iPad Air multitasking gestures fail randomly in iOS 8

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iPad Air multitasking gestures fail randomly in iOS 8

Hi folks,

Has anyone else had the multitasking gestures fail at times in iOS 8? Since updating my iPad Air, I've found that pinching with four or five fingers to exit an app to the home screen simply stops working, as does swiping up to get to the multitasking screen. It just acts as if I had turned the gestures off in Settings. I double checked and it's set properly in Settings. Putting the iPad to sleep and waking it up again seems to fix the issue temporarily, as does turning the gestures off and then on again in Settings but it eventually comes back.

I tried restarting, but I'm not going to reset the iPad since it worked perfectly every time until I upgraded to iOS 8.

Thanks in advance for any help.

-Scott

iPad Air Wi-Fi, iOS 8, N/A

Posted on Sep 22, 2014 6:08 AM

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Answer 1

Demo

Level 10

166,747 points

Sep 22, 2014 6:16 AM in response to ScottNY71

Do not confuse resetting the iPad with restoring the device. Resetting is harmless and can help cure a lot of little hinky issues. The reset that I'm talking about is ...hold down on the sleep and home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple logo appears on the screen. Let go of the buttons and let the iPad start up. That is like rebooting your computer.

Something else that helped me fix a lot of weird stuff that was happening when I first updated my iPad 3, was to reset all settings. Settings>General>Reset>Reset all settings. You will lose no data or media, but you will have to enter all of your device settings again such as your preferred wallpaper, renable SirI, enter WiFi passwords, etc. You could try that since multitasking is something that has to be set in the settings app.

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Answer 2

ScottNY71 Author

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Sep 22, 2014 6:35 AM in response to Demo

The restart you described is the only way I reboot my devices. I never simply restart by using the slide to power off method.

It's frustrating to have to resort to resetting all of my settings to fix a bug in Apple's code when it may not even fix anything. I'm going to hold off as long as I can before doing that in case this becomes a known bug that gets fixed. I'd hate to reset everything, have to reconfigure the iPad, only to have the same issue and have to wait for Apple to fix this. It has happened to me too many times in the past. The first attempt to solve these problems is to reset or restore and that far too often is a time consuming troubleshooting step that does nothing.

But thank you for the response.

-Scott

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Answer 3

Neilt11

Level 1

10 points

Sep 29, 2014 9:25 AM in response to ScottNY71

I Find that turning multitasking gestures off and back on fixes the issue until the next time.

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Answer 4

B-Brooks

Level 1

0 points

Nov 12, 2014 4:44 PM in response to Demo

Demo your suggestion of resetting all settings fixed the Gesture issue for me on my iPad mini. I used to have the issue several times a day. I went to settings, general, reset, reset all settings. Thanks again for the solution.

Scott bite the bullet and reset the settings. Took me less than a minute to put my settings back the way I liked.

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Answer 5

B-Brooks

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Nov 14, 2014 5:39 AM in response to B-Brooks

Resetting the settings only worked for a day. The gesture issue is back. Not sure what setting triggered it but it might be turning Siri on as that was one of the last things I turned on after resetting all settings I will turn it off and see if the issue goes away.

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Answer 6

sulliweb

Level 1

8 points

Nov 14, 2014 7:58 AM in response to B-Brooks

An easier fix that I've found is to pull up Control Center. That lets you use gestures, and they start working again.... for a while.

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Answer 7

B-Brooks

Level 1

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Nov 14, 2014 10:35 AM in response to sulliweb

Thanks sulliweb I have been using that one but looking for a more permanent fix. The control center only seems to fix mine for a short time. Guess I am one of the lucky ones who has the issue more frequently😁

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