Completely discharging your Google Pixel 6 can break its fingerprint scanner

Looks like only a factory reset fixes the problem for those running into this

Ever since the Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro went up for sale, there has been a barrage of reports from users about various bugs and issues with them. In particular, the fingerprint scanner has been a sore point as it is slow to unlock. To make matters worse, it apparently unlocks a few units with other people’s fingerprints. Adding to these woes, many users are now reporting another strange bug with the scanner. Once the Pixel 6’s battery is completely discharged, it disables the in-display scanner for good for some.

Multiple Pixel 6 users have chimed in on a Reddit thread complaining that the fingerprint scanner stopped working once their phone fully ran out of battery. The scanner did not work after restarting the device, and the option to re-enroll one’s fingerprint was also missing from the Settings menu. In some cases, users could trigger the fingerprint enrollment process, but it kept failing midway with an “Enrollment was not complete. Fingerprint enrollment didn’t work. Try again or use a different finger.” A bug report has already been filed on the Google Issue Tracker where more Pixel 6 users have complained.

The good thing is that this does not look like a hardware issue, as Pixel 6 users report that things were back to normal after a factory reset. This does mean that you’ll have to set up your device again, but then, for now, that seems to be the only way to get the fingerprint scanner to work again. Some users are blaming the November security patch for the issue, though it is unclear if it is the culprit or not. Whatever the case might be, ensure that your Pixel 6 does not run out of battery if you don’t want the scanner to stop working until Google gets around to resolving this issue. It probably doesn’t affect every Pixel 6 unit, but better safe than sorry, right?

The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are Google’s first phones with an in-display fingerprint scanner, but these issues just point to a poor QA effort from the company.

We’ve reached out to Google for comment.

Thanks: Shane

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