to the computer, and replicate the issue. This will generate a log report that we’ll save and send back to our engineers. We will need to note the exact time that the issue occurred as we’re replicating it, so when they review the logs, they can find any relevant information that could tell us what is needed to hopefully get this resolved once and for all.

Point him to this and the other threads here that discuss the problem.

I find it rather difficult to believe that he is unaware of the problem. Sounds like Apple is in denial like the IPhone 4 antenna problem?

In the interest of adding positive, logical feedback to those who are here looking to have their TID problems resolved, I offer the following RE TID failing in hours to days:

1. I think we can all agree we all have the same basic hardware, with differing memory amounts and carrier chipsets.

2. I think we can all agree we all have the same operating system, give or take a few 7.0.x versions.

3. I think we can all agree we all have different apps installed and running both active and in the background.

I think we can all agree we all have different results with Touch ID.

So, what's different between our collective experience?

1. Given H.W that doesn't fail 100%, it's not a H/W issue.

2. Given a good IOS install that has not failed to install properly due to a myriad of issues, it's not an IOS issue.

3. If, given we have setup our phones as a new device, stripped down to just IOS for testing purposes, and TID still fails after initially working fine, it's not due to third party apps. (I have done this when it failed for me, BTW, and it still failed)

So again I ask: What's different between our collective experience?

I think we should all agree there's basically two differences: our unique fingerprints, and/or how we register our prints initially.

An observation one can make with reading this and the other threads RE TID is, those who had as frustrating an experience with TID failing, over and over ad nauseam as I know I did, decided to modify how they trained and used TID, and found it to finally work.

If and when Apple makes a S/W change to work better with corner case fingerprints, one can adapt and use the feature, and put the issue to rest.

robert d.fromchicago wrote:

All we will need to do is run the program with the iPhone connected to the computer, and replicate the issue. This will generate a log report that we’ll save and send back to our engineers. We will need to note the exact time that the issue occurred as we’re replicating it, so when they review the logs, they can find any relevant information that could tell us what is needed to hopefully get this resolved once and for all.

Great, but if they still don't find a problem, make sure they understand that the stored print is somehow getting damaged by the software, instead of getting enhanced over time, as it's supposed to. I'll bet they won't be able to actually check the status of the stored print with the test you're running. If they gave us a "disable" switch on the print enhancement part of the program, and also let us add more touches during enrollment, I'm sure that would solve the problem. This is not the kind of thing that will show up on a log. See my earlier post a page back https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5400101?start=540&tstart=0

Someone else suggested you make a video. I second that request. I've tried to follow your instructions but not sure I understand them. A video would be very helpful. Also, I'm curious how many days your TID has been working at or near 100% since you used your approach?

I've noticed this as well, I've tried several ways and some do appear to extend the length of the time that the fingerprint sensor works reliably but in the end all of them fail after awhile and it appears at least in my case that the most used finger always starts failing first. It's almost like the initial fingerprint setting works great, but over time it gets confused or corrupted. I think I remember part of the feature of the sensor was that it would try and continue to learn the fingerprint over time after the initial setting to improve it's function, perhaps that's confusing it over the long term.

A video has been on my todo list for a long time, but life kind of got in the way. Will try to get it done today. Was hoping to post it in this forum, but don't see a way or place to upload it to. Will have to go the YouTube route.

Video uploaded to YouTube. I have a bad cold and sound like crap, but I think it's okay.

Could have done a better job centering the frame, but you'll get the idea.

Feedback welcomed, even from those who think Touch ID doesn't work 🙂