How to Fix iPhone 12 Upgrade Interfering COVID-19 Contact-Tracing App: Don't Delete Previous Data Unless Needed

Urian B., Tech Times 26 October 2020, 09:10 am

A number of iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro users located in the UK have been making reports of their recent devices receiving certain error messages in the official NHS COVID-19 contact-tracing app. The problem was reported by BBC news and it was rendered "unusable."

It was also reported on Reddit that there were similar errors and issues coming from other regions' very own contact tracing apps that are utilizing the said Apple's Exposure Notification API. The said error also appears to occur whenever the apps are being transferred from a previous older iPhone with the utilization of the iCloud Backup data transfer.

In order to fix the issue, some UK users have been doing the following method:

Step one: Open Settings
Step two: Click Notifications
Step three: Click on the Exposure Notifications
Step four: Click the Allow Notifications option

According to MacRumors, there are users in other countries that have resulted in simply re-enabling the permission of the said contact tracing app or following the same procedure stated above.

The issue actually seems to be caused by iOS not asking the users to enable the said "Allow Notifications" permission when finally transferring the app into a new device, and it is currently unclear if this needs to be done. The official contact-tracing app cannot enable the given Bluetooth-based technology that it requires in order for it to be able to function correctly.

Although simply deleting then reinstalling the app could possibly resolve the issue, it is still not recommended. A new fresh install prompts the actual exposure notification to pop out again. However, this method is said to wipe out all of the information that the app previously gathered which includes the venues that the user went to so according to an article by MacRumors, this method is not advisable until the whole initial fix has been confirmed to really does not work.

In order to verify the history of exposure notification locations, this is what to do:

Step one: Go to Settings
Step two: Click Exposure Notifications
Step three: Click Exposure Logging Status
Step four: Click Exposure Checks

These have also been confused much further by the whole fact that both the iPhone 12 as well as the iPhone 12 Pro have still not yet been officially included in the said NHS' list of different compatible devices according to their site.

Both the smartphones should definitely be capable of running both England and Wales' contact-tracing software that makes use of the whole Apple and Google Exposure Notification API. There have already been a total of 18 million Brits that have installed the known NHS COVID-19 app as of the moment.