Touch ID being Erratic

doggyluver5 wrote:

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

When they develope a software change and want to try it, thet need to get the peopke who have the problem to test it. I don't know how Apple normally does this, but guess they could create an installation image that we could install like we install an update. If they can, then we ought to volunteer.

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.

It's actually two different things. Adding a finger is not necessay. However, adding the ability to add more scans to an existing enrolled finger is what we will need to improve the accuracy after we shut off the automatic modification. We need to be able to add them after the fact and also at the initial enrollment. Especially for people like me, who have a lot of variability in their prints. I expect I'll add to my thumb each hour of the day, so I'll be able to get all the variability that occurs in my prints. I'll probably also add when moist, when extremely dry, and all possibilities. I expect to be able to manually do what the automatic modification can't for my prints. Does that make sense?

doggyluver5 wrote:

She finally said she is going to take the problem to the engineers and get back to me in a couple of days.

When I sent my suggestion in back in November, I had hoped that one of the engineers would have sent me an email. But I've heard nothing. As I understand it, you have to join the 3 development programs: Safari, OSX, and iOS to be able to talk to their engineers. That's $300 in expense that I prefer to give to charity.

See if there's some way that we can email the engineers. I'll bet that if I had an email dialog with their engineers that I could explain the problem so they could understand it and develop a fix.

Actually, I also believe you can do this yourself, if they won't make it possible for others here.

I am beginning to hear that B4 has improved TID. Jury is still out it seems but they stated that it seems better. Take it with a grain of salt for now.

Beta4 is just a small update and theres no improvement in the TID. Its the same

Okay, guys don't lose faith quite yet. I just rec'd a call from the Apple Sr. Advisor that I was talking to re my phone. She went to the engineers and they had a number of questions to ask.....a lot of do if I have oversized finger, damaged fingers, work in a place like a pineapple plant?? (I'm retired), etc. etc. Then they wanted me to enroll one of my hubby's prints and another of mine (start fresh) and see how long each takes to degrade. Then they want to put something on my computer to give them a log of what is happening. I'll get back to you after I've done all that. I hope now that we can get some kind of answer and hopefully a fix for our phones!!

I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but I went through the exact same thing (log of phone activity, answering questions) on December 13 or 14. I was told that I might have to replace the phone (I'm on my third) or wait for a software update. I haven't heard anything more since then. I am convinced that the support people are trying their hardest to solve the problem, but that they are working in a vacuum.

doggyluver5 wrote:

Okay, guys don't lose faith quite yet. I just rec'd a call from the Apple Sr. Advisor that I was talking to re my phone. She went to the engineers and they had a number of questions to ask.....a lot of do if I have oversized finger, damaged fingers, work in a place like a pineapple plant?? (I'm retired), etc. etc. Then they wanted me to enroll one of my hubby's prints and another of mine (start fresh) and see how long each takes to degrade. Then they want to put something on my computer to give them a log of what is happening. I'll get back to you after I've done all that. I hope now that we can get some kind of answer and hopefully a fix for our phones!!

Yippie!

Pineapple plant? Really? Odd questions. Can we still drink pineapple rum cocktails? Maybe TID will work better after several? Must give that a try soon!

I seem to recall you saying you tried several of the methods in this thread, but didn't cite specifics. Can I assume you read my thread and watched the YouTube video? If you had, assuming you tried that method, was there any improvement?

Since we had about 12 inches of snow to dig out from, and the temp was about 3-5 degrees early AM, I put my 5S in an outer coat pocket and headed out. About an hour into shoveling, removed a glove and tried to unlock the phone. Difficult so see the screen in very bright sunlight and darkened glasses, but after (I guess) 2 "try again" prompts which I really couldn't see, TID did unlock for me.

There had been a few reports in this thread that it did not work when cold. Perhaps, but it worked for me this time. I've tried freezing my thumb off in the past with an ice cube, and in that case it also worked. FWIW.

I'm sorry your session with the engineers didn't go well robert. dfromchicago but hopefully they have been working on this since you talked to them. I can only hope. That is why it is important that more of us on here contact Apple thru Apple Chat or by phone so they will get more info on this problem. Yes, I have tried your way of enrolling my fingerprint Jo_Fo and I've tried putting Saran Wrap over the button....they did ask if my screen protector covered my home button but there is a cut out for the button on my screen protector. I covered the button with the saran wrap and it did work longer than the regularly scanned print. I also don't have damaged prints as I worked as a bookkeeper when I was working and now I am indoors not doing anything to make my fingerprints unreadable like sweating etc. and told them that. My hubby is a welder and a road construction worker so his prints will be more damaged than mine so we'll see about the damaged prints in this test I'm doing. I even told them I had enrolled a print using both right and left thumbs for the same fingerprint and that it had lasted 3 days which is longer than any single prints have lasted. Now about the cold......it was -29 Celius last night here (Canada) and we have had a lot of cold weather. I do have health problems which would prevent me from shovelling snow but I have carried it in my coat pocket. Not quite the same I know. When I was enrolling my hubby's print I noticed that his thumb is considerably larger than mine (they asked about the size of my fingerprints). They also asked what prints (thumbs and/or fingers) I had tried enrolling and I told them about three of my fingers and both thumbs but mostly one thumb and sometimes enrolled the one thumb more than once (up to 3 times in a session of enrolling prints.. When my hubby tries to get in he quite often gets Siri cause he has pressed too hard so I told him not to press, just rest his thumb on the TID button. He gets right in, actually faster than me. I'm keeping a record for today at least till the scanner quits working for both of us. Wouldn't it be a bummer that all of us are not the "norm" they made to use this? In that case it wasn't tested thorougly before releasing this phone to the public. As for no one having this problem that they know of I think that a lot of people don't know where to complain so just go back to the passcode or they didn't buy the phone for that feature. That doesn't mean the ones that did and do want the feature should be ignored. I was getting my hair done in a city near here yesterday and I asked my hairdresser if she had heard anything about TID not working and she said she had heard lots of bad stuff about it so Apple needs to get their ear to the ground and listen to the public!

doggyluver5 wrote:

[snip]

, I have tried your way of enrolling my fingerprint Jo_Fo

[snip]

It's important to only enroll one finger or thumb, leaving the other 4 slots unused, at least until you've tested long enough to see if it's going to work for you. Also, it's important to carefully follow the video steps when setting that one finger up, and making sure to move only slightly between the 10 scans during enrollment.

Perhaps after your test session with Apple you can revisit the video and start fresh.

When I have tried your way of enrolling my fingerprint (I did watch the video) it hasn't worked appreciatively longer than any other ways I have tried Jo_Fo. After this last setting up my phone as a "new Phone" I did Apple's way and it lasted about 2 - 3 days. I then tried your way....no difference, same old thing failing after about a day. In both cases I only enrolled my one thumb. Last night I was mad and enrolled three of my right thumb but after only a couple of hours only one worked. When my hubby enrolled his finger today he was very clumsy at doing it as he hasn't even tried my phone before but nevertheless it works, I would say, even better than mine. But I will wait till all the evidence is in on that. For that matter my hubby just came in from an extended session of snow clearing outside and his thumbs were really cold. I handed him the phone and it worked seamlessly, going right in, as soon as he touched the home button. Mine also works but as I say not quite as fast.

Have you tried just placing the enrolled finger on the home button without depressing it to trigger TID, but hitting the sleep/wake button with your other hand to trigger TID instead? As long as the pressure on the home button is ideal, and there's no or little finger movement, you would rule out movement and/or pressure issues when used normally as being the problem. Worth a try 🙂

I just tried this now Joe_Fo and it works the same as doing the whole thing by the home button. The thing is I do not believe we should have to jump thru all these hoops to make the darn thing work. Most of these solutions take longer than if I just punched my passcode in in the first place!! I am looking for it to just work without making sure I have the "exact" pressure and "exact" position of my finger on the scanner. I just put my finger on the button and very gently pushed and I was in just after I set the phone up as new. That is how I feel it is supposed to work. I am through looking for more answers about how to treat this TID. All of this should have been done when they were testing it for sale. I don't want to be their guinea pig and on top of that pay for the priviledge!!

Same thing for me today and did same procedures, They also took a look at this thread. They will contact me back after enginneers take a look at my log.