Q: Touch ID being Erratic

I posted a few times previously in this thread. To sum up my experience, I registered my thumb without any issue a couple days after getting my phone on 9/25. I don't normally use password protection/security on my phone so I turned it off. However, I heard others were having issues so I turned Touch ID back on yesterday to see if mine still worked. It didn't.

I tried it probably 20 times yesterday and it only started to register once. I set up an appointment at the Apple Store and went there this evening. The guy that initially helped me and the technician both said this was a first for them. They said they hadn't seen a phone fail like this. They couldn't get it to work once, so they replaced it.

FYI: You do get a brand new phone, not a re-manufacted phone. He said the 5s is way too new for them to replace phones with re-manufactured phones.

The only difference between when I set the new phone up the first time is:

• base software now 7.0.3

When it was not working I had re-enrolled my prints (in all the ways suggested) probably about 30 times.  After I wiped the phone I enrolled my print in the same way I had done before (but probably better than when I did it initially).

For the phone to be working ok now it can only be:

• Better setup code in 7.0.3
• When I enrolled my fingers the very first time it didn't work that well (and re-enrolling didn't help).  By wiping the phone it cleared out all the stored state for TouchID (how does the 'Secure Enclave' work etc)
• I somehow managed to do a really good enrollment this time
• A combination of all of the above

It's still working better for me today (I've not had to put my passphrase in to recover it yet).  I agree that just reinstalling it should not have helped.  I'm pleased it's working - I was just about ready to throw the phone across the room in frustration.

I really like the Touch-ID on my 5S but lately I have found that it is not working reliably. It seems that I have to reprogram my Touch-ID prints about every 2 - 3 days. It'll work for about 1 -2 days then I have to reprogram 1 or both finger prints. Maybe while I'm at my Apple store on Friday to pickup the new iPad Air I'll mention this problem to the Geniuses.

I'm now on my 2nd iPhone 5S, and I just experienced something that happened with the first one: I had depressed the home button and then kept my finger on it to unlock the phone, and nothing happened. The lock screen simply showed "slide to unlock," not "try again." I again held my finger on the home button, and nothing happened. So it appeared that Touch ID wasn't working. On a whim, I depressed the home button, and I was taken instantly to the home screen, without any unlock being required.

So under certain circumstances, it appears that Touch ID recognition occurs, but there's no indication of it: the user is not taken directly to home screen.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Please tell us the outcome. I would be very interested what the guys at the Genius Bar say

Expected behavior if your print was read as part of depressing the button and it unlocked...

I'm confused, Joe. If my print was read as part of depressing the button and it unlocked, shouldn't I be taken to the home screen instead of remaining at the lock screen?

My 5S Touch ID works for 1 day then I have to re-do it.  What a pain.  The entire reason for my purchase of the 5S was for the Touch ID.  Wonder if it will ever work.  Can it be returned for refund before 30 days.  I would hate for it to be an hardware issue and I am stuck with a $659 5S than is no improvement over my 5.  I will go to the Genius Bar tomorrow and see what they tell me.

Your phone unlocked when you touched the sensor and displayed the home screen. It was waiting for you to touch it as you got its attention on the first push, but didn't read the print correctly.

I tried it as your described it, and that's what I saw as well.  It would have unlocked even if you had not depressed the button, assuming your print was finally read correctly.

Make sense?

Not really, no. I'm maintaining that under certain circumstances my phone doesn't display the home screen after it is unlocked.

So by home screen you mean the screen that was being displayed when the phone was locked. Right?

I must have read what you wrote in your first msg incorrectly. I understood you to say/mean, that you went from a "slide to unlock" screen directly to the home screen when you depressed the home button, without the phone unlocking. I took that, I believe, directly as you wrote it.

Again, if you were using a registered finger to depress the home button to cause that to happen, THAT is what unlocked the phone.

Question: Try it again, but don't use a registered finger. Did the phone gp to the home screen?

Sorry if I'm not understanding it. If your phone is not unlocked, you're either going to get a "try again" prompt or a "slide to unlock" prompt.  From there you said:

"On a whim, I depressed the home button, and I was taken instantly to the home screen, without any unlock being required."

So what I read in what you said was, from a locked phone condition, or in your words, "slide to unlock", you unlocked your phone by "depressing the home button" with, and I'm assuming this, as you did not state if you depressed it with a registered finger or not, with a registered finger, you unlocked the phone.

I don't see any issue other than, it worked as expected.

Now if you went from the "slide to unlock" prompt and hit the home button with a non-registered finger and it then went to the home screen, then something is very broken.

I have this problem too.  I can register a new fingerprint today and tomorrow it will not work.  I actually input the same finger (thumb) five times, one for each day it failed and it still will not work at all after one day.  It is like it has a timer.  this is really frustrating and if i had know about this before i purchased the 5S, i might not have bothered.  I hope Apple has a fix soon.

No, the lock screen is what is displayed when you have a passcode / TouchID enabled and you wake up the iPhone: it displays a clock, among other things. The "home screen" is iOS's analogy to the Finder: the grid of app icons, with a launch bar at the bottom of the screen.

What I'm saying is that in the past few days, I've seen a few situations situations where placing my registered finger on the "home" button while the iPhone is at the lock screen not only does not unlock the phone, but it doesn't appear that any attempt is being made to recognize my fingerprint: the message "slide to unlock" is displayed (which is delayed under iOS 7.0.3 with TouchID enabled) and the message "try again" is not displayed.

It happened again a few hours ago: I put my registered finger on the home button, "slide to unlock" was displayed, and after I swiped, the home screen (i.e. app icons) were displayed) without my having to enter my password.

I started thinking about the problem this AM. I think I have found the problem. The Touch ID worked fine last night before I went to bed. This AM it didn't work. As the day goes on I drink a lot of water. I think what is happening is that my fingers will get "fatter" during the day. At night I loose that excess water and now my fingers are "skinny". I would not have thought that this would change the finger print enough to cause a problem. But I guess the Touch ID sensor is so sensitive that it will affect the scan of my finger prints. The reason it works for a day or 2 is that I think I am trying to unlock the phone at around the times that my fingers are effectively the same "size" as when I store the print.

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.  The first msg you posted on this didn't memtion that you swiped, but rather depressed the home button again. Hence my insistance that depressing the home button with a registered finger in a readable position is what unlocked the phone.

I have not seen what you described happen, and just tried several times but all I get when I swipe is the simple passcode keypad screen.

One observation though: Depending on how much of a registered finger I hit the home button with the first time, I either get a delayed "slide to unlock" prompt or a quickly displayed "try again", followed by a delayed "slide" if I do nothing. It appears as if it's saying, "okay, I read a print, but couldn't match it, so try again. At anytime you can "slide" to display the passcode entry screen BTW.

In no case though was I able to duplicate what you're seeing. And what you're seeing is a serious security bypass.  Have you considered reporting it to Apple?  They have a profile they can send you which takes a log dump during unlock, and that would help them nail the problem down.