So one thing I found out in my testing is that typing too hard may be bad. I think naturally when we see missed strokes we have a tendency to type harder, but that may be be exacerbting the problem.
Example: I used a double type followed by a single stroke to test this. Hit q and p at the same time, hard, and then immediately follow that with a 2nd p, hard. On my epic, that often results in a missed 2nd p. The same thing with less force types all 3 correctly
Here's a another reproducble error on my epic, but unrelated to force. However it doesn't result in missed letters, it adds one instead. Hit q, a, and L all at the same time, use one finger for q and a. I ALWAYS get qaol. Where did the o come from? Happens with other 3 letter combos too. Its pretty easy on the epic keyboard to hit a letter above or below and when you are flying through letters, you'll inevitably get some triple strikes.
One reason I think I have issues with w is that its a key perfectly positioned for my left thumb to hit it with greater force, along with q, a, and s. I think this may be related, but I am unsure
I too have come across this problem. I've had my handset for almost three weeks now. I just emailed Samsung with information from this thread and my own personal experience along with qbunnie's "QAL" test (which resulted in qaol for me as well.)
Here's a another reproducble error on my epic, but unrelated to force. However it doesn't result in missed letters, it adds one instead. Hit q, a, and L all at the same time, use one finger for q and a. I ALWAYS get qaol. Where did the o come from? Happens with other 3 letter combos too. Its pretty easy on the epic keyboard to hit a letter above or below and when you are flying through letters, you'll inevitably get some triple strikes.
I'm getting this to, and I did some extra testing. Try this:
Hold E and D and push J.
Hold F and C and push M.
Hold Z and X and push 3.
Hold B and N and push 6.
If you're holding two keys at once, it will automatically enter the neighboring key next to the third one you push if it is in a direct line with one of the first 2 keys.
For the record, this is not the problem for me - the problem is maddeningly frustrating DROPPED keystrokes that make me look like a typing newb. This experiment is something that is reproducible that indicates there are keyboard problems.
Maybe there is some kind of software that is trying to compensate for a physical keyboard with limited simultaneous contacts and dropping what it thinks are garbage keystrokes?
I don't know, but I can honestly say I haven't been frequenting this thread because the whole subject is just depressing. Paying hundreds of dollars for a phone that is heavily advertised and getting trashy hardware with even WORSE support from Samsung just feeds the idea that corporations will do anything and everything to make money, including ****ing you over.
Finally! So I am not crazy after all! I was experiencing the same exact issue and googled and came upon this thread.
After trying 2 epics and both giving me the same error, I returned my Epic and bought the Evo Shift.
Things about the Epic that I really miss:
That awesome display
Dedicated camera button
Front facing camera
5 row keyboard (ironic)
Things I don't miss:
The keyboard issue this whole thread is about
The amount of software tweaking necessary to get it up to par with Evo Shift
The shorter battery life.
Samsung's terrible support and lack of updates
The score is tied 4-4 on my pros/cons.
Oh well.
I'll just have to wait for something better to come along as it always does.
Device(s): Rooted Epic running Syndicate or Bonsai, 16gb Transformer
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welcome to our world.
I'm getting a Shift for a backup phone and finally retiring the Pre. Will see how much I enjoy the pros and cons of both phones.
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the same ol problem all 9 of my epics has had . . the fact it skips inputs. sadly no phone with a keyboard comes close in comparison to other features so I'm holding on for the next release ... and to anyone who claims not to have issue I'm sorry but I lost belief lol as even every store model I've played with has the issue
neither service nor samsung seems to believe this is an issue although the sprint techs in the stores haven't given me much of an issue. mods might as well merge this lol
Device(s): Samsung EPIC [SPH-D700] Official FC09..for now
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maybe you just need to push the buttons more accurately I've never had a problem with the physical kb, the touch now that's another story, I mess up all the time.
Device(s): Rooted Epic running Syndicate or Bonsai, 16gb Transformer
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Thanked 224 Times in 162 Posts
maybe you need to understand it's an actual problem and if the op would've just gone back to the original thread you would see it has affected quite a few people. I've had many hard keyboard phones, and this is the only phone I've noticed this kind of problem. happy you don't have an issue, but it doesn't make the problem not real.
Quote:
Originally Posted by o0Syn
maybe you just need to push the buttons more accurately I've never had a problem with the physical kb, the touch now that's another story, I mess up all the time.
So true.... EB13 did NOTHING to fix it either......... I am beyond mad.. this is such a problem for me.... might go to the sprint store tomorrow and tell them after I got the update my keyboard started skipping keys..... try and get a new one.
lol, I think I'm in the original thread somewhere. I know I started one on this & a few other sites 1 day after launch. o0syn its even when I type like a turtle with firm presses & like dbpaddler said its known prblem
So true.... EB13 did NOTHING to fix it either......... I am beyond mad.. this is such a problem for me.... might go to the sprint store tomorrow and tell them after I got the update my keyboard started skipping keys..... try and get a new one.
of course when talking to a sprint guy today just casually shooting the sh!t with him he mentioned the update will fix it. he was so full of sh!t his eyes were brown but I played along knowing it likely wouldn't
Device(s): Samsung EPIC [SPH-D700] Official FC09..for now
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hm just odd that some have it and some don't. I admit it is a bit laggy when it comes to the internet but I haven't had a problem with it skipping over what I press.
hm just odd that some have it and some don't. I admit it is a bit laggy when it comes to the internet but I haven't had a problem with it skipping over what I press.
A standard 40 character text message would cause 1 or 2 dropped keys, now it seems to be 2 or 3.
I really, REALLY, ****ing hate this problem. The whole point of a physical keyboard is typing speed and accuracy, and the Epic fails Epically. I'm having to back up every 4th word to change "I" to "it" or "he" to "the".
So ****ing frustrating.
It has to be that it's badly engineered and unfixable - I don't see any other possible cause. Samsung and Sprint are ignoring it full on, and just send you replacements as a "fix". Eventually you go through so many they have to send you a different phone.
Whatever. I'm going to bail out as soon as a better phone comes out. Sprint and Samsung can kiss my ass.
A standard 40 character text message would cause 1 or 2 dropped keys, now it seems to be 2 or 3.
I really, REALLY, ****ing hate this problem. The whole point of a physical keyboard is typing speed and accuracy, and the Epic fails Epically. I'm having to back up every 4th word to change "I" to "it" or "he" to "the".
So ****ing frustrating.
It has to be that it's badly engineered and unfixable - I don't see any other possible cause. Samsung and Sprint are ignoring it full on, and just send you replacements as a "fix". Eventually you go through so many they have to send you a different phone.
Whatever. I'm going to bail out as soon as a better phone comes out. Sprint and Samsung can kiss my ass.
I agree. I just got thisphone a couple of weeks ago and really love the display, but the frequency of the dropped keys is really, really REALLY annoying. I'm seriously thinking about just going ahead and moving to Verizon 'cause I really want a phone with a keyboad. Constantly replacing my phone is inconvenient and shouldn't happen for a 500 dolar pone, and I really hate the idea of making my boss think I'm either careless or donet know how to spell. I GOT THIS STUPID PHONE SO I COULD HAVE ACURACY WHEN I TEXT! Now all I'm getting is the droppedletter above^...
I agree. The keyboard on this phone is one of my favorites too.. I seem to have really bad luck with picking phones.. well usually it has to be with sprint only having a certain amount. I used to have a moto q that did the samething.. horrible phone. My blackberrys were perfect though with the keyboard. Samsung moment didnt have this problem, but aweful slow phone. This phone is amazing, except for that one problem.
I gotta quick question for you: Is anybody using a non-stock battery? 'Cause I switched out my battery for a 3500 mAh one, and apparently this seems to be the root of a lot of my problems. After I switched back to my original one, it only dropped about half the keys, and general performance has been WAY better. I know it doesn't excuse the problem, but maybe that can at least help alleviate some frustration? It def did with me (although I'm still gonna get mine exchanged)...
I bought the extended battery to give it a try. And i must say he was right.. it makes the performance of the phone better and the phone definitly misses less keys. I can type a sentence and only miss one most the time.
I'm using my wifes Epic to type this which I just bought for her yesterday. So far it looks like her keyboard is noticeably better than mine. It hasn't missed a key yet in this message. My Epic I've had since October 2010. Wonder if newer hardware has been improved? Or will this phone start acting the same after more use?
For what it's worth I have found disabling the auto cap, auto punctualization and auto replace under the device keyboard does help. Also disabling swipe helps as well. it's not missing anywhere near as may keys now and I think has for the most part resolved the issue but I'll keep testing. I will add that I have the QAL -> QAOL issue myself.
I will also add that I'm running with the Seidio Extended battery and noticed no improvement. I have not run with the stock battery so I can't report a difference between the two.
I'm on my 10th Epic, and never had this missing key input problem until this latest phone. I thought maybe the keyboard needed a little more breaking in, because the keys felt kind of stiff. After reading through this thread, I see its not me, there is definitely a problem with the keyboard. I'm wondering now, if its related to 2.2.1.
happens to me all the time .. i started threads on it here & other sites but no1 seems to care lol. i too had sprint swap out the phone only to have it again happen. i have zero market apps installed n am 100% stock .. sux because i too am a fast typer and the main reason i waited on this phone is the keyboard. it reminds me of the on screen keyboard issue evo has where using reg keyboard u have to type super slow for all inputs to register. i too am going to make a visit to sprint. when it first occurred 1 day after purchase i returned to b.b kid that helped me was feeding me lines of shit n telling me i am using it wrong n thats how it is .. i wanted to knock him out so bad lol. went across the street to sprint & the tech seen the issue.
not sure if I posted here before about this but I have had this problem since day 1 - the only reason I kept this phone after this crap was because I learned to use Swype and the "speach-to-text" feature with ease and I would have gotten the evo but the screen sucks on that phone
I wanted to put in my input. I had the Epic since the day it came out. My keyboard worked perfectly for several months. The the day came! I Put an OS update on my phone and voila it started skipping keys every once in a while. It worked perfect until the update. This is defiantly and software issue. The problem occurred the next txt msg following the update. Confirmed this by replacing the phone which the keyboard worked fine on. A couple of days later i got an update notification. At the time i didn't know any better so i updated. That was when i realized it was linked to the update. I immediately had the phone swapped again and ignore the update notification. Guess what? never had another skipped key issue again. It is pretty annoying having the update notification all the time but better that skipped keys. Hope this helps. Sorry though, i dont think it is possible to revert to an older firmware. Maybe but i haven't found out how but then again i don't have the issue so it has been low priority.
Every time I typed a double letter, it would miss a letter, and when I typed too fast it would miss letters. Also auto correct never worked! So I followed these directions. I did a test and typed "bookkeeper" and it worked!!!
So I think these instructions are at least helpful to solve a really really annoying problem:
Quote:
Originally Posted by badankles
for fast typers, i can only think of two possible things:
1) the device keyboard options are not able to keep up with you. try disabling all these options or one at a time: auto-replace, auto-cap and auto-punctuate.
2) the keyboard itself is not able to keep up with you. try an onscreen keyboard that is made for multi-touch like smart keyboard pro.
I gotta quick question for you: Is anybody using a non-stock battery? 'Cause I switched out my battery for a 3500 mAh one, and apparently this seems to be the root of a lot of my problems. After I switched back to my original one, it only dropped about half the keys, and general performance has been WAY better. I know it doesn't excuse the problem, but maybe that can at least help alleviate some frustration? It def did with me (although I'm still gonna get mine exchanged)...
While I turned off all the Hardware Keyboard Auto correct checkboxes which seemed to help, I was thinking my Seidio 3300mAh battery might also be making things weird. I'm getting more Wi-Fi/3G/4G transition fails, and occasional almost full hangs where I have to pull out the battery to recover... So annoying.
So I would not rule out that the stupid power supply is messing with the Epic's brain... Next thing you know there will be some app that can blow up the screen, or turn the chips into mango...
I can report that as of September 14th 2011, This is still an issue, I noticed it right away when I got my epic two weeks ago. And I came from an HTC touch Pro 2. That keyboard was absolute heaven. I can honestly say that comparing the two, the internals of the phone in Samsung is better than HTC, but the hardware design for the Epic is horrible compared to the TP2. So many design flaws!
I googled this problem and found so many threads with people who are having this problem. Anyone hear of a fix for this yet? I doubt it since this phone is going EOL'ed by next month
Alas, I have the answer. It requires some research on your part, but it is working perfectly for me, and thus worth the extra couple minutes. First, you need to root your phone. I used ClockWork 3.0.2.5. Then I ran SyndicateROM frozen, then ran the patch nicknamed the Impaler. This all worked beautifully to fix my keyboard problem. If you youtube search how to flash SyndicateROM frozen, it will give a great tutorial on getting you as far as you need. Once you have reached that point, google search Improve Your Typing Experience in Your Epic 4G With Impaled Keyboard Patch". At this point all you have to do is run the patch and 100 percent fix! Let me know if anyone tries.
Very interesting. I am also experiencing this problem on the Samsung Galaxy Indulge. My kernel version is 2.6.32.9, rom version 2.2.1
I would say its software timing related, not hardware. Probably rom level bios keycode. It dosnt happen with the software keyboard so I would assume it's a hardcode to softcode generic error.
The Samsung EPIC 4G is Sprint's specially branded version of the Samsung Galaxy S. Samsung announced all their Galaxy S devices simultaneously, and the EPIC 4G has several unique features and capabilities that help it stand out from ... Read More
try typing lighter not harder
