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Help Screen and Soft keys over/non-responsive

MrJedi

MrJedi

Member
Several times a day (and lately more frequently) my phone will do one of two things.

1) The phone will be completely unresponsive on both the screen and the soft keys. Current solution: put phone in standby. This usually fixes the issue the first try, but just a few minutes ago I had to do it 5 times.

2) The other thing it does is act like I am doing a bunch of multi-touch actions and the screen will flicker, scroll half-way back and forth between home screens, show the top drag and drop edit/delete menu without prompting. Solution: same as above, go in and out of standby until the problem stops.

Both issues occur on the home screen, menus, and all apps I have used in the last month. There is no pattern to when it occurs. It can happen immediately out of standby, or after I have used the phone for an extended period of time. I have not noticed any one pattern of events that causes these issues to occur. Please note this issue was present prior to the 1.14 update.

So my question is are others dealing with this indicating a software issue, or is this a unique problem indicating a problem with the capacitive layer of my phone? The issue is driving me nuts and I am close to wanting to do a factory reset and sell the damn thing and buy a used Galaxy Nexus.

I have never rooted the phone, and I am running out of box stock with both the personalization update and radio interface error fix installed.
 
Sounds more like a software rather than a hardware issue, touch screens don't usually just go "bad".
 
I just popped on to this thread. Once I loaded this page my screen locked-up. I could see a download going on in the background, then 10 seconds later I received an important call that I could not answer. I went to standby, tried to keep typing this post and got the erratic behavior and phone started acting like I was trying to select text while I was trying to type.

My question is if this is a software issue why aren't more people experiencing this?
 
Yeah I did a factory reset and only re-_installed a minimal amount of apps. We'll see how it goes....
 
To follow-up from a while ago, still having this issue. It occurred within a day or two of a factory reset. At that point I figured to hell with it and loaded up my phone again. It happens in all apps, but I notice it the most in Chrome, G+, Twitter, & Facebook because I use those the most.

While, there are times I get close to throwing it out the window (I have thrown it across the room already), I am just trying to live with it in the hopes that the Nexus 5 (or whatever it will be) has 32gb of storage (it won't) so I can ditch this phone.
 
Well seeing as how you've tried everything that you can do, why don't you just call Virgin for a replacement? Literally takes less than 15 minutes to have a new phone shipped to you.
OB
 
OverByter said:
Well seeing as how you've tried everything that you can do, why don't you just call Virgin for a replacement? Literally takes less than 15 minutes to have a new phone shipped to you.
OB
Click to expand...

1) I did not purchase the phone from Virgin. 2) I do not pay for Virgin's replacement plan since there are plenty of other options for less.

Because of reasons 1 and 2 I can't see any reason why Virgin would help me. If I am incorrect on this, please let me know. As to getting warranty coverage for the plan I do have, I am a little worried about the phone I will get. Since I can't reproduce my issue on-demand, how do I know I won't just get someone else's return with the same issue?
 
MrJedi said:
1) I did not purchase the phone from Virgin. 2) I do not pay for Virgin's replacement plan since there are plenty of other options for less.

Because of reasons 1 and 2 I can't see any reason why Virgin would help me. If I am incorrect on this, please let me know. As to getting warranty coverage for the plan I do have, I am a little worried about the phone I will get. Since I can't reproduce my issue on-demand, how do I know I won't just get someone else's return with the same issue?
Click to expand...


If it's a Virgin Mobile phone and it's less than a year old (which it must be, since the EVO was released for VM less than a year ago), they will warranty replace it after troubleshooting... regardless of where you bought it.

Yes, odds are good you'll get a refurbished phone, but they do claim to make sure they're in working order before sending them. Why not give it a shot?
 
aml1025 said:
If it's a Virgin Mobile phone and it's less than a year old (which it must be, since the EVO was released for VM less than a year ago), they will warranty replace it after troubleshooting... regardless of where you bought it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I didn't realize that. I spent 30 minutes on Virgin's site before my last post looking for any info regarding that and I couldn't find anything. I also went ahead and did another factory reset since any phone I send back I would want to do it anyway. I updated all the pre-installed apps to make them current (most would not let me use them without doing so). I installed the HTC and Google Car Home apks (the former won't work without the latter was my understanding on XDA) and nothing else. Within 4 hours of the reset the issue occurred again. I got a short video this time, that I will post this weekend so others can see I am not making this up :p

I will call VM this afternoon and see what they say.
 
Just got off the phone with VM (call was 14:40 long - Literally less than 15 minutes as OverByter put it :p ). Sending me a new phone. We'll see how it goes.
 
Here is a video of the issue I was talking about. First it zooms on its own, then is not responsive to any touch, then after going in to standby it works fine:

HTC Evo V 4G Screen issues - YouTube

I got my replacement today, but I am locked out of my VM account for 24 hours so I can't swap phones until tomorrow afternoon. Which is fine because I use 2 step verification so I need to temporarily disable it on all the services I use, and/or use my work phone as my backup number.
 
If the website locks you out you can always go through voice prompt hell and have a live advisor do the swap. Sometimes they try charging for not using self service, just tell them that the website said to contact customer service and the charge will be waived. Good luck.
OB
 
I was actually able to get in and activate it about 90 minutes ago. Obviously it wasn't a true 24hr lockout, otherwise I would not have been able to get in until about 4pm CDT. When I called yesterday they mentioned the same thing to me about doing a swap on the phone. I did not do it at the time because I was at work, and my new phone was sitting on my doorstep at home. Either way, been using the new phone for about an hour now (spent the first 30 updating, and loading up).

I got a Virgin Branded replacement (previously had a Sprint Version) and I have noticed a few things. While I know it shouldn't be, but the new phone seems slightly lighter. I just weighed it with my mini scale that I use to weigh out my tea at work, and the old one was 137 grams without a battery, the new one 136.2 without a battery. I don't think I should be able to notice that little amount of difference, but I was correct. I am guessing the difference is pocket lint that has collected in the inside. The other thing I noticed is the power button on the new phone seems to stick out a wee bit more than my old one. This is by no means a bad thing. I thought the one on my old phone was too hard to find, especially in the morning when I am trying to snooze it :)

Anyway, figured I would share that. No issues so far with the new one, but I want to give it at least 48 hours before I say it is fine.
 
Glad to hear that it's worked out so far, the only difference between the Sprint and the VM version is the silk screening and the battery cover. The power button is just normal manufacturing tolerance, some are too easy and some are hard as hell. :rolleyes:
OB
 
MrJedi said:
I was actually able to get in and activate it about 90 minutes ago. Obviously it wasn't a true 24hr lockout, otherwise I would not have been able to get in until about 4pm CDT. When I called yesterday they mentioned the same thing to me about doing a swap on the phone. I did not do it at the time because I was at work, and my new phone was sitting on my doorstep at home. Either way, been using the new phone for about an hour now (spent the first 30 updating, and loading up).

I got a Virgin Branded replacement (previously had a Sprint Version) and I have noticed a few things. While I know it shouldn't be, but the new phone seems slightly lighter. I just weighed it with my mini scale that I use to weigh out my tea at work, and the old one was 137 grams without a battery, the new one 136.2 without a battery. I don't think I should be able to notice that little amount of difference, but I was correct. I am guessing the difference is pocket lint that has collected in the inside. The other thing I noticed is the power button on the new phone seems to stick out a wee bit more than my old one. This is by no means a bad thing. I thought the one on my old phone was too hard to find, especially in the morning when I am trying to snooze it :)

Anyway, figured I would share that. No issues so far with the new one, but I want to give it at least 48 hours before I say it is fine.
Click to expand...

You were able to detect .8 grams of difference. Have you considered slinging dope as a new profession? :p

Also, is there a screen protector on either phone?

EDIT:

How about weighing just the battery covers, then, just the phones.
 
Palmetto Fellow said:
You were able to detect .8 grams of difference. Have you considered slinging dope as a new profession? :p

Also, is there a screen protector on either phone?

EDIT:

How about weighing just the battery covers, then, just the phones.
Click to expand...

I just now saw this, and I already sent the old phone back. Otherwise I would have done this. There was no screen protector on either. I like to live dangerously and run naked. :smokingsomb: In all seriousness, if the phone isn't in my reserved phone pocket (nothing else goes in), it is in my desktop dock, sitting next me on the couch, or on my nightstand (which I have a cotton cloth on to put my phone on it). I have hated the reduction in responsiveness in every phone I have put a screen cover on, so I stopped. In the 2 years I have gone naked, I have yet to get a scratch. Not saying it won't/can't happen, just that I am careful and treat it like a $300 (that I paid in June 2012) device. Obviously the exception is the time I threw it across the room in frustration, but to be clear that was from one couch to another couch.

No issues so far with the new phone. At first I thought my WiFi antenna was faulty, but it turned out to be my router. I will say, that the Play Store downloads seem to be slow no matter what network I am on, but I saw the same issues on my wife's tablet and phone. As of right now I am saying it was a successful replacement.
 
I also have this issue once in a while. It seems to happen when my hands are a little sweaty, leaving little droplets of water on the screen. Once I wipe my screen clean and make sure theres no dirt or anything else on it, It works fine. This is even without turning off the screen first. It will have the problem, Ill wipe the screen on my shirt or something rubbing it good getting it spotless, And it will work perfectly afterwards. If I dont wipe down the screen, Putting the phone into standby and waking it fixes the problem for the moment, Until I touch the screen again.

my guess is, The digitizer is reading the tiny amount of moisture on the screen, Causing it to have issues. dirt and especially cat hair(and other stray hairs) will throw off touch screens. I know the cat hair is an issue because it happens on my laptop touchpad all the time. There will be a stray hair stuck in the corner making the mouse jump around.
 
My issue had nothing to do with moisture or pet hair. I know what you are referring to, as that did happen from time to time. However, on my phone the issue that caused me to want to RMA it always occurred as if I was trying to multi-touch in the upper right quadrant. There plenty of times that my phone was perfectly clean and the issue occurred.

The sweat/water/pet hair issue would typically be on the lower half of the phone as that's all my tiny fingers can reach with one hand :)
 
MrJedi said:
My issue had nothing to do with moisture or pet hair. I know what you are referring to, as that did happen from time to time. However, on my phone the issue that caused me to want to RMA it always occurred as if I was trying to multi-touch in the upper right quadrant. There plenty of times that my phone was perfectly clean and the issue occurred.

The sweat/water/pet hair issue would typically be on the lower half of the phone as that's all my tiny fingers can reach with one hand :)
Click to expand...

It was just a thought. :p
 
I have had the same digitizer problem for a while, too. I have just learned to put up with it. However, yesterday, my LCD no longer works. Digitizer and everything else works. I can adb and utilize the phone, too. But I will be calling Virgin Mobile and asking for a replacement.

Edit: Wow, Virgin Mobile CSRs definitely get the award for most oblivious and subpar performance. I just had a 20 minute conversation with a CSR about me being/not being within the 1 year warranty window. As you all may know, this phone is not even a year old yet (it will be May 31st). I have almost had it with Virgin Mobile. If this replacement phone has any problems, I'm going to hit the horse and jump shore to T-Mobile. /rant
 
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