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Touch ID failure causing battery drain

J

Jim1973

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 29, 2015
10
0
Hi, hoping someone knows a fix for this. Bought a 2nd hand iPhone 5S and Touch ID not working. For some reason this is causing a massive battery drain (losing 15% an hour when on standby).

Using normally the battery is fine, only excessive drain when on standby. I believe the phone is constanty trying to monitor the Touch ID and because it isn't working it is draining the battery. Looking online it seems this affects a lot of people if doing a 3rd party home button replacement which then disables Touch ID.

I believe there maybe a jailbreak solution to remove a daemon to stop the Touch ID. Also disconnecting home button stops the drain but you then lose function of home button.

I'd appreciate any ideas to rectify this issue. Cheers.
 
First, is there any way you can return the phone and get your money back? If you can't do that, did you try going into: Settings, Touch ID & Passcode, and disable Touch ID to unlock your phone?
 
Thanks but tried turning it off. I bought it advertised as battery discharging quickly thinking it just needed a new battery but seems it's more than that. Having researched I'm convinced its a software problem but the only solution i have found is to jailbreak it and it can then be overridden. I didn't want to go the jailbreak route but may have to.
 
Jim1973 said:
Hi, hoping someone knows a fix for this. Bought a 2nd hand iPhone 5S and Touch ID not working. For some reason this is causing a massive battery drain (losing 15% an hour when on standby).

Using normally the battery is fine, only excessive drain when on standby. I believe the phone is constanty trying to monitor the Touch ID and because it isn't working it is draining the battery. Looking online it seems this affects a lot of people if doing a 3rd party home button replacement which then disables Touch ID.

I believe there maybe a jailbreak solution to remove a daemon to stop the Touch ID. Also disconnecting home button stops the drain but you then lose function of home button.

I'd appreciate any ideas to rectify this issue. Cheers.
Click to expand...
How do you know that it's TouchID?
 
I don't know 100% but seems a common problem researching on internet. I have ordered a new battery just in case.
 
Jim1973 said:
I don't know 100% but seems a common problem researching on internet. I have ordered a new battery just in case.
Click to expand...
TouchID causing battery drain? As many issues regarding iPhones that get discussed here that doesn't really seem to be one that shows up much, let alone be something common.
 
C DM said:
TouchID causing battery drain? As many issues regarding iPhones that get discussed here that doesn't really seem to be one that shows up much, let alone be something common.
Click to expand...

Hi, I've been researching it for few days and there a large number of reported problems where home buttons have been replaced by non-Apple repair centres rendering the Touch ID inoperative and as a result battery drain occurs. Disconnect the home button and drain stops so it's either Touch ID or something to do with the home button.
 
Jim1973 said:
Hi, I've been researching it for few days and there a large number of reported problems where home buttons have been replaced by non-Apple repair centres rendering the Touch ID inoperative and as a result battery drain occurs. Disconnect the home button and drain stops so it's either Touch ID or something to do with the home button.
Click to expand...
How have you diagnosed that Your 5s has a faulty Touch ID? does it just not work?

It is possible this is the cause of the drain, .. when I phoned Apple support about a standby drain problem on my faulty iPhone 7 the senior advisor told me he had come across a case where the Touch ID was the cause of standby drain and not the actual battery itself and sometimes it's hard to find the cause.
 
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Been running further tests and definitively the home buttom. Once disconnected no drain at all. Reconnected and starts draining again. I left it disconnected twice today for 4 hours and then again for 2 hours and percentage remained unchanged on standby only connected to wifi. Reconnected home button flex and draining at about 20% an hour.

I've no idea how to fix the problem though.
 
Jim1973 said:
Been running further tests and definitively the home buttom. Once disconnected no drain at all. Reconnected and starts draining again. I left it disconnected twice today for 4 hours and then again for 2 hours and percentage remained unchanged on standby only connected to wifi. Reconnected home button flex and draining at about 20% an hour.

I've no idea how to fix the problem though.
Click to expand...
You need this part I reckon

IMG_0359.jpg


Not too expensive either
 
Have ordered a new home button assembly to see if this makes a difference but I suspect it won't. My research shows it is the phone trying to monitor the fingerprint reader but can't as the button has been replaced. This loop cause the drain. Being synical I suspect Apple do it deliberately like the error 53 on the later phones to stop third parties repairs.
 
I know this is old, but I think I found a way to get rid of the battery drain. Somewhere else someone suggested to jailbreak the phone and then disable the touchid service, but that was not an option for me so this is what I did:
- I factory restored my phone and configure it as a new phone.
- When it asked me to configure the touchid, I skipped the step.

After that, I stopped getting the Unable to activate touchid message and the battery is back to normal.
 
Last edited:
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Jim1973 said:
Been running further tests and definitively the home buttom. Once disconnected no drain at all. Reconnected and starts draining again. I left it disconnected twice today for 4 hours and then again for 2 hours and percentage remained unchanged on standby only connected to wifi. Reconnected home button flex and draining at about 20% an hour.

I've no idea how to fix the problem though.
Click to expand...



Hi op ! How did you disconnect the home button? I have the EXACT same issue with the Iphone 6 and the apple guys say they cant do anything.

If you do disable/ disconnect the home button, can you still access the home button on assistive touch?
 
I had a similar problem: a 3rd party home button on my iPhone and the battery emptying in 8hrs on standby.

The repairman took the screen off and the A9 (black square towards the top of the phone) was too hot to touch, even on standby.

What fixed it was to get a new 3rd party home button from a "different factory".

Right now the phone has been on standby for 16 hours and the battery is still at around 90%.
 
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