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Touch ID being Erratic

Wife and I got iPhone 5s units at the same time. She has had hit and miss success with touch ID. I am golden with mine, and also hers when I put a finger into her phone data. She is frustrated, and will delete fingerprints and resestablish on her phone. Her finger scan will work for a few times, and then it gets to be like it doesn't recognize her finger (left thumb or right thumb). Is anybody else having some issues like this?

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.0.2

Posted on Oct 1, 2013 8:43 PM

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1,114 replies

Mar 1, 2014 1:07 PM in response to smilleresq

I noticed that too and was scratching my head. I guess it is admitting a problem though and that is what we all wanted. If they are admitting this maybe the solution is close. Hope so anyway. Right after the latest update the other day my phone was working great but by last night it had degraded again. I registered my thumb 5 times now so see if that helps. If not back to the passcode.

Mar 4, 2014 7:04 AM in response to Dreanmachine1

Does anyone have the problem where Touch ID fails to process a scan altogether? I am constantly having to enter my passcode when unlocking because the Touch ID won't even attempt to verify my finger, perhaps as often as 30% of the time. It doesn't prompt me to 'try again', it just says 'slide to unlock'. The text does not shake back and forth like it would for a rejected scan, it just freezes on 'slide to unlock'. It's as if it scans an image and gets stuck in the processing somewhere.

Mar 6, 2014 3:49 PM in response to Dreanmachine1

Anybody have any luck by increasing the free space on your iPhone? I have exhibited the same problems but found that the last few days have been actually better since I deleted some photos and music off the phone. Usage went from less than 1GB free to 2GB free. Then suddenly, Touch ID "remembered" my fingerprint, even though I did not re-train! Very strange but it's a lot better now, going from maybe 1/10 tries to 7/10 tries. Still not perfect but better than nothing.

Mar 10, 2014 12:31 PM in response to Dreanmachine1

In case you haven't noticed, IOS 7.1 is available. Install went without a problem.


One difference (so far) is that TID is now listed under its own setting and not under GENERAL. Very odd though is that there are other settings there as well which appears to be unintentional.


7.1 had no problem with my one stored print.


Time to beat up on it 🙂 Hopefully it's not now broken for those of us who have not had TID problems, or at least minor issues.

Mar 11, 2014 3:54 AM in response to smilleresq

But I thought your TID had been working better for a while, only to have started failing recently? Almost seemed as if something had become corrupt requiring a reload (firmware, IOS perhaps).


Hopefully they found whatever was causing failures weeks after enrollment.


BTW, something that always failed for me was enrolling more than one print, but only after several days. Took the plunge and enrolled both thumbs (added left to existing right) and an index finger. So far the index has degraded to a small area only, while newly added left thumb working great, including with the fingertip angled.


Hopefully they nailed it this time!

Mar 11, 2014 4:46 AM in response to Joe_Fo

No, I guess you don't remember, but for me and many others, TID would begin to fail usually several hours after registering a print, and completely crap out after about 8 hours. (Typically for me, I would scan a print at night and by the following morning it would not work. That would happen

using your scanning technique.


If I didn't use your technique, failure was much faster..

Mar 11, 2014 7:19 AM in response to Joe_Fo

Joe_Fo wrote:


[snip]

Took the plunge and enrolled both thumbs (added left to existing right) and an index finger. So far the index has degraded to a small area only, while newly added left thumb working great, including with the fingertip angled.


May have spoken too soon. Seems the index finger is back after 1-2 hours. May have been back sooner, but I gave up trying after a few attempts.


Will see how things progress after a few days...

Mar 11, 2014 10:20 AM in response to Dreanmachine1

I updated to iOS 7.1 yesterday and the difference is remarkable. After using TID yesterday evening and today for aprox. 10 hours so far, It only failed to recognice my fingerprint twice (out of, at the maximum, a 100 touches on the sensor).


I only have one finger scanned, but if all goes well for another few days, I might try adding some more.




Edit: after the update, I erased the existing fingerscan of my thumb and readded it.


2nd edit: after the initial scan completed, I did the extra fingerscanning in the TID settings (where the corresponding finger lights up) to add all areas of the fingerprint by overlapping the scanned areas.

Touch ID being Erratic

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