Ghost inputs on FP4

Yeah im not holding my breath on this. However, after my ghost leaving me alone for half a day, for some reason (I didn’t do or change anything) and seeing the FP5 disassembly - the display cable is identical to the FP4. The case around the socket isn’t. I’m being very stupid, hoping for the FP5 to not have this, or similar, serious issues - especially after experiencing how they’re treating serious issues with FP4 with the rug rather than properly offering respectable solutions. I don’t know. At the same time, I really don’t want my phone to be at risk of becoming a hobby project like my FP4 is, I guess I’ll continue looking for alternatives.

Keep us posted about your successes or failures! Whichever way it goes, it will help others here to decide.

For me the update worked well - until today. Ghost touch is back, I think not as heavy as it used to be, but still annoying.
I also tried some of the fixes mentioned here. I placed some foam material on the display plug and a piece of isolation tape on the wire. Both of them are still in the phone.
I really hope fairphone will come around with a real solution…

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Oh but they already did! They made a software patch and marked the topic and issue as solved! You better tell your ghost that it’s been solved, maybe your ghost just doesn’t know yet.

But yeah, what a surprise.
The reports of phones that either continued to have ghost inputs despite the patch, or those that saw the ghost be replaced by unresponsive displays, and those that had the ghost return after a week, have been cropping up already. Thing is, before FP acknowledged the issue, we had to put up with it for 18 whole months. As far as they’re concerned, it’s been solved, so any “new” reports about it could easily have another year before they even acknowledge it.

They may acknowledge the unresponsive display issue first, since it’s happening even to devices that never were haunted to start with, but as far as the hauntings are concerned, I think they’re through with that “for now”.

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Another ghost just visited. They’re still following a rather straight path, but it seems like they’re getting gradually more confident with spooking despite the update again.

(blurred/covered for privacy reasons)

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Hi There,

Breaking convention, I’d like to thank Fairphone for investigating and responding to the issue of ghost inputs.
I had this fairly frequently since getting the Fairphone 4.
Since the update that was supposed to address this, I haven’t had any.

Thank you.

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I see to get ghost touches still after the update with the workaround but they are less long. Instead of continuous taps that last sometimes for up to 30 seconds I get a very quick burst.

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Ghost inputs can also be caused by FAULTY CHARGING BRICKS/CABLES…

Ask me how I know… please not…

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Only when charging or also during use?

Yes, if not… than it’s a real problem with your OS or touchscreen D:

Hi all,

I’m new here so let me know if I’m breaking any rules. I had significant ghosting for many months until the B.086 firmware update. After that, my issues completely went away. So long and good riddance! I was going on my way, until I installed the B.089 security patch this weekend. After the patch the ghost is back. I checked the release notes and it’s basically empty, so I’m not sure the devs are aware of the change.

I’ve planning on downloading and reverting to the previous revision. I’d rather not go without the latest Android 12 security patch, but if it means exorcizing the ghost again I’m all for it. I’ll post again after reverting to B.086 and say how it went.

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I’ve also had my ghost getting a bit mire noticable again, but I haven’t seen any direct correlation to the latest upfate. It didn’t change anything about the patch introdced in the update before that after all. It purely delivered security patches. I would honestly consider that the return of the ghost may just be due to further degradation of the hardware and the corellation to the latest update in your case does not imply causation in this instance.

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Just had a pretty bad 2-3 second burst. Last night I had a ghost page scroll. Either the fix isn’t enough or they had a regression with the security update.

I can’t deal with this kind of spurious input messing with my apps.

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Ok. It’s just as bad as before the software fix. I have a feeling that the latest security update caused a regression and the fix isn’t working anymore? Or my touch screen has all of a sudden deteriorated much more. It’s just going crazy for 30 seconds plus today.

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For me - quite similar. I’ve had a lot ghosties before the August update. Then the desappeared - until today :frowning:

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Yeah so I was really happy when the update came out, the problem seemed to have been fixed! Now I have ghost inputs again, but not as bad as before the update. I’ve done all the display tests and reconnected the display cable. What I have not done is the factory reset, but the more I read the more I think that it’s not going to change anything. Hopefully there will be another update soon, otherwise I see no other option than to ask Fairphone to exchange the phone for a new one :confused:

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Really disappointing to read such news. anyhow, asking fairphone to send you a new phone probably wont help. I have the third brand new FP4 now and again after 2 - 3 month it starts ghost touching now. That means either I had really, really bad luck or simply most of the FP4s are affected by this hardware flaw.

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I get the impression that many of the users who are affected experience the same problem again later, and this was your case too.

However, I don’t think that it’s likely that “most of the FP4s are affected”. If that were the case, I think we’d know by now.

You mention two possibilities, but there is of course a third possibility: that there’s something in the way the phones are used, or in their environment, specific to the user, that is causing the (latent) problem to develop, at different rates with different users. Can you think of anything?

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Ghost touches have been mostly fixed by replacing the screen by myself using an original part from Fairphone. At least for some time. Now they’re slowly beginning to return. Sometimes more, sometimes less intensive. I was really considering buying a FP5 but I must say that I’m really disappointed how the issues with the FP4 are handled so far and I don’t know why this should be handled differently with the FP5. Besides these really annoying touchscreen issues, the hands-free call quality is awful and the video stabilisation of the camera is really bad. I don’t understand why Fairphone releases the next generation already, although the predecessor suffers from so many issues, instead of providing proper improvements for existing devices. This conflicts with the Fairphone philosophy of sustainability from my point of view. Why can’t we get improved modules for the FP4 first instead of an all-new FP5?

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Regarding the ghost touch prevention I can report that I also got the feeling that whatever changes were made before have been undone by B.089 somehow.

To recap: I never had ghost touches to begin with. But the B.086 update significantly changed sensitivity for me when the phone was not being touched (on a table, for example) as reported by many others as well.

This behavior totally went away again after the B.089 update. Coinciding with reports of other people seeing ghost touches again. I’ve observed this for some time to be sure this is actually the case - and I’m pretty confident in those findings now.
Personally, I don’t mind as I was never affected by the problems in the first place. But I guess it’s still not a good sign if the changes got undone unintentionally(?).

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My experience too. While the B.089 was advertised as “purely a security patch update and there are no other noteworthy changes” I have difficulty believing they didn’t row back some on the desensitized screen.

You mean a mismanaged fork. Yes, that’s a possibility that hadn’t occurred to me. Sounds like it.

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