iPad Freezes or Stops Responding, Fix

You may experience that your iPad has become unresponsive. When your iPad freezes, it will not respond to any input (e.g., screen tapping, pressing buttons etc). This short article provides recommendations to help resolve this problem.

See this article if your iPad is running slow

Some of the symptoms include:

• iOS / iPadOS stops responding
• Nothing moves on the iPad’s screen
• Buttons do not work

See also: Dead iPhone?

This is an important issue. If your iPad freezes or locks up while you are in the middle of working, it will affect your productivity. Thus you will want to do some basic troubleshooting. Following the tips below will help you unfreeze your iPad.

What to do when your iPad freezes or locks up

If your iPad freezes while you are using it, you can force restart your iPad. Do not worry, this action does not delete anything. Here is how:

If you have an iPad with Face ID:

• Press and release the volume up button and then press and release the volume down button and then press and hold the side/top button until you see the Apple logo.

If you have an iPad with a Home button:

• Press and hold the Home button and the side buttons (sleep/wake button) together and keep pressing them until you see the Apple logo. Then you may release the buttons (see the image below). Your iPad will start.

If your iPad keeps freezing while you are using, you may want to find out what causing it. So the big question is why your iPad freezes and how you can address this problem. Here is how:

Check for faulty app

Certain apps can be one of the factors that can trigger this iPad freezing issue. I used to have a game on my iPad that was causing this whenever I use this app. If you notice a single app giving you this type of problems, you may want to do a few things. One of them is to check if there is an update for this particular app. This update may fix your problem. To figure this out, tap App Store on your iPad, and then tap Updates. After updating, if you are still having this problem, now, you may want to remove the particular app. To remove it, press and hold the Home button and then press the (x) icon located in the top right-hand corner of the app.

Too many apps open

It may be that too many apps are running in the background. This may slow down your iPad’s memory and processing power and causing your iPad to stop functioning. Quit (shut down) apps. Here is how:

• Double press Home button, if you own an iPad without a Home button swipe up from the Home screen.
• This action will bring up the fast app switcher
• Then swipe up on the app cars. Note that this does not remove any app data. Note you can swipe from left-to-right or right-to-left to navigate.

Update your iPad

Some bugs may cause your iPad to freeze up. And Apple releases updates often to fix these bugs. So make sure that your iPad is running the latest version of the iOS software. You can update your iPad easily by going to Settings > General > Software Update.

See also: iPhone black screen?

Turn off some features

Some of the iOS features may be slowing down your iPad. Especially Background App Refresh and Automatic Downloads. Try disabling these features to see if this fixes your problem. Here is how:

• On your iPad, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and toggle this off.
• On your iPad, go to Settings > iTunes & App Store > and toggle off Automatic Downloads.

Charge your iPad

When your iPad is low on battery, iOS will try to increase performance by minimizing some system operations. This may cause your iPad to freeze. Simply charge your iPad. First connect your iPad to the USB cable, and then plug into a power outlet.

Not enough space?

How much free data storage space is left on your iPad? When your iPad is low on free space, your iPad may not function properly. Go to Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage to check your usage. Find the apps that take up the most space. You may want to remove them. You may also want to delete the apps you do not need or want. You may also want to transfer your photos or videos to your computer to free up space.

See also: Flashing Apple logo?