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[Q] Possible hardware problem of the back button?

I just wanted to share this, since I was able to replicate this issue with three different phones, also asking if other people are having the same issue.
I am using my Samsung Nexus S for three days.
I noticed that the back button (the first capacitive button on the bottom left) appears to have an hardware problem.
Basically normally it works fine, I mean when I'm not using the phone for some hours.
Then if I start to use the phone, after a moderate use (example installing applications from the market, browsing etc) the button gets less and less sensitive.
After some minutes it gets really annoying.
To make it work it is necessary to use a really stronger pressure with the finger, and it is not even always working!
I am planning to return my device, but today talking with some people/colleagues I discovered that two of them have exactly the same problem.
I'm suspecting there is a batch of Nexus S phones with this glitch, I am curious to know how many people have the same problem.
Note:
At first I thought it was a general issue of the capacitive buttons. But I can't replicate the same problem with the other three buttons, they work very smoothly just lighltly skimming the finger over them, even after long usage.
Anyone with the same problem? What is your experience with this button after some usage?
Cheers

I want to say that I noticed something similar the other day, but it was short-lived, and I'm not 100% sure. It wasn't long enough or bad enough to make me think the phone is defective, but I'm a bit used to funky capacitive button responses from my N1 days.
I can't reproduce the issue right now, though. How much usage are you talking about needing to duplicate?
Does your phone get hot, or feel hotter than normal when this happens?
I'd see if there's some particular pattern or software that seems to trigger it if you're interested in trouble-shooting.

The problem goes away when I don't touch the phone for a while (it seems that 1 hour is enough to reset the problem).
It seems "recharging".
Then with normal usage, nothing in particular, just even browsing in the settings/maps/market/browser etc., in few minutes the problem appears. The button definitely loses his "power".
It's very annoying, and my friends confirmed the same behavior.
EDIT:
Forgot to sat that the phone is not getting hotter, everything else is really normal.
Cheers

Mine definitely can be used for much more than a few minutes without the problem you're describing appearing.
I'd take it back. Factory reset the phone to protect your private data before taking it back. After the factory reset, you might want to test the behavior again, if it went away, the phone's not defective, you just had some software glitch.
Reminder, factory reset erases everything on the phone, so if you do it as troubleshooting step, be prepared to have to set the phone up from scratch again...I'm sure you knew this, but just covering my butt in case you didn't. It's a good trouble shooting step no matter what if you don't mind the hassle of re-setting things up.

I have a similar experience with the back button. Not sure what to think yet.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

I had a similar problem when I had the Vibrant. Just exchanged it and luckily I got a better one without any problems. I did find out though if you are using the screen protector that came with the phone, it can cause this type of problem.

No problem, I will try everything tomorrow. This is not my primary phone (still loving my rooted Nexus One with CyanogenMod 6.1.1 ;-) I can't renounce to the colored trackball for the different notifications), but just a "dev" phone for testing purposes.

michele72 said:
No problem, I will try everything tomorrow. This is not my primary phone (still loving my rooted Nexus One with CyanogenMod 6.1.1 ;-) I can't renounce to the colored trackball for the different notifications), but just a "dev" phone for testing purposes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The app NOLED from the Market may interest you if you can't live without trackball style color notifications. Seems to work fine when I tested it.

distortedloop said:
The app NOLED from the Market may interest you if you can't live without trackball style color notifications. Seems to work fine when I tested it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you, giving it a try.
Anyway, today I factory-reset my telephone and the problem of the back button is still there. I am returning the device.

Back button non responsive
Hi,
I just got my new nexus S (about an hour ago) that I was really excited about and am faced with a problem with the back button too.
Its got factory settings, so it cannot be a downloaded software issue. Also, I have not yet charged the battery at all, its still running on the same battery power that it shipped with.
The other buttons at the bottom of the phone (home, menu and search) all respond fine, its only the back button that does not seem to work. After going through this thread, I tried long-pressing the button, hard-pressing it, pressing just above it, below it, etc. It just wont respond. I had removed the screen protector it shipped with, so that cannot be the issue either.
If this is a known hardware problem (i.e. others have faced it too), irrespective of whether it is acknowledged by Samsung / Google, I'll return the handset. I do not want to spend a fortune and be landed with a handset that does not work - forget working as desired, but it does not seem to be working as designed !
Thanks & Regards,
Rohan

Yep. Definitely a problem here with the back button. There's also two other threads here about it.

I'm having similar problems. I have to touch the button just right for it to work properly
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

I was experiencing the same thing with my Nexus S, wasn't sure if it was the case I was using! Took of case and still had problem. I eventually returned mine cause it seemed like it was getting worse! I have a new one worth no problems, definitely a hardware problem! Return it!
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

michele72 said:
I just wanted to share this, since I was able to replicate this issue with three different phones, also asking if other people are having the same issue.
I am using my Samsung Nexus S for three days.
I noticed that the back button (the first capacitive button on the bottom left) appears to have an hardware problem.
Basically normally it works fine, I mean when I'm not using the phone for some hours.
Then if I start to use the phone, after a moderate use (example installing applications from the market, browsing etc) the button gets less and less sensitive.
After some minutes it gets really annoying.
To make it work it is necessary to use a really stronger pressure with the finger, and it is not even always working!
I am planning to return my device, but today talking with some people/colleagues I discovered that two of them have exactly the same problem.
I'm suspecting there is a batch of Nexus S phones with this glitch, I am curious to know how many people have the same problem.
Note:
At first I thought it was a general issue of the capacitive buttons. But I can't replicate the same problem with the other three buttons, they work very smoothly just lighltly skimming the finger over them, even after long usage.
Anyone with the same problem? What is your experience with this button after some usage?
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
those buttons work over the heat of your finger. thats why after use it doesnt get as responsive. its because the screen is also heated and the heat of the screen is effecting the buttons. thats why you need harder pressure for the phone to understand this is your finger.
same issue was with Nexus 1. less responsive buttons. thats why there is a bigger gap between the buttons and the screen for galaxy S phones. i dont know why they did such a thing again with the nexus S. its like samsung didnt learn from anything from HTCs mistake.

They work with capacitance, not heat. Hence it being called a capacitive screen with capacitive buttons.

I think this is true ...
I have an HTC Desire with AMOLED screen.
When I play a finger intensive game, like "SkyForce Reloaded", after some times, the touch is not registered.
Then I must stop for a while, or change finger
Try that, you will know what I meant.
But, I don't have issue with the back button on HTC Desire because it is a hardware button. I am just trying to explain about loosing touch registration because finger interaction on (s)amoled screen.
PS: SkyForce Reloaded is an old school shot'em up game where you control a little space ship with your finger, shooting enemies.
ll_l_x_l_ll said:
those buttons work over the heat of your finger. thats why after use it doesnt get as responsive. its because the screen is also heated and the heat of the screen is effecting the buttons. thats why you need harder pressure for the phone to understand this is your finger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

The Desire's digitizer is the same Clearpad 2000 which is used in the Nexus One (and quite a few others), the problem there is that it's pants.

Rusty! said:
They work with capacitance, not heat. Hence it being called a capacitive screen with capacitive buttons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol, isnt called like that because it registers the heat from your fingers. thats why if you try to use a pen, it wont register . and thus. the screen is NOT resistive type "where it will recognize anything since its being pushed by force ? "

Much more too it than that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitive_touch_screen

Rusty! said:
Much more too it than that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitive_touch_screen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
from your link
"A capacitive touchscreen panel is one which consists of an insulator such as glass, coated with a transparent conductor such as indium tin oxide (ITO).[7][8] As the human body is also a conductor, touching the surface of the screen results in a distortion of the screen's electrostatic field, measurable as a change in capacitance. Different technologies may be used to determine the location of the touch. The location is then sent to the controller for processing.

[Q] capacitive button lights

I just got my phone back from a phone reaire store because my screen was cracked but i have noticed that the home menu back and search buttons are very dim and you almost cannot see the lights even in a dark room,what could the problem be? maybe led slid a little bit after they reassemled it?How can i fix it? I have had to bring it back to the store # times and they gave me my money back and the screen is fixed but would like this problem resolved?

If I recall, the lights are actually on the capacitance buttons. Could be a defective overlay on the screen, adhesive misplaced when removing or installing the new screen, or I guess they could be failing. You would have to tear it back apart to see what the issue actually is.

Okay thanks for your reply...I already know where the buttons are so I think I will just leave them
Sent from my HTC Desire HD using XDA App

Touch cover issues?

After having a duff sd slot on my original surface my replacement arrived today, all good, left it doing updates and installing my apps for a while, all was well, or so I thought..
The keyboard is now not responding after a while, connected, works, close the cover, open it again, screen doesn't come on, press power button screen comes on, keyboard not responding, close cover, screen stays active, disconnect keyboard and reconnect it and it works again..
Had a quick look through the settings and there's nothing I can see that relates to keyboard sleep or power management..
Tried it on my old surface and its fine :\
Wondering if anyone has seen or heard anything similar, otherwise another tech chat with support tomorrow...

You might want to try rebooting the new Surface, and make sure the connection port where the cover links up is clean, but otherwise I don't know what would cause that problem. I've had cases where the cover wasn't recognized, but disconnecting and reconnecting it fixed that.

Only issue I ever have with the cover is if I remove it while the tablet is sleeping and when it wakes it thinks it is still attached.

It's been rebooted many times so dont think its that, had a poke thru device managet last night and looked for power saving stuff but nothing relavant..
Connectors are all clean and it works in the old Surface.. :/
Maybe the keyboards just missing the tablet it came with lol

Still nothing, hard reset, power offs nothing, have now noticed that the edges of the touch cover are peeling apart at the corners so might get this replaced as well, so far the support guys have been spot on, the device however while really promising just lacks finish :\

Trig0r said:
Still nothing, hard reset, power offs nothing, have now noticed that the edges of the touch cover are peeling apart at the corners so might get this replaced as well, so far the support guys have been spot on, the device however while really promising just lacks finish :\
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Two options....
1. Return the cover..
2. Bring your surface bad cover to Microsoft store and let them figure out what is wrong...
I am very happy with my surface and the touch cover...

I have a 5 second delay sometimes when opening and closing. Otherwise, ref let msft know

truffle1234 said:
Two options....
1. Return the cover..
2. Bring your surface bad cover to Microsoft store and let them figure out what is wrong...
I am very happy with my surface and the touch cover...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had 2 bad units now, don't think its the cover as it worked on the first surface before I returned it.
I'll get onto surface support when they are back, I don't seem to be able to raise a ticket on the new unit, touch cover might end up going back as well at this rate...
Sent from my HTC Desire HD using Tapatalk 2

I've had the same issue with the type cover. Sometimes it works fine throughout. Other times it seems to fall asleep until an adjustment is made.
I've caught the connection off by a few millimeters at times (although that doesn't explain why the initial connection would work), but you can look and check for that as well.
From now on I'll simply restart from the Power button without removing the connection to see if it's really a 100% mechanical issue.

Ha I've had all of these problems you've named

On Live Chat with support now, the MS forums seem to suggest a reset, I've tried it a few times tho, will see if they will fire out another cover..

Right, cover is being swapped out on AR as well now, hope they hurry up and take the hold off the card though, the hold is for more than it would cost to actually buy the bloody thing new again..

[Q] Keyboard always registers as open?

I recently had the pleasure of looking at my Photon Q to find a mess of cracks in what had previously been a pristine display. I have no idea how it happened, since the phone had been in my pocket for about ten minutes while I was shopping and it definitely wasn't cracked before that. My only guess is that I bumped into something while I was shopping. I'm guessing this detail is irrelevant, but I'm including it in case it's of-interest.
I've done replacement surgery on phones before, and I was in no mood to do it again so I took it to a local shop. They managed to replace it, but when it came back from the shop it was stuck in landscape mode. I checked out the accelerometer with Z-DeviceTest and it seems to be just fine. It seems like the logical culprit is that the phone always thinks the slider keyboard is open, even when it's not. I don't know how to test for this, though, and I haven't been able to find a Google search incantation that tells me anything of interest.
So my questions are: Does my diagnosis seem plausible? How does the Photon Q detect when they keyboard is open or closed? Is this something that probably got borked in the process of disassembly/reassembly? The phone is going back to the repair guy shortly because he also broke the earpiece speaker and he needs to replace it (at no charge, of course), and I demonstrated the won't-do-portrait-mode problem to him before I left the shop. Is there something along the line of "make sure that you screw the flibbertywidget into the whoozamawhatzit" information that I can give him?
Thanks in advance!

Am running cm11 and there is an option in system; dispay; to set 90,180 degrees etc.
Sent from my PHOTON Q using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

rbeavers said:
Am running cm11 and there is an option in system; dispay; to set 90,180 degrees etc.
Sent from my PHOTON Q using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah, when the keyboard is recognised as open, auto-rotate won't work.
A possible workaround is to use a terminal command to simulate keyboard open/close, but I'm not sire if it would work. I'll post the command later.
Sent from Google Nexus 4 @ CM11

Thanks, both of you. I've confirmed my diagnosis, I think-- I've noticed that the keyboard backlight stays on even when the keyboard is closed.

Think that's normal, I us backlight off app to turn it off.
If you paid good money to get your phone fixed, may take it back and make them do it right?
Sent from my PHOTON Q using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

WhipArtist said:
Thanks, both of you. I've confirmed my diagnosis, I think-- I've noticed that the keyboard backlight stays on even when the keyboard is closed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In adb shell:
Code:
dumpsys window | grep mLidState
mLidState=1 means that hw keyboard is out (at least the lid sensor says so)
mLidState=0 hw keyboard is hidden
rbeavers said:
Think that's normal, I us backlight off app to turn it off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's certainly not normal, keyboard backlight is automatically turned off when the keyboard is hidden.

Stuck my head and phone in closet your right it's off when closed.
Sent from my PHOTON Q using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

test magnet sensor...
...slide out keyboard and put any magnet to bottom by space key.
Post result

Solution
This problem is caused by a small magnet being removed during repair. The magnet isn't held in place by screws or tape or anything, it just sits in a small open space between the sliding keyboard tray and the LCD display layers of the phone. The location of the magnet is on the right side of the phone if you are looking at it up-right and about an inch below the volume buttons. Without this magnet the phone thinks the keyboard is out the entire time and the screen won't rotate. Replacing the magnet requires nearly complete disassembly. I've found you can save several minutes and a headache by taking the phone apart until you get to the sliding keyboard tray and taking off the 6 or so screws on the right side, then lifting the right side several millimeters and popping the magnet in from there. This way you won't have to take off the touch screen digitizer and other fragile ribbon cables. Once the sliding keyboard tray is re-attached with screws the magnet can't go anywhere. Good Luck.

urgent Help Moto x pure Edition touch problem

I replaced the screen on my Moto after it broke. Completely successful closed the back but i didn't put the screws i wanted to test it first, but after testing i found out the bottom (back, home and recent apps buttons) doesn't respond to touch, and im sure i never damaged the screen i was so careful and more secure.. so i thought maybe it was just a cable connectors maybe or sumn similar, so i fully reopened again and start to connect all the cables more careful one by one. After i was done before i put the screws again i had to test it, and this is what drives me crazy.. this time the touch was not responding from the bottom to like few more inches up, close to half of the screen i can say,like i made it worse this time, i didn't bother opening again so im here asking for what could be wrong? the screen is super clean never dropped never scratched it was just new one i bought it for like $61,Any ideas as to why that might be wrong here? i want to back up via twrp and root but i cant do it since the bottom wont respond to touch and neither twrp has no rotation feature.

help anyone?

finally fixed the problem never mind anyone having same problem i will be glad to help