Erratic touchscreen behavior after software update 1.8.5

Hi everyone,

Since updating to Kola Nut 1.8.5 last night, Ive been having some issues with my Fairphone- namely erratic behavior of the touchscreen (has a life of its own, ‘pressing’ multiple things simultaneously, making the handset unusable), along with occasionally turning itself onto flight mode

Has anybody else experienced this issue, or know a solution?

Thanks, Richard

The way you describe it it doesn’t sound like this happened coincidentially at the time of the update but please do the touchscreen test to see if it’s a hardware or software problem.

There are a number of threads reporting of “ghost screens” and invisible touches here, and the 1.8.5 update was intended to address this:
“We made changes to the kernel drivers to limit ghost touches and screen artifacts (FP1 only)”

Could it be that these changes, while solving some users’ problems, create new problems for others? Hopefully not…

A hard reset might be worth trying (although not necessarily efficient).

After the update 1.8 my phone called someone on distance and now just started the parking app. This happened while my phone was lying 1 meter from me! it’s weird and didn’t happen to me before in the more than one year that I have fair phone now…anybody having the same troubles or who knows a solution?

Such issues have been reported very often, it might be caused by the update, but it could also be coincedence. Please contact support, because it’s important they know about that and it could also be you need a hardware repair from them.

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This is the result of a screenshot (I didn’t touch the screen) I’ve always suffered ‘invisible touches’ whilst the handset is on charge, but never when in use before- I’m hoping it’s not a hardware problem as this has only started since the software upgrade

Today i noticed the same behavious: Ghost touches, random scrolling etc, while trying to use the keyboard.

This is with the cable connected to my Notebook to charge. They immediatly go away when I disconnect the cable, but are reproducable in the Touchscreen test. This might be related to 1.8.5 because i was not affected before, but it may also be the cable.

I upgraded to 1.8.5 and do not have any issues, so I doubt it being related to the update. Anyhow, you could try to downgrade to 1.6 through the Fairphone Updater and see if this changes anything.

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Lately I sometimes have ghost touches when plugged in (usually a few milliseconds before pressing down the power button or while moving my case).

I think either this is the case:

or its a problem with static (caused by the cable, the power stored in the power button - wich @stefan told me about today yesterday - and the copper in my self-made case.)
Or a combination of both.

Should we avoid things that cause ghost touches? I mean: can it damage the screen so that ghost touches will appear when not plugged in too?

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