Black/frozen screen after updating iPad Pro 12 to iPadOS 16.3

[katbel]

This morning was working , left it for 30 min, went back and could not wake it up.
Tried everything than the only solution was an hard reset found on Apple support
The iPad Pro is 3 months old, never happened before. Even with older iPad I had, never had the black screen
Should I bring it back to Apple and have it checked or does it happen sometime?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

If it just happens once - carry on. If it happens again, maybe get it checked. Also, iPadOS 16.3.1 is now current so update it.

 

[Geckotek]

Having the same issue with 16.3.1. Force restart works to resolve.

Anyone else seeing this?

 

[wightd67]

My dad has the same issue with his Ipad. His old one went to the black screen and we thought maybe it's time was up since it was quite old. So he bought a new one and updated it this morning only for the same frozen wheel on a black screen to show up after updating and not even a force restart will solve it. Anyone have a fix for this because he's paid £400 for an ipad that has exactly the same issue with this new update??

 

[unixhound]

I've seen it on three iPads with no luck getting it fixed. My spouse and I both have identical 12.9" M1 iPad Pros, and I have another identical one for work. Plus I have an older 10.5" Pro that I use as an assistive device (I'm legally blind.)

My spouse's iPad Pro upgraded to 16.3 with no issues. All of mine ended up with the "frozen spinner screen" after upgrade. I had to DFU all of them and downgrade. Calls to Apple support were useless, so in the end I clean-loaded all of them. Then, just the other day two of them got rebooted, and even though clean-loaded and not restored (painful!), they locked up again.

The one thing it seems to point to is some accessibility option. I use various accessibility settings; my spouse does not. We're still in support hell from Apple, who wanted me to bring my iPad to the Apple Store (very hard to do), even though we pointed out that it's happened on THREE of them at this point. It's the worst service I've ever had from Apple, and here I sit without my primary tool for accessibility.

If there's ever a solution found, I'll post it here. I had hoped 16.3.1 would help, but no luck.

 

[wightd67]

It's funny you should say that because my father is also legally bind and uses accessibility functions all the time on his iPad. The new one he's bought, and his old one, can still play the radio if he asks it and also pings whenever he gets an E-mail but the screen is still stuck. We're going to experiment with his old one where we won't use a back-up when resetting it which automatically applies his old accessibility options and see what happens when we apply the accessibility options after it's updated through the settings and see where it goes from there, but we have to wait for the battery to run flat before we can do that - hence the radio playing all the time to run it down. We've been on the phone to Apple support too and they all just say the same thing and Apple hasn't come out with a formal statement either but I've seen on other sites saying that it is quite prevalent with this new update that customers are getting the "black screen of death". I'll keep you updated as well with our progress if we find a fix but it is rather annoying. I will say that we did get it working yesterday and thought maybe that was the end of it but while using the zoom option his iPad it crashed and he had to force restart it and we're back to square one. He did mention that it had frozen on occasion before in the same circumstances and had to force restart it so I don't know whether or not it's the zoom function in particular that's causing all this hassle or something else. Anyway, I'll let you know if anything changes.

 

[unixhound]

Thanks! I This sounds just like what I'm going through. We FINALLY got a good support tech in the Accessibility team last night; he was on the phone with us for almost two hours. He hadn't heard about the issue, but saw another case mentioning it. I was able to provide a video of the behavior as well as some screen shots of my settings pn the one machine that was currently set up. Of course, that one decided to update from 16.3 to 16.3.1 last night, so I'm now in the process of DFU'ing it.

I did notice one thing - even if you set up from scratch, having the options set will screw you at the next reboot. I saw two of mine do that, one when the battery went flat, the other when I had to force-reboot it. I'm scared to put too much time into any of them at this point, as it royally sucks to spend a day getting one set up only to lose it.

I'll post any updates here as well. I'm also going to point the tech to this thread. If you've seen others, it wouldn't hurt to link them here.

 

[Michael Coleford]

Suffering this IOS 16.1.3 issue. I use accessibility settings as legally blind. But I factory reset my iPad and started setting up all the apps. Also set Invert Colour, Read Screen, Zoom etc. Then did a forced restart. No problem. Then I downloaded Word Chums! app. Started playing a game. Did a forced restart and it fell over to the dots in the middle. Could it be Word Chums is the problem? Or may be a class of apps like it? Or may be it is the accessibility settings. I intend to go to my second Apple store with this issue tomorrow.

 

[unixhound]

I bet it's accessibility settings. As mentioned, my spouse (who has lots of apps) does not have the issue, and otherwise our iPads as identical.

I pointed the Apple Support rep (who is pretty cool) to this thread, however he has to wait until he's on his personal Mac - apparently, Apple doesn't allow him to see the site from his work Mac. Which is entirely stupid; I would want my teams to have access to as much info as possible. Many (many!) years ago, I was a Sr. Engineer for Sun Microsystems, and we'd regularly supplement the knowledge in our internal Helpdesk with whatever else we could find. The goal is to solve the issue, not isolate your support folks. Sorry, just grousing. I miss my iPads.

 

[Michael Coleford]

Done a bit more on this.. I agree, and now believe it is accessibility causing the problem. Phoned up Apple and they booked me into my nearest Apple Shop in Inverness. They took it in for factory reset. They said that if they fixed it it would cost me £15!!! When I protested they said that the 'APple' shop is nothing to do with Apple!!! Anyway I let them get on with it. Set up the accessiblity settings of zoom, classic invert colour and speak screen controller. I did a FRS in front of them and it fell over to dots. The guys in the shop were amazed. They acknowledged it was an ios issue. BUT they were totally disinterested. They advised me to send the brand new iPad back to Amazon the retailer and waituntil the ios is sorted out. Clearly there is no feedback from shop engineers to Apple. What a farse. Will now return my iPad to Amazon. But please keep us updated if a solution is found as I still have a second iPad to get working.

 

[unixhound]

Will do. For my latest in a long series of DFU/reloads, I waited to set up accessibility until after I had a basic setup going. That way, I can restore a backup instead of starting from scratch, since the backup doesn't have any of the accessibility features turned on. It's more of a time-saver, as at this point I've spent countless hours re-setting up my iPads.

I'm also fortunate enough to have one that we loaned out coming back, and it hasn't been upgraded to the latest iPadOS. I'm going to keep it "unupgraded" until this crisis is over, so I have a fallback. It's hard for me to live without my iPad, as I've become reliant on them.

 

[Michael Coleford]

My latest theory is that it is the 'Speak Screen' function or possibly the 'Speak Screen Controller'. When I add 'Zoom' and 'Classic Invert Colour' I can force restart and it all comes back. But when I then add 'Speak Screen' with the on screen controllrer and then get it to read a page. Then stop and do a forcced restart, it all falls over. I spoke to the 'Accessibility' Help Desk yesturday at Apple. The person seemed to take on board what I was saying. She said that she would try and replicate the problem and get back to me. Nothing yet.

 

[unixhound]

Interesting, I use the speech controller as well. If you talk to her again, reference Apple case 101953806922. Right now I'm grousing because I've lost zoom entirely, and I dare not reboot for fear of what I will have to go through again. I'm very, very tired of DFU/reload. Of course, on the plus side, I've pared down my iPad to only what I really need.

 

[unixhound]

An update from this end (actually two):

1) I finally hit the breaking point and sent Tim Cook an email, detailing how hard it was to get anyone to listen, and what a burden this bug is on anyone who relies on accessibility. It gained a response from one of the managers of the Accessibility team, who acknowledged that this is indeed a known bug, and should hopefully be fixed in iPadOS 16.4. They also gave me the direct contact info for the Apple's accessibility hotline, I can share it if anyone is interested.

2) Since I really wanted my zoom back, I tried Michael's idea of disabling the on-screen controller for spoken content. I gritted my teeth and rebooted. It worked, I got a clean reboot and my zoom back. So, thanks!

I plan on testing 16.4 this weekend, unless fate decides otherwise. I'll post any knowledge I gain here.

 

[Michael Coleford]

So glad that getting rid of the Speak Screen Controller helped. I seem to be limping along without it. Apple Accessibility Helpdesk has not got back to me yet. Great to find out that they recognise the issue. Fingers crossed for the update.

 

[Michael Coleford]

Received a telephone call from an accessibility helpdesk person. They had contacted the iOS engineers. Apparently Apple are aware of the issue. Their engineers believe it is a conflict between the speak screen controller and the zoom controller. I pointed out that I never use the zoom controller. Anyway, the engineers expect the issues to be addressed in the next iOS update. so perhaps we can expect an end to this disabling problem.

 

[unixhound]

I'm in the process of using a spare iPad Pro to test 16.4 beta 4. It's restoring my image as I type this; then I will put it through its paces. For some reason, I couldn't get the profile to work, I had to download the ipsw file and do a restore. No biggie, just took longer.

 

[unixhound]

My initial test of enabling the speech controller worked; I was able to reboot the iPad with it enabled and running iPadOS 16.4 beta 4. This bodes well for this problem. I'll spend the next day or two using my test iPad Pro for everyday stuff and see if I run into any issues.

 

[Michael Coleford]

My iPhone has just received a notification that the iOS is being updated to 16.3.1 on the phone. I have paused this installation. I just wonder if it will bring the same problems for accessibility users as the similar update that we are battling with on iPad.

 

[unixhound]

J've been running 16.3.x on my iPhone since release with no issues, and I am using the speech controller. I make no guarantees though. 😃

 

[Michael Coleford]

That’s good to know. I will risk the update on the iPhone when the problem is sorted on the iPad. That way there is no risk of me being left with the problem on both devices.