Hi guys. I know many of you have had touchscreen problems and whatnot, i searched but it seems like this one is a bit different from usual. Yesterday the phone was totally fine; i woke up this morning and it had a lot of touchscreen problems: at first it registered touches without me doing anything, but after a couple of reboots it was just unresponsive. After another reboot and some messagging, the problem reduced to a strip on the screen simply not working. The strip is located exactly where the first notification on the status bar is (like when you receive a message and you click on that notification). I have the trueancestor stats bar buttons, so that zone is a tad more down than usual. Anyway, all I did yesterday was a quick game. I think it may be the flex cable not working because of the sliding, but it happened all of a sudden, not gradually. I must say that some weeks ago I had the same "registers touches by itself" issue when typing, but a simple reboot was enough. I tried doing factory reset, but nothing so far. Also I can't use pc companion to flash everything stock back (I unlocked bootloader months ago, even though I relocked it; I dunno if it's locked or not right now), and I can't seem to find a working flashtool download link -_-. I don't think that would help much, it probably is a hardware problem, but who knows. I'm on true ancestor 1.6 LE, stock kernel.
Any help would be great, as I fear the phone will get refused in assistance because of bootloader unlocking.
Did your phone had contact with water? When my screen had contact with water it registered touches randomly.
it didn't. it has a screen protector anyway; but that's not the problem for sure. it doesn't register randomly, simply a strip doesn't work now...
Hardware problem. Could be flex cable or digitizer.
Today there were two moments it began to work again, but a few minutes after each one the problem came back. Sigh...
Mine does that when the screen is moist or my hands are too oily. Are you sure you're working in a dry environment?
mhh... exactly that? I dunno, my hands are dry and i think the screen is too; it has a quite thick screen protector (the skinomi one), so even if it got moist that shouldn't be a problem, right? I'm now living in a different town and that may have changed something, but the problem didn't show up until now, and it was sudden.
Also, I noticed that using gamekeyboard on a certain profile I had buttons placed on the strip, and pressing hardware keys mapped to those buttons actually works. This restricts the problem just to the actual finger-touch-detecting mechanism. Does anyone know anything about this?
Edit: lol I heated the phone up a bit with a hair dryer. It works now. I hope it will last and I'll not have to do this again over and over
Related
Don't know if anyone else is experiencing this with their Play but as of a week or two ago the backlight started acting strange. The backlight will randomly stay off when I push the power button with the slider gamepad closed. Only way to make it come on is to pop out the slider. It seems to be random, and if I push on the slider edge slightly with my thumb with the slider closed the backlight randomly flickers, ranging from slight to severe.
The display is still working despite the backlight issues, I can open apps, and use the phone normally but the backlight flickers on and off. Makes it especially hard to use the phone in the dark.
Phone has never been dropped once.
I've replicated this problem with a variety of roms, both custom and stock. It's definitely not app related or even custom kernel related. It happens on a fresh wipe with stock rom with stock kernel. It happens on CM7 with custom kernel.
I'm curious if anybody else is experiencing this. It would tell me if it's just an isolated incident or if others are having this problem.
Sounds like a faulty connection to the backlight to me.
I had the same problem 2 days ago. Then I couldn't get my phone screen on at all!
I sent my phone back to Sony, even thought I bought it second hand. Phoned them up and talked to them. They asked what time of year I bought it so I said around August and then they gave me the address to send it to. Now I'm just waiting to see what happens next.
If your going to send your phone to Sony for repair then make sure you put the fresh firmware back on and un-root your phone as that breaks the warranty (unless they don't know about it)
Hope I helped you. If I did then click the thanks button
Sounds like a faulty ribbon cable to me. (cable that connects the screen to the rest of the phone)
You wouldn't need to drop it for that to go bad, It could just be a case of opening and closing the gamepad or lot.
Yeah good thoughts, most likely the ribbon. That really sucks because I've only had the phone for 7 months, and I've taken excellent care of it. Sounds like a major design oversight.
Mine is probably near complete failure at this point. It's taking a lot more effort to keep the screen on now. Fearing soon it won't work at all.
In hopes that this might help someone else down the line, I was able to fix my problem. Yesterday the screen pretty much quit and I had no choice but to try and solve it myself or buy a new phone.
Using this disassembly video as a visual aid I carefully pulled my phone apart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3n5ZfkqhzE
You'll need a torx T5 tool to pull out all the screws but they are cheap.
Underneath the phone and jammed into the screen ribbon was a rather thick hair just hanging out. Somehow it buried itself in there. I removed it, unplugged and replugged the screen ribbon and cleaned the dusty inside with a q-tip and reassembled it all together.
It works fine now, so hopefully this helps someone else avoid having to pony up for a new phone. For those under warranty probably best to send back but for those like me with no warranty it's worth the shot.
Hello everyone,
Basically went to unlock my phone today and touch screen is not responding, however the hardware buttons work fine. Now i've done some research and found other posts of people with the same problem, however their touchscreen problems seem to be fixed(temporarily, at least) with a battery pull.. mine however is still unresponsive after half a day and multiple battery pulls.
Id rather not have to send in for certified to replace an otherwise perfectly working phone.
Any ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
bigdeezer20 said:
Hello everyone,
Basically went to unlock my phone today and touch screen is not responding, however the hardware buttons work fine. Now i've done some research and found other posts of people with the same problem, however their touchscreen problems seem to be fixed(temporarily, at least) with a battery pull.. mine however is still unresponsive after half a day and multiple battery pulls.
Id rather not have to send in for certified to replace an otherwise perfectly working phone.
Any ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
are u undervolting?
Nope, sorry forgot to say. Completely stock never unlocked or rooted.
Also i tried getting into recovery to try and do a factory reset but when i select recovery i just get the android on his back with the red triangle..
so instead i just went through the steps and unlocked the bootloader and booted up (in order to give me the factory reset without having to touch the screen)
It unlocked and booted up fine but still no response..
No new recent app installed and never had this happen before.
Mine did this after a few days of owning it, and luckily the store took it back and swapped it out with a perfectly working unit. Is yours within a few weeks of purchase?
Figured this out randomly. Remove battery cover. With phone turned on, press on the area to the to the left of the camera lens until the screen is responsive. My screen becomes unresponsive when the phone is dropped and this fixes it.
dailong said:
Figured this out randomly. Remove battery cover. With phone turned on, press on the area to the to the left of the camera lens until the screen is responsive. My screen becomes unresponsive when the phone is dropped and this fixes it.
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Click to collapse
hrmm this does not seem to fix either. I also have never dropped my phone, although this seems to be worrisome if the issue is hardware related.
@ tmellen i purchased the phone from amazon and am a few days past my return date :-/
Guess ill just give them a call and hope for the best. Thanks for the ideas everyone.
(update) called amazon and they are sending me a brand new phone.
Knowing this i thought i'd try dailong's method again only this time i was quite a bit more "rough" with pressing down on that area, and it actually worked!
Ill still be taking the new phone once it gets here but for anyone who is having this problem there's a sweet spot on the left edge of the phone towards the top (looking at it with the back cover off) there should be a circle shape. press on that area really hard and it should fix.. weird
Experienced the same on my GSM version a few minutes ago. I had to call my mobile to get it to respond. After that it worked again as normal. I'll see if I get this issue again in the next few days. Hope it's just random
Had the same happen earlier to mine and I was on AOKP. I've had this happen to other phone before, shouldn't be a a cause for alarm unless it happens very frequently. Btw, next time it happens to me I'll give that left side of the camera trick a try.
mine got fixed by removing battery.
Hi everyone,
I've had my Desire Z for little over 2 years now and two months ago (was running CM7.2 at the time) I started getting a weird issue where my touchscreen would only be responsive when the keyboard was slid out (so the opposite problem of what quite a few other people have reported where the touchscreen becomes unresponsive when the keyboard is out). The status LED would also stay off whenever the keyboard was closed, and the keyboard backlight didn't come on anymore at all. Also, I had to make sure that the keyboard was slid out during boot, if the phone booted without the keyboard out the screen would not become responsive at all until after another reboot. My earpiece speaker stopped working around the same time so I was wondering whether it was just an issue with the flex cable becoming a bit loose, but the touchscreen would consistently start working again when I flipped the keyboard out, and also the physical scroll button on the top bit would always work, so I was still hoping it would be some weird software issue.
I then upgraded to Flinny's (amazing) Andromadus ROM (build 22, complete data+dalvik wipe) after which the keyboard backlight started working again, but the rest remained pretty much the same. Since then the touchscreen issues have been getting worse, so that I sometimes have to flip the keyboard in and out again a few times, or turn the screen on or off with the power button several times before it becomes responsive again, but then it tends to work fine until I lock the screen again, with no noticeable dead spots anywhere on the screen. I've had days where it worked all day without problems (except having to flip out the keyboard, that's been a constant for the past two months), and then today I haven't been able to get the screen to do anything at all even after dozens of reboots.
I've already bought a new digitizer and am all ready to put it in (I'll have to replace the broken earpiece anyway), but was wondering whether anyone has any thoughts on whether it could still be a software issue after all, or if anyone has experienced anything similar? The thing with having to flip the keyboard out to get not only the touchscreen but also the status LED to work is just so weird and makes me doubt that it's a pure broken digitizer or lose flex cable issue, so I'm wondering whether it would be better to first try reverting to a stock ROM before taking on the messy sticky glue stuff (I should be fine but still, never done it before)?
Many thanks!
From what you describe my best guess would be the main flex cable is what needs to be replaced. Flash a touch based recovery and see if you have the issue there as well, if so its very unlikely that its anything but a hardware fault
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
Thanks for the heads-up, I've been playing around a bit more with software and I do manage to get the screen working again occasionally, typically after the second boot into a newly flashed ROM or restoring a backup, and only until one or two reboots later when it becomes completely unresponsive again. I've tried CM 7.2.0 as well as Flinny's Andromadus 10, and it is only complete flashing that does the trick, cache wipe or factory reset alone does nothing. The two occasions where the touchscreen worked were still limited to when the keyboard was flipped out, and it also had to be flipped out during boot, otherwise nothing would work. I've learned to navigate my way around the phone by just using the hardware navigation button, but I'll have a close look at the flex cable when I take it apart to replace the earpiece speaker tonight...
Hello,
so I took my dear phone apart yesterday to replace the broken earpiece - everything went fine but after reassembly the replacement earpiece isn't working either, which leads me to think that all those little broken bits might actually be related to some contacts being a bit lose, all in the same region. Should've thought about that earlier really since the earpiece and the LED (only works when keyboard flipped out) are both in that top region that the digitiser data presumable also has to run through before passing through the flex cable.
In any case, I also took a picture of the flex cable which is slightly bent but doesn't seem straightforwardly damaged (see attachment, that thing on the right is *not* a rip). Think it's worth trying to replace it anyway?
What was truly bizarre is that after the first boot following reassembly the touchscreen worked quite consistently for the entire evening - I thought I might've fixed a lose contact by un- and replugging the digitiser cable, but then the screen went nonreactive again at some point. I wonder if the working screen was again actually related to some software reset caused by the battery being taken out for so long? In the meantime the actual screen and trackball are still working away perfectly. Bizarre.
Just to let people know the solution to the mystery: the increasingly odd behaviour was actually caused by an initially small rip in the flex ribbon cable that got bigger and bigger - it's actually half-visible in the picture I uploaded above, only that the rip is where the cable comes out from underneath the case, and not where it's wrinkled!
Just in case it could be useful for anyone, here's the (top half of phone) components in the order in which they failed on me, which I guess corresponds to the order of the respective data lines in the ribbon cable (from the top of the phone towards the center):
environment brightness sensor (I thought that the sensor had been broken for almost a year, but as soon as I rebooted with the new flex cable I noticed how my phone stopped shining into my face at full brightness - if your brightness sensor gets stuck reporting the same (low) value this means your flex cable is on its way out!)
earpiece speaker
status led
touchscreen
screen (non-alignment with edge of screen, visual artefacts)
screen (fade to black/power interrupt)
obstacle3 said:
Just to let people know the solution to the mystery: the increasingly odd behaviour was actually caused by an initially small rip in the flex ribbon cable that got bigger and bigger - it's actually half-visible in the picture I uploaded above, only that the rip is where the cable comes out from underneath the case, and not where it's wrinkled!
Just in case it could be useful for anyone, here's the (top half of phone) components in the order in which they failed on me, which I guess corresponds to the order of the respective data lines in the ribbon cable (from the top of the phone towards the center):
environment brightness sensor (I thought that the sensor had been broken for almost a year, but as soon as I rebooted with the new flex cable I noticed how my phone stopped shining into my face at full brightness - if your brightness sensor gets stuck reporting the same (low) value this means your flex cable is on its way out!)
earpiece speaker
status led
touchscreen
screen (non-alignment with edge of screen, visual artefacts)
screen (fade to black/power interrupt)
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Click to collapse
I'll for sure keep that in mind. Mine is still going strong for the time being, but it's good to know some warning signs if I need to replace parts or if it's time to get a new phone
fireball0093 said:
I'll for sure keep that in mind. Mine is still going strong for the time being, but it's good to know some warning signs if I need to replace parts or if it's time to get a new phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Replacement parts all the way, the repair was 15$ and it feels as good as new! Well, it could do with a new battery but that's just another 5..
Just realised that the proximity sensor should actually be added to the very top of the list - just noticed that faint red light when taking a phone call, don't remember seeing that in almost a year :]
obstacle3 said:
Replacement parts all the way, the repair was 15$ and it feels as good as new! Well, it could do with a new battery but that's just another 5..
Just realised that the proximity sensor should actually be added to the very top of the list - just noticed that faint red light when taking a phone call, don't remember seeing that in almost a year :]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not a bad cost at all. I know I'm going to have to replace my keyboard in probably 2 months or so (maybe sooner) because some buttons are starting to not work. Other than that fact my phone is currently still going strong for being going on a 3 and a half year old phone
So during my holiday my HOX got splashed with a bit of water from a wave. The battery was running on fumes and, when I looked at it, the phone was dead. It did turned on later while in my pocket and I happened to press the power button.
I let it dry on rice and nothing. I made the potential mistake of trying to charge it so it would heat up and it wouldn't charge. I then bought another mobile and, just to try it, I took opened the HOX and hoovered. Nothing.
Miracle happened yesterday when, just for kicks, I tried the charger again. It power up!! Everything seems fine, no visible screen damage, wifi works, everything works just fine but... screen won't respond to touch on the very bottom, say, the capacitive and menu buttons (the ones just above the capacitive ones).
What do you guys think? Is the screen dead there, maybe I didn't put the screen back properly or should I wait as some moister might yet be there?
Cheers!
Kutusov said:
So during my holiday my HOX got splashed with a bit of water from a wave. The battery was running on fumes and, when I looked at it, the phone was dead. It did turned on later while in my pocket and I happened to press the power button.
I let it dry on rice and nothing. I made the potential mistake of trying to charge it so it would heat up and it wouldn't charge. I then bought another mobile and, just to try it, I took opened the HOX and hoovered. Nothing.
Miracle happened yesterday when, just for kicks, I tried the charger again. It power up!! Everything seems fine, no visible screen damage, wifi works, everything works just fine but... screen won't respond to touch on the very bottom, say, the capacitive and menu buttons (the ones just above the capacitive ones).
What do you guys think? Is the screen dead there, maybe I didn't put the screen back properly or should I wait as some moister might yet be there?
Cheers!
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Click to collapse
This is a flashback to me. Same thing happened to me few weeks ago - first 3 bottom buttons stoped working, and now 7 days ago part of touch screen is not working anymore. I am going to replace lcd+digitizer+frame, lucky me nothing else need to be fixed. And IMHO trying to heat closed HTC when water was in it doesn't make a sense as a water will condense (as it is closed) so it would make more damage. Oxidation sucks :/
I do have the SIM slot opened but yeah, that's a tinny opening, not much space for water vapour to escape... it's been a few weeks since I thought it had died though, it's pretty amazing to me that it came back at all. Some tough phones, these...
Anyway, I think I'll try to take the screen out again, I wasn't too careful putting it back in because I saw it wasn't charging or powering up or anything at all.
So, initially I began having problems with "ghost touching", then, portions of my screen became unresponsive to touch in addition to the "ghost touching". I did the line drawing test multiple times. At times, it showed a dead space to the right (vertically only, horizontal was ok), other times, it was working fine. I was so focused on checking the right side of the screen, I didn't check the bottom. When I did, it showed an unresponsive area at the bottom as well. Almost as if the screen was off kilter. I did a factory reset through the normal phone menu and from TWRP and the ghost touching has seemed to resolve itself, however, the unresponsive screen is getting worse. Now a full 1/3 of the screen on the right is intermittently unresponsive.
I am hoping there is something I can flash on this phone that might assist the digitizer if it is software related. If not, could it be that the cable is not grounded properly or has possibly become partly unplugged? I know what a pain this phone is to take apart because I had to take my first M8 apart when I accidentally gave it a ride home in a cup of tea. (really tired after working one night, forgot the cup was in the cup holder). Turns out they really don't like that. My current M8 I bought from a private seller, so I have no warranty, no insurance and extremely limited funds at the moment for handling this problem. I've had this replacement phone for several months, so I know the phone wasn't defective when I got it.
I am rooted, running stock ROM, stock kernel and TWRP Recovery v2.7.0.2
Thank you in advance for any help.