We first reported about the Galaxy A50 fingerprint issue three weeks ago. Samsung had released an update for the device about a month ago. The irony of it was that this update was supposed to improve fingerprint recognition on the Galaxy A50.
It ended up breaking the fingerprint registration process. Samsung is now rolling out a new firmware update for the Galaxy A50. Not only does it bring the December 2019 security patch, but it also fixes the fingerprint issue on the device.
December 2019 update also fixes the Galaxy A50 fingerprint issue
The fingerprint registration process was broken in firmware versions A505FNXXS3ASK9 and A505FDDS3ASK8. It would read the fingerprint normally until the process reached 41 percent completion. It would either require too many attempts to finish the registration or simply throw up an error that said “Make sure the fingerprint sensor is clean and dry, then try again”.
Users were caught unaware as the update had advised them to re-register their fingerprint to benefit from the improvements. However, they couldn't re-register their fingerprints after deleting them. We received many reports from affected users and were able to reproduce the issue on our own device.
Samsung is now rolling out the December 2019 security patch for the Galaxy A50 and a handful of other devices. The update for the Galaxy A50 also fixes this issue. Those who were unable to re-register their fingerprints on the device will be able to do that once they get the latest update. The firmware version A505FDDU3ASKA is gradually rolling out. It's also available for download from our firmware section.