Ghost inputs on FP4

Hi and welcome, in this case contactsupport

1 Like

Just want to report that after the update it seemed fixed at first, but since yesterday the problem came back, however not as intensively as before.

2 Likes

While most of the ghost touch problem was possibly software related, there are also cases where the actual screen has a hardware issue. No amount of software fixes will help in that case. So if you applied the update and the problems persist, you should really contactsupport and also mention this fact.

1 Like

wow. I am a little speechless currently as my FP4 which was replaced in June with the promise to have fixed the ghost touches just suffered from - you guess it - a ghost touch.
I will not yet install the latest update because of the reported issues with it.

Just to report that I never faced the issue again after this update.

4 days are not enough to draw any conclusion but I’ll hope to confirm this again in some days :crossed_fingers:

1 Like
1 Like

Still in absence of any official explanation, and not yet able to download the new update, I think the problem might (also) be related to pressure on the screen or case. I normally put my phone and wallet (a thin card wallet, not a big one!) in the same pants pocket. Since moving the wallet to a different pocket a few weeks ago I haven’t noticed the issue a single time, and I’ve had screen debug mode on specifically to watch for glitches. For me this is already proving more effective than thickening the foam pad holding the display cable, where the problem already started reocurring after 2 days.
Haven’t checked yet if my cable’s damaged from the sharp edge in the case.

Did you read the link to the post just above your comment ? It is official.

This statement is not about Ghost Touches but about the side effects of the Ghost touch patch?

2 Likes

I have installed the update a few days ago and have not yet seen the issue again. As it occurred randomly and (fortunately) not too often, I am not yet sure if the issue is fixed by the update.

Have you ever considered that the issue was introduced with a previous SW update? I think I have seen the ghost touches since perhaps 1 or 2 months. And SW updates come per month, I think.
Best regards!

I have been experiencing the ghost input issue for at least several months now. It’s been getting worse over time and was especially annoying when trying to type or scroll through something. Most of the time I had to resort to turning of the screen and waiting in those cases.

Once the system update claiming to resolve the issue was released I installed it. Unfortunately symptoms have been replaced by different ones in doing so. The good news is that the disruptive, erratic ghost inputs are gone now. So at least the days of accidently opening, typing or sending something are hopefully over. The bad news is, that I’m instead experiencing phases of unresponsiveness now. Most of the time the unresponsive areas appear to be close to the center of the screen. It is also noteworthy, that usually not the whole screen is unresponsive but only certain areas. Also starting an input in the responsive area and slowly moving into the unresponsive area usually works, while tapping or starting movement in the uresponsive area does not. As with the ghost inputs this is not a continuous phenomenon but an issue that appears and disappears in irregular intervals. Also I’m certain that the unresponsiveness is not due to an app being slow, since I have experienced the issue in different scenarios and also activated the touch input visualization in the developer options. Whenever an area is unresponsive, the developer-overlay does not display any touch input on touching the screen either.

To me it honestly looks like that the ghost-input issue is a hardware proplem, that is being masked with a software solution by selectively disregarding touch input. Maybe it’s also seperate issues working together, but either way it’s hardly a workable solution. I might try removing and refitting the screen in the hopes of eliminating the issue. Are any of you guys experiencing this transformed issue as well? Any ideas for potential solutions, or is a screen replacement the only way to go here?

4 Likes

Reg the side effect of the Ghost touch patch see this topic and better follow-up there if needed

I have installed the update as I was keen to get rid of the ghost touches. The first two days it appeared to have worked without issues. As of today the ghost touches are back at the same rate as before. I now also suffer a worse responding screen (anything but a firm touch fails to register) and trouble zooming in and out, as described by other users. I would advise anyone experiencing ghost touches not to install the update till these responsiveness issues have been resolved.

2 Likes

It’s just a guess. But what I think the patch does is ignore the erratic ghost touch inputs. That might be why people with a lot of ghost touches will have the screen hang up because the problem is still there but hidden from view. I still believe it’s actually a hardware problem and the software patch is merely a hack to hopefully bypass it.
@Black - How are you getting on with your phone? I believe you aren’t running FP4 OS at all?

I have had the hardware “fix” on my brothers phone since i posted it and only had a few ghosts since. Not completely resolved so still, once I get time I might investigate further. I have deliberately avoided the latest update to not mess with my own experiments.

1 Like

If you installed the update and still have ghosts, then contactsupport

3 Likes

I’m on e/OS/ and reading all of this, I’m seriously considering ditching Fairphone and destroying this apparently unusable product. I am so fed up. At this rate, Fairphone is doing more damage to the concept of a repairable phone than good. How ironic, that the repairable device meant to outlast conventional phones dies after only ONE year, precisely BECAUSE it “is repairable”. I don’t even want to know the amount of "told you so"s people with Fairphones will receive…

For fraks sake, my Nokia Lumia was still good and working for 10 years by now. The only issue there was the software was end of lifed…

To answer the question:
Yes, I’m still getting ghost touches. Luckily, FOR NOW, it’s still rare enough that I do trust leaving my FP4 out of sight with active display for very short whiles again, but the paranoia is absolutely real and immensely frustrating. Who knows how long the isolating tape solution works, before it rapidly becomes entirely unusable for good.

Support clearly proved they’d either take your device for weeks without replacement (hello??) and / or just send you a new one that’s got the same issue, gleefully ignoring the glaring design fault. And releasing a software patch that just discards the faulty inputs, among with all sorts of intended inputs evidently, because you just can’t fix such a violent issue with the software equivalent of taped on horse blinders. Seems to me, they were rather eager to just mark a post here as the solution and move on.

Not that I was even able to install the update, one way or the other. How do y’all install that on your end? Is this proving me right about this patch not even being available to any other OS, effectively being so sustainable as to locking the device to being used with the default OS and Google services now? Please tell me.

Listen, Fairphone.
I really, REALLY just want this device to work. This concept to work, and to be the future. Please, do better. Because the amount of other options out there are extremely limited to say the least.

2 Likes

Its up to the OS developer to patch this! And it seems Calyx already did.

2 Likes

Hey all. Figured I’d chime in with my story here. TL;DR: Had ghost inputs for a long time, and software update almost completely fixes the problem! :slight_smile:

First issues
I’ve had my Fairphone 4 since June 2022. I think first notice of ghost inputs started around beginning of 2023. Only minor at first, but getting worse over time. I enabled
Developer Option → Input → Show taps
To visualize the taps. I’ts a lot less intrusive then pointer location, and under normal use you don’t notice it since it draws a small circle under where you’re touching, as compared to “Pointer location” which takes up a big part of you’re screen. I’ve noticed when there is ghost inputs a bunch of inputs is spammed rapidly along the middle vertical axis of the screen, mostly along a single line but also in a bit broader patterns. Those bursts of attack lasted from a fraction of a second (just enough to wildly scroll a webpage), or longer (zooming in and out on pages). Usuualy it stopped when touching the screen with my fingers, so I could stop it when I saw it happening. For driving / navigation it’s really anyone to have to press “recenter” again though when it scrolled away.

Repair attempts
After reading on the forum here I opened the phone and reseated the connector between screen and motherboard, but it didn’t last for long. Did a few more attempts with some small thick tape, but none of it was permanent. Ghost input bursts would be gone for a while but then come back.

Warranty claim and repair
In May I filed a ticket with support, explaining the issue. I used a screen recorder app and just kept it running with “show taps” from developer mode enabled. I just let it record for half an hour or so and then trimmed the segments where I recorded ghost inputs. I also linked this forum in my support ticket. After a few back and forths they offered me a repair. I sent in the phone and it came back in about a week (shipping NL<> FR). They definetely replaced the screen, and did a factory reset on the phone and wiped internal data. I had a backup as per instructions so no problem.
Unfortunately, after a few weeks, ghost inputs came back. I’ve been putting of contacting support since.

Software update
Last week software FP4.SP2J.B.086.20230807 released which mentions a fix for ghost inputs. After what I’ve read on this thread it’s a software fix for something that is a hardware problem, but it works sufficiently well for me.
I still have “show taps” on, I’ve had it on for monts now, since it makes it a lot easier to detect the ghost input bursts. Since the software update, I’ve seen no burst of random ghost inputs before like I saw before the updates, which fixes the problem for me and makes the phone a lot more usuable. What I did notice was an occasional ghost tap - the screen lighting up or I’d see the circle from “show taps”, but only once. So my impression (I’m filling in parts here, I don’t actually know) is that the software patch detects ghost inputs when they happen in hardware, and then filters out the ghost inputs. It feels like the first tap comes through and then the rest is filtered out by the software update.

My overall impression is that it’s a tricky hardware problem (not an expert though) and that this new software update mostly mitigates it. Not 100% but makes my phone perfectly usuable again and good enough for me!

4 Likes

After reading through this whole thread again, I have decided that I will probably try the workaround of placing a little insulation tape where the sharp edge meets the cable to prevent further damage and add some kind of foam/silicon/filler-material on top of the connector. Despite the symptoms being different after the software update, I can see a clear correlation between frequency and location of appearence of unresponsive display areas I have to deal with now and the erratic touchscreen inputs from before. If that doesn’t help I might also have to go down the road of replacing the screen/phone, but I’m hoping for the best. :confused:

I’m currently still on the lookout for the proper material though.

@Hans_de_Vries is your workaround still holding up? Your last update has been a while ago, but you seem to have made some good long-term experiences with the tightening of the connection.

Thank you for the Amazon links @Delan and @twoexem! I’m actually considering buying the packet suggested by @Delan - if your solution still works for you. Did you stick with the 0.5mm variant or were you forced to ‘upgrade’ to the 1mm version at some point? There seem to be several people suggesting that the connector has to be pushed down quite tightly, so I’m wondering wether 0.5mm are enough. Also, if you have ever opened your device since than, did you notice any flattening/degradation of the material similar to that described by @nureac?

Speaking of @nureac’s solution: Did the expandable stuff work out for you? What product did you use (I’m not familiar with that stuff) and is that even safe for electronic parts with regards to static electricity?

(Sorry for asking so many follow-up questions at once. I’m just trying to process the useful information from those >500 posts and figure out the best way to go before jumping into action with regards to hardware modifications.)

Also thanks to @Zorugal for suggesting that screw-glue stuff (Loctite). Is there anything I have to be careful about when applying that stuff? Can that interfere with future repairing attempts or is it easily removable/cleanable?

As for the Sharp-Edge-Theory devised by @guits: I’m also a bit wary of sanding down the edge due to aluminium dust as mentioned by @facetto. Is there a reasonable way to keep that process clean? Also would that modification void any potential warranty claims regarding the Ghost-Input issue? I guess some electrical tape at the correct position will do. Do you think it’s better to place it over the edge, on the cable or both?

Speaking of which: I noticed that @facetto wrote something about simply using Tesa film. I’m pretty sure that’s not advisable due to static electricity. There’s a reason all of those antistatic materials exist in the context of electronic devices.

But enough with follow-up questions. Just a few more remarks:

I totally agree with @guits that the question ‘What caused the Ghost Touches’ posed by @Chucrute in response to the software update message should be answered by the FairPhone Team (soon). Transparency about issues is a must for a device that aims to be repairable. Knowing the outcome of FP’s investigation would really help us in deciding which modifications are best made to resolve those issues and ultimately get around the whole process of relying on FP’s support infrastructure for repairs (which would be a win-win for both parties in my eyes, as it saves cost in many ways). I really hope that they won’t keep this under the wraps for simple short-term PR-reasons…

Finally I don’t really think that marking @FrancescoSalvatore’s mention of the update as the final solution for this thread is the right choice. (Maybe I also just misunderstood what “solution” is supposed to mean in this context, as I’m rather new to this forum.) The problem apparently still persists with various symptoms for many, and the software update is a nice effort in providing a workaround that doesn’t really solve the issue. Having read all of the discussion here, I wouldn’t treat the post-update issues as a separate thing from the original problem, as the underlying cause remains the same.

end wall of text :smile_cat:

4 Likes

I opened the phone today, and the material did flatten, although my mother (who owns the phone) is gonna send it in for a repair tomorrow anyways. The ghost touches happened after my fix, but they were way less frequently. My own phone doesn’t have ghost touch issues, by the way.

1 Like