Fingerprint

Escain

Hi,

So I just received my new Fairphone 5 and installed Ubuntu-Touch on it. One of the main concern I had about my previous FP3+ was the missing support for the fingerprint.

I went to Settings -> Security & Privacy -> Locking and unlocking -> Lock security -> Fingerprint ID

A popup shows: "Sorry, the reader doesn't seem to be working" And when I click then "Add fingerprint", it shows a red circle like capturing, but the same "Sorry, ... " message.

I tested this 2h ago on Android and it was working.

Any idea how to fix it?

Vlad Nirky

@Escain
Hello.
Perhaps I missed it, but which version of UT are you using?

Vlad Nirky

There is a discussion about this on Telegram (https://t.me/UTonFP5).

From AppLee
You probably need to reinstall Android.
What happened I suppose is that you had already fingerprints registered.
Flashing Android will reset those and then installing Ubuntu Touch again should allow it to set the fingerprints.

It worked for me this way.

And another user had the problem and solved it with a couple of reboot...

Escain

@Vlad-Nirky Ubuntu Touch 24.04 (2025-11-06)

I will try to reinstall Android, then UT again. Thank you.

RJDan

@Escain What android version did the phone come with?

sixwheeledbeast

This is marked as a known issue and I have seen other posts about it.
I also still experience issues. I can't add new fingers at all but mostly my fingers I did from the installation time work most of the time.
https://gitlab.com/ubports/porting/reference-device-ports/android11/fairphone-5/fairphone-fp5/-/issues/26
Is there any confirmed solution that can be shared with people that are not on Telegram?

RJDan

@sixwheeledbeast
I just tested on my side. I could add new prints with no effort.

gpatel-fr

@sixwheeledbeast said in Fingerprint:

I can't add new fingers at all

what's strange in the Gitlab issue that you linked to is this from https://gitlab.com/RJDaniels:

my new FP5 (from android 14).

The recommanded procedure is to install Android 13 else it's said that it will not work.

I followed the Android 13 install and it does not work for me (the exact symptom is that the counter can with some effort go to 5%, even 10 or 14% but no further)

Yet I have seen also some assertion that what was counting for the install to work was the VNDK, not really the Android version.

Could it be that people not following the official procedure have a better working setup at least concerning the fingerprint ?

@RJDan
did you install straight away after getting your new FP5 (that would have been delivered with Android 14) or did you downgrade to Android 13 ?

RJDan

@gpatel-fr I could not downgrade. The FP provided installer did not work so I went from A14 directly.