Ghost inputs on FP4

Help Fairphone 4
754

I bought 2 FP4s for me and my wife in October 2022. Since then, I have been reading on the forum to get an idea of potential issues or new developments around Fairphone. This one topic however is the one I have been reading the most…

I first came across it around December 2022 when my wife’s FP4 started having ghost touch issues. At the time, I had absolutely loved my FP4 and had no issues at all. While trying to figure out how to solve her problem with the suggestions of everyone, an update rolled out to try and fix the ghost touch issue. The update did fix the problem she was having with the ghost touch going up and down from the middle of the bottom to the center of the screen at least. As far as I was concerned the issue was resolved and I could stop caring.

GREAT! Or was it?..
Ever since this update rolled out, I can no longer use my FP4 while it is laying on my desk. Single touch inputs (click, scroll, swipe) are unreliable and two or more touch inputs (pinch to zoom and other gestures) completely stopped working. Not just on my FP4 mind you, on both our devices. This annoyance has persisted until recently (I’ll get back to that).

As a result of this unresponsive screen, the people who I wanted to show things on maps (usually with the phone lying flat on the table) thought my phone was bad because they couldn’t pinch to zoom and scrolling around the map was inconsistent. These same people who I had warmed up to the idea of spending pretty serious money to switch from their cheap chinese handsets or Samsung A-series smartphones towards a Fairphone over its repairability, fairness of the supply chain etc… They just thought I was full of sh*t. They all told me, it’s all well and good but I want a reliable phone first and foremost!

Reliable first… So I did what any irresponsible nerd would do and decided to flash my only working phone with a custom OS. I settled on LineageOS and once loaded, discovered some performance benefits (could be fresh new OS bias, so o take it with a grain of salt) and also found out that my screen was working 100% like it did on the first day I got the phone, or as any touchscreen smartphone for that matter. It just worked!

This experiment however was short lived. Due to annoyances with no longer having wireless payments, being unable to load certain apps and running into some issues with some of the Google services… I switched back to FPOS after just 2 months. Now many of you might point out “it works on my machine” but what you may fail to consider is the personal experience and the time available/willingness to tinker.

This brings us finally to the newest FPOS update that got pushed to my phone (FP4.TP2I.C.0121.20240626). Since this update, both me and my wife have ghost touch issues. The same issue of a ghost touch input going up and down the center line of the screen from the bottom to about mid-height. This issue is new on my phone and only appears when I hold my phone, putting it down on a table makes the issue stop. If I hold the phone still after the ghost touch appears, I can make it last for as long as I feel like.

I already hear you typing “well now at least you can use it on your desk and not have ghost touch issues!”… Unfortunately no, that is not the case the multi-touch input is still very broken when not holding the phone or otherwise touching the sides of the phone with my other hand.

Knowing dangerously little about capacitive touchscreen technology, I figure it is an issue of calibration. Something about values being filtered using a baseline and that baseline is affected when one holds the phone in one hand as our bodies have a higher capacitance than the air around, making it easier to reject the air and accept fingers as genuine input. Again, I know dangerously little about the subject so I’m just speculating.

So right now, I’m looking for my next phone… Probably a Sony Xperia 5 VI as it has no notch and still has a headphone jack which really shouldn’t be a notable feature and yet. As a nice bonus the Sony phones have a dedicated camera shutter button.

Fairphone as a company is just not interesting to me anymore. I was willing to deal with some level of jankiness on their phones, but… Their public responses to FP5 reviews, the overall experience with 2 different FP4 (my wife’s and mine) and the overall mood shift of even some of the more die-hard Fairphone advocates on this forum. I don’t really see a future in which the company will finally admit to having had some rough patches and needs some help here and there to make sure their products can live up to the advertised greatness.

TL;DR: My Fairphone 4 was my first and last Fairphone (for now…)

9 Likes
755

The irony here is that to my knowledge I’ve had zero ghost touches, but I still can’t opt out of the patch which means this is broken for me for no reason. Absolutely amazing.

Overall I feel the same way that you do. I don’t think I will be buying another Fairphone. At least not for 3-4 generations.

3 Likes
756

I thought the issues with pinch to zoom on my FP4 were to do with dry fingertips (I wash my hands a lot, I get dried fingertips). From what you’re saying it sounds like it’s a system issue. I find the “fix” is to hold the phone in my left hand while using my right hand to pinch. If I try to do it while it’s level on a desk then it is hit and miss whether it picks up the pinch or not.

I get the random swipe up from the bottom of the screen while the phone is in my Brodit mount in my car. I have also found that it is worse when the phone is on charge. Maybe there is an EMI/RFI issue alongside the system filtering issue. Your story with no touchscreen problem while on an alternative OS underlines what I have suspected for a while.

757

Hello, thank you for sharing and I am sorry about your frustrating experience.
May I just suggest that you also contact FP support about that?

758

Thank you for sharing that possible solution.
Any chance to buy these pads from a shop in Germany?

759

Finally I find time and a new smartphone as primary to test FP4 (a Google pixel 8a).

So I master reset the phone but it didn’t make any difference, then I remove the screen protector and now it’s working the pinch zoom, so in my case this was the issue.
just a note, I put it on my device 1 year before the issue, so it’s related but not the only problem, first one I suppose some change in software’s sensibility.

760

Another case of ghost input here. FP4 was purchased in September 2022, ghost input started roughly a year ago and gradually increased over time.

The phone is in a bumper case and has a third-party screen protector (matte foil); during the day I carry it in a belt case.

I have had this issue in various apps, including the lock screen, app launcher, Tomdroid, WebTube, Fennec, K-9, Clock, Organic Maps, Navit, Simple Draw, Kore, Timesheet and probably others that I don’t remember right now.

Charger connection doesn’t seem to be a factor; I’ve had this happen with and without a charger connected, as well as when charging through a USB hub

I’m running LineageOS 20. If this is software-related, it must be in one of the device-specific binary blobs which LineageOS incorporates from the vendor OS: Android is AOSP, plus device-specific drivers, plus distribution-specific customizations to AOSP, plus (potentially) GApps and (potentially) some bloatware from the vendor’s “platinum partners”. LOS is AOSP, plus device-specific drivers taken from the vendor’s distribution, plus some LOS-specific customizations (which differ from the vendor’s customizations, which are usually proprietary). GApps are not part of LOS (but can be installed on top), and vendor partner bloatware is also not included. So the only common components between Fairphone OS and LOS (without GApps) are AOSP and Fairphone drivers. If the issue were in AOSP, I would expect more devices to be affected. If only the FP4 is affected (and possibly related models sharing the same binary drivers), the most likely candidate are the vendor-specific drivers – this is the only thing common to all distributions for the same device. If it is a software issue at all, which I doubt – read further.

Anecdotal observations suggest that the issue is most likely to occur after just pulling the phone from the belt case (i,e. subjecting it to motion); however, it has also happened in the middle of the night while the phone was sitting on its night stand (connected to the charger and configured to stay awake while charging), or in the car while sitting in its cradle (charging through the USB hub), where it might be subjected to vibration. Also, turning the screen off and on again seems to make it go away for the moment.

That, and what I have read on this thread, indicates a hardware issue. FP support said I can”t claim warranty unless I reset my pone to stock Fairphone OS, which means wiping it – not very helpful and not gonna happen. I’m going to try the things mentioned here – press the connector back in, re-tighten the screws (possibly adding some blue Loctite), maybe add some foam pads – and will report back once I’ve had some time to try it out.

761

That, and what I have read on this thread, indicates a hardware issue. FP support said I can”t claim warranty unless I reset my pone to stock Fairphone OS, which means wiping it – not very helpful and not gonna happen. I’m going to try the things mentioned here – press the connector back in, re-tighten the screws (possibly adding some blue Loctite), maybe add some foam pads – and will report back once I’ve had some time to try it out.

Yes, I am also quite sure, that it’s a hardware issue. Fairphone seems to try “fixing” it by reducing touch sensitivity by changing driver settings (or something similar) in recent updates.
I think they think it’s too expensive to fix the hardware. They would have to recall the phones to really fix it. While I would be satisfied with a foam pad sent by mail and directions where to place it, if that fixes the cause of the failes.

Shame on Fairphone for that kind of lack of responsibility and lack of customer support.

1 Like
762

I have to be more precise: If Fairphone will not deliver a solution for this problem, my next phone will not be a Fairphone.

2 Likes
763

I’d like to urge anyone suffering from ghost inputs with the FP4 to contact Fairphone support via zendesk, if your device is still under warranty.

I had mine repaired in early 2023 for this issue and it resurfaced at the start of August 2024.

I was told by a representative:

Ah it’s a bit of a pity you’ve sent it to us before and now it’s come back. In the second half of 2023 (after your repair) we fixed the ghost touches issue with a hardware fix that can be installed by our repair service center Cordon. Ordering a new display does not work in this case.

Owing to my own stupidity, the phone was dropped and the screen suffered a crack in the days whilst I was waiting for the shipping label. I know how that might look from the outside but I know with 100% certainty that the issue predated any damage and it was just really bad timing for me to have had that accident.
Further conversation confirmed that this voided the warranty and so I’d have to pay extra for the repair.

I declined to send the phone in for two reasons:

  1. Based on previous experience, I couldn’t be sure that the repair would be a success, so I wasn’t ready to pay for it.
  2. I find the fact that Fairphone admit to knowing about the issue but haven’t issued a recall, or reached out to any customers they know have previously had repairs for this very reason to be unethical and it made me decide to take my custom elsewhere.

I hope this helps at least one person.

1 Like
764

From previous posts the “repair” is just applying some foam, as done by community since long before FP found that fix…

765

If they have a solution, why don’t they just tell us, what would be the solution? Fairphone advertises it’s phones as repairable by user.

1 Like
766

The opposite might be true. It seems to be necessary to add some pressure to the display connector.
If they have found that to be the root cause I expect they offer such pads for free.

2 Likes
767

Another one here. I used to have ghost touch, now the screen is just very unresponsive, especially the “pinch to zoom” gesture. Latest Lineage with microg.

I just opened a support ticket, curious about what will come out of this. I’ve been tolerating this problem for a long time, because i was mostly outside of Europe and thought that it would be required to send the phone for a repair. I would be happier with a DIY repair, thou. Waiting for what the support recommends.

Indeed very embarrassing, especially when handing the phone to someone to check out a map or a picture: “Don’t try to zoom or move it, my display is very insensitive.” Try to recommend a more sustainable phone like this.

Let’s see. I understand that this can happen - making a design flaw, choosing the wrong part or combination of parts. Just of course not happy that I had to pay 600 EUR for that:) Are all FP4 affected, or only some percentage of them? Is there some page on FP docs that summarizes this problem and possible DIY solutions?

768

I wish Fairphone would provide such a resource. But they seems not to provide any information on this.

1 Like
769

I just realized that on my FP4, the touch sensitivity is perfect when charging (at least currently), and immediately becomes “the normal” ( = unusable) when disconnecting the charging cable. Took this video that I shared with support: 24-10-18-fp4-screen-unresponsive-when-not-charging.mp4 - Lukas' Seafile

2 Likes
770

According to a customer service response to my ghost touch issue it is some screen-device have incompatibility issue.

I’ve had 4 screens for this Fairphone and only 1 had ghost touches, weirdly the only green surround one on my grey handset.

Customer service replaced that screen and it worked fine. I smashed it in an accident, and bought a new one which also works fine

771

Let’s hope it lasts for a long time.
As answer to my service request they want me to send the phone to their repair station in France. Let’s see: They sell phones with the unique selling proposition that it is repairable by customer. If a part (the display) needs exchange they require to send the phone to some service point in France?

Bad service!

772

Perhaps they are investigating/testing.

773

Since march '22 (first posting in this thread)?

1 Like