iPhone / iPad Screen Not Rotating? Here’s How to Fix Stuck Screen Rotation

Is your iPhone or iPad’s screen stuck in landscape or portrait mode while using a particular app? Or perhaps, you’re unable to switch between the orientations no matter what you do on your device? This issue is not exactly uncommon, but it’s frustrating, and fortunately, it’s very minor and pretty easy to fix.

Switching between Landscape mode and Portrait mode is common behavior on iPhone and iPad. Entering landscape view or portrait orientation on iPhones and iPads is routine, but technically speaking the feature is limited to supported apps, and that alone can be an issue. If you often make use of this feature while browsing the web, reading, or anything else really, you may have sometimes faced an issue where your screen is stuck in a particular orientation and you’re unable to get it back to the original state without rebooting your device. That’s less than ideal, so whether the issue is with a particular app or a minor glitch related to the iOS/iPadOS firmware that’s installed, we’re looking to troubleshoot the problem and resolve stuck screen rotation on your iPhone or iPad.

Troubleshooting & Fixing Stuck Screen Rotation on iPhone & iPad

Before you go ahead and turn your iPhone off and iPhone on to fix this issue, there are a couple of things that you can check or try. Let’s see what they are:

Check if Portrait Orientation Lock is OFF

If you cannot switch to landscape view across multiple apps or you’re unable to enter landscape mode from the home screen on an iPhone Plus model, there’s a chance that the orientation has been accidentally locked. This is a feature that locks the orientation to Portrait mode once enabled, and it comes in handy when you are lying down and using your iPhone.

You can access the Portrait Orientation Lock from the iOS/iPadOS Control Center. Swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen to bring up the Control Center (or swipe up from the bottom on iPhones with Touch ID) and check if the lock toggle isn’t highlighted in red.

Force Quit the App

Screen rotation issues are more prominent while using specific apps on your iPhone. Sometimes, your screen gets stuck in landscape mode and it just doesn’t go switch back to Portrait when you rotate your iPhone. If you’re facing this issue, you don’t have the restart your iPhone right away. Instead, you can force close the app which should fix the issue in most cases.

If you’re not sure how to do this, you need to access the App Switcher first. Slow drag your finger from the bottom of your screen and let go to bring up the App Switcher on your screen. Now, simply swipe up on the affected app to force close it. Now, relaunch the app and you’ll see that it opens in Portrait mode.

Reboot Your iPhone

If neither of the above methods helped your issue in any way, you can of course go ahead and restart your iPhone. At this point, it’s likely that the issue is rather firmware-related or just iOS being glitchy in general, both of which can be typically resolved with a quick reboot.

To restart an iPhone or iPad with Face ID, simply press and hold the side button and volume up button on your device to bring up the shutdown menu. Now simply use the slider to power off your iPhone. You can turn it back on by holding the side/power button again. On iPhones & iPads with physical home buttons, all you need to do is long-press the power button to access the shutdown screen.

As long as you’ve followed all these troubleshooting steps correctly, you should be able to rotate your device’s screen to the intended orientation.

However, if you’re still unable to enter landscape mode on a particular app that you use on your iPhone or iPad for some reason, you’ll need to check if the app actually supports landscape orientation. A lot of apps do not support landscape mode on iPhones, so make sure this is not the reason why you’re unable to switch the orientation within the app.

In extremely rare cases, the issue may still persist, and if you’re one of those unlucky users who’re affected, you can reset your iOS/iPadOS settings. Don’t worry, the data stored on your iPhone and iPad won’t be erased during this process. Head over to Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Settings. Although this only erases the system settings, but consider this as a last resort method.

Also, try updating your iPhone or iPad if a new software update is available. Most often, if the issue is due to a buggy app or problem with iOS, then developers or Apple are quick to push out a hotfix after several reports. As long as your device is running on the latest possible firmware, you should be fine with all the other steps we discussed.

Hopefully, you were able to resolve the screen rotation issues that you were facing on your iPhone and iPad. Which method worked for you? Did you find another solution to the portrait or landscape orientation issue with your device? Share your experiences and leave any relevant opinions in the comments section down below.