FaceID Doesn’t Try Again

[Cergman]

Loving my new iPhone X, but I noticed an issue with FaceID. It unlocks fine with my face, but if it tries to unlock while I’m not angled correctly, the padlock will shake which I expect. However, it doesn’t try to authenticate me again unless I swipe up, which makes me miss some notifications since they’re hidden while locked.

Is this behavior normal?

 

[KrisLord]

Same thing here. Makes me wonder how the keynote demo failed if it won’t retry!

 

[flat five]

it doesn’t try to authenticate me again unless I swipe up, which makes me miss some notifications since they’re hidden while locked.

on the lock screen, swipe up from the middle of the screen to see notifications.. locked or unlocked.

(not exactly sure if this is helpful to your experience.. try it though)

 

[Cergman]

on the lock screen, swipe up from the middle of the screen to see notifications.. locked or unlocked.

(not exactly sure if this is helpful to your experience.. try it though)

Yeah, but it doesn’t show the actual notification content until it’s unlocked which doesn’t happen if it fails once.

People at home with X’s, you can try this by locking your phone, and placing a hand over your face while it tries to unlock. When it fails, even if you remove your hand, FaceID will not try again until you swipe up or lock/wake. Kind of annoying.

 

[flat five]

Yeah, but it doesn’t show the actual notification content until it’s unlocked which doesn’t happen if it fails once.

People at home with X’s, you can try this by locking your phone, and placing a hand over your face while it tries to unlock. When it fails, even if you remove your hand, FaceID will not try again until you swipe up or lock/wake. Kind of annoying.

in that case, you can try this:

swipe up but don't let go.. then swipe back down to keep the lock screen showing.

(just realized you could do that.. not sure if it will help.. but seems ok at first go)

 

[Cergman]

in that case, you can try this:

swipe up but don't let go.. then swipe back down to keep the lock screen showing.

(just realized you could do that.. not sure if it will help.. but seems ok at first go)

That seems to work!
Also works if you tilt the phone up and back down.

 

[Sirious]

I thought I was the only one that hated that.

They really need to add retries for Face ID to be more accurate and successful.

 

[ayobonus]

So glad I found this thread. I was curious if anyone else had this issue. Just like OP, I realized if FaceID tries to authenticate and I wasn't angled correctly, it would fail and not try again. I thought maybe tapping the padlock would get it to try again, but doesn't look like that works. Hitting the side button to turn off then on again seemed not really intuitive. But as someone mentioned above, if you tilt the phone back and then tilt it back at your face, that seems to trigger it again. That's the only workaround I've found so far. I hope Apple improves this somehow in the future.

Edit: The "half swipe up then swipe back down on the lock screen" method that member flat five mentioned above also seems to work well.