Windows Hello Fingerprint error; help appreciated.

[Win_Lin513]

Hello All,
This is my first post here, so I'd appreciate some help and feedback about my issue, which, based on some googling, seems common.
I have a two year old Dell Inspiron 5515 that was updated to Windows 11 Home 64bit. Upon a recent reset, Windows Hello fingerprint no longer works; although the Power button is fine. I've gone through Device Manager to Biometric devices, and the latest driver for Goodix Moc Fingerprint is installed. When I go to register my print, I get the error:

"Sorry, something went wrong. Close Windows Hello, and then try going through the setup again."

I've tried looking for solutions, but I haven't come upon one that works as of yet. For reference, the Power Management tab is missing when I go through Properties, and I don't have the option to roll back the driver. I've also tried going through Dell's site for the relevant driver, to no avail. It just says, 'Fingerprint Sensor Driver" , as opposed to what's listed in Device manager. As of right now, I have to either enter my PIN, password or Google passkey through my phone to sign in to my accounts. I even ran the hardware test through Dell's own Support Assist, and everything works as it should. What's the issue, then? Is there any way for me to get the scanner working again? If so, I'd appreciate if someone could help me out with a step by step solution. Please to assume that I'm 'slow' in explaining (lol) and give as much detail as possible. Thanks so much!

 

[HelloNNNewman]

Hi Win_Lin514 and welcome to Windows Central!

Have you tried restoring your device to a previous point? If you open your Start Menu and type "restore" (no quotation marks), you can open up the System Restore service and restore the computer to a previous state - before the said recent recent was applied.




This may help - but is sometimes a crap-shoot for outside hardware. But it could solve a couple of items you've listed - at least worth a try.

 

[Win_Lin513]

Hi Win_Lin514 and welcome to Windows Central!

Have you tried restoring your device to a previous point? If you open your Start Menu and type "restore" (no quotation marks), you can open up the System Restore service and restore the computer to a previous state - before the said recent recent was applied.

View attachment 143522

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This may help - but is sometimes a crap-shoot for outside hardware. But it could solve a couple of items you've listed - at least worth a try.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately, I don't have any restore points available. When I reset, I cleaned the drive and wiped it. I just enabled system protection. I also added the CsEnabled key in regedit to try and get the Power management tab back, but no dice. I really don't know what's causing this issue.

 

[RabidPedagog]

I had this problem over the summer with the Goodix fingerprint sensor on my ASUS Zephyrus G14 GA401QM. It happened after the laptop returned from a repair for the keyboard, so I assumed that in fixing one issue, they handed me a defective fingerprint sensor. I sent it back and it came back working... temporarily. Even though the hardware was acting like it was defective, it was fine: it was the driver that was causing user-mode crashes. In my case, simply forcing Windows to use the older driver made the sensor work reliably again. The absolute latest Goodix released is probably the worst they've ever written.