Originally Posted by MPH1980

I can offer a couple of tips because my passport is also a 2016 issue. There's something up with the passport page that means it rides back on itself as you try to put it flat in the machine.

As you put it - grab both sides of it near the middle of the passport, but hold tight to the page with the photo. As you slide it in - take one hand off and push with that hand - keep holding with the other until you can't hold it any further, then finally push forward. It'll help stop the page rolling back.

You can tell I've developed a fine technique with this.

The issue seems to be that the machine readable bit at the bottom can move out of range of the scanner, or get twisted somehow so it doesn't read it. I have less of a problem with the egates than I do with the US border machines (both GE and ESTA) - but it does happen.

My kids' passport (issued a few months after) doesn't have this problem, so I think it's a certain batch/design had it.