iPadOS 15.7 extremely buggy - iPad unusable

[bmac89]

Hello,

I have updated to iPadOS 15.7 and now my device is riddled with endless bugs. I feel like ripping my hair out trying to use what was perfectly functional prior to updating. I realise I’m likely to get people responding saying that this is not their experience. Well I’m sure you are right but I sure hope someone can help me to find a solution. I have never experienced any update on any platform as buggy as this (not even close!) and I have done a lot of beta testing in the past. I have done all the usual procedures such as clean install via itunes, reset all settings and force reboot but the bugs remain.

The device is slow and glitchy with items on screen (such as tabs, buttons, text, images) moving & flashing of their own accord without touching the device. Everything lags, even typing and pressing on UI buttons there is large delay before anything happens and I keep thinking I missed the button and try again. Battery is literally dropping by the minute and when connected to the charger it does not go up even 1% after 1/2 hour despite screen off, not using the ipad and on flight mode.

Safari is an absolute mess. Websites load painfully slowly despite fast and stable internet connection on all other devices. Tabs constantly moving around and graphical glitches and flashing without even touching the screen. Scrolling on a light text based website is painful. I have keyboard attached and the floating keyboard buttons cover UI buttons in most apps as well a ‘find on page’ arrows. I moved it to the left and it covers buttons there as well but then it just moves itself back soon after. When I type, words keep changing to random letters partially capitalised mid way through. (i.e. ‘realise’ turns into something like rTklQfse)
Even with 2 tabs open in Safari and no other apps other than notes app in the background (not multitasking!). The tabs refresh sometimes without even leaving Safari (I.e. switching between 2 safari tabs within less than a minute).

I rely on the accesibility feature speak content and highlight sentences (for websites) with auto scrolling but now it keeps scrolling up to the top of the website and you can’t manually scroll down. The speak content button moves around the screen and gets in the way of content literally in the middle of the screen.

The wallpaper and lockscreen picture literally move 10 cm and go from extremely zoomed in to normal size each time I access notification centre whilst part of the homescreen and icons still shows in notification centre. Control centre is activated when swiping down near the middle of the screen right next to the three dots Which means I can only access notification centre by swiping from the left side.

I turned on background sounds from the control centre and within 30 seconds it stopped despite only being on the homescreen.

After opening the files app and waiting for it to finally load, pressing on any folder and there is a delay of 10 seconds before it opens. I switch between two favourite folder in the sidebar with very few files and the delay occurs each time even when switching back and forth.

It takes 30 seconds or more to open Apple Maps or google maps with no other apps open and even once it loads it keeps glitching and if you move or zoom the map it take a long time to reload the entire map again and again.

Mail app does not have any notifications at all, not even in notification centre despite all settings switched on and DND & focus modes off. I have gone into settings and everything is checked. New mail does not even appear in the app even if I pull to refresh. I have to send myself an email and then repeatedly refresh before all the emails show up at once. Even after a full day the new emails will not show unless I follow these steps.

Each time I reply to an email and press send it crashes to homescreen and the email is lost. Pressing on a conversation in imessage and it takes 5-10 seconds to change to that persons messages which is actually not bad compared to other lag and delay in 15.7. Each time I open iMessages or restart the ipad I get a notification saying a message has failed to send. This is despite deleting the message and restarting the ipad numerous time since.

Randomly whilst typing this post the ipad would lock (requiring touch/pin). It went straight to the lockscreen even though the screen never dimmed or switched off. I did not even touch the screen, ipad or buttons. Simply typing on the smart keyboard which does not have lock button or shortcut.

In Photos app the gallery images keep changing from normal to zoomed and aspect on/off. Even the UI buttons keep changing. Sometimes graphical icons sometimes words, sometimes no buttons at all.

Taking a photo and then viewing the photo - the photo shows up for a few seconds and then disappears and then reappears with a sliding animation. Taking a screenshot and it takes anywhere from 5-10 seconds before the preview thumbnail shows up. Pressing on the thumbnail to edit only sometimes works.

Swiping up to reveal dock often (but not always) delayed by 3-5 seconds before the dock actually appears.

The iPad randomly crashes with black screen and spinning wheel but even the spinning wheel freezes up. The iPad takes a very long time to boot up. More than 3 times slower than prior to the update.

I haven’t tried the Apple Pencil since updating but I hate to imagine what I am going to discover. There are many more bugs than what I have covered here - there is literally not one single app or OS feature that functions even remotely normally. The only thing that works ok are the hardware buttons.

I have done a clean install multiple times via itunes, reset all setting multiple times and force reboot. The bugs remain. I’m at my wits end and utterly exhausted trying to fix this. Sorry for the rant but I really hope someone can help me to fix this atleast enough to make the device semi–useable.

Many Thanks!

 

[FeliApple]

Welcome to the long, endless history of iOS updates. This has been happening since forever, but I thought performance had improved by now. Maybe it improved when compared to fully updated 32-bit devices (those are unusable), but apparently it hasn’t improved enough. I’m sorry to hear about your result.

You said you’ve done multiple clean installs with the same performance. I’m afraid that the device’s performance on iPadOS 15 is just... that, and there isn’t much you can try at this point.

I’ve seen many performance complaints about the iPhone 6s on iOS 15, too. I tried one on iOS 13 and the keyboard lag was unbearable. The rest seemed okay, but I didn’t try it in-depth. Is it better than it used to be? Sure, that doesn’t excuse it.

I’m running iOS 12, and like I said on your previous thread, I get occasional keyboard lag (which wasn’t present on iOS 9, before Apple forced me to iOS 12. Forced me how? There is a deactivation bug for A9 processors on iOS 9, in which the device will deactivate and reboot you into the Hello screen, only to show you an impassable activation error screen. All you can do is update). The rest seems okay, however. It works well apart from that.

The issue is battery life. I went from 13-14.5 hours of screen on time to barely scraping 9-10, often less, and it never got better. This was three years ago (this is a message for the Apple apologists who love to say “this always happens, just give it time because it is reindexing, it will improve and get back to normal. No it won’t. It never does).

How’s your battery life specifically, regarding screen-on time, in hours? I ask so that I can get an estimate comparison. iPhone 6s owners say it’s pathetic, getting about 2.5 hours of screen-on time, and I get three times that on iOS 10 with a degraded battery (63% health, so that is irrelevant).

But yeah, the bottom line is that you can expect to have that performance and battery life forever, because there’s nothing you can do that you haven’t already done. I’m sorry.

 

[bmac89]

Thanks for the response.

I spent over 3 hours (due to the bugs and lag) trying to type an email to the Apple Accessibility Team regarding accessibility features I rely on being broken by the update. Not that the device is even useable to someone without accessibility needs so I’m not even sure why I bothered. I saved the email as draft as an extra precautionary measure even though normally it auto saves. I finally finished the email and pressed send and the mail app crashed and the email is lost forever. Not in outbox, not in sent, not in drafts. I even logged into my email via browser and there is no draft saved on the server or sent box.

I tried to send a test message to myself to see if it would crash and low and behold it crashes every time. I could scream and throw this device out the window if only I had the strength!

Sorry for the rant. I can’t even tell you the battery screen on time at this stage as the settings app is completely broken as well. All I can say is that the battery % is dropping literally by the minute and the iPad doesn’t even charge 1% after half and hour with screen off, all apps closed and flight mode on.

P.S. Now every single app on my iPad (and I have hundreds) is updating over and over again despite app updates switched off. The same app literally repeats the download and installing cycle over and over. I signed out of App Store and iCloud and rebooted but it is still happening. I have a limited plan and it chewed through 30gb before I could shut it off. I turned on flight mode but it now takes between 30 seconds and 1 minute for wifi to actually switch off. Also when turning flight mode off, turning wifi on or rebooting it takes 5 minutes before wifi even connects despite the button being blue in control centre and the router is right next to me.

I wish I never fell for the Safari will stop working if I don’t update BS shared on other apple forums. If there wasn’t a rush to update to 15 before unsigned and trying to avoid 16, I would never have fallen for that propaganda. At the end of the day I’m the idiot and I sure have learnt a lesson!

If anyone else is hesitating over an update that can’t be undone - don’t do it!!!! I hope Apple (& all tech companies) are forced to allow the ability to reverse OS updates because they will never do it without legally being pushed!

 

[FeliApple]

Thanks for the response.

I spent over 3 hours (due to the bugs and lag) trying to type an email to the Apple Accessibility Team regarding accessibility features I rely on being broken by the update. Not that the device is even useable to someone without accessibility needs so I’m not even sure why I bothered. I saved the email as draft as an extra precautionary measure even though normally it auto saves. I finally finished the email and pressed send and the mail app crashed and the email is lost forever. Not in outbox, not in sent, not in drafts. I even logged into my email via browser and there is no draft saved on the server or sent box.

I tried to send a test message to myself to see if it would crash and low and behold it crashes every time. I could scream and throw this device out the window if only I had the strength!

Sorry for the rant. I can’t even tell you the battery screen on time at this stage as the settings app is completely broken as well. All I can say is that the battery % is dropping literally by the minute and the iPad doesn’t even charge 1% after half and hour with screen off, all apps closed and flight mode on.

P.S. Now every single app on my iPad (and I have hundreds) is updating over and over again despite app updates switched off. The same app literally repeats the download and installing cycle over and over. I signed out of App Store and iCloud and rebooted but it is still happening. I have a limited plan and it chewed through 30gb before I could shut it off. I turned on flight mode but it now takes between 30 seconds and 1 minute for wifi to actually switch off. Also when turning flight mode off, turning wifi on or rebooting it takes 5 minutes before wifi even connects despite the button being blue in control centre and the router is right next to me.

I wish I never fell for the Safari will stop working if I don’t update BS shared on other apple forums. If there wasn’t a rush to update to 15 before unsigned and trying to avoid 16, I would never have fallen for that propaganda. At the end of the day I’m the idiot and I sure have learnt a lesson!

If anyone else is hesitating over an update that can’t be undone - don’t do it!!!! I hope Apple (& all tech companies) are forced to allow the ability to reverse OS updates because they will never do it without legally being pushed!

Well, that is not normal, regardless of how iOS updates impact devices. That performs way too poorly, even if updated. The email thing may be a bug, given it continuously crashes. The app updates thing is weird, that is not normal, again, regardless of which iOS version you’re running.

In your first comment, you mentioned also some pretty glitchy things that shouldn’t happen, like the screenshot taking 10 seconds is unheard of as well, maybe even on their worst-performing devices ever. Can it be a bug with your accessibility feature? The random locking feature is extremely odd as well, regardless of how many iOS updates are installed. Like I said, performance drops up to a certain point when updating, but what you describe is just too much. Perhaps (I am speculating because I do not know) there is a bug with the accessibility feature you use. The dock issue is odd as well.

I don’t know if they happen to the extent you’ve described, but Safari reloads on 2GB of RAM on iPadOS 15 are normal, many have described that.

As per the rest... it’s just too much. I think there’s something else going on there apart from the update.

 

[bmac89]

Well, that is not normal, regardless of how iOS updates impact devices. That performs way too poorly, even if updated. The email thing may be a bug, given it continuously crashes. The app updates thing is weird, that is not normal, again, regardless of which iOS version you’re running.

In your first comment, you mentioned also some pretty glitchy things that shouldn’t happen, like the screenshot taking 10 seconds is unheard of as well, maybe even on their worst-performing devices ever. Can it be a bug with your accessibility feature? The random locking feature is extremely odd as well, regardless of how many iOS updates are installed. Like I said, performance drops up to a certain point when updating, but what you describe is just too much. Perhaps (I am speculating because I do not know) there is a bug with the accessibility feature you use. The dock issue is odd as well.

I don’t know if they happens to everything to the extent you’ve described, but Safari reloads on 2GB of RAM on iPadOS 15 are normal, many have described that.

As per the rest... it’s just too much. I think there’s something else going on there apart from the update.

Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify, I am not using any accessibility hardware or third party software, only accessibility options provided by Apple in iPadOS which have been switched off/returned to default settings. All the bugs and glitches I have mentioned are occurring regardless of whether these options are switched on or off, and unfortunately remain even after doing 2 clean installs, multiple reset settings & forced reboots with very little improvement (some graphical glitches have become less frequent but not completely resolved and invoking the dock is not severely delayed like before.)

A lot of the glitches appear as though the OS isn’t even recognising the correct screen dimensions. For example websites keep adjusting size and zoom as though the window has been resized even though it hasn’t. UI buttons on top of other UI buttons. When opening the notification centre, the NC wallpaper image moves and changes size with part of the homescreen and icons showing in NC. The control centre can be accessed by swiping right next to the 3 dots in the middle of the screen which means the only way to access notification centre is from the left hand side. Interestingly if I put the device into portrait orientation many of these issues are reduced a bit.

I have also tried removing the apple Smart Keyboard and made sure to have nothing connected via bluetooth or cable but this made no difference.

I am convinced that if I was able to revert to previous OS it would solve all these issues but alas. I can understand a corrupt install or old settings causing bugs but my understanding is that the update is verified after installing and that a clean install should overcome issues with previous settings or updates conflicting. I have heard of others with the same device experiencing some of these glitches after updating to 15 but nothing to this extreme. There is nothing else that has changed other than the update.

Thanks

 

[Wizec]

We have 6 iPads and have none of the issues you have described. It sounds like you have a touch input issue with the display. A hardware issue. I would get it looked at and most likely replaced, if you have warranty or AppleCare.

 

[bmac89]

We have 6 iPads and have none of the issues you have described. It sounds like you have a touch input issue with the display. A hardware issue. I would get it looked at and most likely replaced, if you have warranty or AppleCare.

If seems odd that everything was working perfectly fine until I updated to iPadOS 15 and now I experience extreme lag, crashes, bugs, glitches, overheating and battery drain. Some of the same glitches & bugs have been reported by others with the same device, but nothing I have seen is anywhere near as extreme as this. I have also experience a few similar glitches (but again nothing as severe as this) on another iPad years back on iOS 11 beta and the issues were resolved by going back to iOS 10.

 

[Wizec]

I hear what you’re saying regarding timing. I’m a very harsh judge when it comes to stability myself.

This just happened on my iPhone on iOS 16.1

Your issues are so varied, it just seems more of a hardware issue than anything. Or something horribly gone wrong in the update, but you’ve tried a DFU restore already?

 

[chevyboy60013]

I have several iPads that were running iPadOS 15.7 just fine until I updated them all to iPadOS 16 just because. That does not sound at all like a software issue, but rather some problem with the actual iPad. I would take a trip to the Apple Store with it to have it looked at asap.

 

[HDFan]

Didn't see, which iPad do you have?

Battery is literally dropping by the minute

If you go into battery settings which apps are using the battery?

How big is your storage? How much is free?

Looking at running processes on your iPad might be helpful. A number of hoops to go through but you can then see which processes are using the most memory, cpu, etc.

How To View a List of Processes Running on iPhone or iPad

Unlike desktop operating systems, iOS and iPadOS offer no native ways to look into the processes running on the iPhone and iPad. The App Store is also devoid of apps that can help you check your device's inner workings. However, if you have access to a Mac, you can view a list of processes running

www.switchingtomac.com

 

[FeliApple]

Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify, I am not using any accessibility hardware or third party software, only accessibility options provided by Apple in iPadOS which have been switched off/returned to default settings. All the bugs and glitches I have mentioned are occurring regardless of whether these options are switched on or off, and unfortunately remain even after doing 2 clean installs, multiple reset settings & forced reboots with very little improvement (some graphical glitches have become less frequent but not completely resolved and invoking the dock is not severely delayed like before.)

A lot of the glitches appear as though the OS isn’t even recognising the correct screen dimensions. For example websites keep adjusting size and zoom as though the window has been resized even though it hasn’t. UI buttons on top of other UI buttons. When opening the notification centre, the NC wallpaper image moves and changes size with part of the homescreen and icons showing in NC. The control centre can be accessed by swiping right next to the 3 dots in the middle of the screen which means the only way to access notification centre is from the left hand side. Interestingly if I put the device into portrait orientation many of these issues are reduced a bit.

I have also tried removing the apple Smart Keyboard and made sure to have nothing connected via bluetooth or cable but this made no difference.

I am convinced that if I was able to revert to previous OS it would solve all these issues but alas. I can understand a corrupt install or old settings causing bugs but my understanding is that the update is verified after installing and that a clean install should overcome issues with previous settings or updates conflicting. I have heard of others with the same device experiencing some of these glitches after updating to 15 but nothing to this extreme. There is nothing else that has changed other than the update.

Thanks

Wow, yeah, it’s just too much. It’s difficult to suggest what to do, I’d suggest a clean install but you’ve done that already, and like I said, it’s not the update itself because it is too much even taking into account update-related performance and battery life issues. There’s something else going on there and I’m not sure what to suggest. Maybe you can take it to Apple?

Unfortunately, downgrading will never be possible...

By the way, it’s the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, right?

 

[Paddle1]

If seems odd that everything was working perfectly fine until I updated to iPadOS 15 and now I experience extreme lag, crashes, bugs, glitches, overheating...

Not really. It's rare but major updates can be an intensive process that can be just enough to push things too far. And of course coming from an older release can make it an even bigger task. If it is a hardware issue it's possible there's an indirect connection to updating that isn't the new software version itself.