Lollipop - Black Screen

[ziopino56]

First time I post to a Forum... I'm 99.99% I found the issue, so I'd like to share it with everyone.
Sorry if it's quite long, but I thought a nice summary would be helpful.
For sure, there are conflicts in the lockscreen management between Lollipop (with and without Smart Lock!) and all 3rd party apps (Tasker, Secure Settings, etc).
My configuration:
* Nexus 4, non-rooted, stock Lollipop 5.0 OTA and later 5.01
* Tasker & Secure Settings
* Nova Launcher
I have several Tasker Profiles, that among other things disable the lockscreen (via Secure Settings) when either at Home (Location based), in my Car (Bluetooth) or at Work (Location)
I have the exact same symptoms described in another thread:
The screen will randomly go black except for the 3 soft buttons at the bottom and the notification bar up top. I can pull the notification bar down and see notifications, but a click on one that would normally open another screen just reverts the entire screen to black. I tried rotating the screen, hitting all the buttons available,etc, but the only fix is a reboot.
(My personal note: if I leave the phone unattended for a few hours, or overnight, the phone will even shut down completely!)
I tried several black magic suggestions found around the web, none of which work for me:
A supposedly Chrome memory problem if relegated to the background for a long time. The suggested workaround:
* chrome://flags --> find "Delegated Renderer" and select Enable. Doesn't work
Other suggestions:
* Turn Bluetooth and/or WiFi on & off
* use the notifications pulldown to turn Wi-Fi off and then back on again, or toggle airplane mode
What I did:
1.
* Reverted the Chrome workaround (didn't make any difference)
* Kept all my Tasker/Secure Settings configurations
* Disabled Smart Lock
Didn't fix it: so..... it's NOT Tasker or S.S: conflicting with Smart Lock
2.
* Disabled Tasker/S.S:
* Enabled Smart Lock

Success. No black screens!

3.
* Enabled Tasker & modified my Tasks to avoid locking/unlocking via S.S
* allow Smart Lock to manage screen locking based on location & bluetooth

Now working like a charm for the past 10 days
(btw: I strongly recommend rebooting the phone everytime you make these changes: otherwise some settings sometimes don't seem to take immediate effect).

The caveats with Lollipop:
* when I switch on the display in a Safe Zone, I don't go directly to the home screen anymore, but have to swipe up every time (thank you, Smart Lock! :-()
* I use Greenify to kill background apps and save battery. The app has a nifty softkey, that you can place on the homescreen, that when tapped will 'greenify' AND switch off the display (saving 50% of wear & tear on the power switch). However, when you switch back on and swipe up :-( , you must also re-enter your pin/password! (I found another thread confirming this behaviour). The only way to avoid re-entering the pin/psw is to switch-off via the power switch (therefore partially defeating the scope of the softkey..). Seems like you can't have your cake and eat it...

I tested yesterday with 5.01. and sure enough, the original Tasker/Secure Settings still have the same problems (my phone was completely switched-off this morning).
On a side note, Tasker recently published two updates in just 2-3 days, first removing its native keyguard function, then re-enabling it. I'll try that instead of Secure Settings, and will post the results in the coming days.
Happy holidays to everyone!

UPDATE
* Disabled Smart Lock
* used Tasker's native 'keyguard' command

Got the black screen in less then 2 hours...
Too bad, it was really nice jumping directly to the home screen w/o swiping.... oh well....

 

[1pixie1]

I can confirm , after disabling tasker and the profile I had for turning the KeyLock On I had no more Black screens. I have been running like this for weeks.
I will be using the shortcut from Power tools to disable Lock till this is solved by Lolipop or tasker.

 

[superflyj416]

Yes,
I am having the same black screen issue when I set tasker to disable lock screen when my pebble is connected. Did you ever find a solution? I have set my lockscreen to turn off when connected to home wi-fi with no issues, but that is less cool than using my pebble connection.

 

[MsSparkie]

My nexus 4 goes totally black.

 

[biodorkus]

Have you tried uninstalling Textra and wait 2 days? Otherwise check which apps you have installed since the problem started. Especially be suspicious towards apps that have screen lock permissions.

I haven't tried yet, no... I hate to get rid of it because I really like Textra and this is the first I've had any trouble with it, but I guess I'll have to download another messaging app and see if it does better. Although another SMS app is likely to have screen lock permissions as well, right? Seems like it always happens when using the quick reply and I read the message but don't send a response.

Update: I should have thought to try this before, but ripern's mention of screen lock permissions made me think I should see if there's a feature I can disable within Textra to avoid this. I checked the settings and disabled "Quick Compose" since that allows replies from the notification drawer and seemed to be when I would have issues. It's been several days now, and no black screen! Thanks much for the suggestion. It was nice to have that option, but I can certainly live without it to keep the phone running smoothly.

 

[ziopino56]

Re: Lollipop - Black Screen / update #2

After working flawlessly for 2 weeks as described previously (Smart Lock handling Secure Zones, Tasker everything else), today I got 2 black screens, one of which completely black (no notification shade, no buttons...nothing).
Had to reboot in both cases.

Since none of my Tasker profiles, plug-ins or apps are messing with the lockscreen, display etc, I must assume this is an Android 5.x problem (maybe the use of 3rd party apps is just making it more frequent or more probable).

 

[pjc123]

Re: Lollipop - Black Screen / update #2

This is the first problem I have had with my phone since installing 5.0/5.0.1. I sent a phone call from Avast Mobile Security to my phone to test the connection and the screen immediately went black on my phone (Only top and bottom bars showing). The only way out of it was to wait for the phone call to end or to turn off the phone. I just cleared cache and dalvik cache in recovery and I will see if it happens again. I don't use the tasker app.

 

[tjagust]

Re: Lollipop - Black Screen / update #2

Same problem here. And I'm almost 100% sure that Textra is the source of my problems.

Textra 2.22, Android 5.0.1 on Nexus 5, not rooted.
Quick compose option in Textra disabled, but to no help... Every other thing I could think of didn't help either. Only reboot.

 

[Eduardo D]

Re: Lollipop - Black Screen / update #2

Hi all, same trouble here, I experienced this with Nexus 4 and with LG G2 running CM 12.
After reading you it seems pretty clear that either tasker or Play serves with its smart lock depending on zone are the culprits of this.
Its a pitty because you espect google does things well but anyway, we will have to disable it.
It happends to me every single day when I wake up. Is there any post in google forums?

 

[voquro]

Same thing happening to me. New nexus 5, recently upgraded to Lollipop. Only happens when using quick compose with Textra. Only solution so far is to reboot phone...

 

[jpwright]

I have had the same issue since December as referenced in all previous posts on my Nexus 6 but have put up with it since it occurs only on occasion and because I love the device and lollipop otherwise. Perhaps of note, I have never used or installed Tasker or Textra, so it may be fair to rule them out unless there is an issue that multiple apps are creating with the same dev problem (or of course just a pure Lollipop/Google issue). Wish I could help more, but felt I should contribute since I haven't used two of the proposed culprits. Maybe that throws it back to Play.

 

[PoojaIndia]

BLACK SCREEN PROBLEM CAN BE RESOLVED

For all who are annoyed with black screen prob after installing lollipop version, Hope this will help u. Go to daylight(SUNLIGHT) And try pressing the poweron button now u can see the display. now to get rid of this black screen in future. go to setting- display- turnoff adaptive brightness.

 

[joker2mbr]

I have the same issue (I have a Motorola Moto X 2nd Generation, with Lollipop, Android 5.0). As the bug sometimes takes several hours (sometimes more than a day) to show up, I'm not absolutely sure, but when I'm on Google launcher, it appears to solve the problem.
I've tried Nova (my longtime and preferred launcher) and Apex and the bug shows up with both of these launchers. It's really annoying.
I'm not using Tasker... So the problem might really be a Lollipop issue.
PoojaIndia's adaptive brightness workaround doesn't work for me (but thanks, anyway).

 

[ATXV]

I'm having this problem on an AT&T LG G3. I installed Lollipop 5.01 last night and have had 6 black screens today! I am forced to reboot every time. It is incredibly annoying, especially with how often I'm getting them. I can't even pull down the notifications bar. Everything is unresponsive except the back arrow, home button, and power button. The multitask button is grayed out, and i cannot pull down the notifications bar. I really want to go back to KitKat because I use my phone for work 8 hours a day.. This problem is crazy! I'm stunned that it exists

I do not use tasker. I do no use adaptive brightness. I do not use smart lock. I have no idea what's causing the black screen. I'm trying to keep an eye out for what might be causing it, but it seems completely random sometimes. My phone is rooted, but I don't think that's the culprit.

Any ideas?

 

[joker2mbr]

Just found out that the black screen problem shows up even when I'm using the ROM's default launcher (Google), but I think I've found a workaround that works if you can still access the notification bar when the screen gets black: I have the guest user configured, so, when the bug showed up, I accessed the notification bar, switched to the guest user and then switched back to the default user. That action made the screen works properly again. When I switched to the guest user, I could see that the screen was already working again, even before I switched back to the default user.
I think it's really strange that Google didn't do anything to fix this issue yet, as there are a lot people complaining, even with the latest Android version (5.0.2). In my case, the latest version available is still 5.0.

 

[harshvaria]

I can confirm this is also an issue on my Xperia z3. I get the black screen when I open google now and search for a location and call them. Until they fix it I'm avoiding google now and using chrome for such searches. using 5.0.2

 

[Arty Marty]

I get the same problem, using nexus 6 android 5.1.1

The fix:
Go in developer settings and disable hardware overlays.

Yeah it's a bandaid solution, but it works until the bug is fixed. It's a project butter problem
Marty

 

[DLK1]

I get the same problem, using nexus 6 android 5.1.1

Did you mean Android 5.1 and not 5.1.1?

 

[Chase Page]

I do not use Tasker, and the issue is still present. I originally thought Smart Launcher 3 was the issue, but alas, this is not the case.

 

[Kottebo]

Same problem, Sony Xperia Z3, Lollipop.

I don't use Tasker, but I had a rule in AutomateIt, Wi-Fi on at home and keyguard off.

Have cleared the app and now I'm hoping that the issue goes away...

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