The first touchscreen smartphone from a major manufacturer to include a fingerprint scanner was the Motorola Atrix which was released in 2011. We’d love to say that this new tool was a big hit right away and led others to add such a feature on their phones. Alas, we can’t. The scanner on the Atrix had several problems. In 2012, in a transaction that was a typical Apple transaction, the company bought biometric firm AuthenTec for $356 million and Touch ID debuted the following year on the iPhone 5s.
Since then, fingerprint scanners or facial recognition has been a standard feature on most smartphones. A few days ago, we told you that Samsung’s One UI 6.1 update broke the fingerprint scanner on the 2023 Galaxy S23 flagship line. One complaint reported that the scanner wouldn’t work on the first attempt to unlock the phone. Once the user lifted his finger off the screen, the animation would reappear and the fingerprint scanner would work the second time.
Another Galaxy S23 series user had a similar complaint. The fingerprint scanner on his phone crashed whenever he tried to unlock his device. The second time he attempted to unlock the phone, the feature would work allowing the user to unlock his handset. So we have a problem where it is taking owners of the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra multiple attempts to unlock their handsets using the fingerprint scanner.
Samsung admits that there is a problem with the fingerprint scanner on the Galaxy S23 line
Samsung has acknowledged the issue on its Korean community forum (via AndroidAuthority) which is the first thing that those suffering from this problem want to hear. Using a translation app, a Samsung community manager said, “We apologize for any inconvenience caused when using the device. We have confirmed that in some cases, fingerprint recognition on the lock screen does not work properly or a notification window appears.”
That’s the hard part, getting the manufacturer to admit that there is an issue. The Samsung community manager went on to add, “We plan to release software that improves the problem, so please keep your phone up to date. We apologize once again for the inconvenience caused, and please wait a little while for the software update.”
Samsung is asking Galaxy S23 series users to be patient while it develops the update that will fix the problem with the fingerprint scanner on these models. In the meantime, users can unlock their devices using Face Unlock or their PIN.
