FP2 Screen can't be reactivated during/after calls - See first post for Workarounds

Help Fairphone 2
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85

Hi everyone again,

i’ve got some new information. Just called the support today (yeah- spent about 1,50€ for a call to the netherlands). Esmée was very kind and told me that they are understaffed for the present situation (was to be expected) and told me- although I’ve already done most of these things- she first has to send me a standard-troubleshooting-mail as follows:

[…] I’m sorry to hear your proximity sensor is not behaving as expected.

Can you please try to make the move phone-to-ear to phone-away-from-ear several times when the screen stays black?

In extreme cases, removing the battery will shut down the phone and hence terminate the phone call. To avoid this you can preventively go to Settings > Accessibility > enable “Power button ends call”.

Because the proximity sensor is located on the upper left hand side of the device (on the left of the ear speaker), it may not be well behaving if you use a protective layer on the screen. (Please make sure you removed the plastic layer that was shipped with the phone.)

You mentioned you already tried to clean the screen and the inside.

If the issue is still occurring, I would like you to try a sensor-reading app (such as Sensors) and make sure the proximity sensor is working as expected. It should report either a presence (“0 cm”) or an absence (“5 cm”). The actual test is to cover and uncover the upper part of the device where the sensor is located.

If your proximity sensor is not reporting anything, or if its values does not change at all, please come back to us so we’ll start the takeback procedure. […]

This procedure with this standard-troubleshooting-mail may explain @blgreenaway 's half-hearted support answer.

Furthermore I’ve asked wether it is really necessary to actually bring in the whole phone instead of swapping just the misbehaving component.
In my (and maybe in the first couple of) case(s) it is neccesary, because they need example-phones to learn from and to investigate the failure of the sensor.

So my guess- whenever the support has cought up with the amount of pending issues, there will most probably be a simple exchange of the misbehaving module.

Which brings me to my conclusion- if this issue really bothers you- call the supprt and the phone will be replaced or repaired rather sooner than later. If you can wait a little longer- give the support some time to catch their breath and wait until your Email-request is being handled properly.

Last but not least, the support is so busy- they simply don’t have the time to browse this forum for new trouble or bugs. Call them if it is urgent and tell them what is happening (on your phone and in the forum) or write a message via the website if you can wait a bit.

Hope that’s some good news for all of us in here :wink:

Paul

86

Thank you @p.s!

I just got word back from support as well and indeed they are super busy. They told me the following:

“We’ve sent a procedure to several customers to make sure there is no hardware defect. It might be a calibration issue, we need to investigate but we could not it reproduce yet as far as I know.”

87

Yes. I received the exact same troubleshooting steps by email today and have just replied to them with a full workup.
This does feel like interest is being taken and I agree with p.s analysis of replacement / fix / debugging and updating processes.

My faith renewed that this isn’t just a brush off. Of course, it’s a shame that there is a problem but problems happen. I will happily attend some debug time.

To FP peeps reading in - It is new for many of us to be shown a device whose production is as important as the end product, and we’ve bought in to it whole heartedly. That translates for me to there being support in the recognition of a problem, and that counts as good customer service, even though you won’t find it on any customer service script. Recognising there is a problem - we all know that’s the first step to fixing a problem.

So, I’m trying to be part of the new breed of consumer here - realistic expectations. As Louis C.K. observes, “You have your own phone, in your pocket! … Give it a second, it’s going to SPACE!..” hehehe

–updated: FIXED IT :smiley: removing the screen assembly (no tools required) and cleaning the sensor fixed this for me

1 Like
88

Following the last mail and the phone call, we’ve decided that my phone will be replaced. So the support has a faulty phone to investigate and I have a working phone again :wink:
Anyway- when i first encountered the problem, I’ve already tried to recalibrate the sensor with an app. Didn’t help.

89

Today, for the second time in days, my screen blacked during a call and did not come up when I took it from my ear. That’s very inconvenient (to say the least) during a call to the answering machine, which does not stop by itself when there are quite some saved messages…
Is this something that can be resolved at some upgrade, or do I have to live with this? Any ideas?

Thanks for responding!

90

Hi Arjen,

it is most probably a hardware-problem. But it has not been investigated by the support yet. If you scroll up a bit- you can read about what we’ve already tried so far and what the support is recommending :wink:

cheers
Paul

91

+1 on the oversensitivity that qualifies as a bug. This is the first phone I have that does that… At 525€, I’m quite disappointed.

92

Oh! the first time I got the answering machine and the bug appeared! What a lonely time when you realize the other end won’t hang up…

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93

That assumption is wrong at the Moment. Cleaning the Sensor and the Displayback and it will mostly work fine again. (Tested & Worked in 10/10 times on different FP2).

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94

So- a software-bug could be removed by cleaning the hardware?!? Correct me if i am wrong- but cleaning hardware to solve a problem usually shows a hardware-bug. At last i’ve had 5 different Smartphones so far- never had any problems with the proximity sensor. And yes- in most cases cleaning helps, but again in most cases the bug comes back again very soon…

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95

And you could always change the Display with 3 clicks? :smirk:

96

No- but as it is only a small amount of phones- in comparison to the number of sold phones- showing this misbehaviour, it is a bug. And if you can treat the bug by cleaning- it is either assembled incorrectly or the sensor itself has a problem. Both would be hardware- related. Or am i missing a suuuper- special cleaning software doing that job?

97

Hi this hint “Settings > Sounds and notifications > Privacy Impact > Tick
Disabled PI): the screen is not black anymore when placing / receiving a
call.” worked for me. Even though I dont understand the logic.

2 Likes
98

Same issue here, I make or get a call and it is just impossible to hang up due to the black non-reacting screen. I already developed a habbit of mumbling stuff ( what the heck … why doesn’t it … ) to not appear too stupid to hang up properly … It was like this ever since I used it for the first time. Screen foil is removed. It is annoying :confused:

99

Have you tried the workaround to use the power button to end calls?

100

Power button does not end the call, but when the other side has finally hung up it does activate the screen. Or maybe the screen is activated by the hanging up. I used to press the power button multiple times in order to get a reaction, but by now I just wait for the other to hang up.

101

You could enable this setting in settings --> accessability–> power button ends call

102

I’ll try that out, but as far as I got it it is only a half-hearted soulution, right? Hope they figure out what causes this issue :slight_smile:

103

Same problem. Neither cleaning the screen, nor opening the phone and cleaning the sensor improved the situation. I hope the problem is fixed soon.

1 Like
104

There’s a posting in the French topic about the same problem. In this case, the proximity sensor is defective and the phone was sent in to be repaired.

Maybe you should contact support.