Now I’m on eBay, trying to find a WWII anti-aircraft searchlights. 
5 Likes
The anti-aircraft searchlight was hard to get.
But I have done some logcat while the brightness dimmed, with direct sunlight and while charging.
Brightness level set to 100% without the auto adjust.
It’s not easy because there are a lot of messages and errors/warning.
The only useful to me are these:
06-08 16:44:55.574 1736 2088 V DisplayPowerController[0]: Brightness [0.05] reason changing to: 'manual [ dim ]', previous reason: 'manual'.
At some point it becomes [ dim ], probably it means dimmed.
06-08 16:44:55.581 1736 2496 E DisplayDeviceConfig: requesting nits when no mapping exists.
06-08 16:44:55.582 1736 2496 E DisplayDeviceConfig: requesting nits when no mapping exists.
Probably a missing configuration for the nits mapping of the display.
06-08 16:46:37.468 988 1139 I android.hardware.thermal@2.0-service.qti: uevent triggered for sensor: quiet-therm-usr
Then some thermal sensor trigger an event.
18 Likes
Thanks a lot for the investigation. I copied it to the beta gitlab.
9 Likes
simply unbelievable. I find it really fascinating when you know a system so well, when you can search for mistakes at this level. That simply has to be praised.
2 Likes
Android is actually a Linux (-ish), so yes, you normally should be able to do and know anything you want. The issue here is that unless it’s rooted, the user has very limited access to the system.
(The general idea being that lusers should be kept in their playpen, and not be able to break things.
The perfect example of this idea is iOS, where the user doesn’t even have access to the file system: Only your apps know where your files are. The only thing users are allowed to do is to install apps from a curated list.)
2 Likes
Thanks.
Anyway I’m not that expert in the Android OS, but working in the IT field some concepts are similar.
Probably the logs don’t mean anything.
But with the other tests made, even in not so bright conditions, but hot temperature, the log message that is a constant is the thermal one.
In fact it’s the exact time when the screen dimmed.
The other messages probably are when the display auto dim for inactivity.
Reading the Android documentation there are some configuration classes for the thermal throttling.
But as Kurt said you need root access to see them, and at the moment I don’t want to root my phone.
3 Likes
Great work!
So it’s probably a heating problem. Hopefully Fairphone support can continue with this. Have you already sent your results to support?
By the way, i am on standard fp4 os android 12 FP4.SP29.B.069.20230510
Today I had this problem without any screen activity. I just laid the locked phone on a garden table and after ~10 mins of just lying there, I picked it up and it was instantly dimmed.
2 Likes
Yes now that the sun is more extensive and its overall more heat “in the air”, it happens also while sitting in the shadow without doing much, so would in the meantime correct my previous statement that I dont believe its connected to heat and it seem the warmth produced by April sun was already too much heat…however so far it only happens for me outside, just now my FP feels " heated" as well and the screen is not dimming…
2 Likes
Yes.
Me and peci1 are both in the beta program, we already reported in the internal issue tracker.
5 Likes
Can anyone join, @LukeSkywalker? Could I?
It’s accessibile only to beta testers.
Some weeks ago the Fairphone developers team opened a subscription form and some of us sent the participation.
3 Likes
Thanks for the thread, I have the same issue, I do think is related to temperatures or sun exposition (light sensor?) but I have opened a support ticket.
To everybody reading and seeing this issue: open up a ticket please! We need to pump up the priority on this. It makes it unusable under the sun.
6 Likes
I also just submitted a ticket for this really nasty problem! Phone is unusable outdoors these days in spring/summer 
7 Likes
I’m the original reporter, so it’s rather hypocritical of me to not have reported this directly to Fairphone yet. My reason for taking so long, however, was that
made it problematic. I’ve properly report it at https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/requests/1008154 now though. XD
1 Like
Yep, same random screen dimming problem here, with A12.
So yeah, screen dimming and ghost inputs… If it were not for the environment that I bought this phone, I would have thrown it out of the window.
4 Likes
@Dajo Please don’t throw it out of the window, that’s exactly the kind of thing we work to prevent 
Jokes aside, I’m sorry to hear that using the Fairphone 4 has been frustrating for you. Ghost inputs can really get in the way of everyday tasks.
Contact our Support team and they’ll be happy to arrange a repair for you.
Regarding the dimming screen, our Software team is currently investigating a couple of different root causes.
- Temperature - I can confirm that the screen is dimmed when one of the temperature sensors reports a high temperature. We are looking into adjusting the temperature threshold so it stops triggering under normal operating conditions.
- Proximity - We’ve received reports that sometimes direct sunlight causes the proximity sensor to report a near object, even when it’s completely unobstructed. This can be especially annoying when using apps that turn off the screen when you hold the phone by your ear (for example during phone calls).
There seems to be some overlap so we’re not sure what proportion of reports come from each issue, or both. Unfortunately, that’s all I can share right now. When I know more about when a fix is coming, I’ll post an update here.
23 Likes
Thanks for your reply, Yasen.
Good news that your team is looking into the dimming issue. To be honest, I’m confident that the dimming will be solved, as this wasn’t a problem before with A11. So no worries.
And slightly off topic;
However, I’m very concerned about the ghost input. My first FP4 had this really bad, so I got a brand-new phone. That new phone was fine for a while, but now the same ghost input again. So I’m very afraid that every single FP4 phone has this issue.
Not sure what to do any more. Yes, I’ll contact support. But honesty, I’m a little devastated at this point, to be honest with you.
4 Likes
thanks @anon64862762 , very helpful to see you 're searching for solutions. I would have appreciated such info on the ghost touch issue.
@Dajo same here, also my replacement phone started ghost touching after 2 weeks. therefore have similar fears like you.
1 Like