iPhone 11 Security Concern - Intermittent Flashing Toolbar at Top of Screen

[wertwertwert]

Occasionally, a toolbar will very quickly but randomly flash at the top of my screen. It happens once every few hours or so. It never stays long enough for me to read it, but seems to comprise a few squares with text and buttons and an x at the very end. The toolbar is about the same height as the url bar in the Safari app, and about 2/3s as wide as the screen.

I have an iPhone 11 running the latest iOS. This has been happening for a few months, and happened both on the second-latest iOS and the current iOS.

The toolbar is unrelated to any apps, but occurs predominantly when using iMessage (that could just be because I use iMessage a lot). I cannot seem to trigger it, and am never fast enough to capture it.

I do not download any apps aside from completely standard, trusted apps, and rarely download apps at all. Restarting my phone does not change this. Does anyone have any theories about why this is happening? If not, I will probably do a hard erase of my iPhone.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Sounds like you need to install an adblocker. Adguard is a good one to use. You can also use an app called Lockdown, which is also free and does an excellent job.

 

[wertwertwert]

Thanks for your response. Could you elaborate a bit more? Where would the ads be coming from? This toolbar will appear regardless of what app I'm using and none of the apps I use have ads built in. They include standard apps like iMessage. The toolbar doesn't appear to have any content aside from a shell. It also is unreliable for when it comes or goes (usually once every few hours).

 

[akash.nu]

We need a screenshot to proceed. Without any context or knowledge of what we’re talking about it’s hard to suggest anything.

 

[ericwn]

Sounds like you need to install an adblocker. Adguard is a good one to use. You can also use an app called Lockdown, which is also free and does an excellent job.

A toolbar in iMessage and we remove it with an ad blocker? All news to me. Hm...

 

[ericwn]

We need a screenshot to proceed. Without any context or knowledge of what we’re talking as it’s hard to suggest anything.

Yes, a screen capture of sorts is needed.

 

[Apple_Robert]

A toolbar in iMessage and we remove it with an ad blocker? All news to me. Hm...

I thought he was talking about Safari. I missed the iMessage mention.

 

[MM301]

It’s sound to me like the text selection tool. Does it have an undo arrow on the left, redo arrow on the right, scissor icon, etc, in the middle?

edit: I said text selection tool, but looks like it’s called the “clipboard bar”. See the Macrumors article below.

How to Use iOS 13's Text Editing Gestures on iPhone and iPad

With the release of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13, Apple introduced a number of new text editing taps and gestures that can be performed on both iPhones and...

www.macrumors.com

 

[wertwertwert]

It’s sound to me like the text selection tool. Does it have an undo arrow on the left, redo arrow on the right, scissor icon, etc, in the middle?

edit: I said text selection tool, but looks like it’s called the “clipboard bar”. See the Macrumors article below.

How to Use iOS 13's Text Editing Gestures on iPhone and iPad

With the release of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13, Apple introduced a number of new text editing taps and gestures that can be performed on both iPhones and...

www.macrumors.com

I'm pretty sure we have a winner... Thank you! I intentionally made the clipboard bar appear just now and it does appear extremely similar, but not identical to what I have seen (though to be fair, it only flashes very quickly and intermittently for me so I might simply not have an accurate picture). I'm almost certain it's this toolbar though--it's more likely that my image of it is faulty--so I'll just have to capture it appearing by accident and compare.

I have no idea how it appears on accident though, as I can barely do these copy/paste gestures on purpose after reading about them. Perhaps my palm is resting on the phone and it reads that as a third tap when my two fingers are typing away.

For all that requested a screenshot I have been desperately trying to capture it for weeks now to no avail. It comes and then goes immediately. I will continue trying and hope it matches up with the clipboard bar.

 

[Starxx]

Occasionally, a toolbar will very quickly but randomly flash at the top of my screen. It happens once every few hours or so. It never stays long enough for me to read it, but seems to comprise a few squares with text and buttons and an x at the very end. The toolbar is about the same height as the url bar in the Safari app, and about 2/3s as wide as the screen.

I have an iPhone 11 running the latest iOS. This has been happening for a few months, and happened both on the second-latest iOS and the current iOS.

The toolbar is unrelated to any apps, but occurs predominantly when using iMessage (that could just be because I use iMessage a lot). I cannot seem to trigger it, and am never fast enough to capture it.

I do not download any apps aside from completely standard, trusted apps, and rarely download apps at all. Restarting my phone does not change this. Does anyone have any theories about why this is happening? If not, I will probably do a hard erase of my iPhone.

This happens to me all the time. Mostly on iMessage and WhatsApp and it’s hard to catch. But this one time I was able to get a screenshot of it. It’s really weird and I don’t know why it happens but this is what it looks like! Maybe it’s the same thing that pops up on yours?

 

[Jas__]

It’s a new feature for the IOS. So basically if you hold three fingers down on the screen it pops up. If it want it off keyboard> Shortcuts off