Personal technology is too hard to use for too many people. And sometimes it stops working.

In an earlier post, I shared what I do when my tech goes belly up. I use patience. I read the screen. And I view it as a riddle and search for a solution because there is almost always a solution.

Almost always.

Occasionally there is no solution because the device, or the app, or the service, for some unknown reason, broke.

What do you do then?

You either fix it, or you replace it. But there’s a lot you can do before you get there.

This is a story about what happened when one of my go-to apps went sideways today.

Sunday morning before sunrise. A week and a half before Christmas. Temps in the low 20s. I needed a few things at the store before friends came over for a holiday get together. 

At the grocery store I grabbed the items on my list then went to check out. As I walked up to the register, I opened Apple Wallet on my iPhone to scan the grocery store loyalty card. 

But I couldn’t because this is what I saw instead:

All my loyalty cards, including an auto club card, a drug store card, a health insurance card, and the grocery store card I wanted to use were gone. Vanished without a trace.

Damn. 

I opened the store app, scanned the code, paid, then headed to car, muttering under my breath, “Where did the cards go?”

Before I left the parking lot, I restarted the phone. On my device, an iPhone 13, I held down the Volume Up and the Power button for a few seconds, swiped the “slide to power off” button to the right, then waited.

When you do this, you must wait 10 to 15 seconds to allow the device caches to clear. If you rush it, you won’t restart with a clean slate, and it’s not worth doing.

When I restarted the phone, I popped open the Wallet, but no luck. Still no loyalty cards.

Next, I searched online. It’s not exhaustive by any means, but it usually turns up some evidence if others are experiencing a similar challenge. 

A couple weeks ago, I tried to sign in to PayPal, but the app wouldn’t accept any credentials. A search on BlueSky – I’m on X as well – showed other people with the same issue.

That confirmed it wasn’t only me, and I needed to wait for a fix.

This morning, I searched DuckDuckGo – more on that in a future post – then Perplexity, and then X. I used many different terms, and was only able to turn up one issue from an earlier iOS version regarding an expired pass setting.

I changed that setting, but no luck. The loyalty cards were gone.

Before moving ahead, I threw out a post on X just in case others might run into the same thing before I could find a solution. I hoped they’d reply, and let me know how they fixed it.

Then I took a few deep breaths, and started to add the cards back into Wallet.

Sometimes, you just need to rebuild it. There’s no way around it. The information is gone. It can’t be ressurected, at least you don’t know how to do it. So you put your head down, give up a few minutes of your life, and make it over again.

For me, this happens most often in Microsoft Word or Excel when I open a new file, start working, and forget to save. Maybe the power blinks. Maybe I log off too fast. Whatever. The work is gone, and I have to start again.

Have you been there, too? Searching for a file you know you started as your stomach drops and you know it’s lost forever.

Today wasn’t that gut wrenching. I think I remember which loyalty cards I had loaded, but I’m not sure. I’ll add a few, call it good, and move on with the day.

For me, to make sure I don’t need to start from scorched earth if this happens again, I’ll save a screenshot of the cards in my password keeper. More on why a password keeper is an absolute necessity soon.

For you:

1. Search online. Type a brief description of what happened, and search the results to for anything helpful.
2. Search social media, especially where people are having conversations. I find X, BlueSky, and Reddit the best sources of helpful insights.
3. And know you’re not alone. Even if you have the patience of a Zen master, sometimes you will hit a bricked phone wall.

If you’re open to sharing, I’d love to hear about your most recent frustration. Share it here in a comment, send an email, or connect with me online. 

Together we can help each other stay smarter than our smartphones.