2.2 Screen Rotation issue really bothering me now

[rag133]

Since the 2.2 update my screen auto rotation is horrible. When I want it upright, it goes sideways. WHen I hold the phone sideways, it flips the other way. Apps that I open seem to always start out sideways even when the phone is upright. I turn it around, nothing happens. If it does rotate back, it is so delayed you think it is not working. It never seems to be the direction I want it, getting very frustrating and annoying to keep flipping the damn phone around all the time to try to get it right.

I sure hope the new FRG22 update, if it ever comes, can fix this problem. So far, 2.2, besides flash, has been a big disappointment for me.

 

[jdsingle]

Have your tried a reset?

 

[rag133]

WOuld a reset cause me to lose everything I have on there now? Apps, contacts, etc???

Have your tried a reset?

 

[crankerchick]

Reset hasn't fixed this problem for me. It is annoying but I'm learning to live with it.

 

[adostrom]

WOuld a reset cause me to lose everything I have on there now? Apps, contacts, etc???

No. Do a search for "factory reset." Rotation works fine for most of us. Froyo introduced 270 degree rotation and your hardware may have a bad rotation sensor. (A wild guess)

 

[Frank Grimes]

Settings > Display > Uncheck Auto-rotate screen.

 

[rag133]

Settings > Display > Uncheck Auto-rotate screen.

Well I WANT it to auto rotate, just want it to do it properly!

 

[adostrom]

Well I WANT it to auto rotate, just want it to do it properly!

Agreed, disabling auto-rotation is not a solution.

Rotation works fine for most of us. Froyo has NOT changed the "quality" of the auto-rotation behavior for the vast majority of us. I suggest trying a "factory reset" because it may help, and because Verizon is most likely going to try it before they give you a new phone anyway, and it's easy, pretty painless, and will make your phone run better. What's the big deal?

Froyo introduced 270 degree rotation, (i.e. the display is right side-up if you hold it with the keyboard to the top) so they must have worked on the rotation code. Maybe that uncovered that your hardware has a bad rotation sensor. If a factory reset doesn't fix it I suggest taking your phone to Verizon and telling them it's broken.

 

[Eugene]

It seems to have changed the angle at which mine rotates. used to be if I hold the phone in my hand s I'm looking straight at the screen and rotate it it would rotate. now if I want it to rotate I have to tilt it straight up and down to get it to rotate then tilt back to where I can see the screen.

 

[adostrom]

It seems to have changed the angle at which mine rotates. used to be if I hold the phone in my hand s I'm looking straight at the screen and rotate it it would rotate. now if I want it to rotate I have to tilt it straight up and down to get it to rotate then tilt back to where I can see the screen.

Not sure I quite follow. If I start with my phone vertical - let's call that 0 degrees. It flips to horizontal at about 70 and -70 degrees, and back to vertical at about 20 and -20 degrees. Is that what yours does? It locks into horizontal mode if the keyboard is open. My home screen only rotates if the keyboard is open, which I think is really a bug; it's behavior should be the same as all the other screens.

 

[Eugene]

Different axis. So if I'm sitting here with my arms on my desk holding my phone with the screen portriat its about a 45 degree angle. Now I rotate to landscape the home screen rotates fine. Then I rotate the phone back to protriate and the screen stays in landscape. I then have to tilt the phone so its standing straight up on the desk then the screen rotate to portriate and then I can tilt back to the 45 degree angle so view it.

 

[adostrom]

Different axis. So if I'm sitting here with my arms on my desk holding my phone with the screen portriat its about a 45 degree angle. Now I rotate to landscape the home screen rotates fine. Then I rotate the phone back to protriate and the screen stays in landscape. I then have to tilt the phone so its standing straight up on the desk then the screen rotate to portriate and then I can tilt back to the 45 degree angle so view it.

Aha! Got it... Just tried mine -- it behaves exactly the same if the screen is vertical or tilted back 45 degrees or in between. I don't know, maybe you have a hardware issue?

 

[rag133]

WHen I go into settings/Factory Reset it says I will lose all downloaded apps, Google accounts, system data/settings. Will I have to re download all my installed apps, and will my contacts still be there??

Agreed, disabling auto-rotation is not a solution.

Rotation works fine for most of us. Froyo has NOT changed the "quality" of the auto-rotation behavior for the vast majority of us. I suggest trying a "factory reset" because it may help, and because Verizon is most likely going to try it before they give you a new phone anyway, and it's easy, pretty painless, and will make your phone run better. What's the big deal?

Froyo introduced 270 degree rotation, (i.e. the display is right side-up if you hold it with the keyboard to the top) so they must have worked on the rotation code. Maybe that uncovered that your hardware has a bad rotation sensor. If a factory reset doesn't fix it I suggest taking your phone to Verizon and telling them it's broken.

 

[rag133]

I just tested mine this way too. If I lay it down on my desk and rotate it, nothing moves. It stays in the original state. If I lift it to a 45 degree angle, t does move, but VERY delayed. If I hold it 90 degrees straight up, it rotates much faster. Not sure if this is the way it is supposed to work, but it is odd if I lay it down and rotate it nothing happens.

Different axis. So if I'm sitting here with my arms on my desk holding my phone with the screen portriat its about a 45 degree angle. Now I rotate to landscape the home screen rotates fine. Then I rotate the phone back to protriate and the screen stays in landscape. I then have to tilt the phone so its standing straight up on the desk then the screen rotate to portriate and then I can tilt back to the 45 degree angle so view it.

 

[Eugene]

Aha! Got it... Just tried mine -- it behaves exactly the same if the screen is vertical or tilted back 45 degrees or in between. I don't know, maybe you have a hardware issue?

It started with 2.2 though, if it would have been hardware chances are it would have happened before or after.

 

[adostrom]

I just tested mine this way too. If I lay it down on my desk and rotate it, nothing moves. It stays in the original state. If I lift it to a 45 degree angle, t does move, but VERY delayed. If I hold it 90 degrees straight up, it rotates much faster. Not sure if this is the way it is supposed to work, but it is odd if I lay it down and rotate it nothing happens.

This makes complete sense... The phone wouldn't make a very good walking/bicycling/mass transit navigator or GPS compass if the screen orientation rotated randomly when the phone is held horizontally. I don't know at what angle the designers wanted the behavior to change, but mine certainly works as described above at approximately 45 degrees (I didn't measure it).

It started with 2.2 though, if it would have been hardware chances are it would have happened before or after.

Sort of/ not necessarily. The code that manages rotation modes was obviously worked on for 2.2 and maybe the angles/tolerances for switching from horizontal to vertical mode were adjusted, too. I don't have access to the source code, and unless it was written in Fortran or Basic-Plus-2 or another archaic language (stop laughing!) it wouldn't be much use to me, anyway. So, if you want to say it was 2.2 -- sure, the behavior changed with 2.2. However, if your phone is the one out of specification you're not going to get Google/Motorola/Verizon to change the code to make your phone work and break everyone else's. Try the reset. If not, make Verizon give you a phone that works, it's still under warranty.

 

[SNeitzel]

My issue is the time it takes to refresh the home screen after rotation.
If I pop open the KB and rotate the phone it takes a good 7-8 seconds for the icons to appear. Did a reset and that didn't change anything.

 

[adostrom]

Wow. I just tried it a bunch of times and counting "1-one thousand" I just barely get the "one" out of my mouth before it switches every time. I'm running vanilla 2.2, unrooted, 60+ apps installed, WiFi running, etc. I wonder why some people are having problems and others aren't...

 

[rag133]

Are you holding the phone straight upright or at an angle? Straight up it rotates fine, when at a 45 degree normal viewing angle it seems to not rotate well, and while on a flat surface not at all.

Wow. I just tried it a bunch of times and counting "1-one thousand" I just barely get the "one" out of my mouth before it switches every time. I'm running vanilla 2.2, unrooted, 60+ apps installed, WiFi running, etc. I wonder why some people are having problems and others aren't...

 

[boatman]

I went to 2.2 yesterday ota, and i sent a message last nite with the hard kybd. When i went to use the phone this morn, it was still in landscape mode. I opened then closed kybd, nothing helped. Both in messaging and email, was in landscape mode.

Did a battery pull and that fixed it. Happened again later in the day, I did an open close of the kybd and that fixed it. I am wondering if its 2.2 or maybe the sensor if the keyboard is open is bad or more sensitive with this new release. This only happened yesterday after 2.2 install.

 

[adostrom]

Are you holding the phone straight upright or at an angle? Straight up it rotates fine, when at a 45 degree normal viewing angle it seems to not rotate well, and while on a flat surface not at all.

Either one. My phone behaves the same at any angle from vertical to reclining at more than 45 degrees. I'd say at least 60 degrees. When it is lying flat you can rotate it as much as you want and the screen says fixed, which is the expected behavior, and most useful when you're trying to use it as a navigator - align the display with the streets you see in front of you and start walking, the map moves/rotates on the screen, as you walk, but doesn't spin like a top.

 

[adostrom]

WHen I go into settings/Factory Reset it says I will lose all downloaded apps, Google accounts, system data/settings. Will I have to re download all my installed apps, and will my contacts still be there??

You lose nothing signigficant. The apps and contacts all get reloaded magically. Search the forum for more detailed info; it's out there. All you "lose" is app data like logins and such, so you might need to back that stuff up.

 

[crankerchick]

For me, the rotation works fine when i rotate the phone, it's the launching of various programs that come up in the incorrect orientation that is getting to me. I will say, i said before that a factory reset didn't help. But i factory reset yesterday for a different reason and this issue does seem to be better now.

 

[SNeitzel]

My issue is the time it takes to refresh the home screen after rotation.
If I pop open the KB and rotate the phone it takes a good 7-8 seconds for the icons to appear. Did a reset and that didn't change anything.

So...

I moved all of my apps back to the phone and my screen redraw issues went away. I started moving them back to the SD card one by one and the issue came back after about 5 or 6 apps and continued to get worse the more apps I moved.

Then,
With apps moved to the SD card, I removed shortcuts from my desktop to any apps that were on the SD card. The redraw issue went away. I began adding the shortcuts back and again after 5 or so the redraw issue was back.

Would be interested to see if anyone else can reproduce this behavior...

 

[Malms]

I'm experiencing the same issues as crankerchick. I only see problems with screen rotation when opening different apps. Android 2.2 seems to remember your screen orientation from one app to the next and that's something I never noticed with 2.1. Here are some steps to reproduce the problem
1. Open the web browser
2. Turn the screen to get horizontal orientation
3. Hit the home button
4. Turn the screen vertically again
5. Open text messages

When doing this my text message app will open horizontally and after a delay, change to vertical orientation. This even effects my notifications, which is the most annoying