Problem: Random "phantom" settings button presses

[khemet]

Hello everyone

Strange enough, this did not happen when I first got my phone, but now that you mentioned it, it seems to start after installing SMS keyboards and GOSMS. Has anyone uninstalled those programs and not reinstalled to see if that is the issue?

 

[AlienTechnology]

Here's the direct link to the solution to make it easier for others to find. Thanks to Zackmack7, SupraLance for posting the link in another thread. And of course to ElectricBill on xda who got to the bottom of it. [BUG FIX] Phantom keypress and screen shot - xda-developers

I feel like Samsung should recall these phones may be a classaction lawsuit would get the ball rolling.

 

[LS14EVR]

Yeah, this sucks. Especially since mine was a refurbished replacement phone under the first year warrenty. Now it's out of warrenty. My original (which I would still have if it weren't for the F'd up ICS rollout) worked fine. Never had this phantom crap. So if we were on 4G which is what this phone was designed for we probably wouldn't have the issue either. Damn Sprint.

 

[spinelli]

Let's be real: it's simply a hardware issue. There's no consistency in the presumed causes and solutions because there's no consistency with the problem itself. Mine started only a few weeks within getting the phone; I didn't think much about it considering it was a new phone and I wasn't sure the issue would persist. Four months later and I've still got the issue, sometimes to a manageable extent and sometimes to the point where the phone becomes unusable for a few minutes until it wears itself out. Regardless of service, regardless of location, time, apps, the alignment of the planets, it may or may not work because it just doesn't feel like it. The reason there's many of us with the same problem is for the sole fact that we all just got a bad batch. Nothing too fancy about that, and I wouldn't worry yourselves about a possible solution besides getting it replaced or repaired. It will be OK, friends. We can survive this misfortune if only we remain strong.

 

[systemofadown1]

Let's be real: it's simply a hardware issue. There's no consistency in the presumed causes and solutions because there's no consistency with the problem itself. Mine started only a few weeks within getting the phone; I didn't think much about it considering it was a new phone and I wasn't sure the issue would persist. Four months later and I've still got the issue, sometimes to a manageable extent and sometimes to the point where the phone becomes unusable for a few minutes until it wears itself out. Regardless of service, regardless of location, time, apps, the alignment of the planets, it may or may not work because it just doesn't feel like it. The reason there's many of us with the same problem is for the sole fact that we all just got a bad batch. Nothing too fancy about that, and I wouldn't worry yourselves about a possible solution besides getting it replaced or repaired. It will be OK, friends. We can survive this misfortune if only we remain strong.

You work for sprint.... . Seriously though, If you live or work in a low signal area this issue is a pain in the ass. Anyway, really just wanted to add - if you have some form of camcorder just try to get a bit of video of your phone geeking out for the sprint rep at the store. Much easier than trying to demonstrate it in a high signal area. BTW the true ammount of signal vs bars don't always match up.

 

[michaelalanharlow]

I've been through all these thousands of different post trying to figure out MY issue, which is the same...... Phantom Menu Button presses, and through trial and error, from sitting my phone in an area with a strong signal, to the opposite, to blatantly slamming my phone on the table and floor. Uninstalling and reinstalling apps, airplane mode and the works. There is only one 100% clear solution if you dont plan on returning your phone and are just as hard headed as I am.

There is an electrical disturbance that happens between the Touch button and the circutry that activates the menu. This disturbance happens because the 3G radio in the phone needs a firmware update, which there is none for it as of yet. It activates the menu button presses when your 3G signal fades and fights to stay connected. (Your 3G signal is not to be confused with your actual phone signal) as they are not the same. You may be directly beside a sprint tower that does not have a 3G signal coming from it, yet your phone is connecting via 3G to a tower a half mile away. Download "Speedtest" from the Android market to test this out and to help explain what I am talking about.

When the menu button is doing its crazy up, down dance, I simply disable my 3G and it immediately stops when the 3G icon dissapears (Settings> More...> Mobile Networks> Uncheck '3G Data') . When I turn on the 3G network again, my menu goes crazy just as if I never turned it off.
Yes, 50% of you are correct, it is definitely a hardware issue, but you are also wrong at the same time because it is the software running the hardware, being as though I have seen the complaint of it just started appening after the EL29 update on several posts and on several different sites. I have notified sprint and samsung about this issue and hopefully they will be able to resolve it.

Just remember, it is not a problem with rooting, apps or installing different roms. Some may want to try installing different modem firmware's. You can find an archive of different modems for the Epic Touch 4G (All Carriers) from, http://rwilco12.androidfilehost.com/ModemSite/

Remember, Flashing modems, firmware, roms and other things like this can void your warranty or brick your phone, so please have some knowledge on this before attempting. All I am doing is offering a solution. I dont work for sprint or samsung and I cant be held responsible for what you do with your phones, so PLEASE! handle with care.

Feel free to copy this and post on different sites to spread the word if this helped you. Thanks!

 

[ScottMGS]

... All I am doing is offering a solution. ...

How is this a solution? It doesn't solve anything.

 

[woodz93]

I've been through all these thousands of different post trying to figure out MY issue, which is the same...... Phantom Menu Button presses, and through trial and error, from sitting my phone in an area with a strong signal, to the opposite, to blatantly slamming my phone on the table and floor. Uninstalling and reinstalling apps, airplane mode and the works. There is only one 100% clear solution if you dont plan on returning your phone and are just as hard headed as I am.

There is an electrical disturbance that happens between the Touch button and the circutry that activates the menu. This disturbance happens because the 3G radio in the phone needs a firmware update, which there is none for it as of yet. It activates the menu button presses when your 3G signal fades and fights to stay connected. (Your 3G signal is not to be confused with your actual phone signal) as they are not the same. You may be directly beside a sprint tower that does not have a 3G signal coming from it, yet your phone is connecting via 3G to a tower a half mile away. Download "Speedtest" from the Android market to test this out and to help explain what I am talking about.

When the menu button is doing its crazy up, down dance, I simply disable my 3G and it immediately stops when the 3G icon dissapears (Settings> More...> Mobile Networks> Uncheck '3G Data') . When I turn on the 3G network again, my menu goes crazy just as if I never turned it off.
Yes, 50% of you are correct, it is definitely a hardware issue, but you are also wrong at the same time because it is the software running the hardware, being as though I have seen the complaint of it just started appening after the EL29 update on several posts and on several different sites. I have notified sprint and samsung about this issue and hopefully they will be able to resolve it.

Just remember, it is not a problem with rooting, apps or installing different roms. Some may want to try installing different modem firmware's. You can find an archive of different modems for the Epic Touch 4G (All Carriers) from, Rwilco12's Android Repository

Remember, Flashing modems, firmware, roms and other things like this can void your warranty or brick your phone, so please have some knowledge on this before attempting. All I am doing is offering a solution. I dont work for sprint or samsung and I cant be held responsible for what you do with your phones, so PLEASE! handle with care.

Feel free to copy this and post on different sites to spread the word if this helped you. Thanks!

Thank you for your insight, I posted a small tutorial on Phantom menu pressing observations and possible fix? - xda-developers

 

[Pedro Carrillo]

Re: Problem: Random "phantom" settings button presses

Found solution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Configuration > Development option > Force GPU renderization (check it).

- - - Updated - - -

Configuration > Development option > Force GPU renderization (check it).

 

[woodz93]

Re: Problem: Random "phantom" settings button presses

Interesting - but that didn't work for me....

 

[elihall08]

The GPU rendering fixed it for me it appears on my Virgin mobile S2 epic 4g thanks!

 

[GuccizBud]

I've been through all these thousands of different post trying to figure out MY issue, which is the same...... Phantom Menu Button presses, and through trial and error, from sitting my phone in an area with a strong signal, to the opposite, to blatantly slamming my phone on the table and floor. Uninstalling and reinstalling apps, airplane mode and the works. There is only one 100% clear solution if you dont plan on returning your phone and are just as hard headed as I am.

There is an electrical disturbance that happens between the Touch button and the circutry that activates the menu.
 [ . . . ]
   [ . . . ]
  [ . . . ]
Feel free to copy this and post on different sites to spread the word if this helped you. Thanks!

For the sake of posterity, everything you need to know about what causes this issue, at least as far as this thread is concerned, is to be found in the entry posted by the man above ( not God… Michael Alan Harlow ), and can be viewed in its entirety by reading post #46 of this thread. Took me 1½ years to come to the same conclusions he did.

Putting aside the semantics of hardware versus firmware ( i.e. software controlling hardware ) for the moment in an effort to keep the majority of this forum's target audience in mind ( tl;dr = this ain't xda ), this is a hardware problem folks, and bears no relationship to which apps you may or may not have installed on your device, no matter how much you really, really think it's your text messenger or workout log app or wtv.

If this last describes you, then what you're forgetting is that correlation does not imply causation; in other words, the reasons it mainly seems to happen when you're in your messenger (for example) are (a) because you spend a proportionally larger percent of the time texting than doing other things, so the odds of it happening when you're texting are higher than the odds of it occurring when you're doing anything else, (b) because we know it's related to network data signal or lack thereof, and you use the network when you're texting and not when you're playing Tetris, and maybe (c) you do a lot of texting from home, from your room in particular, which happens to be in a spot where the signal can be spotty, which is also something we know to be related to the problem. And so on. Hardware, not software not apps.

Crucially, this means you can't fix this issue permanently yourself if your device does this, if you define "fix" in this case as meaning those keys no long stutter by themselves, ever, without you having had to either do something or sacrifice something in exchange. If your device does this there are two paths you can take :  replace, or workaround.

Replace
That is, taking it to your authorized Samsung retailer or service center and having them swap it for another one, one that wasn't part of the batch of screwed up ones your first one came from. I don't know if they know how to go about ensuring that, but based on probability alone you should be alright… this is definitely a very small percentage of all the millions of Note®Ⅱ's sold ( lucky you and me ).

WORKAROUND
A few were mentioned in this thread ;  they will work for some, not so much for others. Do what works for you. There is only one workaround I know of that should work for everyone, and it's what I ended up doing when I had this problem, but it does require a rooted device. The process involves completely deactivating the device's two capacitive keys ( not the Home button ) and replacing them with a softkey equivalent :  a narrow strip that sits at the very bottom of your display, right over the deactivated capacitive keys, with icons on it that represent the original capacitive keys and do their job for them ( without stuttering, lol ). If you're not sure what I mean, do an image search on "Nexus 6" and look at the pictures that show the display lit up. You'll notice that device doesn't have capacitive keys at the bottom ( not even a physical "Home" button ), and instead, those functions are handled by minimalist-style icons ( which I called "softkeys" a little ways up ) that appear in a row along the very bottom of the lit up display. After you turn the capacitive keys off on your Note®Ⅱ, the process concludes with replacing them with something very much like that.

It's basically 3 steps, but this post is already a mile long ( give or take ) so I'll write that as a follow-up post below this one in a couple days.

 

[GuccizBud]

Sorry for the delay; here's the follow-up.

* * * * * *​

Step 1. DISABLE CAPACITIVE KEYS

  First you need to disable the two capacitive keys MENU (left) and BACK (right) by commenting out two lines in a particular low-level file.

NOTE :  As I said in my previous post, you will need root access for this.

NOTE :  This is completely reversible ;  you are not "breaking" anything.

FILE :​

  /system/usr/keylayout/Generic.kl

The two lines in question are these :

  key 139 MENU
  key 158 BACK

To disable them just comment them out :

  # key 139 MENU
  # key 158 BACK


Step 2. TURN CAPACITIVE KEY BACKLIGHTS OFF

Now that both capacitive keys are inactive, you probably don't want them lighting up anymore ( if you do, whatever the reason, just skip this step ). This is just a regular Note®Ⅱ setting that needs to be changed.

To disable the backlights, go to :

  Settings
   > Display
    > Touchkey light duration

… and set to …

  Always off


Step 3. BRING UP SOFTKEY NAV BAR

This is where you replace your now silent capacitive keys with a software equivalent, similar to what the Nexus 6 uses.

You have more than one choice here. The Note®Ⅱ does in fact "come with" one, and it can be activated rather easily, but there does exist other navbar-type apps you can install which offer significantly more customizability than the phone's own "inbuilt" (stock) one. You may wish to start with the latter just to get a feel for it and check out other options later on. I say a bit more about this at the bottom.

To activate the Note®Ⅱ's stock nav bar :

NOTE :  Root required for this step.
  
FILE :​

  /system/build.prop

The visibility of the stock software nav bar is dependent on the value assigned to :

  qemu.hw.mainkeys

… in the build.prop file. If the line is absent, its value is zero. As such, add the following line to the bottom of your build.prop :

  qemu.hw.mainkeys=1

… then save and reboot.

To disable the nav bar, either simply delete the line above ( save & reboot ) or, the better alternative, leave the line in but change the value to zero :

  qemu.hw.mainkeys=0

… and add in a couple of (#) comment lines describing what the line is and what it does ( save & reboot ).

* * * * * *​

A word on other nav bar choices.

Personally, after having used one of the commercial ones for over a year, I couldn't go back to the stock one, and if you're something of a customization junkie as I am, I suspect you'll be much more satisfied with a commercial one as well, as you can define pretty much everything that is definable about a navbar : activation method, auto-hide, timing preferences ( time to appear/disappear, time to stay visible, etc.), choice of icon(s), color of both icons and background, even the number of icons and how they're placed ( you aren't limited to just MENU and BACK ), and so on. As I said, pretty well everything that can be customized… a good nav bar can significantly improve your device's user interface.

It may not be proper to recommend one here in the thread, so if you want to know the nav bar I've been using this past year or so ( it isn't available on Google Play at this time ) PM me and I'll direct you to its developer ( he's friendly and approachable, based on my dealings with him ) and let him fill you in.

 

[Asha-kay]

I deleted magic jack!!!! It stopped entirely!!

 

[Kartik Katiyar]

will replacing LCD do any .....??

 

[Ajasears1978]

I'm having the same problem as well. I'm using my Bck up phone my gs5. Its NVR happened b4. This is my second time in 2 months I have had to use this phone for a Bck up. I've noticed it has been happening wen it wants to really. Even wen I'm asleep. It looks like someone is typing. I didn't pay much attention until my click went from reg time to the 24 military time. Which I couldn't understand how it was getting in my settings on going to that screen and going to the bottom of it to click the 24 hr format. Well just now I was typing on fbm n went to type something I watched it try to type words and then I cleared outta of there n it started to go to my settings n that was it I powered dwn n Google I went. I actually uninstalled a couple of apps BC I was getting a weird ad lock screen so I had to do 2 lock screens I fixed that but not this problem also dnt think sprint/boost is just going to hand me on replacement they didn't let me with my s6 or now 2 times s7 plz if anyone finds a fix I wanna thank you ahead of time

 

[Jimskie]

Hi,
I've been looking for the same symptoms in other posts. It seems like we have the same issue.

Sadly for me, the phone was gifted to me by my boss who bought it during his overseas trip.

Please let me know if you've managed to find a solution.

Cheers!

 

[Jimskie]

Hi Joe,

I know this happened quite a while back for you, but I am experiencing exactly what you describe here right now. When I disable my "Data", or switch to "Airplane mode" I am rid of the problem.

Did you ever find a solution for this?

Appreciate you assistance.

 

[JavasPhoneRepair]

Hi Joe,

I know this happened quite a while back for you, but I am experiencing exactly what you describe here right now. When I disable my "Data", or switch to "Airplane mode" I am rid of the problem.

Did you ever find a solution for this?

Appreciate you assistance.

I repair cellphones and I have been getting this question a lot, it turns out that Samsung messed up on their galaxy S2 antenna design. They put the antenna right next to the IC chip that registers touches from the touch buttons. So whenever your phone transmits data on the 800mhz band, the IC chip will register it as a touch.
The 800mhz band isn't normally used for data transmission, it is only used when your phone has trouble connecting to a cell tower, thus if you live in a signal dead zone, this will happen a lot.
I heard a rummer that a class action was taken against Samsung for this design, but I am not sure whatever came of it, or if it ever happened.

Just a quick note, a lot of what was mentioned above was voodoo, while it might have worked for one person, it most likely won't help you.

So the fix,
1. Move to an area with better reception, and hope it never rains...
2. Try limiting how much data your phone transmits, uninstall some apps, etc.
3. Replace your battery, the more power your phone has, the better chance it has of getting signal on another band.

*From here down, only attempt if you know what you are doing!*
4. replace your back housing, if your antennas are damaged, or resonate slightly off frequency, this could fix it, but I personally have never had any luck with this method.

5. Replace the touch button assembly, sometimes you might get unlucky and just got a bad IC chip, while rare, it is possible.


Or you can just take it to Sprint and get another phone... I personally love the galaxy S2 (yes this is 2017) I think it still is one of the best looking devices Samsung ever made, however I would swap it for a note 4 if one of them ever came into the shop.

 

[dreamlogistics]

Hey Everyone I didnt find a complete fix but i did fix it so that you can actually use your phone normally. If you are having the ghost touch issues with the recent app, home and back button, simply duct tape the recent app button. I used white out and I can finally use my phone but without the recent apps feature. hope it helps