Accidentally Fixed Nexus 4 soft keys unresponsiveness/ ghost touch /erratic screen problem

[requake]

First time posting felt like i had to share my experience because it seems like theres no solution or explanation why so many nexus 4 peoples soft keys portion of the screen stopped working.

First this is what happened.

About 2 weeks ago and a few days after the update to kitkat i experienced this problems

- Erratic screen once in awhile
-Ghost touches once in awhile
-Soft keys not working 100% of the time (unless in landscape mode)

This was an annoyance but then a few days later this started happening

-Erratic Screen became very frequent
-Ghost Touches became very frequent
-Soft Keys continued to not work at all and even stopped responding in landscape mode
-Touch Screen covering the 10% area at the bottom of the phone in portrait mode stopped all together (previously i could use that area to scroll and type when in landscape mode)
-Touch Screen would become completely unresponsive 50% of the time i turned the screen on

So at the point the phone became almost unusable. I checked every where for a solution, the only thing i could do was
-download Handysoftkeys to change location of soft keys
-turn phone screen off and on untill screen became responsive

This escalated today when while using chrome all the sudden the program became unresponsive. After closing Chrome and attempting to open it again i realized the whole 1/3rd of the bottom of the screen became unresponsive to touch. No matter if i switched to landscape or portrait the whole 1/3rd of the screen died.I could still use some apps that where on the top of the screen but everything at the bottom wouldnt work and i needed google chrome so i desperately tried to do something to get it to work.

After restarting the phone a few times i did this

-Settings > Apps>All> Chrome And disabled it
- Then I restarted the phone
- 1/3rd of the phone still didn't work
- So i almost gave up but decided to try one more thing
- i plugged the charger
- took off the case of the phone
-powered down the phone
- then while holding the power botton i also pressed and held down the "down volume key"
- While doing this i plugged in the charger at the same time
-This caused the phone to go from booting up to showing that it was in charging mode ( A White outline of a battery should show up)
- Now as this was happening I Pressed and Held Down the Power botton and the "Down Volume Key" once again

This is the weird part

- As i held down those bottons the notification light started slowly flashing RED
- I was intrigued and let go of the Power and Volume Down Key
- The light stopped flashing and the icon to indicate the phone was charging appeared again
- So i tried to see if i could cause the red light to flash again by pressing down the power and volume down and it happened again
- I was curious and i left my phone to go check on the computer what the red light indicates, sure enough people didn't know
- When i got back to my phone i decided to turn it back on hoping i could atleast use google chrome again
-after it booted up, the phone was back to normal condition like it was before this update

So try doing what i did at the end and try getting a red light to flash then let your phone charge (mine was at 50% when i turned it on again)
Hopefully itll work for you guys , and sorry for the long post i just didnt want to exclude anything incase it was a vital step to getting my phone to work again.

Like i said first time on this site so ill try to check back frequently and answer any questions

 

[zorak950]

Sounds a bit like coincidence to me, but I'm glad you're up and running again in any case.

 

[Shufal]

I tried by failed to get that Red flashing..

After getting into 'Charging mode', whenever i press the power button and down volume key button together, it boots into 'bootloader'..

I tried several times but the result was same.

Any more suggestion? PLEASE..

 

[requake]

After two days my phone went back to being unusable, so i tried the method again and i realised that in order to get the red flashing light you must: press and hold down both volume bottoms and the power botton while plugging into the nexus charger.

 

[requake]

So quick update, my phone reverted back to not being usable all the sudden and i attempted to fix it again like before only this time i tried to remember everything i did.

So I again disabled google chrome, then restarted the phone. Make sure google chrome is disabled. and then proceed to power down the phone again. This time make sure you press down and hold down the volume bottons and then the power botton and right after quickly plugging the nexus charger into the phone. You should get a red flashing light (this time the light flashed noticably faster I dont know what that means, but the first time it was a slow red flash like you got a notification or something.) Anyways let it flash like 5-10 times then let go of the volume and power bottons. Now the phone should be showing the charging icon. Let it charge for like 10 minutes and then start your phone. Once you do, let everything load up and then using the google search bar at the top of your phone search for something, anything , then click on a link. Now you should be redirected to a google license agreement, accept it and itll re enable google chrome , when it asks you to update chrome don't. Now the bottom part of the screen should be working.

Some Notes: When I tried this proceedure the second time, it took me a few tries but i noticed that the time it worked was while my phone was at less than 50% charged. Idk if this is a coincedense but the first time i tried this proceedure my battery was less than 50% so if the method isn't wokring try doing it once your phones battery is at 50% or less

Also Try not to drop your phone no matter the height or phone case, the phones seem to be very fragile after this whole touch screen problem. And I can't say for sure but dont update google chrome, it somehow affects the screen from working (Atleast in my case)

I hope you guys get your phones working again, If it happens again to me Ill try making a video showing the steps i do which would be more helpfull i imagine.

 

[requake]

I couldnt believe it either, i was getting ready to smash the ever loving **** out of it, but something told me to keep trying, anyways i wish you luck in this endeavor.

 

[requake]

Also make sure to remove your phones case before doing this and when using the charger make sure its the one that came with the phone, i tried it with another charger and the red flash wouldnt appear

 

[zorak950]

Also rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time while it boots up.

 

[Krishna Vinod]

Has this worked for anyone else? I tried it but it hasn't helped so far! :'(

 

[requake]

Hey guys it's been a while, my phones stopped working again and after 2 days of trying to fix it seems impossible now.
I decided to check the internetz hoping google forums had posted a solution but unfortunately all i found was a comment claiming that if you drain the battery completely and then charge the phone the screen would work for a while. Im in the middle of trying this out since my method stopped working for me.

It's sad that since i posted this a month ago more and more nexus 4 users have been plagued by this software issue and yet there's no statements by Google or lg addressing this problem. This leads me to a petition created by frustrated nexus 4 users demanding Google and Lg address our concerns.

So heres the link to it: change.org/en-IN/petitions/google-and-lg-please-accept-quality-issues-in-nexus-series-of-mobile-phones#share

I encourage everyone to take the time to sign it, as this may be the only way our voices can be heard.
I really hope that we get a solution in the next following weeks because I love this phone and I'd hate to have to give up on it..

 

[Stephen MacQuarrie]

What appears to be working, after doing some reasearch, is to download the soft key app from google play.. this allowes you to place soft keys somewhere else on your screen and works great. apparently this is a HUGE issue and Google/nexus/lg are not offering anything to people outside of their warrenty.. so good luck to us all

 

[James Persson]

Same issue here

There has been a petition started, after being on the phone to Google all morning im fustrated as hell that they are offering no support at all after 1 year.

I cant post links but ive started a 2014 thread for September and if you search you will find it.

I also believe if you follow my thread the links, there is a petition in there somewhere.

I wish a reviewer at one of the major android news sites would get on our side and expose their dodgy screen and poor treatment of customers. To help restore faith in the Google image, I love the nexus line and what it stands for. But cant see my self ever buying again now. Will stick with a manufacture with a better track record and install custom roms to remove bloatware.

 

[Dev Walia]

Nothing has happened with the sort of activity explained here in. Can something be done..let's post on Play Store and take an oath to never buy any Nexus line in future.

 

[Leo Goile]

With that working, it sounds like the battery in on it's way out. My screen did some funky dancing from time to time when the battery was low. To have the red light come on then work then die after 2day, try replacing the battery and see if it helps.

I haven't tested the new battery method yet, but will do soon.

 

[mkabmr]

Got the problem for a few days, "accidentally" fixed it by reinstalling Maps and setting up network/wifi location...

 

[rokib13]

could u pls inform us the total process how u fix it?

 

[Abhi82]

This did work for me somehow. Thanks a lot!

 

[acegolfer]

I agree that the ghost touching issue have something to do with Chrome.

If you need Chrome, try chrome beta instead. Beta works fine on Android 5.0 N4.

 

[amarabdulla]

My soft buttons are fully dead...now I am using back button app for soft keys...Somehow a fix worked for me a while...
1)-Install Gravitybox (Xposed framework)
2)-Open Gravitybox select navigation tweaks
3)-Increase navigation bar height to 115 or more till your soft buttons work!

 

[meeok2]

Worked great on Kit Kat! Any ideas on how to fix this issue on Lollipop? Android 5.0?