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

Help Screen brightness and vibration problems

I

Inctry

Lurker
Hello All.

I am new to Android, but after two weeks of spending days worth of navigating around, first, the Motorola 2 Global and now the Incredible 2 (because D2 Global was awful and made me almost quit any Android altogether) I am now comfortable with getting around the OS and my Inc2.

So, I've already tried everything I can to get this problem fixed. It's not as big a deal as the others I've had, but I was able to troubleshoot (thanks to this forum and other online sites!) and resolve those problems. This one eludes me.

This problem did not start occurring until I did the first hard factory reset on the phone. Before then, it was not an issue. Or, at least, I didn't notice an issue.

SCREEN BRIGHTNESS:
I set the screen brightness low (about 20%). But when I restart or power off/on the phone, the brightness goes up to a higher brightness (about 40-50%), which I assume is a default brightness. I had been downloading various apps and had many problems with a number of them and so had been doing multiple factory resets. No matter what, any time I power on/off, the brightness setting will not save and I would always have to go into Settings to reset the brightness level every time.

Then, accidentally, I discovered that if I quickly press the power button twice in a row (essentially putting the phone to sleep and waking it back up), the brightness does return to my setting.

I thought the stock Brightness widget might be trying to take control to force the screen to its default setting and so cleared its cache and even tried to delete the widget. No luck.

Interestingly, if I actually do use the Brightness widget, I again lose my personal setting and have to go back into Settings to reset the level.

Anyone have any information or thoughts as to why this is happening and a workaround?


VIBRATION:
Can't turn off haptic feedback on the calculator, even though I have every vibration setting set to off, including Sound and Keyboard. I can't get the other system vibrations to turn off either, like when dragging an icon to be moved around or deleted.

Basically, I would like to have every single haptic feedback killed.

I read somewhere on here that a member called tech support and he was told that there was no way to disable the vibration in the calculator. Looking in the system Applications under "Manage Applications", it does show that the calculator does have permission to control vibration.

I found the only possible fix, but it is older information and I am hesitant to try, since I can't find an app that will allow me to do this:

Disable or Customize Haptic Feedback of HTC Calculator Vibration

I'd like to minimize the number of applications I download to replace the stock apps to just those that I absolutely must have, because as I learned these past 2 weeks, the more apps I have, the more likely there will be conflicting apps that don't play nice with each other and with the Android OS.

As it is, I'm trying find a good contacts app and dialer. I really like the HTC UI, but the phone portion - which is the most important part - leaves much to be desired.


Many thanks!


P.S. Can't wait to root this. I'm so sick of all the bloatware.
 
Welcome to Android Forums. I don't have the Dinc2 so I'm of no help. I do hope you find an answer to your problems. Good luck and enjoy the forums.
 
I didnt have an answer for either question so I tried googling a little ... found the same this you did about the calculator ... I appears that you will have to live with it until we have root if you want to use the stock calculator. Have you tried to download a different calculator? Perhaps they would allow you to turn off the feedback:

https://market.android.com/details?id=uk.co.nickfines.RealCalc&feature=search_result

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sdp.calculator&feature=search_result


The screen brightness problem is not one that I have had to deal with. I wonder if it is an app messing with it. They only thing I could suggest it a factory reset and see if the problem is still there before adding apps. IF its not, start to add the apps one by one and see if/when the problem starts.

Sorry I couldnt be more help ... hopefully these options work and if not I hope you figure it out. If you do figure it out please post and let us know what the problem is.

Cheers
 
Hello, Olbriar, and thank you very much for the welcome.

Thanks, TheTomlin2, for your thoughts on possible causes. I also thought a downloaded app might have been the cause, so I uninstalled everything. And I had done several factory resets to see if I can resolve the problem, but that didn't work. Ironically, it was after my first factory reset that the screen brightness problem surfaced. In the phone's native state without any additional app of any kind, the brightness problem still persist, except for one time. Just today, after a quick reboot, the phone didn't show this problem, until the next reboot. So, it doesn't seem to be a quirk or established bug in the Android OS, but something peculiar to this particular phone. Thank you for providing me with the links to those calculator apps.

Here's something that may help others:

I started to have other issues with the phone, including only being able to hear out of one ear bud when the audio headset was connected. Tech support taught me to do a hard reset (not a factory reset) that discharges static electricity, which builds up when the phone is charged for longer than 4 hours. Apparently, this built up static electricity can affect the audio jack and cause minor display issues. The first time I tried this, it worked to get the audio functional in both left and right. But then, this problem would repeat itself and I had to keep doing a hard reset.

This phone became a hassle. While I was doing a factory reset with tech support on the line, the phone locked up. Tech support said they'll have to send me out a new phone when the phone locks up during a factory reset.

I am not having luck with Androids. This will be my second Inc2 and my 4th Android phone attempt.


Thanks, again, to you both.
 
Inctry said:
Hello, Olbriar, and thank you very much for the welcome.

Thanks, TheTomlin2, for your thoughts on possible causes. I also thought a downloaded app might have been the cause, so I uninstalled everything. And I had done several factory resets to see if I can resolve the problem, but that didn't work. Ironically, it was after my first factory reset that the screen brightness problem surfaced. In the phone's native state without any additional app of any kind, the brightness problem still persist, except for one time. Just today, after a quick reboot, the phone didn't show this problem, until the next reboot. So, it doesn't seem to be a quirk or established bug in the Android OS, but something peculiar to this particular phone. Thank you for providing me with the links to those calculator apps.

Here's something that may help others:

I started to have other issues with the phone, including only being able to hear out of one ear bud when the audio headset was connected. Tech support taught me to do a hard reset (not a factory reset) that discharges static electricity, which builds up when the phone is charged for longer than 4 hours. Apparently, this built up static electricity can affect the audio jack and cause minor display issues. The first time I tried this, it worked to get the audio functional in both left and right. But then, this problem would repeat itself and I had to keep doing a hard reset.

This phone became a hassle. While I was doing a factory reset with tech support on the line, the phone locked up. Tech support said they'll have to send me out a new phone when the phone locks up during a factory reset.

I am not having luck with Androids. This will be my second Inc2 and my 4th Android phone attempt.


Thanks, again, to you both.
Click to expand...

So how do you do a HARD RESET? And what does it wipe info wise?

-e
 
In this case, it wasn't just the hard reset (turning off the phone and taking out the battery).

To discharge the static electricity buildup in all phones no matter the brand - per this tech - press on the power button for at least 15 seconds with the battery out. When I talked to another tech at Verizon, he confirmed that this is the method they advise to clear the static charge buildup. One of them recommended doing this once per month for maintenance.

This didn't always work for me with just one or two attempts to clear the audio jack. But, I guess it's worth a try if the audio starts sounding unclear, unbalanced or static-y or if the screen starts to display weirdness.

I never knew that static electricity builds up when the phone is charged for more than 4 hours. Doesn't it seem like this should be something we're warned about in all those little written materials they include in the box? Of course, having said that, I had my Palm Treo 650 for five years, never did a single static electricity discharge and never had a single problem with the display or audio (though I never used the audio jack).

My Treo 650 was such a great phone...... Still works just fine and I'd still be using it if weren't for the fact that I decided to start utilizing the full unlimited data plan on Verizon to get grandfathered in before they start going the AT&T way of a tiered system.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom