Help moto droid touchscreen problem

ilmar72 · Jun 6, 2010

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.

shadowdude777 · Jun 6, 2010

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.

ilmar72 · Jun 6, 2010

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 .

johnlgalt · Jun 6, 2010

I'd say it was an app - but is the sync icon in the notification bar?

How many apps have you got installed?

ilmar72 · Jun 6, 2010

johnlgalt said:
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.

johnlgalt · Jun 6, 2010

try not using the task killer after rebooting your phone and see if it still happens.

ilmar72 · Jun 6, 2010

Ok. I think I may have fixed it.

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 will post an update if the phone fails again .

ilmar72 · Jun 6, 2010

johnlgalt said:
try not using the task killer after rebooting your phone and see if it still happens.

btw I did that and it did not fix it.

Droidysseus · Jun 7, 2010

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.

smittythepig · Jun 7, 2010

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.

mcknigs · Jun 8, 2010

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

ilmar72 · Jun 8, 2010

mcknigs said:
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.

mcknigs · Jun 8, 2010

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.

Thanks,
-Scott

shaggymatt · Jun 8, 2010

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.

knuckledragger · Jun 8, 2010

Same thing was going on with mine and it started on the 5th or 6th. So far, so good today. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Update:
Never mind, it's still hosed.

hemicudamopar · Jun 23, 2010

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.

esparker7 · Jul 4, 2010

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?

jsgurl · Jul 4, 2010

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.

OrigamiKiller · Jul 5, 2010

happens to me all the time

Jareris · Jul 5, 2010

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?

zazabichi · Jul 6, 2010

Hi guys.

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%.

do you got other solution?

knuckledragger · Jul 6, 2010

I fixed mine by throwing it face-down onto my concrete driveway, thus breaking the glass. Then I sent it to Motorola for repair.

But seriously, I think it has to be a hardware problem. When I dropped mine on the driveway I was actually on my way to Best Buy to get a replacement.

KMH · Aug 22, 2010

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?

Achilles · Aug 25, 2010

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...

kida · Aug 25, 2010

Same issue. Touchscreen selecing icons randomly. Took it to Verizon and they replaced it. Seemed to be heat/moisture related.

Help moto droid touchscreen problem

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