Fingerprint sensor not working anymore after last update (S20Fe)

[Gusknust]

I use my S20 FE basically for work, and it has worked flawlessly until this month. I hardly ever turn it off. However, after the latest update, I had a long weekend and forgot to charge my phone, causing it to run out of battery. When I recharged it and turned it back on, the fingerprint sensor had suddenly stopped working. There was a message right after inserting my PIN number and drawing the unlocking pattern that read more or less like this: "Fingerprint sensor is not working at the moment. Restart your phone" - which I did... many times... to no avail.

So, of course, since I haven't dropped my phone and nothing that might have damaged the screen happened: it just lay on my nightstand powerless for two days. I tried to have it back by:

1. Trying to erase the recorded fingerprints, but it was impossible. When I tried to access this functionality, it wouldn't open, and I'd get the same message about the sensor not working.

2. Restarted the phone in safe mode: sensor not working.

3. Found the system app that manages biometrics and cleared both the cache and app data. Restarted the phone. Never got the sensor back.

4. Removed the original screen protector that came with the phone, as I read that if it were scratched or damaged in any way, it might affect sensitivity and the sensor would not work. But of course, I just lost a good screen protector.

The phone is not older than a year. I still have an S10+ I bought when it was top-of-the-line, and it works wonderfully, and the fingerprint sensor never failed - but, of course, it did not receive the latest Samsung update! Because it was so annoying having the message pop up all the time and having to manually change from fingerprint to face recognition every time the phone or an app required it to open, I reset my S20 FE. But because it resets but downloads all the updates to date, when I tried to register my fingerprints, the phone just said it was unable to as the sensor is not working.

From what I've noticed, more people have had this same problem with other phones that received the December update. I wish I had never let it run out of power, but I did, and it had to be restarted. You guys at Samsung must fix this. It is so annoying! I use biometrics for everything!! And now, I'm having to reinstall everything and restore backups to have my S20 FE fully working again.

[BandOfBrothers]

Hello @Gusknust  👋 

I'm sorry to hear your experiencing these issues with your phone 😔 

Letting a phone's battery fully deplete in not best practice, however in my opinion this shouldn't be affecting your Fingerprint Biometrics. 

Very occasionally a software update can appear to negativity affect a phone's core functions. 

It might be beneficial to consider backing up and performing a Factory Reset 🤔 

A Samsung Service Centre or Samsung Experience Store can assess your phone. 

https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/repair/ 

If i can be of any further help please don't hesitate to ask  😎 

[Gusknust]

Hi, @BandOfBrothers . If you read my post a bit a bit further, you'll see that I clearly said I already did a factory reset of the device, but it installs the updated software causing the problem. So it was no solution.

[BandOfBrothers]

Ah @Gusknust so you did ~ my bad. 

In that case then a Service Centre wpuod be the next logical step. 

[Neomajic]

Is there a way to restore the previous update? Mine is doing a lot of screwy things since latest update... fingerprint scanner, airplane mode turning on randomly, email sync turning off randomly, data turning off randomly.