help, my friend’s iPhone is no longer recognizing VoiceOver gestures

By Niki, 19 September, 2019

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

My friend has an iPhone 6S and yesterday she contacted me telling me that she can't flick from left to right or use many of the basic gestures with voiceover. She said she took her phone into the bathroom with her and set it on the counter while she took a nice hot shower. When she was finished, she took a call but her hands were dry according to her. After that, she couldn't use any of the navigation gestures on her iPhone. She said that she can't even answer a call with the 2 finger double tap, voiceover does nothing. She said in order for her to navigate with flick left or right, she has to place her finger at the bottom of the screne in order to perform these gestures. She can't put her finger anywhere else on the screne otherwise VO won't speak what is under her finger. She has an otterbox case with a screne protector built in. Also, when she uses hey siri and her phone is locked and she asks siri to read her messages, it says you'll need to unlock your iPhone first. Anyone know how to fix this? It didn't use to do this before. Any help with these issues would be greatly appreciated. She's running iOS 12.4.

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Comments

By DMNagel on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 20:29

Hold down the home and power button for about 10 seconds. The phone will then restart.

By Niki on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 20:29

She tried this and she was able to answer a call only once, but when she reset it, her phone shut off, should she have waited?

By DMNagel on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 20:29

Sometimes when I restart my 6+, it will shut down. I just power it back on. If it still doesn't work, then I hope someone will provide better advice than me.

By DPinWI on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 20:29

I think it is worth removing the case and its screen protector and drying the screen. Since water is conductive, it will mess with screen interactions. For me, the clue was the information that she was in a steamy bathroom, and has a case with a built in screen protector. I hope this helps.

By Niki on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 20:29

When she did a soft reset, she was able to answer a call with the 2 finger double tap but was only able to do this once before voiceover became unresponsive with future calls.