Had my S8 plus for about a month now. Every 2-3 days or so, the fingerprint sensor stops working just randomly. Will work perfectly, then just out of nowhere, doesn't respond to anything. Disabling fingerprint security and re-enabling doesn't fix it. Trying to go into applications- system apps- fingerprints, and trying to force close it won't work as it's grayed out. The only thing that works to get it working again is a restart. Not the end of the world I know, but having to restart it at the most inopportune times is kind of annoying. And paying this much for what amounts to the top of the line phone on the market right now, and having one the most important functions just stop working all the time is crap. And no I don't want to use the iris scanner, or pin, or pattern security. I want to use the fingerprint sensor.
Searches around the web indicate this is pretty common. Anyone else on the VZW S8 or plus having this issue? Anyone know if a fix is coming down the pipeline? I'm pretty sure this would be a software issue as it works 85% of the time and a simple restart gets it working again.
baune7 said:
Had my S8 plus for about a month now. Every 2-3 days or so, the fingerprint sensor stops working just randomly. Will work perfectly, then just out of nowhere, doesn't respond to anything. Disabling fingerprint security and re-enabling doesn't fix it. Trying to go into applications- system apps- fingerprints, and trying to force close it won't work as it's grayed out. The only thing that works to get it working again is a restart. Not the end of the world I know, but having to restart it at the most inopportune times is kind of annoying. And paying this much for what amounts to the top of the line phone on the market right now, and having one the most important functions just stop working all the time is crap. And no I don't want to use the iris scanner, or pin, or pattern security. I want to use the fingerprint sensor.
Searches around the web indicate this is pretty common. Anyone else on the VZW S8 or plus having this issue? Anyone know if a fix is coming down the pipeline? I'm pretty sure this would be a software issue as it works 85% of the time and a simple restart gets it working again.
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Some other threads on XDA have said that disabling fingerprint scanner gestures fixes it. I haven't ever used those and I have never had a problem with the sensor. It isn't as good as the sensor on my Moto Z Force Droid was, but it is pretty good.
Smithfolk4 said:
Some other threads on XDA have said that disabling fingerprint scanner gestures fixes it. I haven't ever used those and I have never had a problem with the sensor. It isn't as good as the sensor on my Moto Z Force Droid was, but it is pretty good.
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Yeah, I disabled that last night. Waiting to see if that works or not. Just thought I would post in the Verizon specific forum to see if any other Verizon users are having this issue. Pretty sure it's a software issue, and am just curious about differences between the Verizon software and other carrier specific software.
Always had the gestures disabled and I have noticed this, but it always goes away with time for me. I thought it was just because I was sweaty at the gym, but it doesn't even know that I am attempting to use the scanner. Then, it happened outside the gym. Goes away in just a couple minutes, thought it was just me.
It seems that the fingerprint scanner is more reliable when the screen is off than it is when the lockscreen is on looking for iris scan.
So I've been using my S10 Plus for 3 days now, and love it. The fingerprint sensor works well.. about 95% accuracy, which is fine for me.
One thing I noticed is that if on the lockscreen, there is a trace (almost like a footprint of your fingerprint that appears on the finger print sensor, right after you press it. You'll notice it during the animation where the s10 plus transitions from your lockscreen to your homescreen.
I wonder why this is happening. Is anyone else noticing it. It's very faint. But if you change the direction of your finger you might notice it more. Also, I dont' think it'll show on black lockscreens. There needs to be some color there.
Is this something wrong with my sensor, or is it just something with new technology.
Take a look at the video where you can see this better. You might have to slow down the video or just pause it.
I don't think it's something wrong with the reader, but it kind of annoys now, and now I can't unsee it lol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=w_6e8_PHCIE
eyeatoma said:
So I've been using my S10 Plus for 3 days now, and love it. The fingerprint sensor works well.. about 95% accuracy, which is fine for me.
One thing I noticed is that if on the lockscreen, there is a trace (almost like a footprint of your fingerprint that appears on the finger print sensor, right after you press it. You'll notice it during the animation where the s10 plus transitions from your lockscreen to your homescreen.
I wonder why this is happening. Is anyone else noticing it. It's very faint. But if you change the direction of your finger you might notice it more. Also, I dont' think it'll show on black lockscreens. There needs to be some color there.
Is this something wrong with my sensor, or is it just something with new technology.
Take a look at the video where you can see this better. You might have to slow down the video or just pause it.
I don't think it's something wrong with the reader, but it kind of annoys now, and now I can't unsee it lol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=w_6e8_PHCIE
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I have it too, but doesnt really bother me that much as it goes away right after it verified my fingerprints.
daffychuy said:
I have it too, but doesnt really bother me that much as it goes away right after it verified my fingerprints.
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Okay, so it's not just me... Do you think it's just new technology kinks that need to be worked out?
I wonder if they can fix it with a patch. Anybody else notice this?
What makes you guys think it's a glitch, seems intentional to me, easier to tell where your tapping
It's an imprint of how much of your thumb surface was used to scan your fingerprint. People that are having fps issues can see that if you press it hard enough to cover the whole scanner the phone unlocks everytime. I had fps issues until I got att update about 500mb. With whitestone screen protector it's working as advertised. Just rescan your fps when you get the update and it's very accurate. As long as you press hard enough to make a big imprint of your thumb on the scanner.
My mom was trying to register her fingerprint on my Mi9 but it was a very difficult task since the scanner couldn't detect her fingerprint. After a long time and being able to register the fingerprint, now it's near impossible for the phone to scan her fingerprint and unlock the phone. Meanwhile, my fingerprint unlocks easily almost every time, so I really don't know what's happening and how can I fix this. I'm using MIUI 10.2.26.0 EEA. I wanted to put the global beta to try, but since they won't update anymore global betas I stayed with the global EEA.
She's looking for a similar phone, but if on-screen fingerprint scanners have a problem with her fingerprint, she will have to stay with standard fingerprint scanners that she never had a problem with.
I'm currently using a screen protector, but since it works great with my fingers, I don't think that's the problem.
Are there any tips on fixing this problem or at least make it better, like finger positions or doing something with the finger before scanning, without having to change ROMs?
If it works ok with your fingers, "probably" not a sensor or rom problem.
I always register same finger twice for better reading, but if your mom's fingerprint is washed out, will never be 100% efective.
We know the Zenfone 8 doesn't have the best FP sensor. I came from Moto Edge 20 Pro (which died) with a side-mounted FP sensor and I terribly miss it's blazing fast recognition.
So in my Zenfone 8 I noticed my left thumb is more reliable than my right. My right has error rate of around 2 out of 5 while my left fails only 1 out of 10.
So I thought there must be something with the sensors orientation.
And so what I did was register my right thumb again but this time, during registration, I turned my phone UPSIDE DOWN.
LO and behold for the past hour my right thumb FP unlock still has never failed! And boy I really wanted it to fail.
I challenge you to test it and see if your success rate has improved.
Thank me later.
Maybe its placebo, but I think it has a better success rate when registering my fingerprint upside down.
i can confirm it works better with left thumb rather than right. but also works better for any other finger than my right thumb. anyhow – for more reliable unlock try to aim a little bit lower on the sensor.
Can confirm it's true. Tried with both thumbs and out of 10 tries never failed once. What a weird thing
except the lower part of the sensor i mentioned also moving finger down very slightly helps often
New discovery — keeping high brightness helps, and turning additional dim basically breaks FS to the point it is unusable.
Same here: faster and more reliable with new screen protector than in the past. Clear improvement under this scenario.
With a bare screen, however, I am not sure I noticed any improvement (my fingerprint scanner worked very well as of late).
Thanks for the great tip!
After a few days with the Pixel 7, sadly, I decided to return it.
The biggest reason is the fingerprint reader just didn't work right. 3 out of 4 finger presses don't work. I don't know if it's just a faulty phone that I got, but I got tired of redoing the fingerprint scans.
I have Pixel 6 and the fingerprint reader works very reliably.
The Face Unlock works but I found a bug that if the face unlock is enabled, then for all of the 3rd party apps that use biometric login, the fingerprint unlock stops working and these apps don't support the face unlock.
I had a terrible time getting mine registered and working. I have dry fingers and after moisturizing a little, the enrollment went in one go and the fingerprint works as fast as any other phone.
I have no idea how I got it fixed but I was having the same issue as you. I disabled verity and verification to flash custom kernel (wiped phone after verity) and after that the FP reader is working with 100% accuracy. It was night and day for me.
The fingerprint reader seems to be worse on the Pixel 7 than it was on my Pixel 6. It's fast but has a much higher failure rate.
Has anyone seen a difference with the animation speeds changed in developer options?
My son has my old pixel 6 and the fingerprint reader is working great.
{Mod edit: Quoted post has been deleted}
I tried it in any way I could think of. Dry, wet, sanitized with alcohol, greasy, dirty, you name it. Did not work.
feligoni said:
I have no idea how I got it fixed but I was having the same issue as you. I disabled verity and verification to flash custom kernel (wiped phone after verity) and after that the FP reader is working with 100% accuracy. It was night and day for me.
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If I pay $600 for the phone and have to do ADB "contortions" to get the FP scanner to work, then I don't need the phone like that.
A "cheap" inlocked Chinese POCO phone with under screen FP reader works 100% of the time without disabling dm-verity.
Wow I find my Pixel 7 to be much better on the FP scanner than my P6 was, I even added a screen protector after enrolling my prints. I also now use the face unlock and have no issues with Apps that use the FP biometric option. This phone is way better than my P6.
xela19115 said:
If I pay $600 for the phone and have to do ADB "contortions" to get the FP scanner to work, then I don't need the phone like that.
A "cheap" inlocked Chinese POCO phone with under screen FP reader works 100% of the time without disabling dm-verity.
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Agree - I'm fairly familiar with Xiaomi phones and their FP readers are pretty reliable. I'm surprised how poorly my Pixel 7's reader is. In this day and age, we shouldn't have to compromise on what's supposed to be a stable technology after paying $600.
I do notice something interesting though - the failure rate is very high when I try to unlock it after a little while (a little while being >15m). But, if I fail and enter my passcode, every subsequent try is super fast. It's almost as if the phone realizes it's not doing a good job a the initial recognition, adjusts its stored FP data, and then gets better for a while. Anyone else notice this?
xela19115 said:
After a few days with the Pixel 7, sadly, I decided to return it.
The biggest reason is the fingerprint reader just didn't work right. 3 out of 4 finger presses don't work. I don't know if it's just a faulty phone that I got, but I got tired of redoing the fingerprint scans.
I have Pixel 6 and the fingerprint reader works very reliably.
The Face Unlock works but I found a bug that if the face unlock is enabled, then for all of the 3rd party apps that use biometric login, the fingerprint unlock stops working and these apps don't support the face unlock.
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Really? I have not had that problem - any conflict between face unline and Finger for Biometric apps. Face unlock is outstanding. Fingerprint reader is meh, ok, sometimes
a1b2c3d4444 said:
Agree - I'm fairly familiar with Xiaomi phones and their FP readers are pretty reliable. I'm surprised how poorly my Pixel 7's reader is. In this day and age, we shouldn't have to compromise on what's supposed to be a stable technology after paying $600.
I do notice something interesting though - the failure rate is very high when I try to unlock it after a little while (a little while being >15m). But, if I fail and enter my passcode, every subsequent try is super fast. It's almost as if the phone realizes it's not doing a good job a the initial recognition, adjusts its stored FP data, and then gets better for a while. Anyone else notice this?
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I have noticed that same thing on my 7 Pro although for me it's more like an hour+ where it gets bad... It will be fine all day then I set my phone down for awhile, pick it up later, and it will instantly fail all three times and then start working again after my PIN goes in. Very strange. Probably can be fixed with software.
No problems here, had the phone for a week now. I don't think I've had any failed reads, maybe one or two. Very reliable and fast, perfect combo with the face scanner.
Mine was failing like crazy. Tried everything. Took it back and exchanged for a new one and the new one is working great. Definitely some faulty hardware out there
a1b2c3d4444 said:
Agree - I'm fairly familiar with Xiaomi phones and their FP readers are pretty reliable. I'm surprised how poorly my Pixel 7's reader is. In this day and age, we shouldn't have to compromise on what's supposed to be a stable technology after paying $600.
I do notice something interesting though - the failure rate is very high when I try to unlock it after a little while (a little while being >15m). But, if I fail and enter my passcode, every subsequent try is super fast. It's almost as if the phone realizes it's not doing a good job a the initial recognition, adjusts its stored FP data, and then gets better for a while. Anyone else notice this?
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similarly
Mine works flawlessly every time. The only thing I don't like is using it at night, and not covering it with my entire finger. When it scans, it's so freakin' bright! LOL
My 7 Pro's sensor worked great, my regular 7's is just plain awful. And I know about the dry hands issue, I've been preaching that people moisturize their hands since under-display sensors came out.
At the first time with my pixel 7 the i had your same issue, fp wasnt working 9 time on 10 but then, after registered it again correctly (reading the on screen instruction while do it) is started to work flawlessly every time. Now it is always unlocking the phone, with more light or in the dark (at night for example) and with low or high brightness.
a1b2c3d4444 said:
I do notice something interesting though - the failure rate is very high when I try to unlock it after a little while (a little while being >15m). But, if I fail and enter my passcode, every subsequent try is super fast. It's almost as if the phone realizes it's not doing a good job a the initial recognition, adjusts its stored FP data, and then gets better for a while. Anyone else notice this?
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This was the case with my P7 too. But since past few days, it started to work like 10/10. I haven't noticed any failure since yesterday. Never changed the fingerprint data too.
Update!
I returned the phone. I waited until I got the refund, took a train ride to NYC, and went to Google's Chelsea store. I bought a new Pixel 7 128 GB, traded my Pixel 6, and spend about 2 hours setting up everything in the store. Another advantage of going to the store is that I don't have to pay $600 + tax immediately and then wait 2-3 weeks for a $490 trade-in credit. They take the trade-in and I paid the difference.
If the fingerprint scanner on the new phone would have given me the same issues, I would have at least dealt with it in the store.
And it did start giving me issues initially, but then I asked for assistance and they (store tech support) admitted that Pixel 7's have fingerprint reader problems. He changed the sensitivity setting on the phone and it works (for now).
So clearly I had a bad, faulty phone before. Now, with a phone that I got over the weekend, everything works.
xela19115 said:
Update!
I returned the phone. I waited until I got the refund, took a train ride to NYC, and went to Google's Chelsea store. I bought a new Pixel 7 128 GB, traded my Pixel 6, and spend about 2 hours setting up everything in the store. Another advantage of going to the store is that I don't have to pay $600 + tax immediately and then wait 2-3 weeks for a $490 trade-in credit. They take the trade-in and I paid the difference.
If the fingerprint scanner on the new phone would have given me the same issues, I would have at least dealt with it in the store.
And it did start giving me issues initially, but then I asked for assistance and they (store tech support) admitted that Pixel 7's have fingerprint reader problems. He changed the sensitivity setting on the phone and it works (for now).
So clearly I had a bad, faulty phone before. Now, with a phone that I got over the weekend, everything works.
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which sensitivity setting ?
The scanner is bad, that's all. The crucial thing to make it usable is the right inital scan, if it records your fingers flawlesly it will work (but not the way we expect, only in an acceptable way).
There is no sensitivity setting, he probably mean the display setting.