ginghis

Has anyone had this problem? Is there a fix? I did not take the insurance,can I exchange my motorola droid?
The past few days the phone was acting up..As if a ghost was thumbing thru the phone????!!!!
It's like an invisible person is playing with the functions and touch screen......
I swipe the lock off and the phone just goes off on it's own,I can't control the thing......
Dialing numbers,browsing the web,enters my settings,changing settings....
CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I went as far as to do a master reset of the phone and it still continues. On and on.....
Every so often,and not so often I can regain control,but it just goes back to phantom mode.
When I reset it I took the sd card out as well and restarted without the card in and got the same results............GHOSTS......PHANTOMS.
I'm ready to throw the phone at the wall.....
Has this happened to anyone??????
Can it be fixed???
Is there any harder reboot I can perform???
I have not rooted or anything different to this phone,It just started happening one day and has became progressively worse.
THIS SUCKS!!!
I can only assume it was an app that did this.I do have quite a few,but the master reset erased them and it still continues.Maybe an update??? I am constantly updating my apps as they come in.
I just got this phone from the verizon store late last year. Without insurance can I get a new or get this one fixed without paying an arm and a leg???
PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

steveb11111

Hi,
I have had the same problem with my Droid. I have removed the battery and set it back to "out of the box" functionality. It undertakes actions on its own. It opened up my address book and selected a person at random and called them. It did this over 10 times.

Last night, it started to dial the telephone and while I was holding it in my hand, it dialed more that 30 numbers in a row. I saw the keypad numbers light up as it was dialing the numbers.

Does anyone know why it is starting tasks on its own?
Thanks
Steve

mixpix

I had that happen when I used a charger that didn't supply enough power. It was going crazy.

Does yours do it all the time?

You should be covered by motorola warranty.

Last edited by mixpix; June 6th, 2010 at 08:34 AM.

mooseyfate

If you got it less than a year ago (which would be the case, since it came out in November), then you are still covered under the 1-year manufacture warranty. Call Verizon from a landline (800-922-0204, hit 0 a few times) and they'll go through Tier 1 troubleshooting, then get you up to Tier 2 and order a free replacement. Just make sure there isn't any obvious damage or water damage, they will charge you for the replacement if they find this out once they receive it.

It's a very smooth process, IMO. No worries.

sssmith1

Well, I guess I'm glad to know that I'm not alone. My phone lost it's mind last Thursday and aside from a few minutes here and there it has been completely unuseable. I went to the Verizon store Thursday afternoon and they agreed to send me a replacement. I hope to have it today.

I also thought it was an app causing but I uninstalled all apps I loaded in the previous two weeks but it made no difference.

Does anyone know a good way to transfer "paid" apps to the new phone?

-Steve

Last edited by sssmith1; June 7th, 2010 at 01:51 PM.

johnlgalt

Your paid apps are linked to your Google account, so that when you activate your new phone and then sign in to your Google account, all the apps that you have paid for will show up in Market as purchased

__________________

Files for the Motorola® DROID® BIONIC®:
Motorola USB drivers v5.5.0- 32bit | Motorola USB drivers v5.5.0- 64bit | Motorola RSD Lite v5.7

Joga717

Does this problem go away lol. I rooted my phone after this started and reformatted and its still going on. It seems like a hardware problem but acts up like a software problem. Its so weird

spryte112

did anyone find a solution to this. My Droid recently started just going nuts. When on, it opens programs at random, I don't have to click anything and it will open this or that. I can't get it to select the middle menu ison of the 3 icons at the bottom. it will select the internet or phone, but not the menu.

Sneakyparrot

I'll chime in with a big "Me Too!" My phone (HTC Hero, OS 2.1-update1) was charged and sitting next to my keyboard at work. I watched the phone wake up, activate the phonebook and randomly dial a number. This has happened a number of times and most of my friends are taking it in stride as a big joke about the "Phantom Butt-Dialer."

Other times, while scrolling through the phonebook, I'll stop the list and prepare to touch the desired number to call. The list will then jump a few lines and I'll end up dialing the wrong number.

This OS upgrade seems to have a few bugs to work out, especially in regard to speed of operation and lag issues.

defkorn

No one answered this question. The one time I had things like this happen was when I was using a 3rd party charger. I unplugged it, and phone went back to normal. Switched to a different charger (Motorola) and problem went away.

Feight

This is not difinitive, but I believe I fixed this issue for myself. I found a page online about someone who had used antibacterial gel on their droid and then later, after their droid went nuts, determined there was a slight (almost invisible film) on their screen that was causing the touch sensors to go nuts and they cleaned it. I wiped my screen like crazy with a screen wipe and it appears to be behaving itself currently.

Rassilon

Unfortunately for me, my phone is 3 weeks out of warranty. So I either have to suck it up and buy a new phone, which I cannot afford, or pay Motorola $75.00 + shipping + parts to attempt to fix it. So much for customer service.

johnlgalt

Hmm, I never thought that the cleaning agent might be the cause. Let's see if others can test this.

So, what type of cleaner are you using for cleaning the touchscreen?

FWIW, I use an LCD screen cleaning gel made by Philips that I bought to clean my monitors- I use the spray-on gel once every 2 weeks or so, and the rest of the time I just use the extremely soft lint-free cloth that came with the gel to clean the surface.

Never have had my touchscreen go crazy - and I bought my DROID on drop day (it arrived at my house the next day, Sat.). Still have that same unit.

bobbygoode

You know this may be it - some slight pressure on the screen (and I do use a lot of that hand sanitizer stuff -. I cleaned the screen and it has calmed down a bit, not all the way. it keeps "paging" through the main screens, and sometimes when online, reading an article, it suddenly starts highlighting links, and rolling the page down. Very weird. Still developing... but thanks for the suggestion.

scdavid1969

Talk about the terminator taking over. My droid just started going through contacts and you could even see it browsing the web from you tube to what ever. Looked as if some tech support person was checkingout the system. Could it be 1984? Doubt it but who knows.
I checked with Verizon tech support. They advised me to do a hard restart since taking the battery out didn't work and people were getting annoyed from computer calling them. I did the restart and cancelled my replacement phone under manufactures warranty. Know the replacements are certified used or new phones. Mainly used but certified by factory techs.
One week exact and it is doing the same thing. I went to the local verizon store and the lady flipped out laughing. She said it probably was a software glitche and ordered me another replacement. She mentioned it probably was a program I downloaded (pushing blame) saying most of the smart phones with lookout have this problem. Not sure had that for a long time no problem till now. At least this customer service person saw the issue and the last person I called with verizon prior to this heard it trying to dial numbers while we were talking. Good luck. Hope this phone is better or I will just go back to a regular cell phone which is a phone only and a back up to my home line. I do know this not sure if it is Verizon or the smart phones but, I have over 4 to 5 bars on my regular Motorola Razor Alltel phone purchased just after Verizon bought them out. I had to buy a $200 tower for reception for the house for the smart phone and returned over two or three blackberrys due to poor reception.

Mondieu

My Verizon car charger stopped functioning a year ago and I've been using an inverter with a Blackberry Tour charger plugged in to charge my Droid. Horrible results of course as the screen has always been unresponsive. But it went completely rogue last week after I first dropped it on concrete - slight ding on case and 3 minute hunt for the battery - then installed latest CM7. Later on a brief road trip I plugged into the inverter but when I disconnected from the charger it began sending rogue emails and phone calls and surfing the web on its own.

I had to reboot into recovery wipe and nandroid restore. Now that is where I made my mistake as things just got progressively worst. I unrooted, installed 2.01 OS, still with same problem. Portions of the screen were inoperable as typing a "j", "k", "p" all sent the letter "a" as input. It certainly seemed like it was hardware related. So I went to Verizon; their techs concurred, and they have a guaranteed like new replacement coming to me.

However, when I returned home I decided to give it one more go. I reinstalled Rom Manager, booted into recovery and wiped cache and Dalvik cache maybe 30 times apiece. I also wiped Data the cus*****y 3 times. I then reinstalled CM7 -winneroo's latest along with Prime's Deprimed kernel and GAPPS of course.

Success, the phone is performing like new! Screen is responsive in all areas. I am only using the original charger and will order another spare battery for automobile use rather than subject it to the inverter in the car.

I will probably switch this device for the Guaranteed like-new replacement as the manufacturers warranty was actually 12 days past and they (Verizon) were astonishingly kind enough to honor the warranty anyway!

Rachel2717

Hi everyone, I followed the suggestion of the person quoted above and it fixed it for my phone! I wiped it gently with a Kleenex and some anti-static screen cleaner and it was perfect right after that.
It started acting crazy and I couldn't control it at all right after I washed my face. I had it on the counter (stupid, I know) and accidentally dripped some foamy face soap on it. It didn't cause water damage or anything so I simply wiped it off, then it started going crazy. I guess the soap scum caused it. Good to know. Thanks!!

robbratton

I've had both problems mentioned above with my Motorola Droid. It is pretty much unusable when the screen has hand sanitizer on it or when using a non-Motorola charger. I've been successful swith a USB extension (M-F) cable with the Motorola wall block and cable on both ends.

Please don't take any drastic measures until you try:
- removing your phone from all chargers
- cleaning the screen with a LCD cleaner or at least a very soft cloth

Hope this helps others!
Rob

Tim K

Also, moisture will cause the phone to go bonkers like that. If you have the phone in your pocket, screen against your leg, and you happen to be out and about on a hot day, the moisture from your skin can be enough to trigger this. I've had it happen to me numerous times....sometimes when out working in the yard, and once when I answered the phone after swimming.

If your phone ever gets possessed like that, try leaving it sit in the sun for a few minutes or hit it with a hair dryer (Don't actually HIT it with a hair dryer - just blow air on the screen to dry it!). It has always bounced back from this problem for me.

hern2000

I've been having the same problem on and off for a few months but it has now gotten very bad. I took it to the Verizon Store and was told i was basically SOL and had to buy a new phone.

So I took the phone with me on a fishing trip and left it sitting in the sun all day...the touch screen started working again (not 100% but pretty good). Took it home and popped the battery and left it in a container of rice for a few hours (suspecting that maybe moisture was in the phone) and then turned it back on and voila, it's working again (though it drifts back into malfunction territory after a while).

I'm going to give it a few more runs through the container of rice to try and dry it out. At this point I'm just trying to get to the point where the Bionic comes out so I don't have to get some intermediary phone.

Worth a shot for those who are having this issue, try using some sort of dessicant to dry the phone out. Rice seems to work ok, silica or something would probably be better.

Pigue_IT

I've being having this problem for a few days and I believe I've resolved it.

I bought one of these plastic anti-scratch protections (actually an iPhone one, they didn't have it for Droid) and after some time, the ghost touch problem started happening. When it happened, I just locked and unlocked the screen and it would stop going crazy. But it was diffucult to use the phone having to do that every time.

So, I've just removed the plastic cover and, so far, it hasn't happened. So, before doing these crazy thing like hard reseting or buying a new phone, just remove anything you have on the screen and see what happens.

Pigue_IT

Forget it. The problem has returned. I'm going to send it to technical assistence.

Enygma

Clean your screens people. The oil on your fingers will leave a build up or residue on the screen. This will cause the screen to act up, it's a problem with ALL capacitive touch devices. The same thing happens with my Milestone if I go a few weeks without cleaning it. Just wipe it with a warm damp(not soaking wet) cloth and then wipe it with one of those micro fiber cleaning cloths that most of these devices come with.

Do NOT use cleaning agents on the phone as they may leave a film behind that will also drive the touch screen nuts. And don't use too much water. If you squeeze the cloth and water drips out it's too much. You don't wan the water leaking into the exposed parts of the phone.

kclausing

Last night my husband's HTC Merge (2 days old) went crazy and continually kept calling his cousin all night long. I am taking it back to the store today to see if they can fix this, or we'll try a different phone of the same model. he likes the phone. worst case we got to a different droid.

kclausing

Just got a samsung mesmerize (2 days old) and when I use the mail app and I scoll past the first page of emails, it automatically scrolls back to the top. It doesn't want to stay on pages below first page. annoying....

jbljay

hey guys / gals, first post and i can chime in on what causes this problem.

I personally have the first gen Moto Droid and it's done wonders for some time. wasn't until recently (more or less the last few months) that i have had this crack smoking screen issue... but i have found the cause!

it's caused by the following factors:
A - Temp (if phone is at or below 50 degrees F, EI - hot summer day, you go to bed, keep your window open and your phone is within the breezing air coming in and the night gets to or below 50-55 degreese F, it will cause condensation to happen inside the phone. moisture = bad for micro-electronics on an astronomical scale.
FIX - warm up the phone. best way to do it is keep it in a pocket closest to your core body temp. even better fix, hold it in your arm-pit (i hope to god it doesn't smell like onions when you do...). and last, don't keep it anywhere in or near an area that's 50 degrees F and colder on it's on for longer than 15 minutes or in a room of your home that's going to be colder than that over night.

B - Moisture (covered in A as it's the only real time you'll have moisture unless you drop your phone in a poddle of water of some sort.)

C - Electronically conductive substances (this is anything other than water. don't use your phone if you've JUST RECENTLY put lotion on, sun screen on, worked with engine grease *like i do on a daily basis* or anything of the sort that may be goopy and able to squeeze it's self into the small cracks and into the circuitry.)
FIX - disassembly of phone, lots of rubber alcohol and cleaning whipes. don't screw your phone up this way... it's a pain.


in all reality though, 95% of these issues will come from problem A as we all generally will have that exact senario come about and is exactly the cause of why mine has acted up. every time i've opened my window during the hot summer for a good cool breeze at night, i've woken up to a phone that i simply want to bash with a sledge hammer until only dust remains. if you want a phone that will tolerate those conditions, use that newer rugged military droid from verizon (no i'm not a verizon rep, just a suggestion) as it actually is shock proof, water proof, dust proof and scratch proof. my cousin's got one of those things, not the fastest as it uses the first gen processor but it's the newer OS version and works great. infact the other day he came home with a burnt hand because he droped it into this water boiling system that keeps food hot at his work. he freaked out, totally forgot about it being water proof and he rushed to grab it out and burnt the hell out of is hand... and then by his own "genius" realised there was a pair of tongs right there next to him had he just stoped and remember his phone was water proof...

Muhammad Imran

My Motorola Milestone has same ghost touching function ....and all the screen start vibrating going ups and down ....now rhight side of touch screen not function ......i claimed on varenty 3time the every time returened after 7 to 20 days with software update....any budy has an idea of touch screen sensores placement or its repairing????

Alexandros

The person who said moisture is the problem was absolutely right. On multiple occasions, my Droid's touchscreen has gone out-of-control for a couple of days or a week. I ALWAYS traced the problem back to sweat, spilled water or moisture of some kind. It gets trapped under the screen so it isn't able to evaporate that easily. Once I spilled water on it and it immediately started pressing random buttons, scrolling down my contacts list and calling people I didn't want to talk to.

The key is applying mild heat to the phone to encourage faster evaporation, as well as blowing air on it with a lot of pressure so some of the air molecules make it into the hard to reach crevices and sweep those water molecules away.

It usually needs to be blow dried for 5-20 minutes, a minute won't do. I didn't want to stand there that long, but was worried about just leaving a hot blow dryer unattended and starting a fire or overheating my phone. So I triggered the "cool" button on the blow dryer by taping a coin over it, so it blew only lukewarm air. I placed the phone 2 inches from it, left it for 20 minutes, and when I came back the touchscreen worked perfectly!

Solving this problem was my greatest achievement. It's all downhill from here.

Last edited by Alexandros; September 2nd, 2011 at 05:26 PM. Reason: adding another comment

oceanjunkie

Over the past week or so my phone has become progressively worse to the point where it was unusable. As suggested I tried cleaning the screen thoroughly, and also leaving it in a warm dry place, but it hadn't helped. Then for no good reason I tried using it with it plugged into the charger but with the battery removed and it worked fine. So I figured maybe the battery was bad (although it can run the phone for a whole day so I doubted it). I just cleaned the battery contacts in the phone and on the battery and restarted and the problem seems to have gone away. fingers crossed.........

minnus

Just reporting that for me, HIGH HUMIDITY was the issue. I was staying in a 'Bed and Breakfast' where everything was just moist/damp. Besides causing hell due to mold allergies, my phone would exhibit the reported behavior after a night of sitting in this room. I naturally found this post, and attempted to clean my screen and what not. I left the room, and soon after (didn't keep track - one to two hours?), my phone functioned like normal. I was there for another night, and once again, the same behavior repeated itself in the morning. I left for home, and it has been fine ever since.

Unfortunately, I don't know what one can do if living in a high humidity environment except for running a dehumidifier for long periods of time (unless its extremely humid outsideas well...).

funken_a

Clean your screen well.... This has happened to me many times, and it really appears to be a film/grime buildup .

For me I keep my phone in my front pocket while at work.. Sweat and grime seem to be the culprit.

Dman932

My Droid has done this for 4 months straight! And im not willing to switch back to my old phone because I need all the apps it provides and my mom didnt get insurance....


Btw stop bitching about what ur droid did in this phase...mine dialed 911 while I was at work...

Gx-7

Ok guys, I went thru the same problem, the only way I fixed was buying an used one, now, if you take the battery off, it works for a little bit, but this is the problem, (it has nothing to do with the charger), the droids have sensor on their screen, once the get damaged this is what happens ( phone acting possessed, doing weird things) I hope this helps, as I said I went thru this, if you guys have insurance you just pay the deductible and get an used one that looks new, or just go to a phone technician expert, they can fix it, but honestly it would be easier to buy an used one.

funken_a

It happens to me every coupe of weeks, and I have to really clean the screen with a weak windex solution sprayed on a cloth.

i will wash the screen a 1/2 dozen times and really try to remove any residue.... My phone then works for a few weeks. But it WORKS

if there is damage then obviously cleaning won't work.. but my phone has been so bad I thought for sure it was shot, but cleaning the screen thoroughly has brought it back everytime

callism

I definitely have to agree with the previous posts about cleaning the screen. My touchscreen was goiing nuts. I have a screenlock because I my toddler gets into my phone all the time, so I couldn't even unlock my screen because it would just go crazy and "the ghost" would push all the numbers. It would not react at all to the numbers I pushed. So I got all desperate and tried to figure out how to solve the problem. I tried the cleaning suggestion and wiped my screen off with a drip of Windex and it worked perfectly! My screen now works like new and i'm happy. So everyone who has the same problem, I can only suggest to CLEAN YOUR SCREEN!
and to everyone who suggested it previously, thanks a million!

Oblivious72

i was having the same issue. i took off the screen protector and tried cleaning it and hold a hair dryer to it. it got a little bit better to where i could semi use it but it is still having issues. any ideas?

Tim K

For the last 2 weeks my screen issues have come back and gotten progressively worse. Last night it was completely unusable. Cleaning and drying it doesn't seem to work anymore.

I think the touch sensor is completely shot. I'm trying to hairdryer it and I also have a packet of silica that I am going to seal the phone in a bag with to try to dry it out. I just don't think moisture is the problem at this point.

I just don't know what to do....insurance is a waste, I'm not going to pay $100 for a refurb droid....and Verizon won't release the friggin Nexus. I can't go 2 more weeks with this phone.

anneatkins

Mine did the "open programs like mad all by itself" thing when I used the wrong charger - but then I used my HTC one (per a message above) and it is fine now.

That was WEIRD! lol!

monkette

Just thought I'd add that my phone went thru the ghost crazies, randomly dialing, opening programs, typing all of that. I thought it had to do with my charger, maybe it did, I don't know, but after a day of this crap, I put it near a low heater for about 3 hours, making sure it didn't get too hot, but it was pretty warm, after that booted up an older rom pre-.2.3.7 and the problem goes away. If I put anything newer than October on there, I get the screen crazies.

I'm just glad I can use my phone once again. It rained out here 4-5 days ago and although I don't remember it getting wet, maybe it did. I think drying it out thoroughly helped.

calikush23

this just happened to me yestarday but instead im using a htc inspire, but..... a few weeks ago my htc charger broke and i started to use a mortarolla charger and thats when everything started . even if i dont touch the screen it goes crazy also if im on the web it would start going crazy and if i touch the home button or anything on the lower screen it would touch something all the way at the top of the screen, and some times it doesnt let me charge my phone like it would charge for 5 seconds then turn off the charge then turn back on. android has so many problem thats why i suggest you go with an iphone next time

Juanita Floyd

My droid has been going crazy every since I accidently spilled just a small amount of wine on it. I noticed that for months it seemed to stop and then today I had an incident where a hose pipe on my radiator (heater) was sprinkling out steam and the droid got some on it and went back to: randomly taking pictures (of everything), dialing random phone numbers and sending smiling face texts. Thank you to the person who reminded us (droid owners) that moisture may play a role in this bizarre behavior. I am so glad that I can finally rest now. "Whola! Happy days are here again, because I love my.....droid!"

Juanita Floyd

[QUOTE=Juanita Floyd;3636481]My droid has been going crazy every since I accidently spilled just a small amount of wine on it. I noticed that for months it seemed to stop and then today I had an incident where a hose pipe on my radiator (heater) was sprinkling out steam and the droid got some on it and went back to: randomly taking pictures (of everything), dialing random phone numbers and sending smiling face texts. Thank you to the person who reminded us (droid owners) that moisture may play a role in this bizarre behavior. I am so glad that I can finally rest now.
"Whola! Happy days are here again, because I love my.....droid!"

[/ QUOTE]

xergon

I had the same problem. erratic touch input - AND the middle column of the screen didn't accept touch anymore.

It worked again after:
a.) applying the hair dryer on HOT setting for 20s. Medium setting for 7min didn't help
b.) cleaning the screen AND the speaker opening. within the last years dirt accumulated there, but when I scrapped it out all worked fine again. incidentally, the portion of the screen NOT working was the same width as the speaker housing...


thought i need a knew phone, but all praise goes to the hair dryer and the anti-dirt application!!

Hermitmoon

I was having the same trouble with the touch screen. My thunderbolt was texting like crazy. I had a screen protector on and when I removed it there was a buildup of dirt all around the edge. I cleaned the screen with the microfiber cloth and so far everything is working

monkette

My droid was working for about a week after applying my heat method, thinking it was humidity as it had rained out here recently. It has gotten colder and it did rain again the other day...i'm doing the heat method as we speak.

Danielle4251

My droid was going crazy all day long. It was calling people and opening apps all by itself. It was possessed. I did a master reset and it didn't work. Then I read about the screen needing to be cleaned and so far it has worked. I was worried I was going to have to get a new phone. I just took a damp towel and wiped the screen and it looked greasy. I do wear hand lotion a lot. I will clean the screen more often now. Thanks!

Whitecloud222

Me too was going crazy amazingly!!! I fixed the problem, I open the garbage can drop the phone, I proceeded to the phone store and bought an i phone...BINGO!!! NO MORE PROBLEM...

pthibbys

huh??

Mikeb212

Well none of the posted solutuions have worked for me. Nice of Motorola and Google to provide non-existant customer service and just let the people they've provided sub-standard equiment and systems to hanging.

sweetname

Ok, so here's the dealio:

Dropped my phone from about a height of two feet onto a snow/ice covered driveway. Screen starting acting absolutely crazy. This had happened once before when I dropped my phone into a sink with running water. At that time I'd grabbed my phone out of the sink as fast as possible, tore the battery out, and proceded to hairdry the entire thing for like 10 minutes. Popped the battery back in, turned on the phone, and (voila) it magically worked again. This time though, I thought I was screwed because the damage (so I thought) was from the drop and not moisture. Wrong.

Took the measures people recommended here. Didn't have a hairdryer on hand so I aimed a space heater at my disassembled phone parts (at a safe enough distance) for about a half hour (rotating the phone every five minutes or so such that the different sides would each experience roughly equal amounts of hot air). Sprayed a tiny bit of windex on some toilet paper and smeared the screen with the solution. Then wiped down the screen with a microfiber cloth. I repeated the windex/microfiber technique three times. Put the battery back in, turned it on, and bam! Back to perfect baby!

I'm not kidding around here, peeps. This seriously works for some arbitrarily insane reason(s). Make sure that you do exactly what I did and unless you're phone is severly damaged it will most likely operate properly once again! Thank you very much to everyone who has posted thus far!