Q: Touch ID being Erratic

My wife and I also each got an iPhone 5S a few weeks ago and had the same experience as others with erratic Touch ID sensor activation after about two weeks. There are lot of posts on this explaining how they tried different solutions to no avail. Some of these were radical: reset the iPhone, reload iOS, swap for a new phone, etc.

I read Apple's Knowlege based artiicle http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5883. A lot of folks on this thread are concentrating on the method of registering their prints, but the small paragraph "Cleaning the Touch ID sensor" worked for me. If you hold the iPhone up to the light at the right angle you will probably see a grasing-looking smudge all over and around the sensor. This would be a no-no for the extremely high resolution scanning process. I just wiped the area with a soft dry cotton towel and the smudges came off easily.  The phone now responds to every touch again. I would like to hear if this has worked for anyone else.

Well, 1 day after genius bar visit, TID is still working okay (can't say if it's because of the OS reset or following Joe_Fo's scanning instructions) except it seems that more exact placement of my fingers is now necessary to open the phone. It won't open up if I place my finger a little up, down or sideways from the area I scanned with the first set of scans, despite scanning the rest of my fingerprint with the secondary  "edges" scans.

On that issue, what is the point of scanning the "edges" after the initial set of scans if it will only eventually open with the first?

Second, this behavior may be a sign of impending failure of TID for those scanned prints. I'll report back later.

same problem here, reset.. works like a charm.. couple days max and stops working, rarely still works but seems the longer i wait to reset prints the worse it gets.. hope they come with a fix soon.. heard something about the sensor "learning" your print better over time.. that might work the other way around for some people?!

the sensor was the only real reason upgrading from the 5 so I'm disappointed :((

by the way.. some solutions are really ******** and proves people don't take the time to properly read the real problem here : when u rescan finger it works for couple of days, some people only couple of hours (might be up to usage?) the days after rescanning it works 100% flawless so how can it be dirt? didn't clean it at all still after rescanning it goes from working 10% of the time to 100% , every time for a couple of days maximum b4 it starts to act funny again.. IMO must be with the "learning" ability if what i read was correct.. if it was hardware how could it work so flawless after resetting fingers? just my 2 cents..

i2 wrote:

 

My wife and I also each got an iPhone 5S a few weeks ago and had the same experience as others with erratic Touch ID sensor activation after about two weeks. There are lot of posts on this explaining how they tried different solutions to no avail. Some of these were radical: reset the iPhone, reload iOS, swap for a new phone, etc.

 

I read Apple's Knowlege based artiicle http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5883. A lot of folks on this thread are concentrating on the method of registering their prints, but the small paragraph "Cleaning the Touch ID sensor" worked for me. If you hold the iPhone up to the light at the right angle you will probably see a grasing-looking smudge all over and around the sensor. This would be a no-no for the extremely high resolution scanning process. I just wiped the area with a soft dry cotton towel and the smudges came off easily.  The phone now responds to every touch again. I would like to hear if this has worked for anyone else.

I wonder if you might be onto something with that thought.

djaysteven wrote:

 

same problem here, reset.. works like a charm.. couple days max and stops working, rarely still works but seems the longer i wait to reset prints the worse it gets.. hope they come with a fix soon.. heard something about the sensor "learning" your print better over time.. that might work the other way around for some people?!

 

the sensor was the only real reason upgrading from the 5 so I'm disappointed :((

 

by the way.. some solutions are really ******** and proves people don't take the time to properly read the real problem here : when u rescan finger it works for couple of days, some people only couple of hours (might be up to usage?) the days after rescanning it works 100% flawless so how can it be dirt? didn't clean it at all still after rescanning it goes from working 10% of the time to 100% , every time for a couple of days maximum b4 it starts to act funny again.. IMO must be with the "learning" ability if what i read was correct.. if it was hardware how could it work so flawless after resetting fingers? just my 2 cents..

Good counterpoint to cleanliness of sensor.

i2 wrote:

 

[snip]

"Cleaning the Touch ID sensor" worked for me. If you hold the iPhone up to the light at the right angle you will probably see a grasing-looking smudge all over and around the sensor. This would be a no-no for the extremely high resolution scanning process. I just wiped the area with a soft dry cotton towel and the smudges came off easily.  The phone now responds to every touch again. I would like to hear if this has worked for anyone else.

My phone, clean out of the box, had Touch ID fail within an hour of setting it up.  Very frustrating couple of weeks went by before I hit on a solution that works.

I rarely clean the screen or home button. Prints register and unlock fine. Kind of gross under harsh light and magnified!

Joe_Fo wrote:

 

i2 wrote:

 

[snip]

"Cleaning the Touch ID sensor" worked for me. If you hold the iPhone up to the light at the right angle you will probably see a grasing-looking smudge all over and around the sensor. This would be a no-no for the extremely high resolution scanning process. I just wiped the area with a soft dry cotton towel and the smudges came off easily.  The phone now responds to every touch again. I would like to hear if this has worked for anyone else.

 

My phone, clean out of the box, had Touch ID fail within an hour of setting it up.  Very frustrating couple of weeks went by before I hit on a solution that works.

 

I rarely clean the screen or home button. Prints register and unlock fine. Kind of gross under harsh light and magnified!

 

Even better counterpoint to cleanliness of the sensor as an issue.

WIth that being said, we can conclude some things with a fair degree of certainty:

     1: TID works great immediately after scanning fingerprint and capacity to read fingerprint degrades  over time (sooner or later) until it ultimately fails for many. Deleting and rescanning starts cycle over again.

     2: Scanning more "meat" of your finger (see Joe_fo's solution) results in longer term success.

     3: Cleanliness of sensor might or might not be an issue for some.

     4: Certain apps effect TID for some.

     5: Running many apps in background  effects TID for some.

     6: Running no apps in background, TID still fails for some.

Anything else to add?

i2 wrote:

 

process. I just wiped the area with a soft dry cotton towel and the smudges came off easily.  The phone now responds to every touch again. I would like to hear if this has worked for anyone else.

In my case, I don't see anything on it, so don't think it's the issue. This morning I ran a test to see how well it was working. I have 2 different finger print scans of the same  left thumb. The first is based on a tip of my left thumb, the second on the flat of my left thumb under the nail and away from the tip.

The first 5 times I tried to open my phone using the tip, it worked on either the 1st, 2nd or 3rd tap. However, seconds later, I tried 5 more times with the tip, and it failed all 5, making it necessary to enter my password.

So, I then immediately tried the flat position for my thumb. It worked only a couple times on the 1st tap, but then the next 5 taps failed and I had to enter the password.

I'm sure it's not a dirty sensor, since it worked the first times.

I wonder if it's too tight of a spec for certain finger prints. Remember that when the phone came out to journalists, there was a bug that allowed co-workers to open it. So, they issued 7.0.1 immediately to tighten up the security. Then when the phone was released there were hackers who were opening the phone with animal paws or multiple fingers, and then 7.0.2 and 7.0.3 and now 7.0.4 have been issued. But the hackers say there are still some lock screen bugs. Perhaps all these updates have required a more precise match to get the phone to open. Maybe what we need is more time to scan the original print, instead of tighter comparison matching to get it working for us.

It's too bad we can't try 7.0.0 again and see if it would work for us .. at least then we would know that it was software.

smilleresq wrote:

 

[snip]

WIth that being said, we can conclude some things with a fair degree of certainty:

 

 

[snip]

 

Anything else to add?

Good summary.  Sending crash logs automatically can help the developers pinpoint problems and might speed  fixes.  Makr sure the option is turned on:

Settings ->General -> About -> Disgnostics & Usage Select Automatically Send.

I have the same issue. All of a sudden my phone stopped reading finger prints.

paulfromhere wrote:

 

 

[snip]

 

It's too bad we can't try 7.0.0 again and see if it would work for us .. at least then we would know that it was software.

I had good results with what came with the phone. Not sure if it was 7.0.0 or 7.0.1, but only after I modified how I registered prints.

Upgraded to 7.0.2, and still had good unlocks near 100%, but had to use passcode only when I wasn't paying attention in the car, reverting to fingertip or slid around on the button

The upgrade after 7.0.3 was still solid. I have not yet upgraded to 7.0.4.

FWIW

Forgot to add:  Trying to get a failure last night, I had about 35 apps in background, and either mail or Twitter active.  After the screen locked, I tried something like 10 minutes later to unlock, and it wasn't reading the print properly, refusing to unlock. Before the 5'th attempt, I swiped from the "Enter Passcode" screen back to the "slide to unlock" screen, pulled up the control panel, swiped the control back away, and placed my finger on the home button.   ***The finger was accepted and the phone unlocked***

Credit for this goes to someone else. Not sure where I read this, might have been in this thread, might have been on MacRumors, but someone said opening something on the control panel allowed TID to work again.  I only opened then closed the control panel and it worked.

FWIW

Joe_Fo wrote:

Based on the picture you posted on Nov 10, if you have not changed the way you are positioning you thumb, both during training and unlocking, it is going to fail.

Here's a new try at this. I deleted all my scans and the one for this is basically just as seen in this pic .. no turning on the sides or edges .. just the flat fat par. And, at least initially it works 100% (about 20 attempts so far). It's a  bit awkward, but the best I can do with one hand while holding the phone.

Joe_Fo wrote:

 

later to unlock, and it wasn't reading the print properly, refusing to unlock. Before the 5'th attempt, I swiped from the "Enter Passcode" screen back to the "slide to unlock" screen, pulled up the control panel, swiped the control back away, and placed my finger on the home button.   ***The finger was accepted and the phone unlocked***

Thanks I'll try it .. but maybe this was fixed on 7.0.4, which I'm running. I would be satisfied with your performance if I can get it.

Has anyone tried registering fingerprints under difficult conditions when the TouchID sensor fails to recognize one's prints, such as after a shower?