"Ghost" screen

[circustravis]

Sorry if this has been covered before, but lately I've had a problem with my phone selecting things on the screen itself. I dug around some other forums and some people had fixed this by doing a factory reset. I did that, and it got better for a while (about 2 days), but now it's acting the same way again. If I turn off the screen and turn it back on, it will work for a short time.

The symptoms are:

1. top bar will pull itself down
2. it will "touch" around the middle of the screen repeatedly
3. the softkeys will cease functioning

I'm considering replacing the battery to see if that helps. I had a bad charger once that caused similar behavior with my OG Droid (but it stopped when I unplugged it).

Has anyone else had this happen? Is there a software fix, or will I have to go to Verizon? This is a 2nd hand phone I bought from a friend back in December, so I worry that they won't want to even look at it.

Thanks for any advice anyone can give.

 

[silverfang77]

Are you using a third party charging adapter? I've read of people having problems like what you mentioned with those.

Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk

 

[circustravis]

Not on this one. I was on my OG Droid, and it would behave the same way, but stopped when I unplugged it.

A new symptom is that I can't touch the middle of the screen (when in vertical mode). This comes and goes.

I just did another factory reset, and this time it didn't help at all.

 

[circustravis]

As I suspected, Verizon says since I bought the phone used, it is off warranty. I'm going to try to put a gingerbread ROM on it tonight to see if it might be something in the software. If that doesn't do anything, I'll likely just buy a phone from eBay.

 

[silverfang77]

I hope a new ROM helps, but it seems more likely to be a hardware problem.

Good luck.

 

[thefayth]

This is the craziest phone issue, I've had it with 3 phones (1 Droid, 2 Droid 2's) and had tried lots of things before getting a Verizon support tech who suggested something weird that seems to have worked.

Try taking out your SD card, see if the phone stops ghosting and acting possessed. With the SD card out, the phone worked perfectly. So I did the next steps in the fix, copy all data from SD card to PC, then format SD card using PC. Then stick SD card into the phone and unmount it, then format the SD card using the phone. Pop out SD card and copy all data back onto the SD card using the PC. Put SD card back in and that's the fix. Not sure if this will work for everyone and it just seems wrong, like why would THIS work? Still once the SD card is gone, the behavior stops like it was never happening...seems like it's worth a try if you've tried everything else.

 

[king3vbo]

I have the same problem on my Droid 2, apparently replacing the touch screen digitizer will do the trick. I haven't done this since I'm changing over to Sprint for the Epic Touch, but several sources say that will fix it.

 

[theronestar]

I thought I had fixed it when I pulled my card out and formatted it. I did a little research when the problem happened again, and found out that it's not a hardware, software, or virus problem. This happens at regular intervals in my town to any phone that isn't fairly new. It's actually from a frequency embedded in the carriers, exactly like the kind used by the military in war zones to jam communications. The reason behind it I can only guess at, so I won't venture on one. All I can reccomend is that you block your phone when it's ghosting with something thick so that it doesn't get the signal. In my town this only happens between 10 and 2, and then my phone is fine. No problems. Between 10 and 2 I can use it in Target, Costco, and any other thick commercial building without having a "possessed" phone, but not in the thin walls of my house, or outdoors. I usually, at home, surround my phone in a pillow. I'm working on a cardboard cover with alluminum to see if that works to block it, but haven't tried it yet. Good luck all. Don't give in to paying for an upgrade if you don't have to.

 

[drew96dawg]

This happens when I leave my phone in my pocket for too long, its almost like the digitizer registers the heat from being in the pocket as touching. If I leave it on the table for about five minutes it works fine

Sent from my DROID2 using Xparent Blue Tapatalk 2

 

[maynardjames]

I think it does it from moisture being on the screen creating a "short circuit " type condition. So if you keep it in your pocket it might be getting sweat on it. Also if the screen acts funny while charging make sure that USB debugging is not selected my d1 would always wigg out if I tried to use it while charging until I deselected USB debugging

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Android Central Forums