Screen has stopped autorotating

[hedera]

I've had my Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 for a week or two now, and I realized today that the screen has stopped auto-rotating. I've used it in landscape mode before, but now it only does portrait, even if I hold it on its side for several seconds. I've found suggestions that the quick settings screen (the one you swipe down from the top) has a Screen Rotation setting, and if that setting is on, the screen won't rotate. It was on; I turned it off; screen still doesn't rotate. I've found suggestions that I should do a gyroscopic calibration but that must relate to an older tablet, the S2 doesn't seem to have that calibration. I'd rather make the decision myself than have the tablet do it for me, how do I fix this? Advice greatly appreciated.

 

[nahoku]

Your gyroscope might be bad, or stuck. Some people give their phone or tablet a quick slap on the back... not too hard... to get the gyro unstuck. By the way, the Screen Rotation toggle in the notification pull down should be lit (on) in order for the screen to rotate. Whoever said it had to be off for the screen to rotate, is wrong.

 

[lauriefrick]

Any further suggestions to diagnose a bad gyroscope? I have the exact same problem on my Samsung Galaxy tab S2 8.0. It stopped autorotating (have rebooted, checked all settings).

 

[BullwinkleMoose]

Well now it just happened to me too...slap on the back didn't help.

 

[BullwinkleMoose]

Here's at least a partial fix: Install the RotationControl app. At least I can now manually change the screen orientation.

 

[lauriefrick]

Yes, I installed a manual rotation control app. Very clunky work around.

 

[BullwinkleMoose]

Today auto rotate is working normally again. Why? I don't know.

 

[anon(7901790)]

Did you install any new apps or have any apps already installed get updated just before it stopped auto rotating? Just before it started working again, did you have any apps that were updated?

In the first instance, a borked up app could cause auto rotation to stop working. In the second, if an app was borked up when updated the developer may have sent out an update to un-bork it.

My two cents.

 

[BullwinkleMoose]

I don't remember, g, and the apps auto update. I think it did this once before. At any rate it's back to auto rotating again.

 

[BullwinkleMoose]

When it wasn't working I installed the SensorsTest app. It showed that my tablet has no sensors. Now it shows functioning sensors.

 

[anon(7901790)]

Cool beans! I'm glad it's working again.

The reason I asked was that certain apps when being used disable auto rotate. Instagram, for instance, only displays in portrait mode. It doesn't auto rotate to landscape when you turn your tablet. I'm not saying Instagram was the culprit, just giving an example of apps that can disable auto rotate when being used. A borked up app could have done that.

 

[BullwinkleMoose]

It's broken again and all I was doing was reading in landscape mode for a while, nothing else.

 

[BullwinkleMoose]

Well, it's under warranty. I'll stop by Best Buy and see if the Samsung man is there. Maybe he knows a fix. Will BB still ship it to Samsung for warranty repair for free?

 

[BullwinkleMoose]

I read about a fix someplace online and I tried it and now it is working again but I don't suppose it will stay working. Here is what I did: Shut it off. Then held down the start button for I forgot how long, a minute or two.

 

[anon(618124)]

I wiped my cache partition and it fixed it for me. The thing wasn't even 2 weeks old.

To wipe your cache partition do the following

Shutdown the tablet
Hold home + volume + power button
Once the bootloader menu loads up choose wipe cache partition

That should do it. The question is for how long though. I'll update if my issue comes back

 

[BullwinkleMoose]

I just held down the start button. It's still working...so far.

 

[David Ruane]

Cache partition wipe worked - many thanks

 

[MysteryMaven]

Same problem. I remembered that I had bumped my tablet and wondered if that could be the what was going on. I tried a couple of apps that were supposed to fix the problem, Ultimate Rotation and one other, and neither worked. Ultimate Rotation did at least allow me to manually rotate the tablet from the Notifications drop-down, and I thought that was probably okay but not great. I did some more Googling and saw that several people had discovered that giving the device a rap worked for them. Not for me, unfortunately. So I dropped the tablet flat on its back from a height of 6 inches onto our hardwood floor and found that the auto-rotate worked perfectly! I figured that the tablet cover would absorb some of the shock. If I hadn't had a cover I would probably have dropped it onto a rug or a bath towel. Apparently the gyroscope which controls the screen rotation was stuck from the earlier fall and dropping the tablet jarred it enough to fix it. Maybe this will work for you. But easy does it.

 

[BullwinkleMoose]

Try doing what I did back in May. It's the simplest thing to do and it fixed the problem.

 

[robbygomez]

Try doing what I did back in May. It's the simplest thing to do and it fixed the problem.

Thank you, it did work for me now my tablet screen is rotating normally.