New screen stays black even after manual update

Help Fairphone 2
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So, hello! I’m not sure wether you can help me, as I am really out of my depths. I am really despaired right now.

As the title says, my screen stays black, the other, old one works. The other one is extrememly broken, full of splitters and even has a hole below the touchscreen, so I had no choice but to get a new one, if only in case that the old one fails. My phone is out of warranty. One thing though, the that phone isnt a nokia, the screen doesnt stay intact, but it really seems impossible for me to kill this thing in normal use. And I have dropped it more times than I could possibly count.

So well, I’ve spend all day with this shit, wiping my phone and installing switchers because I wasnt sure what exactly that update according to this guide was for, the OS or the Fairphone OpenOS. Then I flashed back to OpenOS to test a users claim that TWRP has special access to the screen and if it works with TWRP then its software related. Well, it stayed black. Cleaned contacts, reassambled and rebooted the phone multiple times. Updated again, just to be sure the failure wasnt just a fluke.

I’ve also checked for any kind of foils sticking out from the new screen that might be blocking connection, but I have found none. If you know of some, please point them out, that’s one of my hopes.

While comparing the old and the new screen’s backside I have noticed two differences in the following picture featuring the old screen on the left and the new one on the right.

First, the big metal plates at the bottom are different.
The right one is rectangle for the new one and a slightly smaller square for the old one. Then the metal plte
The left one is a rectangle for the new one and a clearly different and bigger shape for the old one.

Next, the contacts (stripes with profile) on the bottom.
The new display has one such contact on the left and it is noticably bigger than the stripe on the old display’s left.
The new display has two contacts on the right, but one is bigger than the other, unlike on the old screen.

I’ve also first regarded a third stripe on the left to be the same as the other two, but it doesnt have depth (profile) it seems it has just been printed on the plastic. It’s not my first supect, but since it’s a clearly noticable difference about something I don’t understand, I thought, it is worth to register it.

The rest of the backside is the same, I’ve used a lineal to compare the distances between contacts and I have counted the number of squares on this elongated group of contacts. They are the same.

I’d appreciate if you can help me to get this to work, preferably without having to send it back.

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There are differences, and they are not a problem in general …

Would not work, because switcher files need an installed OS to switch from.

Fairphone OS.
Anyway, if you really followed this guide faithfully, you should have had a phone running Fairphone OS 18.04.1. This should have worked for the new display.

For the new displays version numbers are important.
TWRP as well as Fairphone’s OSes require a minimal version number where support for the new displays was built in.
A new display will stay blue with official TWRP older than 3.1.1-1 or black with Fairphone OS or Fairphone Open OS older than probably 17.08.1. (I would suppose the TWRP included into Fairphone Open OS would work for the new display since probably 17.08.1, but I don’t know whether they followed the official version numbers with that).
That’s why the installation guide you linked to explicitly handles the case of a black display.

So, options:

You could install the latest official TWRP release, just follow the “Fastboot Install Method (No Root Required)” at twrp.me.
This should work.

You could follow the guide you linked to, but with the corresponding current “Manual installation” file for Fairphone Open OS (not OTA, not switcher) to get Fairphone Open OS on the phone even with a black display.
This should work.

You could have a look whether you happen to have fairphoneangels in your vicinity, who could perhaps check with another new display whether the problem is software or hardware.

You could contactsupport .

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I have no idea why, but it suddenly worked without me doing anything. Just booted it into fastboot mode for the umpteenth time and the screen worked. The only difference from the other times I booted into fastboot was that the the battery went into it’s slot much easier. Maybe there some kind of material still had to widen and while it wasnt the connection to the screen was cut-off. I’m kind off dissatisfied for nor having any kind of control should this problem arise once more.

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I had a similar issue once with reinstalling my (existing) display. The issue was that the display was not aligned totally correct, I.e. I had to push the display a bit more upwards (hardly visible, like ~ 0.1 or 0.2 mm) before it worked again.
Maybe it was similar in your case and phone / display aligned itself correctly by the pressure that the slim case might have applied after remounting and closing it.

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This shows how much influence such a very little misalignment can already have on the screen. Now imagine if someone keeps the entire phone in a tight pocket permanently putting mechanical stress on the entire frame. This after some time can rise lots of different other problems which cause hardly anyone can track down.

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