Several users have reported that they are unable to access the iBooks store. Readers are able to see their own books on the iPad, but clicking on Featured /NyTimes / Top Charts just shows a blank screen. This problem has been happening since yesterday (based on our Reader’s emails and comments that we have recoeved in the forum).
Here is what we have found so far:
The problem is NOT happening with iPhones. It is limited to iPads. We have checked the issue on the following devices:
- iPhone 5S Running iOS 9.3.2 – No Issues. Able to access the iBooks Store without any problems.
- iPad Running iOS 10 Public Beta – No Issues. Able to access all the iBooks Store features
- iPad Pro 12 inch running iOS 9.3.2 – No Issues
- iPad Running iOS 9.3.2 – Unable to access the iBooks Store, nyTimes, Top Charts
Since the problem was limited to the last iPad running the older iOS, we followed the following steps to troubleshoot:
Step – 1- > Logged out of the iCloud Account on the iPad by tapping on Settings > iCloud . Checked iBooks Store and found it was still not working. Logged out of the iTunes account on the iPad (settings >iTunes and App Store > Tap on Apple Id > Sign out). No changes to iBooks Store. Still shows a blank screen.
Step – 2- > Tapped on Settings > General > Restrictions and toggled the Restrictions ON and OFF a few times. Made sure that the iBooks store was OFF (No restrictions). Checked iBooks and still no changes. Still not able to access the iBooks Store.
Step – 3-> Pressed the Home and wake/sleep buttons together for about 15 seconds till the device showed the Apple Logo. Released the buttons and let it start on its own.
Step – 4-> Checked iBooks again after the reset and found that the iBooks store was still showing a blank screen
Step – 5-> Connected iPad to iTunes via Computer and checked for available updates on the iPad. Noted that iOS 9.3.3 was available. On the iPad, Tapped on Settings >General >Software Update and also found that the iOS 9.3.3 update was available.
Step – 6-> Checked the iBooks Store again and we were able to access the iBooks Store, nytimes, Top Charts without any issues.
Either the Reset and check for new iOS updates fixed the issue, or there was an issue on Apple’s end that got fixed this morning. Please try steps 3 through 6 and see if it helps you with this problem.
We will keep you posted as we do more checks.
Updated: 7/21
Thanks for all your comments. What seemed to work for some of us is not working for many of the readers. Folks that downloaded iOS 9.3.3 have not been able to solve this issue. It appears to be a problem at Apple’s end and we have not seen any updates from their support yet.
Our test iPad running iOS 9.3.2 is still working and we are able to tap on Nytimes, search by author and see the top charts..etc. We will try to update it to 9.3.3 and check if we can purchase a book and download etc. We have not seen any updates from Apple yet on this issue. Their System for iBooks store seems to be running ok as of this writing at 4:30 PM pacific.
Updating to iOS 9.3.3 is not helping as well. The quote below is straight from the discussions forum. No further updates available.
There are a number of threads about the same problem (since 9.3.3 came out). For me logging out and back into my account via Settings > iTunes & App Store briefly fixed it (until I next opened a book on my bookshelf), other people appear to have had some success by closing the app via the iPad’s taskbar and/or doing a soft-reset/reboot. If you want to leave feedback to Apple about the problem : http://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks_ios.html
Here is another suggestion that we received from a reader who found a different approach.
“I had a similar issues this AM. When I tapped on any of the store icons, it just showed me a completely blank screen. I had saved a note with links to iBooks Store pages. These were links for books in my future reading list. Upon clicking a link from the list, it opened it up in the iBook Store and seemed to work. I don’t know if it refreshed the store or what, but the link loaded properly in iBooks, and the rest of the store seems to be working. iBooks has been working fine for me since.”
Essentially, you open for an iBook link in Safari and then click on it so that it can open it in your ibooks app.
We have since then reached out to him to check if it is still working for him.
Good News from Renee Riffey : I just reset my location and privacy settings and is now working! (Settings >General > Reset Location and Privacy. its the last option on the list) Thank You for sharing the Tip!
Updated: 7/22
It appears that the Reset Locations and Privacy option fixed the issue for many but not all. Frustrating indeed. This morning, we have another update from our reader Chris that we wanted to share. For folks, that couldn’t solve the issue with the reset, try this out and keep us posted.
Here’s an update from our reader Chris. “Go to iTunes, search for iBooks, when it comes up, select any book and request sample, then hit store in top rh corner, takes you to iBooks, works for me.” Chris, Thank you for sharing this tip.
Tried all of above – updated iOS – reboot – still cannot access bookstore.
None of these steps resolve the issue for me. Very frustrating.
Did not work for me either. It was a waste of my time. Then tried to comment and rejected with “This is a duplicate comment.”
Tried all the steps and nothing restored.
me either
Followed all steps above, still cannot access bookstore. Very annoying.
Updated to IOS 9.3.3, then rebooted, and iBooks still showing blank screen. So annoying. Using my Kindle app and paying Amazon
The problem occurred yesterday and then was resolved by rebooting. Now it has. Occurred again and cannot e iced by anything suggested above.
The problem occurred on my iPad Pro (small version) only after updating to iOS 9.3.3. Thus, none of the suggested fixes worked. Hope Apple gets on this soon since we can’t add any new books.
Tried above, problem persists.
Suggestions did not work for me, either.
Have tried all of the recommended fixes, still can’t access anything other than the books in my library.
Tried all steps above. Still cannot access other pages of iBooks. Only my books show up. Everything else blank. 5:25 pm Thursday July 21.
None of these steps worked.
Yes, same for me. Anyone have any other ideas? Is this an Apple issue? Thanks
Tried all of the above and still a blank page
Please help us
Thank you
None of these steps has restored my iBook store – glad not just me!
Not working and tried all of the recommended steps ☹️
This needs to be corrected.
Have the same problem even after updating, switching on & off, can access my own books screen but no access to iBook store in general
Tried all of above & still no access
Have followed all the suggestions and still have no access to ibooks
Tried all steps, still no joy
Add me to the list of frustrated customers. I have 2 iPads (one Air, one Generation 4) and a much older iPod Touch. The Touch is accessing the iBooks store without a problem. Both iPads just display a blank screen. I have installed the most recent software updates on both iPads.
Followed all the steps numerous times and still no access to iBooks as well.
Yep. Having same issue and nothing seems to work.
I just reset my location and privacy settings and is now working!
I just reset privacy and location settings and is working!
Tried all of the steps. Still not working!
Reset location and privacy worked for me.
Just reset privacy and location settings” updated OS, did a hard reset…not working 🙁
I reset location and privacy and it did start working
I tried all of this as well and got nowhere. I did buy a book on my iPhone and it downloaded to my iPad.
This worked for me too.
This worked. Thank you Renee and SK. Great Team work here from Appletolbox!
None of the above worked on my iPad Air 2.
Resetting location and privacy did NOT work for me. I have tried all other suggestions……nothing. So frustrating.
I did the the 9.3.3 update,did nothing to fix the problem……
Then I did the location and privacy reset and it now works
Resetting location and privacy worked!! Thank you !
I’m on an iPad Pro 12 inch running iOS 9.3.2 and just experienced this problem. I’ll try rebooting and hope they work ot out soon.
Tried all of the above. Still blank screen.
Uddated iOS…turned off and on location services. Now working.
Add me to the listed of frustrated customers. I have tried all of the suggestions, nothing has worked. I can only see my books. all other options are blank screens. Not happy.
Followed all the steps, then tried the reset mentioned at bottom of this, nothing. Then tried the update, then steps 3 through 6, then did the reset location and privacy again after carefully doing Step1 from the correct logout area again, then rebooted, (step 3 method, except I didn’t wait till it restarted, just until it went black, then let go of the buttons. Then manually restarted) and am now back to full functioning iBook store! Likely dumb luck.
Robin
Also tried all of the above and still a blank screen
Tried all of the above and nothing has worked
As suggested, I reset location and privacy, and mine is now working! Thanks so much for the idea – I never would have thought of that on my own!
I am having same problem now. Tried all of these fixes and no luck. Can access iBooks via safari but can’t do anything like search an author. Any new ideas?
Same for me. Will have to buy books from Amazon!
None of the suggestions working for me either. iPad mini retina, updated to 9.3.3, hard restart, privacy/location options reset another hard reset… still nothing 🙁
It is working fine on my iPhone, but I want to access my purchased books on my iPad!
The problem still persists even though I have tried all the methods described in other posts: iBooks does not get to the store on an iPad mini even though it works on an iPhone or on an iPad Pro. Updating the software did not help. I therefore contacted the Apple helpline and asked for help. They suggested resetting all settings and waited while I did it; it still didn’t work. Finally, the help-line person, having consulted her supervisor, said that they thought that there was a problem with their server in the UK and told me to try again in a few hours. So one must conclude that it is a central Apple problem.
Tried all above, including resetting location and privacy.. Did not work for me. Still have blank screens on all but my books. I have an iPad Air 1 running 9.3.3. Ack! This is frustrating
Reset location and privacy: nope. Still busted
Nothing works on my iPad Air 2
A way around the problem.
Go to iTunes, search for iBooks, when it comes up, select any book and request sample, then hit store in top rh corner, takes you to iBooks, works for me.
Thanks for all the great advice! I’ll bookmark your site as a good reference. Being new to Apple, I recently bought an iPad Mini 2 as my main tablet and internet access and it works beautifully. That is, recently I had Safari crash that needed switching the settings and now the iBooks store blank for quite some time. It reinforces my trust in my reliable Android Moto X phone as go-anywhere always works in a pinch device. The main irritant for me is that the showstoppers I mentioned were not listed at Apple Support, but were listed as having no issues.
Tried above suggestions but still blank screen on all but my books
Mine still not working and I’ve tried everything.
I have tried all of the above suggestions with no success. I am running on an iPad Pro 9.7 with iOS 9.3.3. No problem with my iPhone 5C; no problem with my old iPad 2 running 9.3.3. On my iMac (El Capitan), all is well also, This is very annoying.
I followed all of the above steps to no avail. The last step with the reset location and privacy worked on both my iPad and iPad mini. Voila!
Done all of the above mentioned and still nothing.
Just bought 2 books from Amazon for my Kindle app on my iPad Air 2.
Thanks for the advice, tried it all to no avail. Great advice none the less, discovering iOS update 9.3.3. as a result. An irritant is that the iBook store unavailability for some users can remain so long and is not even listed on Apple Support to boot.
I tried everything quite a few times and still get blank screen and also get I have update for a book and can not do it because that is also a blank screen
This is what I found in another forum and it worked for me.
If you have iBooks open – close them.
Open them again and while little circle on top of iBooks left side (next to Wi-Fi bars) is spinning, (which indicates it’s loading the content) press Feature tab.
It should force the content of Feature tab to start loading.
Once it’s loaded all other tabs start working, but sometimes is reported that is working only until you go to back again to “My books” tab.
For me is still working even I go to My books and than I come back to any other tab.
I hope it helps !
Did all that and nothing!!!!
After trying all the other steps mentioned above with no changes, I finally reset my location and privacy and now it works! I guess I should have read farther down the comments first!
Tried everything suggested all to no avail. HOWEVER, just now — 1:10 pm ET — I tried it and, voila! It works. Prices are still substantially higher that on Kindle for iPad. Get with it Apple. Steve Jobs is probably turning in his grave. All in all, I’m happy and I hope and pray others have had their iBooks problem solved. Thanks, AppleTools.
Thank You Rich. We are glad that it is working for you. Thanks again for taking the time to share your comment. – AppleToolBox
I too have tried all of the above and nothing works! What is being done to fix the problem?
Discovered update IOS 9.3.3 available to install and having done that all is well
……….and is now not working again!!!!! Very frustrating !
I can fool it by going to iTunes, putting iBooks in the query and can get a free book that way. Still only loads blank page when trying to load free books from book bub and other free book sites. So leads me to believe it’s not an apple site issue??
I have tried all suggestions but nothing has worked. Please help. My problem started last night. I just assumed it would be fixed by morning. WRONG
Thanks SK at AppleToolBox. As stated earlier, I was very happy with my sudden good luck until I went back to iBooks on my iPad Air and the problem was back. Only my downloaded books open. What to do? Thanks! Is Apple doing anything about this?
Further to my previous report, I tried restarting my Airport Extreme. AND IT WORKED! Until I closed iBooks and re-opened it; blank screens again. So, I experimented with using the personal hotspot on my iPhone 5C. That did not work. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Same here. Tried all of the above but no luck.
I tried all of the suggestions above, and it only resulted in deleting the majority of books I already had. I had to re-sync with my computer just to get them back. I have an iPad Air 2 and still nothing but a blank screen when I try to go to the iBook Store. Extremely frustrating and time consuming.
Although that’s a nice quick force fix, they still need to figure out a per infant solution.
2 iPads – one iPad 4 and one iPad Air both running iOS 9.3.3. The Reset Location and Privacy clue worked on iPad 4 to show the bookstore again. iPad Air resolved itself after update from iOS 9.3.2.
The last tip on 7/22 (going through iTunes, search for a book, click sample, then click on store on the top Rd corner) worked for me. None of the rest did although the restart did work for me yesterday when this problem started only to have it not work again today. So try the tip from the 7/22 update.
Follow up to Chris’s suggestion – going to iTunes and searching for iBooks got me to free books but no further, still couldn’t get into the iBooks store. I tried searching for Books and was finally able to get to the iBooks store. Quite a run around but it will work until Apple fixes it.
I have an iPad Pro 9.7, and nonr of the above has helped. When I tried tapping the features button while the gear was still spinning, it worked. But then I closed the iBooks app and the screens went blank again when I reopened it. And now pressing the features or other icons while the gear is spinning doesn’t work, either.
I have the iPad Pro and I did as the author suggested and ‘ reset my location and privacy settings’ then shut down my iPad and restart. iBooks is back on as usual.
Just a side question, what happens when I reset my location and privacy?
Chris’s tip: after doing it (it brought up the iBook store) and then force-closing iBooks and restarting it, it worked. Thanks Chris!
Just reset my Apple ID through settings (second part of #1) and now iBooks is working, Tried everything earlier without success though.
Read through most of the above and tried pretty much everything, to no avail. On iPad Air. Any new suggestions come up, I’m all ears! What a pain in the ass!
Still have blank pages. Nothing works.
I have iPad Pro 9.7 and an iPad Mini 4. Both were fixed by just syncing with iTunes. I had the issue on my mini prior to updating to 9.3.3. I was reading issues with the iOS update 9.3.3 so I checked my pro and I saw the issue so I looked at mini, which hadn’t been updated, and it had the same issue with iOS 9.3.2. I’m not an iBook user so it wasn’t a big deal for me. I updated mini to 9.3.3. Found this thread of info and synced both to iTunes and issue seems to be resolved for me. Our iPhones weren’t affected.
Same problem on IPad Air 2 . Have tried all suggestions . Nothing works . Really frustrating .
Thanks Ezio. My Air Pad 2 now working.
Still nothing 🙁
Nothing changed. Still blank
Just now! Opened I Book app,….while the wheel was spinning, I pressed the ‘featured’ category down below, then pressed TOP CHARTS, & the store opened. Pressed top authors & that opened. Went back to Library, my books were there. Closed iBooks app, reopened & ALL WAS STILL OPENING. MY LIBRARY & STORE!!!! Yea!!! Hope it works. Good luck
Reset Location and Privacy and hey presto it worked! But I don’t get the NYT logo at the bottom, it just looks same old.
Tried everything in the list on my iPad Pro and was still getting the problem. Contacted apple support and everything they suggested didn’t fix it either. Was looking at the iBooks section in settings to get the version number for submitting feedback to Apple. Saw all the options listed for iBooks, so tried toggling all the options in the iBooks settings to off. This fixed it for me (still works after toggling everything in settings back to what it was before).
iBooks store is working on my iPad this morning. 7/23/16
ibooks has blanks screens except for my books on iPad Air 2 and iPad mini after updating to IOS 9.3.3. Tried many of the above suggestion with no positive results.
IBooks store is now working on my iPad today (23/7/16) too
I had this same problem. I turned off iCloud and it works fine now.
iBooks working fine now
Another success story from one who commented earlier. For whatever reason, it iBooks works this evening ( though it wasn’t working this morning).
Did all of the above without success
Eventually reset privacy and location/downloaded a sample from the store then did the hard reset and it’s working !!!!
If you can’t be good – be lucky
Today mine is magically working. I didn’t do anything. I guess (??) Apple fixed it?
Tried all of the above actions many times, since July 19th, with no fix. But, tried a hard reset (Home and Off/On button at the same time) this afternoon, July 24th at 1:30 pm (PDT), and iBooks, on my iPad 2 Air, now works as expected. Don’t know if this is dumb luck or if Apple actually determined the source of the problem and fixed it. If anyone still has this problem now, I’ll assume it was dumb luck and Apple hasn’t a clue after five days.
Resident of UK. Same problems as above – installed 9.3.3, pressed and held Wake/sleep.
After reboot all OK. (29th. July 2016)
iBooks won’t let me buy after checking out a sample. Also when I go to the other tabs I get a white screen. Can only see the books in my library