My droid is going beserk. The touchscreen may work perfectly for a couple of hours.
Then it becomes unresponsive, keys that Im not pushing get pressed. The whole phone just goes nuts. I have to reboot it and do a battery pull a couple times to get it to work again.
It will then work for another hour or so untill the problem occurs again.
I googled this issue and I see some people are having similar issues when the Droid is plugged in. This is not the case for me. Mine does this regardless .
Its very frustrating.
The Following User Says Thank You to ilmar72 For This Useful Post:
Like I've said before, capacitive screens just have inherent problems. Some things you'll want to make sure of first:
1) Clean the screen with some isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol and a soft cloth. Don't worry, this won't hurt it. It'll get most grease off the screen though. You should also make sure that your hands are clean. If there's any grease on the screen that happens to be conductive, it'll throw off the capacitive sensors.
2) If it's a particularly humid day, you will probably experience similar effects. All capacitive screens (pretty much every Android phone, iPhones, Zune HDs, etc.) have these problems I'm describing.
I'm thinking perhaps the screen is just going wonky once in a while because of what I described and regardless of whether or not you did battery pulls and reboots it would have fixed itself. I've had the issue happen to me a few times. If you clean the screen well it goes away sometimes, if not there isn't much you can do at the moment.
__________________
Current phone: Droid Charge @ 1200MHz. ROM jumping, waiting for CM to arrive!
Quote:
Originally Posted by UBRocked
Just put your phone in airplane mode and tell him you loaded an iPhone 4 simulator on your Droid.
Ive cleaned the screen. at the moment I can not get my phone to work . My girlfriend is right next to me with her droid working perfect. Its not humidity .
I'd say it was an app - but is the sync icon in the notification bar?
How many apps have you got installed?
I have quite a few Apps installed. I do however use a task killer to make sure I don't have background apps running.
I uninstalled any apps I recently installed.
The sync is not running either.
First Im gonnna say I think the problem may have been steming from Launcher Pro, because they recently have had a few updates . I however am not certain this was the cause.
I unistalled Lanucher Pro, SmartKeyboard Pro, advanced task manager, and a couple of other memmory management apps. ( all apps that Ive been using for a long time now)
I did a reboot, wiped the cache partition. Still same problem when it loaded back up.
Next I pulled the battery and let it sit for a while (Note Ive pulled the battery many times before with limited success)
Booted the phone back up, and it is working perfect. Other times when i had the phone "working" the keyboard was still laggy. Now the keyboard works amazingly well.
So I reinstalled The new Launcher pro and smartkeyboard pro. So far so good.
I was having the same problem yesterday. The touchscreen would just go nuts. I turned it off, took the battery out, and still had the issue. I decided to put it on the charger for about an hour and it seemed fine.
Then about 5 minutes after I put it in the car dock and plugged in the car charger, it went nuts again.
The only thing I can figure is that it was getting too hot. Only problem with that conclusion is that my home key doesn't work and it would seem that neither does the touch column above it.
funny, my phone started doing the same thing for the first time yesterday as well. maybe it's something like the 24.5 days camera bug, lol. anyway, i thought maybe it was the heat and humidity or because i got some sweat on the screen (i was at the pool) that may have dripped into the cracks around it and perhaps the salt made the electronics in the screen go nuts. crazy, but i couldn't figure out what was going on and this had never happened before. it was maddening. took the battery out for about 10 minutes and since then it's been fine.
I started having this problem on the 6th too. First the backspace button stopped working when screen typing in portait orientation. Then the entire right side of the screen stopped working. Now the registration is totally off and certain areas of the screen seem dead. Those areas change from time to time. I can't screen type reliably in either orientation. Certain icons (browser, email) on the home screen refuse to work but when I slide up the thing from the bottom and go into where all the icons are kept, those same programs start fine. Sometimes it won't switch orientation when it should. I can't shut the phone off without pulling the battery because the screen button I push to confirm that I want to turn it off doesn't work. The menu button stopped working yesterday morning and hasn't worked since. The auto brightness started cycling between bright and dark for no reason last night. I've had to turn off the pattern lock because it couldn't recognize my touch well enough to register the pattern when I drew it. In general, the thing ain't working right.
I've pulled the battery for varying lengths of time up to 30 minutes. This seems to help temporarily but the problems come back soon. I've cleaned the screen with isopropyl rubbing alcohol and that didn't work.
Things that *could* be causing it (?):
-Saturday I mowed the lawn with it in my pocket. It got sweaty but the moisture indicator didn't change.
-It seems like it's run hotter than usual, like when I had it on the car charger while playing music on the way to work.
-The battery ran down farther than usual a couple times over the weekend, but that's happened in the past with no problems.
-I downloaded a couple updates a couple days ago, but i don't think it was anything that thousands of others have.
This thing has become pratically useless to me at this point and I'd really like to figure out what's wrong with it.
I started having this problem on the 6th too. First the backspace button stopped working when screen typing in portait orientation. Then the entire right side of the screen stopped working. Now the registration is totally off and certain areas of the screen seem dead. Those areas change from time to time. I can't screen type reliably in either orientation. Certain icons (browser, email) on the home screen refuse to work but when I slide up the thing from the bottom and go into where all the icons are kept, those same programs start fine. Sometimes it won't switch orientation when it should. I can't shut the phone off without pulling the battery because the screen button I push to confirm that I want to turn it off doesn't work. The menu button stopped working yesterday morning and hasn't worked since. The auto brightness started cycling between bright and dark for no reason last night. I've had to turn off the pattern lock because it couldn't recognize my touch well enough to register the pattern when I drew it. In general, the thing ain't working right.
I've pulled the battery for varying lengths of time up to 30 minutes. This seems to help temporarily but the problems come back soon. I've cleaned the screen with isopropyl rubbing alcohol and that didn't work.
Things that *could* be causing it (?):
-Saturday I mowed the lawn with it in my pocket. It got sweaty but the moisture indicator didn't change.
-It seems like it's run hotter than usual, like when I had it on the car charger while playing music on the way to work.
-The battery ran down farther than usual a couple times over the weekend, but that's happened in the past with no problems.
-I downloaded a couple updates a couple days ago, but i don't think it was anything that thousands of others have.
This thing has become pratically useless to me at this point and I'd really like to figure out what's wrong with it.
Any ideas? Suggestions?
-Scott
Like I said: start uninstalling apps. Especially ones like advance task manager and other memmory managment apps. Uninstall any custom. Launchers(don't just clear defaults)
After you do that power down , drop battery, push hold power for a few seconds. This combimation worked for me.
I don't have any memory management apps. Off the top of my head, I've downloaded:
Astro File Manager
Rehearsal Assistant (recorder)
gStrings (guitar tuner)
MyTracks
Google Star Map
a weather app (Weather Channel? Accuweather?)
None of these caused problems before but, as I said, a couple got updated this weekend. Wish I could remember which. I've gone in to settings, applications, and closed down everything that was not essential and still had these problems. I'll play with it more today and try your suggestion.
I had what sounds to be the same problem and had my phone replaced because of it. What was the culprit? Using my Blackberry Storm charger, not necessarily actively, but the output of the BB charger apparently fried something or the battery itself.
Symptoms: Screen will become jittery, moving around on its own, and then begin making random selections like you're pressing an icon, but you're not. It'll go away for a few days, after doing a prolonged battery pull (like half day of no power to phone) and other times the battery pull makes no difference.
Mine does this EVERY time I have the screen against my skin while sweating.
It's happened 5 or 6 times now. I just clean the screen and turn it off for a while to dry off and it's fine until the next time I forget and stick it in my waistband while mowing.
Hey guys, do any of you have some recent news on what might be doing it for you? My phone has been having the same exact problem off and on for the last six days or so. I have factory reset my phone a couple times and it didn't seem to help for long and I've also restored to many different roms but so far nothing has seemed to work.
I am beginning to think it might just be a hardware problem; but I find it hard to believe that the touchscreen would just randomly work perfectly fine at times and then spaz out at other times. any thoughts?
I'm on my second Moto droid and the touchscreen is a fussy bitch on both of them. Even though I'm way past my teen years, my hands seem to have enough oil or sweat on them to not be compatible for touching the sacred screen. What annoys me most though, it seems the screen is MOST fussy when there is an incoming call. Sometimes it is like the screen is so dead, it has no response at all when the phone is ringing. Perhaps I start to sweat because I know I'm playing a game of "mother-may-I" with a fussy bitch phone that can easily deny me the ability to answer my phone forcing me to have to listen to the voicemail and call back. Perhaps that's how Verizon has decided to make an extra buck or two... Hmmmm....all kinds of paranoid theories can erupt from this.
Anyone else noting that the screen has more problems with phone calls? Texting, checking email and surfing the net or etc are much better, but I do have horrible backspace issues, I thought it was my fat fingers until I read this post.
I'm having similar issues as well. The most frustrating part though is when I can't answere a phone call. The swype to answer won't work. This happens very frequently. Any tips?
I have the same problem - it's like ghost is using my phone.
I made hard reset and also flashed to other firmware but without any results...
Today a have showed this device to my friend at the Official service center of SE and Nokia. He disassembled the phone and said that there is nothing problematic or wet.
it should be a problem of Touchscreen digitizer in 99%.
my droid has also had 'spaztic touchscreen' episodes. they started after it rebooted after the last update, the only way to fix seemed to be to take out the battery. it has happened two times since then when the screen was in contact w/ sweaty skin. (listen to the music apps on speaker while tucked in my sports bra on bike rides...)
any idea on how to prevent these spaz-attacks?
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Mine will rapidly select keys/shortcuts in the bottom center. When exhibiting this behavior , the phone is unuseable. Started after the 1st upgrade to 2.2. I think I'll wait on the final 2.2 before giving up. Battery pulls didn't work for me. Factory reset didn't work...
I'm having similar issues as well. The most frustrating part though is when I can't answere a phone call. The swype to answer won't work. This happens very frequently. Any tips?
Download Tedd's Droid Tools from the Market. It let's you answer the phone by pressing the Camera button. Works everytime for me. I was so frustrated that I could not answer the phone. This app made me love my Droid again.
It has passed some time since the last entry on the post.. is there any news ?
My milestone also behaving badly. the touchscreen stops working properly and just like some described.. is like a ghost is messing with it as it has random touchscreen input, opens and slides things on it's own.
SOmetimes, after a reboot our a battery dropout, it will work for some time.. but each time less and less time...
I would belive that this is related with heat!.. maybe any electronics got damage from vapor or sweat and now whenever it gets hot it stops working.
Notice that before it really got messy, 2 or 3 days ago the phone was getting too hot and running on bat realy fast.. bu I don't have almost any app install.. just google's apps and 3 or 4 apps that are very known and aren't supposed to bring any trouble (they are from well known software house.. nothing to lame).
Mine still has the problem... i uninstalled launcher pro and advance task killer and nothing helped... this all started ever since i recieved the update.
Last edited by MADMUKE; December 14th, 2010 at 07:20 AM.
I have just recently been having the same problem. My "home" button will not work, the screen is unresponsive in the column running up above the home button and the screen goes nuts on its own sometimes. Of course I have had the phone just over a year.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
PS-does anyone know anything about Verizon's early upgrade policy? That might be what I am looking at doing.
My Droid started doing this last night. As far as I can tell, there is *no* reason for it. The phone has never been wet, dropped, rooted, or infected with viruses. It simply stopped working correctly, and the touchscreen went nuts. Safe mode didn't fix it, factory resets didn't fix it. There are no other options, as the ROMs to reflash it are no longer available on Google's website.
Granada, I don't know when you purchased your Droid, but mine is eligible for early upgrade. Unfortunately, I don't have the minimum $300 that entails (most of the good phones have a $100 mail-in rebate, rather than instant.)
Or is it just best to go get a new phone? I'm on a factory replacement already, and have been since May of last year. Last night, I had the problem of 1/3 of my screen (right vert column) not responding to touch. I had to change my lock pattern so I could get into the phone and randomly it would register that I was touching that area of the screen but it has not worked properly since. Just frustrating and makes it difficult to use the phone. Anyone have other solutions?
Are any of you using non OEM chargers? They've been known to cause problems like this.
AFAIK those only cause problems while the phone is plugged in... I could be wrong though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Granada
the screen is unresponsive in the column running up above the home button and the screen goes nuts on its own sometimes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spryte112
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crespin
1/3 of my screen (right vert column) not responding to touch.
This is exactly the problem I'm having. The center column of the screen is unusable -- if I press in that column it thinks I'm pressing somewhere to the right or left. It also goes crazy on it's own all the time now, pressing random spots all over the touch screen. This started ~2 weeks ago and usually resolved itself within a few seconds, but it's gotten so bad that the phone is completely unusable because it's always pressing random things on the touch screen.
I did a factory reset, formatted the SD card, pulled the battery for a full night, cleaned the screen and battery contacts thoroughly, and I've never used any chargers other than the Motorola ones that were released with the Droid.
I'm 99.9% positive this is a hardware problem and there's nothing we can do to fix it, nor anything we could have done to cause it.
Last edited by Droidood; February 4th, 2011 at 12:20 PM.
I've had a dead strip from the home key(moto droid) to the top since just after Thanksgiving. It just got worse. Now it is from the center to the top as well. It is very difficult to unlock my phone.
However, if I touch the screen in a dead and at the same time area attempt to unlock the phone, the phone does NOT register the second touch. In other words the hardware knows that the that the first finger is touching the screen.
I believe this must me a software issue. I'd guess it its in the low-level touchscreen driver. I believe the corruption is occurring before the Google UI gets the touch notification.
Having the same issues and it just started a few days ago. It started with the system freezing for about 20-30 sec (no touch screen or side buttons working). Now the Home button does not work, the strip at the bottom (default browser button) reads as if touching the right page button, and several of the virtual keyboard "keys" above the home button do not respond (non landscape orientation).
Device(s): LTE Galaxy Nexus & Asus Transformer; Droid Classic(tm), Ret.
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Just a FYI for everyone in this thread -
My Droid developed this problem last week, overnight. Working fine one day. Wonky touchscreen the next. Quickly became unusable due to the fact that I couldn't answer phone calls. Had the same looks-like-a-ghost-is-using-my-phone issue also.
I called up VZW customer care and requested a warranty replacement for a defective touchscreen. They switched me to tech support. I described the problem. They said "Yep, sounds like a bad touchscreen. Your replacement will be delivered tomorrow."
I'm 100% sure it's a failing digitizer (hardware) issue. It's not a software issue. I had flashed my Droid back to stock unrooted 2.2.1 just to be sure.
So if you're still under warranty (I had an extended warranty plan) you can get a free replacement for this problem.
Took my phone back to Best Buy since I got it at release -- they said they're probably gonna have to give me a new phone, but it's gotta be sent to their service center to be looked at first. I guess screen issues are too difficult or costly to repair?
Either way, the fact that such a severe flaw can pop up > 1 year after purchase is pretty disappointing. I only got the warranty from Best Buy for the accidental coverage figuring I might do something stupid, never thought the phone would randomly self destruct 15 months later.
I'll post an update once I find out whether it will be repaired or replaced. It seems like there are a lot of people with the same exact problem, and I'm guessing a decent number no longer have warranties...
I realize that Gunner may be a hardware problem. I believed that for a couple of weeks till I ran an ebook reader app,that I have used from the first day I got my Droid. The app was able to select from sections of the screen that other apps failed to recognized. At this point I realized it's not the hardware but software/files corruption somewhere between the hardware layer and the standard calls apps make to read the screen, It appears that my ebook app uses a non-standard way to see touches..
IMHO that when my screen went "wonky" it was a poorly coded or a malicious app that caused a buffer overflow that corrupted memory or files that Android uses to convert the screen hardware into the software resources used by apps.
My Droid developed this problem last week, overnight. Working fine one day. Wonky touchscreen the next. Quickly became unusable due to the fact that I couldn't answer phone calls. Had the same looks-like-a-ghost-is-using-my-phone issue also.
I called up VZW customer care and requested a warranty replacement for a defective touchscreen. They switched me to tech support. I described the problem. They said "Yep, sounds like a bad touchscreen. Your replacement will be delivered tomorrow."
I'm 100% sure it's a failing digitizer (hardware) issue. It's not a software issue. I had flashed my Droid back to stock unrooted 2.2.1 just to be sure.
So if you're still under warranty (I had an extended warranty plan) you can get a free replacement for this problem.
-Gunner
I went to the VZN store and they said is a known problem. I wish I knew this before I bought the phone. I guess that happens when you jump too soon into buying new products. I am very disappointed with Motorola. Now I need to buy a new phone since Im out of warranty. Stay away from the Motorola Droid 1 people.
I went to the VZN store and they said is a known problem. I wish I knew this before I bought the phone. I guess that happens when you jump too soon into buying new products. I am very disappointed with Motorola. Now I need to buy a new phone since Im out of warranty. Stay away from the Motorola Droid 1 people.
it can be repaired but it might cost over 100 dollars. Not worth it.
the point is.... why did the phone just stop working for no reason. They say is a known problem but they do not recall the phones to fix the issue ....WTH
This is so damn irritating. VW already sent me to hell and back getting a replacement for a BB Tour that was a design disaster. Started 2 year contract in 2/10, had 5 replacement Tours before filed an FCC complaint to get out of the contract.
They FINALLY said they would give me a different phone but I was to pay $50 and start my contract over in July 2010. Said no way to paying$ 50 but had no choice w/contract restarting.
Now I have this Droid 2 and the screen does what it wants whenever it wants. If I accidentally hit a contact it calls them and I cannot end the call. The screen gets stuck, wont move, flashes the same window over and over and on and on.
Took every app off I could (didn't have any non-preinstalled except a PW keeper I had since I got the phone. Never been wet, humid, droppd, or used any non-oem product.
I've had it with this garbage and Verizon. Does the I-Phone do this garbage?
I should have let the FCC follow thru with the complaint and gone with a prepaid Blackberry.
It's always something and I'm literally at the end of my rope.
I just found this forum while struggling with my Droid all day. It completely ruined my Saturday, I'm really dependent on a working cellphone as I don't have any other phone. Like many others here, my Droid has been fine for just a little over a year since I got it, then all of a sudden out of the blue it goes haywire. At first I had trouble getting the slider to work to unlock the phone, then it started randomly launching apps, would not respond to screen presses, and sometimes misresponded, as if I pressed another part of the screen. I tried multiple hard resets etc to no avail. Finally I plopped it down on my desk in frustration and proceeded to try to research the issue using my regular computer. While in the middle of doing that, I hear the sound of my phone dialing a number all by itself. The dialing was slow, as if someone was remotely pressing keys. That was pretty alarming to say the least, so I scrambled to stop it....but the stupid phone refused to respond. I couldn't even shut it down, because that still requires a screen press. So I just ripped the battery out. Now I'm back to using a 6 year old non-smart flip phone with a broken hinge, until I can figure out what phone to switch to. I'm afraid to take my chances with another Droid at this point.
Thought I'd try the suggestion of cleaning the screen really good with rubbing alcohol, but it made no difference. Also, I discovered that the entire right side of my screen is a dead zone, about the width of an icon, and running all the way up the screen. That explains why my settings button stopped working, since it falls within that zone, except when the phone is in the charging station, when everything is oriented along the length of the phone. Also explains why I can no longer unlock the phone with the slider - the unlock point is within the dead zone, so I have to place it in the charging station to unlock it. Well, it was good while it lasted. Now I'll find a place for it next to my dead Motorola Moto Q9C phone that also only lasted just a little over a year.
I just found this forum while struggling with my Droid all day. It completely ruined my Saturday, I'm really dependent on a working cellphone as I don't have any other phone. Like many others here, my Droid has been fine for just a little over a year since I got it, then all of a sudden out of the blue it goes haywire. At first I had trouble getting the slider to work to unlock the phone, then it started randomly launching apps, would not respond to screen presses, and sometimes misresponded, as if I pressed another part of the screen. I tried multiple hard resets etc to no avail. Finally I plopped it down on my desk in frustration and proceeded to try to research the issue using my regular computer. While in the middle of doing that, I hear the sound of my phone dialing a number all by itself. The dialing was slow, as if someone was remotely pressing keys. That was pretty alarming to say the least, so I scrambled to stop it....but the stupid phone refused to respond. I couldn't even shut it down, because that still requires a screen press. So I just ripped the battery out. Now I'm back to using a 6 year old non-smart flip phone with a broken hinge, until I can figure out what phone to switch to. I'm afraid to take my chances with another Droid at this point.
My droid started doing the exact same thing yesterday out of the blue. Very frustrating. The same thing happened to me last fall and I got it replaced under warranty. Guess that isn't an option this time. It the entire left third of the screen. So I can't unlock or answer calls.
I also have this issue - here's a scary way to see what the hell it's doing... If possible get into browser and select the 'gestures' key in the bottom left: You'll see what your touch is actually being interpreted. Mine will zig and zag randomly all over the screen which at least explains the randomness. I went to Verizon store and they said this was such a freaky anomaly - so much for that I guess.
The Motorola Droid - the first ever Verizon Android Phone - exploded onto the mobile market with an incredibly successful ad campaign that brough Android to the masses. With a huge and vibrant touchscreen, solid metal body, full QWERTY keyboard, 5M... Read More
moto droid touchscreen problem
