Most of the time, double-clicking the side button on my iPhone 16 Pro immediately brings up my payment cards and works normally. Very occasionally, the same gesture only makes the phone lock and unlock rapidly, as if it is treating the two presses as separate commands instead of opening Apple Pay. Pressing the button repeatedly can then bring up the emergency SOS screen. Opening the Wallet app does not fix it; the only reliable solution so far is restarting the phone, which is especially awkward when I'm waiting to pay. I replaced my worn-out phone case, but the problem happened again. Has anyone experienced this software glitch, and is there a way to recover Apple Pay without rebooting? I'm using iOS 26.6.1 in the UK.
2 Answers
It’s still worth checking the side-button settings under Accessibility, particularly the click speed and whether double-clicking is enabled for Wallet. A sticking or obstructed button can cause missed timing, although the fact that the phone locks and wakes normally makes a purely physical fault less likely. If it happens again, avoid repeatedly pressing the button so you don’t trigger SOS; try locking the phone once, waking it, and opening Wallet manually before restarting.
If the phone is clearly registering both presses but still only locks and unlocks, this sounds more like iOS temporarily losing the Wallet shortcut than a slow double-click or a case problem. Since opening Wallet also fails and a restart fixes it, try noting whether it happens after waking the phone, switching apps, or using contactless payments. Installing the latest available iOS update and reporting the issue to Apple would also be worthwhile, especially because the failure is intermittent.
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