• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help moto droid touchscreen problem

I thought this was a hardware problem at first. In the vertical position it appeared that the 3rd column from to the right, 2nd from the left, was at times either:

a) Not recognizing touches, any time i clicked on an icon in this column it would register to one of the column on either side. Also, clicking on the home button appeared to have no affect, interestingly the home button is in the same column, just not on the touchscreen.

or

b) Randomly registering touches. Icons or screen elements that lay on this column, and only this column as far as I could tell would be randomly selected.

Initially I thought that there was something wrong with this physical column of the touch screen that extended to the home button, and I cleaned it, took out the battery, etc. However, yesterday I noticed that when I have the screen in a horizontal layout, the same virtual column, 3rd to the right 2nd from the left, which is not in the same physical location, exhibited the same effects! You can see this most easily if you have the slider unlock screen, lock the phone, pull out the keyboard and then bring up the display. The slider should start moving as if it was being touched.

The fact that it is the same virtual column in horizontal layout and vertical layout, that is displaying the behavior, and all other columns seem to be unaffected (unless the behavior is like that in a, in which case surrounding columns will be selected when the 3rd one was) would lead me to believe that there is something wrong w/ the software.

Still no resolution for this though.
 
HEED MY WORDS! The cause of this problem is WATER!

On multiple occasions, my Droid's touchscreen has gone out-of-control just as described here for a couple of days or a week. I always traced the problem back to sweat, spilled water or moisture of some kind. It gets trapped under the screen so it isn't able to evaporate that easily. Once I spilled water on it and it immediately started pressing random buttons, scrolling down my contacts list and calling people I didn't want to talk to. And sometimes it just doesn't respond to the touch.

The key is applying mild heat to the phone to encourage faster evaporation, as well as blowing air on it with a lot of pressure so some of the air molecules make it into the hard to reach crevices and sweep those water molecules away.

When I most recently went through this process, my phone needed to be blow dried for 5-20 minutes, a minute wouldn't do. I didn't want to stand there that long, but was worried about just leaving a hot blow dryer unattended and starting a fire or overheating my phone. So I triggered the "cool" button on the blow dryer by taping a coin over it, that way it blew only lukewarm air. I placed the phone 2 inches from it, left it for 20 minutes, and when I came back the touchscreen worked perfectly.
 
when I charge with Moto plug in charger, my screen goes nuts and either doesn't respond to touch at all or seems to be responding to phantom touches all over. But, when I use a Moto car charger, even just for a few minutes, the phone seems to work fine. I don't know if the micro usb connection on the plug in charger is worn out/broken, or if the rectifier is not working, but at least this seems to fix the problem.
 
i'm facing same problem! :(
already ask in few forums(h**p://w w w[dot]droidforums[dot]net/forum/droid-2-global/169863-touch-screen-problem-d2g-please-i-need-serious-answer.html ) for fix, but till n o helps! please what should i do? replace the flex or the digitizer?
 
When I try to text or write anything on Facebook or in an email, if i use any punctuation, my keyboard locks up. I have to pull battery and reboot. Any ideas? FYI, this is my 3rd Droid in less than a year, the messaging kept minimizing itself before when i pressed the space bar and I would have to reopen the text, or on FB it would allow me to see what i was writing and would put things in all caps and start a sentence over when I didn't want it to. This phone was replaced twice and it ended up being a setting issue with spell correct that one of the technicians found on here. That issue is fixed but I need to see why my keyboard is locking up with punctuation keys only. (also I do not have any excessive apps, only Gmail and Facebook). Thanks!
 
I'm having the same problem, except I dropped mine in water and left it in rice for 24 hours and then it was working fine. A few hours later though the touch screen completely stopped working and the lights on the touch buttons never go off, just dim.
 
I have the ghost/nonfunctional problem on the original Droid A855 using the box charger connected to an outlet.

1- A week ago, my on/off button stops "clicking". It's a little weak but no problem, I can slide the keyboard open half an inch to turn it on and reduce the wear on the main on/off

2- Yesterday, my fingers were slightly wet from the rain, slid open the keyboard in a bus shelter and browsed email for a few minutes. Mind you I have spoken quickly on the phone during a light drizzle with no problems, but I did need to slide the keyboard open...

3- A few hours later, the "home" button and the strip of touchscreen vertically above it do not work, when I press them it selects something to the left or right of it.

4- A few battery pulls later, it goes into the ghost mode going nuts. I remove the stock screen protector thinking that was it, and clean the screen too. No luck.

5- By evening the craziness stops, on its own accord and all is right. I browse the net for answers, people blame the charger, but my phone started working again so I thought nothing of it, and plugged it into the wall via box charger before bed.

6- This morning, after its alarm wakes me up and I hit snooze, it ghost functions through and starts playing music which is in that "home" vertical strip.

7- That strip still doesn't work. I got home, plugged it into the computer (the motherboard has to have a pretty well regulated voltage going to the USB connector even if the box charger's AC transformer has taken a dump. No luck).

I don't get how this could be a charger issue. Lower voltage would just mean the battery wasn't charged as rapidly, right? I'm assuming this is a water issue, I've had a RAZR go for a swim that spent two months before turning on despite all the isopropanol and warming.
 
I've got the center strip problem. It is NOT due to bad apps, too many apps, task-killer, or mositure. The phone sucks.
Fortunately I bought it with my AMEX, so I got an automatic warranty extension. I got a full refund on the price of the phone.
Now that the new gen phones are being released, I;; be skipping the RAZR adn buying the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Will have to wait a few weeks, but I'll deal with it.
 
My girlfriends phone (motorola droid2) has this issue. I had accidentally cracked the top of the touchscreen above the slit where the ear speaker is, and a month later it started doing this, so we assumed that was why. However she has given it a few beatings before it started doing that (dropping or throwing it for whatever reason). I recently replaced the touch screen digitizer my self two times, the first one seemed to only work in a small portion of the screen, but it didn't wig out like it used to. So i took it back apart and put the second touch screen on it, this one worked fine exept where the home key is and a few sections directly above that. So I tried putting the other one back in (the one that just worked in the center) and when i did that it seemed to work all over except again the home key. After a few hours though, it started wiggin out again. I can tell you 100% that the problem (if yours is the same) is NOT the touchscreen glass. I was however thinking it could be how the tiny centimeter wide flex cable that goes from the touch screen glass into the phone was plugged in, as I pulled the phone apart 6 times that day to adjust that piece it seemed to change how it worked SOMEWHAT, but not to any decent measures. The phone now barely works, i find some ways to get around it to use it for 3 minutes at a time or so, but I fear my girlfriend will get frustrated and break the damn thing before i find a solution. I have the replacement LCD screen, wich is the only part of the phone i didnt pull apart and replace so I am going to do that today and I will get back to you all. The cost for these parts was only like $35 for the LCD screen and like 15 dollars for TWO touchscreen glass digitizers. The lame part is that, you can pull the touchscreen glass off the phone without a single screw or click, it literally comes right off the face of the phone, BUT, the cable it is connected to, to get to that you have to pull literally every single bit piece cable wire screw apart off the phone, and there is so many tiny cables that can snap if you just breathe on them too hard ya know? DEFINATELY made this way because they knew every damn phones touch screen would break or go out and then people would ruin their whole phone trying to do self repairs. Anyways i will get back to you guys asap to see if the lcd screen helps, i seriously doubt it will as i see no way the LCD screen can be controlling selection of icons and stuff. The phone does seem to work somewhat when i slide the keyboard out a little bit into different positions. Witch i find really weird.
 
Shit didn't do a DAMN thing. It's gotta be some piece of shit tiny ass flimsy chip or cable inside the phone that no one could ever detect as the problem.
 
I had the similar problems aforementioned.
The Menu key on touchscreen just won't react at all.
I tried the other solutions: uninstalling wiping, reboot, batteries pull.
They won't work.

I finally figured out a way working well on my Droid 2 Global:

Go to Settings>
Display>
Disable: "In-Pocket Detection".

Now the Menu key works fine.

THIS actually worked! It's running as smooth as when I first got it!!!

THANKS!
 
I have tried everything from cleaning the screen to deleting unnecessary apps.. I dont know what to do can someone give me some ideas I have a Motorola blur its old but i really like it and if its possible to fix i want to save from buying another phone. :confused:
 
I recently had similar problems as many of you out there with my touchscreen going crazy and often not working correctly.

I was able to fix mine by going into my screen settings and turning off the buzz feedback. Suddenly things are back to normal!

I don't know if a piece of dust got between the edge of my screen and the case, causing the phone to overcompensate with feedback or what, but this solution worked for me.

Also, if your touchscreen doesn't seem to work at all when you touch it, your hands may be too dry for the screen to register your actions.

Hope this helps!
 
THIS actually worked! It's running as smooth as when I first got it!!!

THANKS!

I had the similar problems aforementioned.
The Menu key on touchscreen just won't react at all.
I tried the other solutions: uninstalling wiping, reboot, batteries pull.
They won't work.

I finally figured out a way working well on my Droid 2 Global:

Go to Settings>
Display>
Disable: "In-Pocket Detection".

Now the Menu key works fine.

I just tried to do this and can't find the option to disable "In-Pocket Detection". I've seen it before, but can't find it now. I have a Droid 2 Global (purchased in Dec 2010). Was experiencing the random app opening issue, but now just the home button and column on the screen above that issue.
 
This really seems like a software issue. I had the "Ghost" behavior. I even did a "manual factory reset" since the "Ghost" prevented me from hitting proper keys. I finally did a re-image using several tools. Now, I am back to Firmware 2.1. The "Ghost" is gone, but the right column of my screen is now unresponsive. I'm going to re-image it to Firmware 2.2 to see if this fixes the right column. Does anyone have any more information on this problem?
 
I am having the same issues as all of the above and have had my phone about a year and a half. I treat my droid like a baby and have very few apps installed. Certainly not tasking the device to it's marketed potential. I find it intesting that my phone is going "brain dead" at the time when all of the newer, fancier Droids are being released...conspiracy theory..maybe?!! I'm tired of the ridiculous data fees for underperforming devices. Back to a basic phone for me...thanks for nothing Verizon!
 
New to the forum. I found you doing research as to why my DROID was going nuts. Same problems explained here. And it also seems like it started after the last update. A ghost operating my phone. This all started 3 days ago. I have done everything suggested in these pages. Keep in mind, my phone has never gotten damp, dropped, and humidity was never a factor since it's always indoors. After 2 frustrating days trying to get it to work I finally called Verizon. I purchased this phone almost 2 years ago. Never, ever had a problem with it. When the service person got on the phone with me she was very sympathetic to the problem. She advised me that although I did have insurance on it, they would be happy to let me upgrade even though I was 2 months short. I decided to upgrade to the Droid X as it only would cost me $16 dollars more than my insurance and it's a nicer phone for me. Well guess what, not even 1 hour after I made the upgrade my DROID started working perfectly. Just like always. Red flags went up everywhere for me. So I called a friend of mine that had purchased the same phone at almost the same time as I had. Well whata you know. His phone did the exact same thing. Went haywire. He also talked to Verizon and the same routine. Upgrade was suggested. Well, same thing. As soon as he ordered the upgrade within a few hours his phone was also working beautifully. What the heck. Coinsidence ? hmmmmm.
Soooooo, has anyone checked their old phone after they replaced it to see if it's working? Just curious and pissed.
I just experienced the exact same thing. My Droid's touchscreen was experiencing all the issues mentioned in this forum and then when I upgraded with an iPhone 4s and went under contract again my non-functioning droid suddenly works flawlessly as if nothing was wrong. Now I'm torn between returning the iPhone and paying a $35 restocking fee but wonder if upon doing so my Droid will revert to having problems again. Hmmm......what to do?!?! Has anyone else had this experience and if so what did you do? Do we have any ground to make a claim or file a notice with the BBB?
 
I think more people should pay attention to what Alexandros said above.
Sure some malware could do ghost-touching, but so could water condensed on the backside of the glass. You wouldn't be able to see that water, most times.
My Droid is over two years old and yesterday it suddenly developed furious ghost-touching and screen jitter. I baked it out about 60 degreesC for about half an hour and it has behaved all day since then. My area has just had a week of unusual heat, humidity, and rain; I've been sweaty, and I carry it in my pocket any which-way, so it may be logical to develop trapped humidity now.
Look up "water damage". They talk about ghost-touching too. To get water out, people do things like keeping the phone overnight in a jar of rice which has been baked dry with electric heat. It's about as straightforward to try this drying out, as it is to re-flash & such. More so for me, I'm not a hacker yet.
 
HEED MY WORDS! The cause of this problem is WATER!

On multiple occasions, my Droid's touchscreen has gone out-of-control just as described here for a couple of days or a week. I always traced the problem back to sweat, spilled water or moisture of some kind. It gets trapped under the screen so it isn't able to evaporate that easily. Once I spilled water on it and it immediately started pressing random buttons, scrolling down my contacts list and calling people I didn't want to talk to. And sometimes it just doesn't respond to the touch.

The key is applying mild heat to the phone to encourage faster evaporation, as well as blowing air on it with a lot of pressure so some of the air molecules make it into the hard to reach crevices and sweep those water molecules away.

When I most recently went through this process, my phone needed to be blow dried for 5-20 minutes, a minute wouldn't do. I didn't want to stand there that long, but was worried about just leaving a hot blow dryer unattended and starting a fire or overheating my phone. So I triggered the "cool" button on the blow dryer by taping a coin over it, that way it blew only lukewarm air. I placed the phone 2 inches from it, left it for 20 minutes, and when I came back the touchscreen worked perfectly.

:)This worked for me, except I had to put it in the oven. I took out the battery,and preheated to the lowest temp which was 170 degrees. Then I put the phone in and turned off the oven. I waited an hour or so and when I took it out; everything is back to normal. I had already done everything else I had read, including a factory reset, all 3rd party apps removed, etc. Nothing else worked. The hairdryer trick didn't work; I'm guessing because the temp was too low. I used a cool setting for about 20 minutes. Thanks.
 
Back
Top Bottom