Fairphone 2: Crazy touch inputs (touchscreen issue) - workaround (for some): increase touch & hold delay

My Fairphone 2 is behaving really strange, it happens occasionally: the display shuts itself off, shows distorted image or the touchscreen ceases to work at all. A few times I’ve had to restart it by taking out the battery. Is it a hardware issue? What can I do?

@F_k_Google your post was moved here to avoid duplicates. You do have additional symptoms that can be found in other topics, but the possible causes and solutions are the same anyway.
Try to #disassemble your screen and carefully clean the connectors. Then put the screen back making sure it fits well (no gaps or loose connection).
If that doesn’t help you’ll need to contact support to get a replacement.

I tried and reassembled the display but there’s no difference. It’s still flipping, translating and distorting the image. I virtually can’t use the phone anymore…
I think it needs a display replacement then, or at least I hope that it’ll solve it…

Over the Winter i had almost no problems, but now when its getting warmer the touch inputs are starting to get crazy again.
The weird thing is that i can still reduce the effect with the pointer Position feature of the developer options. See attached pictures. In both i made a line from right to left


I think i will contact the support

This “Ghost” issue happend to me as well for the last couple of weeks. “Thousands” of fingers started Apps and swiped and …
I couldn’t even shut down my FP2 other than takeing out the battery :frowning:
This came together with a part of the screen becoming numb, when the ghosts didn’t run amok.

@reiner: I moved your post from FP2 Ghost typing here because it fits better here. Look at the first post of this topic to find some treatments for this problem.

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I unfortunately have the same problem. Cannot confirm 100%, but it seems related to the temperature as well. When the phone is cold, no problems. When it starts to be warm, the erratic behavior happens. I also noticed that switching on the “show pointer position” in the developers options helps. It seems to be a mixture of hardware and software issue. I think fairphone should investigate this issue because it seems to happen to a lot of people and it’s a deal breaker problem, the user experience is highly compromised.

Hi,

I have a FP2 with FP open OS, the last version.

Since this evening, I am experiencing the ghost touch screen issue, which has been described as one of the early bug. I rebooted my phone. the problem was not there for a few minutes then started again. I have cleaned up the connectors to the screen carefully (we never know). Once rebooted, I have, set up the touch screen delay to medium, and rebooted, and could observe no differences. I have also noticed that the battery charge was erratic (went from 70% to 5% to 26%, after each reboot).

Any suggestions on what I should do?

Thanks in advance!

best wishes,

j.

I moved your post here and just updated the tips in the first post a bit. Please follow them and get back if they don’t help.

hi

Thanks for the clean up. I just wanted to mention, after resetting the battery, and cleaning up the connectors, I have tested the screen with an app capturing the motion of a finger on the touch screen. I am attaching the result of a horizontal swip, and of a single vertical swip (with one finger) at the gap seen on the right side of the vertical picture. It seems an entire band of the screen has become insensitive, and swiping over the band triggers a double touch of the screen on each side of the band. I guess I should contact support, but, in between, if someone has a suggestion, it will be appreciated.

Best wishes,

Jeremie.
Figure 1; continuous horizontal swipe form left to right.

Fig. 2 Continuous swipe from the upper to the lower part of the screen with one finger on the gap observed in Fig. 1

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Well if you have ghost touches and a dead stripe on the screen and cleaning didn’t help then it’s pretty obvious that the screen is malfunctioning and there is nothing else but contacting support that can be done. :frowning:

The issue seems to be much better (if not solved) with Android 6. Will report back in a couple of days :slight_smile:

While scrolling through a website the website itself flicker up and down really freaky. if i lift the finger, the website is correct located. it seems there is some kind of “noise” on the touchescreen imput. Could you please add some kind of error correction to the touchscreen?

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Same here, does some crazy jumps and i can hardly use U

just an info:
actually I am waitingnearly a month after I contacted support. Display for the FP2 is currently not available.

email from support says:
_Unfortunately, we can’t replace this specific module at the moment. The reason for this is that we are currently optimizing our production process. We are gradually introducing some changes to improve production quality, based on the teachings of the past half year of Fairphone 2-production. For that purpose, we temporarily stopped the assembly lines. We also engaged with suppliers to adjust their processes and materials.

Currently we are waiting until the new modules are shipped from China and back in stock again in our warehouse. We will get in touch with you as soon as we are ready to begin the replacement process._

This was about a month ago.

I know and I am very angry. Nothing works in this company. What drves me crazy, is that they promised a phone that lasts, but instead of a phone you can repair, you get a phone you have to repair. My display gets worse and worse and i cannot even pick up phone calls. I think nobody should order a fp anymore. I just want my money back.

:unamused: Really what do you thought about a Companys first self assembled phone.
This is not a big company, with lots of money.

As I payed this phone I did know what I did and what I maybe get. Thats why i have a Backup phone at home. And even with this problems Fairphone exceed my expectations. You seems to be a naive one. Did you fall into the nice add they made? What did you thought, that such a small company is able to magically never have issues on the Phone or with the support? I remember the many support test some PC-magazines do and all that horrible storys :de: even in big companies happened.

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I think most Fairphoners do not have a “backup phone” at home that can fully replace their FP2. In most cases, it will be their old, outdated phone.

So the users will experience some downsides if they have to switch to their “backup phones”.

Replacing a properly working phone or even buying a brand-new “backup phone” would be a very unsustainable idea.

To be offered immidiate replacement, when it is not even possible to pick up calls anymore, should be the minimum a customer can expect from a company. No matter which size it is, good customer service is essential especially for young companies and even more if they suffer from severe technical problems.
But I am glad you have anticipated all this stuff. I think you are just one of these guys who frequently tells to have always expected it after problems arise.

My Backup Phone is a “Samsung Galaxy S2” and it fits all my needs. With lineagos (Android 7.1) it has newer Software than Fairphone it self.
I know not every one has so simple needs for a phone like me. In My Opinion Fairphone fits every need except the needs for high availability. And that’s the Problem here.