Accessibility zoom crashes since ios 8.2 update

TThis defect seems quite complex and takes on a few different forms. In my experience, most of the time there is at least a few seconds after the "freeze" begins where there is some level of responsiveness. Then as time passes the device defpgrades until it is completely unresponsive. If it gets to this stage, it generally will eventually reboot itself. But that could take several minutes. this workaround should be tried immediately to see if you get the slide to unlock screen. It may not work all the time, but when it does, it's a time saver.

IM still trying to work with Apple on this but we are kind of in a bit of a holding pattern at the moment. I will update this thread when I learn anything new. In the meantime, things like this workaround may not only help us cope, but it may provide additional clues for the folks trying to isolate and fix the defect. The more info we can collectively gather, the higher likelihood we will get a fix sooner.

IF anyone manages to figure out a predictable way to make the defect occur quickly, please add it to this thread.

FOr the first time today, this trick worked. I think the minute you try to zoom out and it don't, you have to do this quicly if you want a chance to not have to do a hard reset. It unfreeze my phone and can zoom out after this. Thanks.

AApparently there is no mechanism that would enable my advisor to contact you directly. I think my advisor is a really good guy but I am getting frustrated as well. I would really like to connect with some of you directly to see if we can help each other help Apple. I'm being told the squeaky wheel gets the grease, which I understand but don't necessarily completely agree with in all cases.

i will not give out my email address on a public forum but I do have a web site with a contact page. If you want to contact me directly, you can fill out the form on this page and it will send me an email. Then I will get back to you. I can be a conduit into Apple for all of us. I still encourage EVERRYONE with this issue to call the Accessibility Team so that we increase our numbers.

http://tigerxtreme.com/contact-me.html

A Quick note to people experiencing this issue (myself included). This problem occurred on my iPad Air again yesterday and today, and the suggested workaround worked both times, preventing the need to force a complete device restart. I know it's been posted previously but I'll share it again:

1. As soon as the device starts to freeze, hold the power/lock button down for at least five seconds. It may be impossible to tell if the Slide to turn off screen actually appears, since you'll be zoomed in and cannot pan the screen around. 5 seconds can be longer than it seems so hold it and count slowly.

2. let go of the power/lock button and hold in the home button for 5 seconds or until you device starts responding.

UPDATE

I just got off the phone with my advisor. He received word today that this defect is now being actively investigated by the engineering team. They have enough stackshots and examples from everyone. I'm not sure how long it will take to find the problem, fix it, test it and get it into a release so we need to still be patient., but in the five months I've been working with Apple on this defect, this is the biggest step towards fixing it that I've seen.

THanks to to everyone who came together to help provide Apple with the info they needed to move forward. I'm hoping to see this zoom issue in my rear view mirror soon!

Hi everyone that has been following this issue with zoom causing IOS to crash. There is a new update out 8.4.1 and I am hopeful that it fixes the issues we've been having. Specifically, there's a hint in the security and bug fixes section that leads me to believe the problem has been addressed by this update. In a previous comment on this topic, I mentioned that my adviser had referenced a mysterious document about this problem called "CP 37." That's what I heard at least, but it could very well have been CVE-37 39. If that's the case, CVE-3739 was addressed in this update and it was a problem related to an IOS system service called WebKit which had memory corruption issues that would lead to "unexpected application termination." The other reason I believe this is related, and is our solution, is because I inspected the stackshots I had collected (if you're an app developer and know how to use Xcode tools, you can view the stackshots logs) and in every case where my iPhone and iPad froze while using zoom, it was in fact WebKit that had been crashing in tandem with accessibility zoom. So, I think this is our update/fix, and I recommend updating. I'll post later if the problem still occurs, or in about a week if all has been good.

Thanks everyone.

See below for the text of the security update for CVE-3739

WebKit

Available for: iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch (5th generation) and later, iPad 2 and later

Impact: Visiting a maliciously crafted website may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

Description: Multiple memory corruption issues existed in WebKit. These issues were addressed through improved memory handling.

CVE-ID

CVE-2015-3739 : Apple

THe zoom issue is still there in 8.4.1. It happens just a few hours after I update my phone and it happens a few hours ago as well.

HOwever, I'm testing the beta of iOS9 right now since a couple of weeks and the zoom bug didn't happened once on an iPad air 2. So there is some hope.

BBummer that it is still in 8.4.1.

I Have observed that most of the time I experience this proble, it comes after I've had some kind of weird interaction with the home button. For example, Siri might come up when I thought all I did was suspend an app. Then Siri won't go away until I've clicked the home button several more times. Then I notice my zoom controller is gone, probably because I have Accessibility Shortcut set up to toggle zoom on and off. Then after I quit the current app and go into another one and zoom, that's when it happens. This is not the only way, but I can now accurately predict when I'm going to have the problem if I've had the weird home button experience.

I Was going to try running without Accessibility Shortcut set to see if it helped, but then 8.4.1 came out and I want to see the problem one more time on this release before I turn off the shortcut.

DO you Gus have Accessibility Shortcut set up? If so, are you seeing a correlation?

ITs been an issue now since Ios 8.2 and we are now on 8.4.1 and still we get this freeze problem on Zoom. Its seems Apple are not bothered to xort this out. Shame on them. It was fine in the first place before there messed about it and tried to create unnecceasry improvements. Its ruined my Apple experience. Often get the freeze wheen completing a transaction so frustrating! Get it sorted Apple!

It has definitely been a long road, but in fact the Apple engineers have only been assigned the defect to fix for about two weeks now. I am not sticking up for their past response to this, since I've spent hours on the phone with my advisor about this, but I was officially told by my advisor that engineering now is actively working on a fix. In addition, I've been feeding more data about the defect to accessibility@apple.com and they've communicated back to me that they passed the data onto the assigned engineers. My case with AppleCare is closed now that the defect is being worked on.

ONe thing I've learned from this experience is that sending emails with defect descriptions to the accessibility address is a way to get attention focused on accessibility problems that perhaps even AppleCare advisors cannot do. I read about this addressing a low vision forum not run by Apple.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll all be relieved when a fix makes it into an update.

OK, I think I have another clue. I waited until after I saw the problem in iOS 8.4.1 and then I turned off Accessibility Shortcut by unchecking everything. I only had zoom checked anyway. It has now been more than two weeks since I've seen the zoom freeze defect. My average time was 5-10 days, so I think surpassing the two week mark is significant.

IF any of the rest of you can live without the shortcut, it might stop the defect from happening or at least make the occurrences less frequent.

I Updated Apple's Accessibility Team with this new information.

I Always had just one thing check on the accessibility shortcut and it is inverted colors. The problem happens almost everyday but the trick to hold down the power button until the slide bar to turn off the phone shows up and then hold the home button works everytime so now I just learned to live with it.

The workaround does not work for me 100% of the time, it works maybe 1 out of every 3 times.

I called Applecare again today about this issue, to see if it has been resolved in IOS9 and was told they don't have that information. I've gone from being a lover of all things Apple to seriously hating this lame excuse for a company and support. They've lost my business forever for the way they've handled this situation.

IIt's been weeks since I've seen the defect. I know you're not happy with Apple, but if you can live without Accessibility Shortcut, you might not see the problem. This may give you relief while you decide what you're going to do long term.

Thank you, but the Accessibility Shortcut is already off on both of my devices, and they still experience this issue.

Sent from my iPad