Auto/Lock Not working under Guided Access

Update: This is officially an iOS bug. I have submitted a report to apple support (calling in) which has sent it up the chain, but I was recommended to have others report this as well since they pay attention if the group of users affected is larger. This bug has been tested on an iphone, ipadmini and ipad pro on various applications... it is an iOS bug. I did download the recent public beta and at least now the screen dims at the minute marker you set for auto lock so the battery lasts a little longer (before the screen would just flicker). But I too was disappointed when it stopped working. My son uses his iPad as his voice since he is non verbal. The ipad charge would last 2-3 days before. Now it just gets to the end of the day. For us considering it's his voice, it is a safety issue. What happens if his battery runs out and he can't ask for help? If anyone reads this post, Please do call in to apple support and get it reported. Considering this is a feature that they get a lot of distance in marketing to special populations and children, you would think they would make sure this runs well ... especially with all their battery life issues. This is a battery life issue as far as I am concerned.

No solution yet. Apple has not fixed the issue yet. If you havent done so already, contact the iOS Accessibility Support team at (877) 204-3930 and open a support ticket. The more open tickets related to yhis issue, the more “weight” it gives for OS engineering to address and fix this bug. Thanks!

I Followed your directions …the 5 minute autolock worked after restart without Guided Access on. When Guided Access was turned on, it stopped working … The device stays on past 5 minutes. Going on 10 minutes and it is still on. Stayed on all afternoon.

I also tested the same thing on my iPadmini 4 ... same results...

I found this support discussion in a SONOS community page re: the same issue. Sounds like iOS has an issue and it is being escalated? Could you escalate mine? Please advise:

https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/guided-access-display-auto -lock-not-working-6807845

I have opened ticket with my AAC app developer as well and I am sure they’ll be reaching out to you guys too.

Thanks Laura for your input. Unfortunately the option menu and the toggle you are referring to has to do with the sleep/lock hardware button for the ipad. It doesn’t affect the auto sleep/lock feature which is controlled within the display&brightness preference menu.... and the hardware button is not an option for everyone with fine motor limits. This is a bug that twice has creeped up in iOS. This last time it apoeared again after an upgrade to 11.4 (11.3.1 worked great). As of 12.0 guided access ignores the auto sleep lock settings all together an automatically auto sleep locks after 10or so minutes go by without the ipad being disturbed. If you touch the screen (like to say something with an AAC app) the clock starts over again. Unfortunately in many cases this results in the screen being on all day long since our kids use the ipad to speak. Our battery used to last 2-3 say before when we had set the auto locksleep to 2minutes pre 11.4... Now we are lucky if the battery makes it through the day. According to engineering the way it functions now is how its supposed to function. They have submitted a feature request to enable the control within guided access and give people the ability to decide the time before sleeplock, but at this point it is a feature request. Thanks again for submitting your suggestion.

This is the information that was relayed to me by the Apple Accessibility Support team (different from regular Apple Support) who got a response from the engineers over this issue. According to Engineering, turning off the controls for auto sleep/lock and having it auto/sleep locking on its own about 10minutes in, was the intended result. Don’t ask me why it was engineered that way and they did not explain a logic to it. The support team member at this point recommended I proceed by submitting a feature request to turn on the functionality and control for the auto sleep/lock available in the display brightness settings menu which works perfectly fine when not in guided access. I will say that after calling Support countless times since this last April, my level of confidence is extremely lowon how “straight up” and honest they are with the information they provide. Since Support really has no means to solve problems (all they do is pass the message along) I think most of the time is just paying lipservice and trying to diffuse angry customers by firehosing them with futility. I just don’t understand what the underlying reason would be to engineer your software with no apparent purpose or use. You would think you would want the user to have as much control as possible over the experience (especially when talking about a part of the OS - Guided Access - that is supposed to be designed to do just that).

No solution yet. Apple has not fixed the issue yet. You'll want to make sure and contact the iOS Accessibility Support team at (877) 204-3930 and open a support ticket (they are a small group of 10-12 people). They'll make sure and route the ticket through the proper channels (and they know about the bug). Chances are, if you call the general support line, it won't get anywhere. The more open tickets related to this issue, the more “weight” it gives for OS engineering to address and fix this bug. I will tell you that under the public betas, the screen now dims at the minute mark (it doesn't lock or sleep, but the dimming does seem to help a little on the battery conservation) Thanks!

Ping23,

iOS 11.3 had a good working sleep/lock feature. I have an iPad mini I never updated and it works well. If I can figure out how to go back to a previous iOS, I am going to do that. I got word back from engineering and according to them, the way it works in iOS 12 is the way it's supposed to work so it doesn't sound like they are fixing it. I submitted a feature request for the timer to work with Guided Access, but it is a new feature request... so not sure how long that would work. Pre iOS 11.4.5, the timer worked well and sleep locked around the 2minute mark. I am going that route. Not waiting on Apple to fix. Good Luck to you!

cheers!

Although I agree how you are categorizing this As a bug. If you read back on this discussion, the bug dates back to May of this year ( although it has previously shown up a couple years back ) ... not one week ago. I am only relaying what the engineering team working on this messaged accessibility support yesterday (who then called me with an update). According to engineering, their intent is for that feature not to work with guided access... Which is stupid in my opinion. What I am relaying to the discussion, is that engineering is no longer “fixing this“. So they are not viewing it as a bug anymore. The accessibility team suggested to request a new feature that includes those capabilities since engineering does not view that as a bug. They submitted the request yesterday and suggested others follow suit. So either way, it has been reported... voicing discontent is important, but a solution won’t happen over night since they are not actively working on this.