Touch ID being Erratic

MaMiFrom wrote:

I noticed that the problem occurs when you use the moisturizer to your hands.

That's not considered an issue, apple warns about that: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5883?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Agree with both you and mrsnork. When I had a 100% print for a month, and my wife now still 100% over 2 months, that was with only one thumb registered.

I did have something go way out of whack very early on, documented in another thread, reported it to Apple and was given a data capture profile to gather logs on TID, but could not duplicated the problem. I left it with the tech that there was something lurking. It reassigned a print to a totally different finger as far as names go after deleting a newly added finger. The old finger failed 100%, yet the newly added finger, deleted after adding it without leaving the "add a fingerprint" screen, still worked, only under the entry of a different finger. It was very strange, but not repeatable.

Starting to think something is hosing pointers into the database, and the multiple entrys are being corrupt over time...

Might be worth a shot for those still having failures to try deleting all fingerprints and redo just one using the method I posted in this thread.

If this produces better results, this is feedback which would help Apple pinpoint the problem, FWIW.

Interesting to see the additions to the touch id page 12/5 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5883?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US .. that tells us that they realize it's not just a small number of us. Good to know, maybe they'll eventually figure out why the prints seem to degrade for some of us.

I have looked over your video. It is very methodical and I do feel that it will make a difference for most viewers. I am going to give it a try, as well as run some other additional tests, and update my blog soon.

Having said that, Apple's own documents mention the fact that cold fingers can cause an issue with TouchID. In addition, myself and others have long had issues with anything that uses capacitive technology due to static electricity caused by the issues I mentioned in my post. (Many people don't realize that a human can carry up to 50,000 V ofstatic charge on your skin at any time.)

The problem with static and TouchID is that both a dry finger and sapphire are an insulator. This means that, when you touch a staticky finger to the sapphire lens on TouchID, the voltage is not conducted away from your finger (grounded) and potential still exists between the surfaces of these two differing materials. (Ideally, this would be resolved by the steel ring surrounding the sensor but this may not be the case if your finger is carrying an unusually high voltage or the ring doesn't have a good ground.)

I will admit that there is some speculation here on my part but I believe my theory may also account for the issues some are experiencing with accuracy getting worse over time. I do plan to follow-up my blog post with some further experiments soon though.

I hope that is helpful for those of you that are finding this a tougher nut to crack.

Jon

mrsnork wrote:

Disappointingly, I'm still getting the total failure situations where it will fail 5 times, causing me to enter the pass code, then it starts working again perfectly. Nothing to do with degradation of the print. There is a documented conflict with Twitter, but I don't even have a Twitter installed so clearly some other app or process is causing a problem. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that iOS 7.1 will fix this.

Sadly it's not just Twitter, and even then it's not a total failure when Twitter is the active app when the screen locks. Points to a more random set of events. Documented in this as well as other threads, including what I believe is the first to mention the issue, and it has a numbered bug report assigned by Apple.

RE TID taking longer with multiple enrollments, I kind of remember that from day one. Could be mistaken though, but when I had early failures I researched everything I could find, and this I though was well documented, FWIW.

rogerfromparma wrote:

I thought it was case related also but they tell me no at the apple store I took my case off this morning and it's working great all day long so far. Case is made by Apple

Sorry, it's not your case. See this thread if you haven't already as well as the YouTube video link in it.

Joe,

I have already tried your enrollment method... In fact, I have very carefully watched your video, read your posts, cleaned my phone and scanned my right thumb (and only my right thumb) into the TouchID system twice. (Numerous other users have as well.) I have also made sure that I had no third-party apps like Twitter open that could be interfering.

The simple fact is that your specific method is not working for me and for others. (When I say it is not working, I mean that I literally couldn't use TouchID to access my phone for 15 minute blocks or more at a time.) So, while I would not say your solution doesn't work if it seems to be for many other people, your solution cannot be ruled as the solution for everybody, especially when others are trying different things that are working better for them.

If I am dead wrong about the static, I will admit it on my blog like I always do... Regardless, there is something else going on here and I have heard no other plausible explanations for it.

Jon

Jon,

My point was RE the Apple case not being an issue. I too have some knowledge of the effects of ESD after working over 30 years in the IC industry, both analog and digital layout. By no means an expert in the ESD field though 😉

If I may? I believe this is the first time I read your mention of the 15 minute or more block failures. Is that repeatable? If so, you could open a case with Apple asking for backline or second tier or whatever they call it support. I've written this before here and apologize to all for the repeat. They have a "profile" they can E-mail to you which, once installed, collects extensive TID data logs which you then send back after the failure. If it's random I don't know how they handle that as the person I spoke with went into hand holding mode while I tried to duplicate the issue I had.

One final note: It's not just Twitter that causes temporary TID to fail. I'm sure you read that here and know about the Control Panel calculator hack to reset whatever goes brain-dead and TID loses focus. It sounds as if that's not the case, and others here have recently had the same TID goes out to lunch for an extended time. It should also be noted that apps don't have to be in the foreground, or background, to (perhaps) cause a problem. If notifications are on for apps configured to receive push notices, you could have activity you had not thought of which could be affecting TID.

Question: When you were in the 15 min TID lockout mode, did you by chance go into the TID enrollment screen to see if an enrolled finger highlighted?

Okay, a final, final thought 🙂 I've seen in other threads where TID was not even available, and was greyed out. In this thread the advise was related to an App Store reset. Not clear to me why TID wants to have a proper App Store entry. What if one doesn't intend to purchase apps, or haven't set an acct up yet. I bring this up only because, it sounds as if IOS, for whatever reason, tries to validate an App Store acct, and if it fails, TID is disabled?!? Dunno about that as I haven't experienced it. So, if that's true, and for some reason the App Store was not responsive, for whatever reason, I guess I could see cases where TID could be broken. Beyond my pay grade 🙂

Arthur_P_Johnson wrote:

I don't believe this problem is confined to just a few of us. I've heard from too many others with similar problems to believe this.

This gives me hope that someday my problem might be fixed. Meantime I'm miserable. The only reason I sold my iPhone 5 and bought the 5s was for the touch ID, and now it doesn't work. If anybody has a fix that I haven'y already tried, I'm dying to hear it.

I posted this a way back and I guess no one else agrees, but I really do believe this is the software fix that would fix our (yours and mine) problems:

Submit an enhancement at http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Subject: Touch ID Fails after a short time

Touch ID works great initially, but fails completely for me after a few hours. I have this same problem on 5 (actually, Arthur, yours is only 3, I'm the lucky guy with 5) different iPhone 5s.

It seems to me that it fails because my prints change a little bit, and thinking they’re normal, the software adds them to the existing print. Over time, this actually degrades the existing print, until it no longer works. I suggest that you change the software as follows:

1 change the enrollment procedure to allow as many scans as I want to do

2 allow me to go back and add to an enrollment at any time

3 provide a “disable” switch in the touch id settings to disable the automatic modification of a stored print by the software

About it being sleepy after the break, Joe_Fo has mentioned before that he thinks that background processes, open apps, and push notifications may be causing this... I would tend to agree because, if you haven't used your phone in awhile and you try to unlock it, your phone will start refreshing apps, checking email and so forth... iOS 7 does this strategically to save battery life and this is why you will often get a flood of emails, for example, when you unlock your phone.

Both work in any orientation but only if I get them spot on the centre whorl ( presumably the most distinctive part of my fingerprint ) it's annoying the edges seem to fade.

I wonder if this has to do more with getting contact with the steel ring surrounding TID, as well as scanning enough points of reference on your finger at the same time to make a positive id.

Does the scanner update each time it is used as it seems to learn after a few false starts each morning?

Apple has given every indication that TID does continue to learn but it is hard to say for sure if it stops as some point.

As far as the false starts in the morning go, I really think it has to do with your phone starting to refresh all of your data for your background apps and push notifications... For example, when talking about the M7 co-processor, Apple says that when the phone hasn't been moved in awhile (like when you are sleeping) it reduces network connectivity.. When you get up in the morning, start moving your phone and try to login, I think it begins running all of these background processes.

I think this is going to require software tweaking on Apple's end but if you really want to minimize this you can try turning off Background App Refresh, minimizing the number of notifications you get, and setting your email to Fetch, as described here http://trialsandtribstech.blogspot.com/2013/10/14-steps-to-getting-great-battery -life.html.

Griswaldo4g wrote:

Apple has given every indication that TID does continue to learn but it is hard to say for sure if it stops as some point. As far as the false starts in the morning go, I really think it has to do with your phone starting to refresh all of your data for your background apps and push notifications... For example, when talking about the M7 co-processor, Apple says that when the phone hasn't been moved in awhile (like when you are sleeping) it reduces network connectivity.. When you get up in the morning, start moving your phone and try to login, I think it begins running all of these background processes.

I think this is going to require software tweaking on Apple's end but if you really want to minimize this you can try turning off Background App Refresh, minimizing the number of notifications you get, and setting your email to Fetch, as described here http://trialsandtribstech.blogspot.com/2013/10/14-steps-to-getting-great-battery -life.html.

I think there maybe something to both these points (or maybe something else, who the **** [he double hockey sticks] knows) because I performed a little experiment with my phone because I am again having TID failure within 24 hours after scanning a fingerprint irrespective of the methond in which I scan the print (sorry, Joe_Fo).

Anyhow, I scanned my thumbprint and then did not use TID whatsoever after then except to check to see if my print was registered and working. 24 hours later, initially my phone did not open up with TID and only recognized my print once out of multiple tries in the settings screen. A short while later it began to better recognize my print which ultimately improved until it opened essentially normally.

That would indicate to me that because TID was not given the opportunity to see my print over the course of the day, it was unable to corrupt my fingerprint with more data.

So, TID is a great function that works if you don't use it...

ShrinkRap wrote:

What is the calculator trick? Somehow I missed that one...

It's been talked about in this mega page thread several times, but I don't recall the dates.

It's documented in this thread.

Note that it is not only Twitter that can cause the bug to surface. Also, this is only a temp cure for when TID goes brain-dead (oh wait, a search term! It's on this page and earlier pages) as in it does nothing at all, as if your finger is not on the home button. Nada. Pulling the calculator up from the control panel and closing it resets something and TID will work again.

The static mat is not going to do much for you if you have an insulative case on your phone... Where the case is in direct contact with the mat the static would be grounded but, where it is not, the case is not going to discharge to the mat (because it doesn't conduct electricity - screen protectors would presumably have the same effect).

After doing my initial experiment, using the metal bumper case for a little over 24 hours after enrollment (to make sure that static isn't effecting the initial imaging), all four of my enrolled fingers work consistently using Apple's enrollment method... It has been almost a week and things are working well.

I can't say for sure that my method is going to work for everybody but, if it is going to work, it has to be done very carefully.

doggyluver5 wrote:

I got a new phone straight from Apple a week or so ago. They told me the TID was a hardware problem. It works no better than the first one. It is gold so I doubt the color is the issue. Someone on here, way back, said something about if the S/N started with DN it was from one of the factories that has had trouble with their sensors. The phone I have now starts with DN but the first one started with FI.

[snip]

You have that backwards. It was stated that DN serial numbered phones work with TID and damp hands. Note though that there's too small a sample size to state there's any truth to a factory based TID problem.