Having problems with Touch ID failing? Read this for help

An important point: Please only scan one finger, and only one instance of that one finger. There is mounting evidence that multiple fingers may be the cause of TID failing with time. Try just one, and if you are sure it's working well for you much longer than it had before, then you can add additional fingers if you feel you need to. If it starts to fail again though, delete all and start over, sticking with just one.

One last thought: TID seems to work best with very short home button pushes, as in, as fast as you can. After the quick depress and release, just leave your finger rest on the home button and it should unlock as fast as if passcode was not enabled at all.

-Joe

Charybdisc wrote:

Contrary to some of the information on this post, dual finger scanning is the only process that has made my TouchID useable; going on two days now rather than a few hours

[snip]

Hope it holds up for you. Every time I've enrolled multiple fingers, one by one they've failed. It's even worse (for me at least) if I've done multiples of the same finger (thumb).

Putting myself in the process that is supposed to learn and get better over time, I could see how it could get confused by seeing parts of the finger in 2 different slots. Which one should I update? Over time, I saw it throwing out parts from one slot, and totally mixing things up. That's why I stayed away from the process. It always failed over time, and had been reported by others as failing over time too. I think it's a coin toss based on factors I couldn't control.

Whatever works for anyone is good. With different details of fingerprints, and different S/W interactions based on different apps, whatever works for you is the way to go.

It's been reported in the other thread that IOS 7.1 holds promise. Sure hope it's been resolved.

Renaming not a problem. I label with finger and date when testing more than my main thumb which is the only one I usually have enrolled.

Hi June,

Are you enrolling more than one finger? If so, please try only one of the five positions available. You might find that it works much better. Enrolling multiples (for me) causes gradual failure of all over time.

-Joe

Frisootje wrote:

[snip]

Can I safely assume it's broken or is there anything else left to try? (I'm on 7.0.4.)

Could be H/W, but could also be a corrupt IOS.

Unless you have time and an Apple store nearby, you could try a factory reset or maybe just a reset first (hold sleep/wake and home buttons for at least 10 seconds).

I think I cracked the code to improving TID. Finally.

While the method I've used for enrolling fingerprints, and posted in the YouTube video, have given me close to 100% TID recognition, I've still lost a small portion of my enrolled thumb, basically the area I rarely use. I've always assumed this was due to the "learning" TID does over time, which logic dictates includes adding new features as well as forgetting features no longer seen. Think debris on the home button being added to the stored data, here today, gone tomorrow. Not something that should be kept forever. Also a reason to keep the home button clean, and I've started simply using my thumb to first wipe across it before depressing it...

In an effort to improve TID, I thought about saturating TID with new print data, but rather than doing it over time as Apple states "As you use Touch ID, it will continue to learn and improve recognition of your fingerprint" I decided to do it right after enrolling the finger.

So far, the results look promising. But wait, there's more!

Instead of using the page where prints are initially enrolled to add to the print, or to check the enrolled area as I had been doing to add to the print, I decided to lock and unlock repeatedly, which is how TID would normally "improve over time." With each unlock, I moved slightly around the enrolled area, but rather than pushing the home button to unlock, I lightly touched the home button with my one enrolled thumb, and with my other hand, depressed the sleep/wake button.

Using the phone for a few days, I had a few "try again" cases, however lifting and lightly touching the same spot worked. Then I realized the problem with TID all along, for me at least, was one of subjectivity. By this I mean, what is "slightly"? What is "lightly"? These terms could mean vastly different things to different people. These are words used in the documentation, both on-line and in the popup screen you may have seen when enrolling a print when you have not moved your finger much or at all between scans. For that matter, what exactly are "the edges of your print" you're prompted to add during enrollment?

I say subjective because, after having far more "try again" cases than I though I should have, surely I was right on the sweet spot or close enough that it should have worked. Then the light bulb really went off. With the next "try again" instead of lifting and replacing my thumb, I left it in place without moving it, and with my other hand hit the sleep button. Then again without moving my thumb, I hit the sleep/wake button again, and it unlocked. Over the next dozen or so "try again's" this same procedure worked with 100% repeatability. Try it yourself 🙂

Conclusion? Either I have a flakey sensor that doesn't settle in time to get a good read after the first depress, or I'm too heavy handed, er, fingered, to "lightly" touch the home button. So, which was it?

I decided to start over, making sure to barely, lightly, hardly, you pick the synonym, touch the home button and ring during both the enrollment and "learning over time" procedure as described above. No real pressure applied, almost hovering off the home button, but not quite.

Results? Much, much better. Then I threw caution to the wind and started over, only this time included the fingertip using an angled thumb after the "capture the edge" prompt, something that never ever worked for more than a few minutes or hours for me. Two full days later, it's still working. So much so that I wanted to post this before I would normally have done so since I'd rather beat up on it from every angle just to make sure that the results were not something temporary. The fact that I am now using a one handed, angled thumb and fingertip to unlock the phone and IT'S WORKING just blows me away. This just might be a keeper solution. Not sure if it's the lighter touch during the enrollment process, the intensive and immediate "learning" procedure, or the lighter touch unlock process after depressing the home button, or all three. So far I'm leaning towards enrollment and learning.

One thing left to get working is enrolling more than one finger. For now, I don't want to change too many variables. Also have to keep an eye on how long this method holds up. Might have to take the 30 or so seconds it takes to refresh the print using the "touch lightly, hit sleep/wake button, move and repeat" procedure every few days. It's much faster than drilling down to the enrollment page to do it, and you don't have to enter a passcode. Time will tell.

One last thought: The 3 row, 3 column method I advocated is really nothing more than an attempt to define moving a finger "slightly" during enrollment, the thought being it would be better to have the TID S/W "stitch" the fingerprint together rather than having it try to figure out random print data. I wanted a good print picture, not a Picasso. I have learned something from the alternating left/right thumb enrollment that JPBOSS posted on 12/21/2013, that being, the TID S/W must try to "stitch" prints together during enrollment by virtue of the fact that it takes much longer to get the confirmation vibration when switching fingers, and that it takes more than the normal 10 scans before getting the "change finger position... continue" popup. Maybe being methodical is unnecessary when enrolling, but it can't hurt.

-Joe

Hey David,

So far it's worked better than I thought possible. I just had a "try again" on the angled tip of my thumb, hit sleep, positioned thumb in the same position as best I could, hit wake and it unlocked instantly. Could very well have moved slightly and touched the home button again, but wanted to convince myself it was not the case where the tip no longer worked. You might be surprised at how well it works. You could always go back to what's been working in less time than it took to write this reply 😉

Might want to give it a shot from the writeup as I won't have time to do a video till the weekend. Hopefully my wife doesn't have me doing other work I haven't been informed of yet.

-Joe