Touch ID being Erratic

Cameron: Yes, the area with the red fingerprint on top. Towards the bottom of that screen, if you've been following the Joe Fo method, it will say Finger 1. Place your registered finger on the sensor, and the white background of Finger 1 will "highlight" as gray when it recognizes your finger.

Tnanks. Mine didn't work, but now that I've added a new fingerprint, it does. This is odd. I'll try to update it every once in a while and see if that works.

Thanks,

Cameron

You can also click the edit button & name the finger the print is registered to

Many here (including me) have found it best to register only one finger using Joe Fo's "10 touch" method for registering.

not sure if this is best way to post, but exec summary of my experience:

• received my 5S in November 2013, activated my TouchID and had recognition degradation within a day
• deleted my finger scan and redid using various stategies posted in this discussion thread - probaly redid my various finger scans 100+ times - same degradation
• had two Genius Bar appointments - always worked when I went by deleting & re-scaning print
• had my daughter and son scan their prints before Christmas - NO DEGRADATION! after a month

Conclusion: For whatever reason, my finger scan does not last.
Would be interested in knowing how the scans really work and why, on the same hardware unit, the prints of two people continue to work and the prints of one person do not.

Could this be anything to do with the size of the finger. My thumbs active area always shrinks. Or perhaps the thumb changes more than the smaller fingers.

I actually posted the fix back on November 27. it's here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5400101?answerId=23934001022#23934001022

and for those who don't want to search back, I'll copy and paste it here:

QUOTE ######

Since the iOS 7.1 beta does not address this, I suggest we all ask Apple for an enhancement at http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html . Maybe if everyone here does the same thing, we can get a faster response. Feel free to copy and paste. I just submitted this:

Subject: Touch ID Fails after a short time

Touch ID works great initially, but fails completely for me after a few hours.

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

I would be willing to test these ideas, if you want.

END QUOTE ##############

By the way, I actually proposed this before that date, but I now believe that Apple has that feedback link as a feel-good tool to deal with the people who can't get their stuff working, and it's not even being read!

I think we can safely assume from anita's experience that atleast on some, if not all models, the experienced problems are caused by malfunction of the software used to update the prints and make them more accurate and easier to read over time. (Which it clearly does the other way around when you know that the prints of her children are not often used since registration and still work but her's, commonly used and updated, don't.)

Unfortunatly we dont know for sure if Apple checks these support communities often and I highly doubt it when I read these stories of other people making genius bar appointments and getting responses like "oh we dont know about touch ID, it's not a known problem"

I've mailed Tim Cook. Nothing to lose here.

(Had to adjust original message because the community support team apparently thinks that posting tim cook's email falls under the rule 4. "Do not post polls or petitions or links to same."

<Edited By Host>

you know why we pay this huge amount to apple? To make sure we get the best technology to use. But here what am i gettin back? One loose power button which rattles a lot, a home button which has a double click to it, stuttering animations and one touch id which doesnt work. Amazing

i actually started using my iphone 5 and kept this phone aside.

and you know what apple's is been working on right now? Its not the touch id, its the bigger iphone 6 thats it.

Because of the holidays, I still have my second iPhone which was not remembering my touch any better than my first phone. I took it to my carrier early in January and had it reset (first step to having it replaced). Then the Polar Vortex hit. I didn't take my still not working well phone in as planned. Then it started holding a print for about 3 days! Now I'm hoping for further progress. I have read many forums on this problem and don't have new insights. My carrier's help is not much help, but they will trade my phone for a new one. They claim I'm the only one even using touch ID. I have found that cleaning the button often seems to be necessary and it sometimes takes ten or more touches to recognize the finger in settings.

Now I don't really know what to make of this. I erased my phone and Apple helped me to set up as a new phone and I restored the apps, music and contacts thru iCloud with their help. I was doing this to see if my original backup from my iPhone 4 was corrupt and I had passed it on to the next two 5S phones. Today when I first tried it it looked like I was going to get the old message and all was for naught. I did have to punch in my passcode on two or three occassions and had a number of Try Again messsages before it would unlock. So I went to where the fingerprint is stored in Settings and after a couple of tries it highlighted. Then it got better and better until I got about 10 highlights in a row. So turned the phone of and tried unlocking it. It went right in. I tried a few times and it worked very well. So I left it alone for a few hours and then tried it again. Same thing to start with then it started highlighting and then unlocking my phone as it should. Do you think it maybe has to "learn" my print for the first two or three tries and then it gets better as you go along and then when you don't use it, like at night, and then call upon it to unlock in the morning that it is still in this learning mode? Anyone have any ideas. Right now I'm not calling the setting up as a new phone the answer to this TID puzzle but I don't know if I should rule it out or not. I'll get back here after a couple more days.

I've had the same experience but not for as many days as you. It seems like you can nurse your print back, if you can invest enough time. Hence, my earlier post about giving us the ability to add prints after and being able to disable the modifier code in the program. Perhaps you're becoming a believer now, and maybe you can take this specific request to Apple in one of your next 5 hour chats. I'd do it myself, but don't have the time this month.

If you do try, please include all 3 items in your request:

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

Maybe you can become the hero for all of us!

You can also ask Apple to post a link for a "beta install image" that we can load on our phones to try these changes. I'm sure all the thousands of us with this problem would eagerly volunteer to test it and give prompt feedback.

Just sent this to Apple feedback.

I've sent feedback before. I'm on my third iPhone 5S (first one received on October 6), and the touch ID feature still does not work after a relatively short period of time. There are 62 pages on the user forum, so I know that others are having the same problem. It's extremely frustrating that Apple is in denial, which has resulted in people spending hours trying to get touch ID to work the way it's supposed to (tape on home button, not standing on a rug, etc.) Please tell all of us what, if anything, you are doing to find a solution.

Well, I already talked to a senior advisor w/Apple today before I read these messages. I told them my phone has started failing and is now the same as before so setting up the phone as new because of a suspected corrupt backup didn't work. I told her again that they need to read our discussion to find out what all has been tried but as a casual observer I thought the software was unlearning scans not reinforcing them like it is supposed to do the more you use it. I told her I had advised the people on the forum to phone or have a live chat with Apple as they obviously didn't have a clue how frustrated we were. I told her since they didn't read our forum I told all of you to give them feedback on their website as they do claim to read that. She finally said she is going to take the problem to the engineers and get back to me in a couple of days. I said 'Thanks so much as that has to be the next obvious step! But don't get too excited as she also said it will be a low priotity request and will likely be a few days. I told her I wouldn't be home in the PM tomorrow but would be home waiting for the call for the rest of the week. She said she'd leave me a message if I wasn't home.

Paulfromhere I don't know what a beta install image is? Please enlighten me.

I did tell them that the phone seemed to be unlearning the scan instead of learning it better. As far as being able to add more scans of fingerprints, you already can do up to 5 I believe and we can delete them by hitting "edit" in the upper right corner of the screen and selecting the ones we want to remove. So I would think the next step would be for them to disable the ability for the automatic modification. So I hope I said enough. They should be pretty bright guys if they are the engineers for the phone.

Robert d.fromchicago thank you for sending them feedback. Please all of you do this. It always seems that the squeaky wheel get the grease so let's all of us squeak!!