Accessibility zoom crashes since ios 8.2 update

I Was instructed by my advisor to update to iOS 8.4, which I did yesterday. There are always many bug fixes that are not listed in the notes, but I am not aware of a fix for this. My advisor is still waiting to hear back from engineering on this, so I don't have any updates.

I depend on my zoom. It freezes/locks up my iPad4 more times per day than I can count.

Most of the time I can force close my app & go back to the home screen, which saves time over rebooting my device.

To do this I (1) Hold the button on the outside that turns off the screen. When you hold it down it sends the screen to black and brings up the slider to shut down. Don't swipe. You usually can't anyway due to the annoying freeze. (2) Hold down the home button. That blinks out of the app. It seems to force it to where the home button should have taken you in the first place.

Not pressing the two simultaneously seems to be the best option for now. What would be even better would be if it were fixed:) I'm kind of sorry I updated.

I only see the problem about once a week but I'm connected to an advisor who is connected to people in engineering. My advisor asked me to update to iOS 8.4 just in case it got miraculously fixed. I won't know for at least 2-3 weeks because I experience it infrequently. If you see it in iOS 8.4 and can report back to us, that would be helpful.

Also, most of the time when mine freezes I cannot get the power button to ever respond. It does occasionally respond but I'd guess only 10% of the time. I usually have no choice but to wait for it to reboot itself or to do the two button hard reset.

FInally, please call the Accessibility team to report this problem. (Number in a post in this thread). Or, give feedback using the standard Apple feedback mechanism. I think I may have posted that link somewhere in this thread as well.

I can confirm that the freeze still occurs in iOS 8.4. However, it appears to happen a lot less often compared to iOS 8.3. In fact, ever since installing iOS 8.4 on release day (June 30th), I have only experienced it once on my iPhone 6 Plus. In other words, zoom froze up on me 1 time within 6 days. This is a much welcomed improvement for me as I was usually experiencing it up to 2 times daily!

One other thing that just came to mind, I haven't been running Skype ever since the iOS 8.4 update. Perhaps, Skype could be a resource hog? I always close out of an app/game when I'm done using it (double pressing home button & swiping up to close the app) which includes maps, photos, camera, etc. Below, I will list the apps that I never close and leave opened all the time.

iOS 8.4 (current):

Phone, Mail, Messages, and Safari

iOS 8.3 (prior)

Phone, Mail, Messages, Safari, and Skype.

I will continue for another week without using Skype on my phone. Afterwards, I will keep Skype running in the background to see if I notice any differences.

I Just got off the phone with my advisor. Engineering really wants something called "stackshots" to help them debug this problem. If anyone on this thread experiences this problem, please take stackshots (instructions below) and then call the Accessibility Team support number and let them get a dump of your iOS device. I see the problem much less frequently than some of you, but if we work together, we can help engineering find and fix the problem.

TO take a stackshot, hold down the home button and then press one of the volume buttons. Take a series of 8-10 shots a few seconds apart while the problem is happening. You will not hear any clicking like on a screenshot, but your actions are instructing your iOS device to store valuable information about what's happening in iOS.

WHen you call the Accessibility Team, they will have you connect your device to your desktop and sync with iTunes. Then they will help you transfer the important stackshot information to Apple So it can be delivered to the engineering team.

HEre is an article that I found which explains more about stackshots. It is written for iOS developers but it does explain more about this debugging technique if you are curious. If we work together, we can hopefully get the data to engineering do they can fix the defect and we'll all be happier!

https://www.cocoanetics.com/2013/07/taking-stackshots/

HI I posted in this discussion before. I have an iPad Air wifi only (1 not 2) and an iPhone 6+. I'm legally blind and use zoom all the time on both devices for EVERYTHING. This issue of accessibility zoom crashing my devices has been occurring since the 8.2 update, and the only way to fix the frozen devices is to do a reset by holding the home and power buttons down.

since 8.4, this is still occurring on my iPad Air but it has not yet happened on my iPhone 6+, although there have been a couple times where, when using zoom on the iPhone 6+, the responsiveness of the screen and buttons crawls to a grinding halt and only starts working again when I close zoom.

you mention calling Apple Accessibility Support with these stack shots. I have two questions: what is there phone number, and do stackshots work even when the device is frozen?

thanks. I regret replacing my galaxy s5 with an iPhone right now because of this issue.

Yes, stackshots should work even though the device appears to be frozen. Apple created this hidden feature as a debug tool to help engineers retrieve snapshots of the "innards" of the device when it appears to be frozen. Even though the stackshot seems like it is not doing anything, it will create a special file in the device each time you do it. When you are on the phone with Apple, they will guide you through the sync process with iTunes and will then help you locate the special files that were saved on your desktop during the sync. It is important to take 8-10 of these a few seconds apart because even though the device appears frozen, there is still code running and multiple shots will provide different clues that will help the engineers isolate the problem or at least let them start to theorize about it.

The number is tel:877-204-3930. This is a special number designed to help people with accessibility issues. It is apparently quite a small and focused team and many of the people know each other. When you call, tell them about this discussion and that you know there is already an open case with someone else that has been escalated to engineering. Engineering has requested stackshots and I've solicited the help of the community to get them the stackshots as quickly as possible.

FInally, if you or anyone else want to follow this thread, select this option in the upper right part of this web page. When you select this, you will get an email whenever anyone updates the thread with a new message.

I´m on iOS 8.4 and the zoom crashing issue is the same as before in both my ipad 4 and iPhone 6+. One a day it will crash and need a hard reset. I'm also legally blind but I need the zoom fonction just in some case so I frequently zoom in and out. The crash always happen when I zoom in and then, everything is locked up and I need to restart the device and then zoom out.

Thank you for joining this thread. I'm glad I found you on the other thread.

Please take take a look at my posts above to find out how to take stackshots and contact Apple to get the data to the engineers working on this problem. I only experience the problem about once a week right now and have not yet seen it in iOS 8.4.

IF you have any questions, just ask. I'm very hopeful that these stackshots will provide engineering with the clues they need to fix the defect.

OK here's what my experience has been thus far:

On July 16th, my iPad Air 1 froze while using Zoom per the problem reported in this discussion. I did the stackshots and probably went overboard because I was frustrated and pushing the home+volume keys actually seemed to be a bit relaxing. I collected probably 30 or more stackshots. I then contacted the number for Apple Accessibility Support, listed in a previous post, and although the advisor hadn't heard of this problem before, he took copious notes, ran diagnostics on my iPad, and had me send over the stackshots For Engineering to look at. That's the end of the good news, I'm afraid. yesterday I got a voicemail from the advisor telling me he'd heard from engineering and that I should call him back. I called and wound up speaking to someone else that is also a "senior advisor".

THis person said that engineering had indicated they were aware of this issue and that they're investigating but they have no further information at this time. this advisor initially stated that there was even an article available on the problem called "CP 37" and that he would send it to me if I wanted to read it.... at the end of the call I reminded him to email this article to me, and he apologized, said he'd mis-spoken, and that that article is not available for public access. So there we have it. They KNOW the feature we rely on to make our devices usable is in fact crashing them, and they've likely known this for awhile based on the lifetime of this discussion, and that they've released 2 updates since this began, neither of which resolved the problem. I wouldn't hold my breath that this will be fixed anytime soon, and frankly, I think asking the Apple Store for a refund of my iPad Air and iPhone 6+, so that I may replace them with more stable android devices is probably my next course of action.

I Was going to update this forum again today with an update but had just not gotten around to it. I don't think they've known about the problem longer than the link I have into engineering, which has been for several weeks. But they do know about it because of that and the fact that they saw this when you called is a good sign.

I Also had the problem happen again on 7/14 and I got stackshots to them on 7/15. They got back to my advisor asking for more data that would be very difficult for me to provide because of the infrequency at which I see the problem. I am trying to negotiate something to see if I can help them in some other way. I am mostly frustrated because I know it happens to some of you much more frequently and I really want to help them isolate it.

I Am waiting to hear back from my advisor late this week or early next week to see if we can push engineering towards something that could yield results faster. Are you still seeing the problem daily? You might be a better candidate to help get to the cause if you are seeing it more frequently. I use zoom a lot but I can read many things without it, do it could be a frequency thing.

PLease keep keep posting updates to this thread. Because I know you have contacted Apple, I'm going to see if I can get my advisor to hook up with yours and possibly take over your case. I have no idea if this is possible, but I'm going to send him an email now and request that.

same setup except iPad 4. Same experience including reboot if I let it go thst long.

As reported by a previous post in this thread, there is a small workaround to prevent from having to re-start your phone.

1. When your phone freezes, hold the power/ lock button for about five seconds until the slide to Power off screen appeare. Then, release the power/lock button.

2. Then, hold the home button for five seconds or so until The foreground app restarts.

3. You can now resume all functions as normal

This saves time for having to wait for the device to reboot on its own. Hope this helps the others that that are experiencing this issue. Thanks To one of the members for pointing this out. I'm sure we will have a fix when iOS 9 is released.

THe problem is, when it freeze for me, nothing works including holding the lock button as you suggest. The only thing that actualy work is a hard reset or just wait until the phone reboot itself

+1. The workaround suggested @liquidrxyu does not work because the iPad is non-responsive to the lock button on its own.