Fingerprint stopped working, setting completely gone

Help Fairphone 5
21

For those interested, here is an update to my fingerprint sensor.

  1. It vanished again.
  2. I tried the usual, reboot, remove battery, safe mode, nothing helped.
  3. Updated to Android 14, didn’t help.
  4. Got a used FP3 as a backup phone so I could try the factory reset and, if required, send in the FP5.
  5. Took the SIM and SD card out to put them in the FP5.
  6. Started the FP5 once more to verify that the issue could still be reproduced. The fingerprint sensor was back.
  7. Put the SIM and SD back. Fingerprint sensor still works so far.

So when removing SD and SIM I seem to have implicitly reset something. I don’t think that I had removed the battery shorter in my initial debugging attempts. Might have been pure coincidence that this was the restart on which the sensor reset properly, though.

That’s the German-language error message on the lock screen while the sensor was refusing to work:

Screenshot_20240723-194022
Screenshot_20240723-1940221224×2700 47.1 KB

2 Likes
22

Hi there,

i got the same problem with the fingerprint sensor. :confused:
It’s not available (in german: Fingerabdruckhardware nicht verfügbar - as seen on Marix Screenshot).

Reboots. Safe mode. No Change.
Fingerprint rawdata and enroll test don’t start.

Has anyone another solution, tip etc.?

@Marix: Glad that your little workaround did a change. Does it still work?
@kadda: Did you got your phone back or is it still in repairing? How long did it take you? Was the process easy?

Thank you. Have a nice rest evening.

23

Hey @sterni,
I got a new Fairphone 5 back. It took a week or so until i got it - very fast in my opinion. :+1:t2:

1 Like
24

So far it is still working. Which is already twice as long as after the first time this happened but still only four days.
Wondering if all of the devices affected are from a single production run or if this issue is spread out through the whole range of FP5s produced.

25

Hi! I’m facing a similar issue. My phone stopped recognising my fingerprints overnight and now I can’t even find anything related to it in the settings, it just disappeared as if unlocking my phone using my fingerprints was not even an option in the first place. I might try to reboot entirely my phone at some point but yeah it’s pretty inconvenient.

1 Like
26

I shouldn’t have said anything. Now it is reporting the error again. :frowning:

So off to the backup phone and create a case with Fairphone support.

27

Update on my phone. After creating a case with Fairphone support, they asked me to send it in for repairs on warrenty. Took about a week from sending in the phone until it reaching me back at my home last week. Sensor is now working fine.

3 Likes
28

That’s the exact same issue. I fear the only proper solution is to contact Fairphone support and have them repair it under warranty.

29

I had the same problem on my fairphone 5. fingerprint hardware not available and there was no settings for fingerprints and fingerprint tests came back as working.
fixed it by restarting phone into safe mode, by holding down volume down key when rebooting.
In safe mode the fingerprint sensor worked and continued to work when exiting safe mode.
It only lasted for 2-3 hours now I get the message “fingerprint hardware not available” and the test come back as failure.
Tried restarting into safe mode but that didn’t work this time and now the fingerprint settings are gone and when trying to do the fingerprint rawdata and fingerprint enroll it just goes back to the test screen with Manu and auto button