Related
(I posted this first in the Desire Z forum. I didn't realize there was a separate G2 forum. I even looked for it.)
I've had my G2 since the 9/29 and on several occasions I've noticed the trackpad triggering itself when my finger is no where near it.
Once, I was in the market looking at a list of apps. Normally, when you swipe on the trackpad in there it selects an application and highlights it orange. This randomly happened all by itself. If I touch the screen the selection goes away, but then it would suddenly appear again a few seconds later.
In Subsonic it even jumped around between a few controls.
Another time I was playing Wordfeud and it spontaneously highlighted the Pass button. This time I grabbed my old G1 to shoot video of it happening. I must have shot at least 10 minutes of video and it happened twice more, as I recall.
Update: Here's a video of it happening on the home screen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9-Yu4DSimw
Anyone else have this problem? I can't reproduce it at will. It seems to happen randomly while I'm holding the phone.
naw, but i've noticed my trackpad will occasionally bring my display back to life when it's timed out - will not do it predictably, but 2-3 times out of 10 tries, it will
have no idea what's going on, but would love to be able to use it to wake the phone up - much easier than using the power button
Hmmm, I have my phone plugged in via USB right now. I have debugging turned on, and "keep screen on" enabled. So it sits there dimly lit after 2 minutes. I was going to leave it alone and see if the trackpad spontaneously moves when I'm not holding the phone.
So far it has not, but just now the screen lit back up to full brightness all by itself. This normally happens when you touch the screen, a button, or the trackpad.
In all previous cases of my bug, I was holding the phone. I heard that the trackpad is capacitive, just like the screen, so maybe holding the phone a certain way can mess with it, but sitting on a desk it won't. If I let the phone sit here long enough, maybe I can refute that idea. If a home screen icon suddenly becomes selected, I'll know that it can happen even when I'm not touching the phone.
In any case, I can't explain why my screen woke back up from being dim.
Yea the touch stuff is set off by heat so maybe it felt some heat from somewhere and thought that you touched it. Thats about all i can think of on that one.
I'm pretty sure it's triggered by electrical capacitance, not by heat. It's either optical or by capacitance (and I heard it's not optical). I don't think any sensors like this use a heat detection mechanism.
To test this, you should be able to hold something cold with a similar capacitance as your skin, like a cold hot dog, and operate the trackpad using it.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitive_sensing
Yes , I noticed mine doing the same thing. If my finger were to hover anywhere near the trackpad it would flash and move around. It doesnt happen all the time but it has happened. I also have had some issues with the sim card and memory card not being read. The memory card I had to put it on my pc transfer all the data, re format and scan the card then reinstall my data to the card. Which has fixed the issue. I suspect a download from the market may have corrupted my memory card.
G2 running stock 2.2
My_touch Slide
rooted
2.2 Cyanogen 6.0 kanged
As promised, here's a video of it happening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9-Yu4DSimw
So, at first I thought the trackpad was optical, but someone on reddit assertively said, "no, it's capacitive." So I believed him. But now I think he's wrong.
I believe that if the trackpad is capacitive like the touchscreen, then anything that can interact with the trackpad can also interact with the touchscreen. I used a piece of cloth to interact with the touchpad and it did not interact with the touchscreen.
Here's a video I just made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYaSzwZGlvY
(Shot with my G1) The cloth easily moves the trackpad around, but it's impossible to get it to register a touch on the screen.
Also, the trackpad is perfectly usable even when your finger is completely covering it. Try it with your thumb even. You can completely cover it then still move around your thumb and your selection will move around. I do not believe a capacitive device would detect the difference between full contact on one place on your thumb and full contact on a different part of your thumb, and especially not the direction of change as you move it. Capacitive touch screens rely on moving the point of skin contact, which never happens if you're touching the whole thing at once. An optical sensor on the other hand would be seeing your fingerprint move.
Thirdly, when you look at the trackpad in direct light, it looks like dark, transparent, purple plastic. I believe it's transparent yet purple because the wavelength of light it emits can go through the plastic, but is not visible light. Infrared maybe? Ultraviolet? I think it's very similar to the "black" CDs for the original Playsation gaming console. They were actually very, very dark purple but that was completely transparent to the CD player.
See a photo: http://i.imgur.com/SpIIZ.jpg
Fourth, I can't get this bug to happen if I hold the phone perfectly still. It only seems to happen when I move it around in my hand. I think the sensor is "seeing" movement when I do that.
And here's the proverbial nail in the coffin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOQukQxwajg
Electrical tape doesn't stop a capacitive touch screen, but it renders the trackpad useless.
It's probably a simple IR LED and photodiode operating in much the same way an optical mouse operates. One way you could check is to point an old camcorder at the trackpad. Old camcorders tend to have weak or no IR filters.
jashsu said:
It's probably a simple IR LED and photodiode operating in much the same way an optical mouse operates. One way you could check is to point an old camcorder at the trackpad. Old camcorders tend to have weak or no IR filters.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My old G1's camera has no problem seeing the IR from my TV's remote, but it detects nothing coming from the trackpad. However, the remote is designed to reach a lot further than the trackpad, so maybe the trackpad's LED is just very dim.
I don't have anything else to test it with.
yes, i have had this problem!!...it did it on my home screen, just starts switch home screens left and right...this was like two days ago...it hasn't done it since,still debating if i should get a new phone
The trackpad is optical/IR. It responds to infrared. If you go out on a sunny day, your trackpad will go wild. The new blackberrys have the same problem. I really do not think there is a fix, and it's pretty annoying. I've owned a Blackberry 9700 since January and I never could find a way around this, no matter what sensitivity setting I had it on or how much I updated the OS.
I've noticed the same thing with the G2.. in sunlight, the cursor goes crazy.
If there were ever any sun in Rochester, NY I would test this. I assume It's only a problem if the phone itself is in direct sunlight. Is the the case? So, if I shield it with my own shadow I'd be ok?
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
I just noticed this with my G2, kind of annoying, ha. So I experimented and found that nothing happens while holding the phone still or while it sits on the desk, or with the room's light off. But, if I tilt it around with the light on, it acts up.
I think it's detecting the light behind me.
i think its kinda cool. doesnt bother me cuz it makes my phone feel.... alive in a sense. but it is very light sensitive. im freaking loving this phone. not a single complaint
Last night I was out and during the night I pulled my desire z out of my pocket to find that the screen was dead, the soft touch buttons were still lit up and working but no display. I pulled the battery and tried to reboot and no luck, you can hear it booting and even unlock/receive calls and txts etc once it has booted up just the screen stays blank the whole time so have to do everything on feel.
Essentially does this just mean my screen has a hardware fault? is it worth trying to fix? I assume the only option would be to purchase a replacement screen and dissemble and reassemble it?
(warranty is not worth it as I live in New Zealand and would have to send my phone back to the UK where I bought it from, also I have dropped it quite a few times so probably voided anyway...)
Thanks in advance for any input
Does it never display anything? So not even a flash during boot or something?
Because then it is probably a hardware problem.
Since the soft touch buttons do still work I think there might be a little crack or something in the flat cable that connects the bottom half with the top.
Maybe you could check whether you can see if the cable is broken or not?
The best thing to do then is to look for a replacement and try to fix it yourself or bring it to a shop where they can do it for you.
No it never displays anything, completely dead the whole time. The touch input is still working though as I answered a phone call this morning on it by making the usual gesture just without being able to see anything. Doesnt seem to be anything wrong with the cable itself as far as I can see. Yea might have to get someone to have a look at it.
My phone is acting the same. I dropped my phone in the pond before, but pulled battery out on time and had it in rice for a day. My phone was still working for about two weeks after that incident. I dropped it and had one little crack at the top of the screen and about a week after that it died when I had a water balloon fight with the phone in my pocket. D;
Do any of you know if the replacement lcd screen/digitizer for the Desire Z would work for the G2?
I had the same thing happening to my G2 screen, only it was intermittently working for a little while, then just completely died and wouldn't work. It was doing this crazy flickering thing then the back light wouldn't go on at all. If I held the phone at a certain angle in the sun, I could see that the pixels were indeed working on the display, but there was no backlight to make them normally visible.
So I purchased a replacement screen from ebay and carefully followed the directions on a youtube video for a G2 take apart. Its not a hard task to take apart and get down to the screen itself. It was rather easy. After putting it back together the screen still didn't work! Sounds work, i can also receive calls etc. But the screen still doesn't work!
Is there any way that this could be a software issue?
Oh and PS, I believe the LCD replacement would work for both the desire Z and the G2. They are identical phones after all right? I'd say its a safe bet. The screen I bought was only 35 bucks. Didn't think that was a bad deal.
Another dead screen or something else?
Few days ago my phone fell of the couch onto a rug - no big deal, so far it has survived much worse, but when I picked it up, the colors were all messed up - overly green and red. Tried restarting - no luck. Everything worked fine, except the colors, but then the screen turned of completely. I could hear notifications, phonecalls, but the screen was dead. After some tapping on the screen, it turned on again - with ****ed up colors. Then started flickering and was gone again. Few more times I could turn it on by tapping before it was dead for good.
Figured, after all these drops it survived, maybe the screen connector is a bit loose. I mean, I could sometime get a contact when tapping it, so I dissasambled it completely, secured all the connection, put it all back tougether and fired up - same thing: dead screen, phone working.
Has anyone had such problem before? Is it screen that is dead, or connector or... I have no clue... I would like try to fix it on my own, with some replacement parts I could get on ebay - but, what gave?
My Desire Z had a fall, and has developed two problems
1 - The hardware keypad has started to take hard-press and sometimes prints double characters on single press. I think the alignment is out or something... any other guess ?
2 - The touch screen sometimes stops working from an inch up from the bottom and continues to half an inch. Before and after that patch, the touch always works fine . Mostly, the whole touch screen works fine. But when the patch gets non-responsive, I have observed that by turning the screen off and on a couple of times makes it work again. I am not very sure what the problem is. Any clues ?
Thanks
I'm also experiencing a similar issue - for me it's usually an area that corresponds to the top row of the
on-screen keypad (for unlocking) or the top of the area for unlock patterns (portrait orientation).
Mine is a 2 year old DZ w. Cyanogenmod 7.1
No HW key problems & no droppage.
Liberal application of isopropyl alcohol and a microfiber cloth - especially around the edges of the screen
seem to help a little bit but not often enough to be better than random.
Switching the screen off and on occasionally helps but most often I get annoyed and use the HW keys to
unlock.
I have noticed that, after powering on the device, the SIM-lock keypad works just fine but the (different)
screen-unlock keypad fails. This leads me to believe it to be a software issue.
/b
I have had this experience on my G2
No fix for me but his my experience check out the url!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=31264095
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium
Thread moved to Q & A section.
So i am going for Digitizer replacement will post the result when the phone is back.
And what about the Keypad taking hardpresses ? what can be the issue there ?
so my desire z is in the shop for repairs. lets see what problem is diagnosed.
I have read in another thread in this forum that the hardware keyboard (need to press hard on some buttons) issue can happen when the phone falls.
Apparently, the flat cable that connects the keyboard to the rest of the phone gets loose and causes such trouble.
Since your phone is in for repair, I'm sure this will get sorted when U get it back.
ok so my phone got back from repairs, the guy couldnt fix the touch-screen rather made it worse. Now the touchscreen doesnt work at all. So i cant unlock the phone and cannot test the Keyboard problem. The guy said the touch problem is related to the ribbon cable and not the touchscreen itself.
Note 1: He says he tried replacing the touch panel altogether but it didnt work.
Note 2: I still think the ribbon is fine (call it intuition)
Note 3: I am giving my phone for repairs again, but this time to HTC service center which would probably cost me a lot more than third-party repairs but at least it will get fixed.
I will update when I my phone back from HTC service center.
Could you not unlock the phone by opening the keyboard ?
It does smell to be an issue with flat (ribbon) cable to me as well. As if there was some loose contact before (caused by you dropping it), and after the repair guy took the phone apart, he probably made even bigger mess by ruining the flat cable completely.
From my experience (and I've claimed warranty 3x for the broken digitizer (touch panel)), if it's broken, an area of the screen (or the whole screen) will be permanently dead. It would not come back to life every now and then.
btw, mine always started being unresponsive in the very middle of the screen, a bar of height around 1 cm (somewhat less than 1/2 inch). Each time they replaced the digitizer.
If it;s the flat cable, you shouldn't end up being charged too much - those thingies are very cheap (in China) and the labour will probably be the majority of the price. Fingers crossed.
So I got my phone back again... The HTC repair center was not located in my city so I went to another (better known) repair shop. The guy said, "your phone hasnt been opened at all from the touchscreen side, any *repair guy* who claims he has opened it and tried this and that but couldnt fix is simply lying. This said, he opened up my desire z replaced its Touch Panel and voilah! my desire z is sensing again in 15 mins
What's the status for the keypad and need to press it hard to work ?
nope... I had it cleaned using alcohol / thinner. now it works fine.
So, I updated to CM 7.2 last night but the touchscreen problems are still there.
Updated using CWM and deleted data & cache whilst doing so.
I really hate the prospect of getting a new phone as the current models available
in DK are all without physical keyboards
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)
Click to expand...
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
It's been exactly a year since i have first booted my phone up, and about a month and a half ago, the touch had started acting up, and soon, the middle horizontal strip had gone dead, and other regions followed, and now the touch is completely dead. I can't give it for warranty because, a, I live in India and the phone's from UAE, probably Dubai, and b, it would take a long time. I've heard that that's a digitizer issue. Does anyone know of a good seller for digitizers in a website like aliexpress? I mean just the digitizer. the whole display unit is too expensive and unnecessary. My display is still intact. No physical damage to screen whatsoever, except the one time I pressed really hard on the screen, after the problem had gotten worse(no cracks, but I did see the effect you get when you press on an lcd laptop screen on the phone when I pressed) .
someone pleeeeeaasssseeeeee aannnnnnsssswwwwweeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr!