Help Touch screen randomly unresponsive?

[robotkittens]

So, I have a Samsung Galaxy s3 and the other night, while scrolling down instagram, the touch screen randomly became unresponsive. I tried taking out the battery, putting it back in, letting the phone die and then plugging it in to charge, jfkldakfda. The Home, Menu, and Back buttons are completely functional, just not the touch screen! Has anyone encountered this and solved it? I'd really rather not go to AT&T just yet, but.. it's looking like I might be reactivating my old iPhone. D: Please help!

 

[Mikestony]

Welcome robotkittens.!
Sorry about your issue there
Try this...go into your stock recovery--shut off the device.
Push and hold the home button, then push and hold the volume up button, then push and hold the power button.
Now you are holding all 3 buttons in that order. The phone will vibrate and a screen will come up, then let go of all three buttons.
That screen is your recovery screen.
Navigate using your volume up and down keys to select "clear cache"
and use your power button to select that.
After it completes that task, highlight the reboot option and select that to reboot the device.
Hopefully that will help.

 

[robotkittens]

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, clearing the cache didn't work. I even entertained the idea of returning the phone to factory settings. No go. :c

 

[Frisco]

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, clearing the cache didn't work. I even entertained the idea of returning the phone to factory settings. No go. :c

Hello robotkittens (great user name! ).

Do I understand you correctly that you tried the factory data reset and "no go," means it did not remedy the issue, or does "no go" mean you don't want to do that?

If the cache wipe via recovery, as Mike suggested, did not remedy the issue, and if you have not installed any new widgets or apps just before this happened (some won't play nice with these devices no matter what the list in Play Store says), then I would not hesitate to take the device to the point of purchase and show them what has happened.

 

[Mikestony]

I agree with Frisco. If you do decide to do a factory reset, and all is well, then some sort of app or widget is causing your screen issues. You have nothing to lose at this moment with the screen unresponsive. You can do a reset from within recovery.
Otherwise, it is hardware related and a trip to the store for replacement would be in order.