Ghost inputs on FP4

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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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!

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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:

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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.

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I still get ghost touches.
They are less but still there. But now the thouch seems to be less sensitive.
How about to lower the input frequency, It seems that the ghost touches with 600 touches/min.

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@AndreasChris I used the 0.5mm ones. They are thick enough to very slightly bend the back cover of the phone. It flattened over time and now it’s barely visible, but my guess is that is still pushes on the connector.
I was not having this issue often (I had it twice I think) and it only re-happened briefly once recently, however as pointed out elsewhere in the discussion, it was before the recent update fixing ghost input and I don’t know if the issue is hardware or software-related.

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@AndreasChris My fix only worked for three weeks. After that i experienced ghosts inputs again. But only once or twice a day. No ghost inputs after the update.
I used a tiny bit of sealing tape that expands from its pre-compressed 2mm state to up to 4mm and that is usually used to seal the gap between the window or door frames and the wall. The tape expands until it fills the gaps. It says its material is made of open-cell polyurethane soft foam with polymer impregnation.
kompriband

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The matter of filings or metal shavings getting into the phone. You can take out the motherboard to avoid causing potential problems there. And in regards to the backing foam on the connector there’s really not much point in overdoing it. Just add a tiny bit if it helps and don’t keep thickening it. The contacts in the connector are side loaded so excessive downward pressure will not better the contact.

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Tightening the screws seems to have solved the issue for me. Not a single ghost input for weeks.

Regarding the screw glue, there are two versions: medium strength (usually blue) and high strength (usually red).

Use medium strength! And use it sparingly. A tiny drop on the screw is enough.
The medium strength is meant to hold the screws in place while it’s still possible to open them if needed. The high strength is meant to permanently glue the screws. That’s obviously not what you would want.

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Today I payed attention how I hold my phone.
When I hold it with two -3 fingers at the bottom and try to zoom in google maps it does other things but zooming in.
When I put it in the palm of my hand I can zoom in normally.
When it is out of the coverit works both ways normally.
Cover is from biowaves.
Greets

Hi again,
I think I got it.
At least the issue with zooming.
A little alu-strip helped. Please check pictures.


My phone will be replaced, again .
I hope it’s the end for this problem for me.

Nice to see all the " hacks" and " fixes" but…I bought a phone…not a hobby project.

It’s should just work properly. :crossed_fingers:t2: let’s hope it’s finally over

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I agree with it not being a hobby project. A lot of people here are struggling with the slow support and don’t have a replacement for the duration. I personally think I’m going to send mine back as well since now I have a replacement to wait for service. I think the slow support is the biggest thing people are suffering from with fairphone. Whenever I have had a problem with phones bought locally I have always been offered a loaner for the duration of the work and it has been very seamless to have any work done to your device. Here people are sort of stuck waiting. In this day and age people will not be comfortable waiting weeks to get their phone repaired or replaced without a substitute at all.

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Yes and that’s the problem. It’s not the excuse, it’s the PROBLEM here. That it now IS up to all the custom ROMs out there to actively go out of their way to support Fairphones, because it’s not as simple as just supporting the standardized components that FP makes us of.

No, now they don’t just need to support the components (okay check, they do) but on top of that, ALSO implement all the software fixes that are specifically required only for the Fairphone to not malfunction!

So yes, the patch turned out to be…

  1. Baked into FP OS, so every other ROM activity needs to implement these fixes into their not made for Fairphone ROMs, for Fairphones to stay compatible with anything but the default OS. They simply went “not our problem” when their hardware (granted, IDK if you’re officially Fairphone or just moderator here) turned out to be incompatible with any ROM not specifically made for it. Not in the spirit of sustainability. If you don’t know why that is a problem, I don’t know how to explain that to you.

  2. seemingly hard to implement? Okay granted, I didn’t look too deep into it just now, but have they made that fix open source and easy to implement for other systems? License, availability, documentation, compatibility?

  3. not really a solution at all. It’s the equivalent of having a look at a rusted through drive shaft of a car, and just applying some duct tape so the rust isn’t visible anymore. The issue is still there. A lot of the hardware here is apparently degrading so fast, it’s acting up within half a year to a year, and we’re talking physical damage and self destruction here. Software can only do so much about that (as in, realistically nothing). It’ll mask the issue for a while, it’ll give the issue a different paint job - but it won’t fix it! And yet, the issue is marked as “solved”?

I’m sorry, I really am, I absolutely want this concept to work and this phone to be the future, but what else am I supposed to make of this situation right now? I’m begrudgingly looking at alternative devices already, non-Fairphones, because it absolutely looks like the ship is sinking and their only fix was to order the musicians to keep playing as they keep selling tickets. I know these are disastrous problems to face as a company and I really do feel for it because I root for you, Fairphone, but please try to give me, give us as your customers, transparent communication and realistic options. Two weeks without your phone is simply unrealistic nowadays, especially if it’s for a device that’s realistically gonna be malfunctioning within a few more months or half a year again anyways.

If you believe you talking to Fairphone: your are not, you are screaming at those sitting in the same boat.

And you are mixing and generalizing incorrectly for the sake of ranting, which makes your entire statement something that I cant hardly take serious.
So just on example:

Thats how life of Custom ROM developer is, they have to adopt to the device. There is no standard Calyx, LOS, Iode, e/OS for all devices and Custom ROM are made for a device and not one for all.

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