Database Users

[Q] Nexus 4 touchscreen and Battery Issues

Hellllo everyone!
I bought a Brand New Nexus 4 a 5 months back from an unofficial distributor. In the Beginning I loved the phone, but now this phone is really giving me a lot of headaches lately.
My first issue is the Ghost touch and dead zone issue that has been affecting quite a few G4's lately. (Since I enabled "Show Touches" in developers options,I am able to see any touch inputs on my phone. )
The ghost touches occur right in the middle of the screen (Right where the dead zone is) and the ghost touch issue disappears when I lock and unlock the screen.
The ghost touches may show up again after a minute, 10 minutes or maybe even the next day.
To my dismay, I think that a new dead zone has appeared (however, much smaller than the dead zone in the middle) a centimeter above my Navigation bar.
My other issue is that when my battery reaches a certain level, say around 25-38%, the whole screen erupts in a fury of touches all over the screen. My phone is rendered unusable, until I charge up the phone.
And another issue is that when I restart my phone, the touch screen sometimes does not respond at first. It then starts working after a while. It could start working in 1 minute or it could start working in an hour. This particular issue only happens when I restart the phone
Honestly, I have taken care of my phone, and never dropped it or abused it in anyway.
I read reviews about the whole "Amazing Quality" of the Nexus 4, and was bought on looks and design of the phone, but right now I'm really starting to regret my choice, and wish I went with an Xperia Instead.
Sadly, since there is no official LG or Google Service centers where I live, and since I bought this phone from an non-official shop, I'm unable to send it in for warranty claims.
I'm quite adept in opening up electronics, so I have no issues opening up my Nexus.
Does anyone know of a way to fix this phone, without a Digitizer replacement?
And is there anyone out there facing the same problems?

You still have lg warranty regardless of where you bought it from. Its more likely that you got a refurb though. In terms of fixing it I think you are in for a new screen.

Hey, thanks for your reply
There is no official warranty where I live, so I cant RMA it to google or LG.
Honestly through the issues keeps on increasing day by day.
Now it looks like my battery dies around the 60% mark. I guess my battery is uncalibrated?
Anyways, now because of these battery issues, I cant make it past 4 hours of use before the touch screens acts up and the phone shuts down.
I am very unhappy about this phone.
Any way to solve the battery issues?

My other issue is that when my battery reaches a certain level, say around 25-38%, the whole screen erupts in a fury of touches all over the screen. My phone is rendered unusable, until I charge up the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found out that this issue is most likely due to the battery. It somehow became slightly inflated, thus severely reducing the battery life and throwing off Android's Battery meter.
I tried over 6 different touchscreens and they all had this problem.
Great, I now have to buy a new battery as well.
And another issue is that when I restart my phone, the touch screen sometimes does not respond at first. It then starts working after a while. It could start working in 1 minute or it could start working in an hour. This particular issue only happens when I restart the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A full factory reset of the phone, helped to solve this particular issue.
The ghost touches occur right in the middle of the screen (Right where the dead zone is) and the ghost touch issue disappears when I lock and unlock the screen.
The ghost touches may show up again after a minute, 10 minutes or maybe even the next day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And there is no fix for this other than a full Touch+Display Panel replacement.
Right now I'm going to have to buy a cheap 10 dollar phone as my main phone, while I raise up the money and find the time needed to search for and buy these parts for my Nexus.
Honestly, Google and LG have made a very bad impression on me, and I will think twice before buying another LG Nexus phone in the future.

Update:
I Bought a new Display and a new LG Battery, and so far all my issues have been solved.
Now I guess I have to sell this off.
meh.

Akash434 said:
Update:
I Bought a new Display and a new LG Battery, and so far all my issues have been solved.
Now I guess I have to sell this off.
meh.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm having the same issue so, do i have to buy a new display, a new battery or both?

diegz0r said:
I'm having the same issue so, do i have to buy a new display, a new battery or both?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the very late reply, but yes, It does seem that you will have to replace both.

The ultimate Nexus 4 digitizer failure thread

I've been using this phone for around 14 months now. I've always thought about how LG managed to build a phone like this and sell it for 300 bucks. Well two days ago I got the answer. The lower part of my screen just stopped functioning, thus disabling my buttons. I searched for this problem and found a MASSIVE thread on google support forums about this. Basically the lower part of the digitizer just goes full retard. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And when it doesn't work it makes the entire phone lag (on a custom rom)(it doesn't work 95% of the time).
To fix this i tried to make the navbar slightly bigger, but that resulted in a growth of the defected part. And using PIE or button saviour is just a pain for me.
I made this thread to let people know that this problem exists. If the next Nexus phone is made by LG, I'm buying something else.
This is an open discussion, so anyone with a similar problem/fix can post.

I really dont know, what you guys actually do with your phones. I am using my nexus 4 for about 1 and a half year now, has been dropped twice with two scratches on the edges - no screen broken, no bootloop ever, no nothing. I can say of myself that I am not the friend of bumpers or screen protectors or any of those ugly things. I also flash a lot, try out a lot of apps - my nexus 4 has seen it all.
But not only the nexus 4, also my previous phones are fine and they still work (a nokia 5130 xpress music and a sony ericsson u10i). Thats why I thing a phone is just as good/stable/great as the user do. Of course there are a lot of issues out there but I think they dont appear from nowhere.

4 nexus 4's in the family most almost 2 years old......never a problem. This kind of crap reminds me of the " my back glass just exploded on its own" thread. Let's not make blanket statements.....digitizers on phones malfunction all the time....on all brands, probably due to your mistreatment.

I do not understand the point of blaming it on the user though. Yeah, many phones from different brand have digitizer issues. Yeah, digitizers fail. But if a lot (and I mean a lot) of users are complaining on the same exact issue there is a manufacturing problem for sure. And it's pretty clear that you did not bother checking the related thread at google's support forum, otherwise you would notice how many "mistreating", as you say, users are all having the same digitizer issues in exactly the same part of the screen. Now, does that mean that every nexus 4 sold will have the digitizer fail at some point or another? absolutely not. Maybe its' only one every 100, or even 1.000 or 10.000. Maybe it was a defect of a relatively small batch of screens (seems legit since the issue always occurs after a certain amount of months), that were sold in a period where you didn't buy the your four statistically (ir)relevant devices.
when will you guys understand that just because your phone does not have the issue, doesn't mean that NO phone has that issue??
(and even if it's not one but 5, 10 phones, how much relevance do you think it has compared to the hundreds of thousands of shipped devices?)
for what matters to the actual thread, anyway, I read LG replaces the defective devices under warranty without fuss. If the device is out of warranty, a diy repair is pretty easy to people savvy with tools.
Anyway, there is a couple threads here that talk about the issue:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-4/help/q-t2810588
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-4/help/screen-touch-test-results-t2822075

This isn't the users' fault. Take a look at this: https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/nexus/7SNIT8xPYzc
The repair costs in Sweden are so high, I might aswell get a new phone. I didn't even get this phone for 350$, LG sells it for 500$ in non-google play countries. And btw, half of my screen is not working now.

Or maybe you spent the last year keeping your phone in your pocket instead of a belt case and damaged it, or dropped it, or got water on it, or any of the other 10 million things that could damage an LCD/ digi. While I understand you have a problem and are looking for someone to blame....99% of these issues are due to physically caused damage and not defects. I have 2 teenagers.....I know how they treat their phones and I spend a lot of time repairing them after " I didn't do anything"

Same here
I'm having the exact same digitizer problem with my Nexus 4. First, a band of 8mm at the bottom of my screen became unresponsive, then a week later, the band grew to about 14mm.
I've had my N4 for 15 months. Bar two hairline cracks on the back panel (around the rear camera and speaker) my phone is mint. Barely a scratch on the digitizer front panel, and yet, it's failing. The weirdest part is, the otherwise lifeless zone at bottom of my screen occasionally springs into action with erratic ghost touches on my nav bar. I'm working around the problem at the moment, however, if the dead zone gets any higher, my phone will become unusable.
Reddit, YouTube and Google support are full of similar occurrences, and still not a peep from Google or LG.

My wife and I both have been using nexus 4 phones since it launched nearly two years ago. Hers started doing this 3 months ago and is practically unusable now. Mine started doing it last month and is getting worse too. I always thought of it as a great device and thought highly of LG's build quality but its hard to have those feelings now. Seems related to age + heat. Will be trying a different manufacturer next time since her phone has always been in a case and is flawless. Mine is banged up bad without a case but lasted longer.

Also my 16 monts old N4 two weeks ago after a run in hot humid weater followed by a very long phone call started to show problems at the bottom of the screen (no swipe up to activate Google Now) and in a couple of days all the lower portion of the touch became unresposive as clearly showed activating the pointer position under the developer options menu. Does anybody know exactly where is the problem? Digitizer connector, synaptics chip, cable? At present I'm trying to convince Google UK to issue an RMA in Italy where I'm now and would appreciate hints how to achieve that as it seems they offer RMA only to a country where the Nexus 4 was originally available on the local Play Store.

maulich said:
4 nexus 4's in the family most almost 2 years old......never a problem. This kind of crap reminds me of the " my back glass just exploded on its own" thread. Let's not make blanket statements.....digitizers on phones malfunction all the time....on all brands, probably due to your mistreatment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
back glass does crack on some phones when there is sudden change in temperature ,it happened on xperia z as well dont be so naive , the probability of mistreatment has nothing to do with factory defects

My digitizer works fine until the batter gets to about 80% .... then the screen freaks out and the phone turns off.... fun stuff!

fahadsul3man said:
back glass does crack on some phones when there is sudden change in temperature ,it happened on xperia z as well dont be so naive , the probability of mistreatment has nothing to do with factory defects
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Click to collapse
Ya right....ignorance......

This is actual real problem. My Nexus 4 works fine. But replaced the digitizer on my brother's after the bottom half died. Just go on eBay and buy the panel for around 50 bucks. About an hour of work
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

repaired my screen
i replaced the screen after just 1yr 7 days. I live in India so phones available are quite cheap and the screen replacement cost was cost of an average smartphone but still i replaced it . I just want to know whether the replacement screen will have a digitizer problem after 1yr. I also had to replace the battery.

4 Screens replaced, the last 2 had bad digitizers?
I've replaced cracked screens 4 times now... the 3rd developed issues with the touchscreen going unresponsive every once in a while (I would tear down the phone again and again and finally the touchscreen would inexplicably begin working again.) I Finally cracked that one and now the new one has the same issue. I installed the new screen/digitizer, again with some difficulty , After a few reboots for whatever reason, suddenly unresponsive. Reboot 4 more times and it's back. Initially I'd thought I just bought a bad replacement screen but two in a row is pointing me towards .. well, something else...
Looking closely at the new component I'm a bit concerned as the text on the ribbon cable from the digitizer is labeled "Snaptics" rather than "Synaptics" though the chip itself is labeled correctly...
Sigh...
In any event, I was hoping someone could possibly shed some light onto this. 4 screens later I'm a bit sentimental and would hate to have to retire my N4.

I almost replaced my screen assembly because I had the dreaded dead band in the middle of my screen. It was present in TWRP so I figured the digitizer was bad. Then I started to get screen jitters and ghost touches. I tried wiping everything, new ROM's, etc. I final flashed the last PA KitKat beta and the 4.4 Gapps. Problem solved. I re-flashed the PA 5.0.2 Alpha 2 and there are no problems anymore. I was convinced it was a hardware problem because the problem mirrored every N4 digitizer problem thread that I saw.

Do you have hardware problems? (POLL)

The phone has been out for most of us just little over a month and there have been many reports about front/rear glass cracking, so now I made this poll to see how many people actually have/had problems with their device.
Please note that this poll is only about hardware problems, so don't vote yes if you only had software related problems, thank you.
To be clear:
Vote yes: If you had glass cracking (with/without) a reason, flaps not closing properly, phone not being waterproof, etc
Vote no: If you had no problems, software related problems

Bump!
Don't forget to vote!

I voted yes due to a way too sensitive touchscreen - putting a screenprotector on however solves the problem, but I take it that it is the out of the box product we have to vote about...
(To the - right now 13 persons - who have voted no - does this also mean that you don't have the popping issue when pressing the screen? Or is this looked at as a feature...? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JrfMjiNB9E)

Nope. I've had nothing wrong with the phone, no "popping", no "glass breaking" even though I accidentally did drop it today.
Nothing. I'm convinced most of you are playing baseball with your phones, or just being extremely picky.

Not any problem at all. This phone lives up to its expectations but i also keep it protected with case though.

i had the phone for 3 weeks. i bought a magnetic charger and was using that. last week i went to take the charger off the phone and the whole magnetic charging "module" came out of the phone with the charger. it's currently back at sony for repair - i'm really hoping they just send me a new one though. that was a fun discovery. anyway, no problems with glass or anything like that in the time i had it, though.

Not a single problem so far.
Btw, good initiative!
However, I think that since only people with glass issues post that on the forum, it's not surprising that it looks as if it's a major problem.

charliebigpot said:
Not a single problem so far.
Btw, good initiative!
However, I think that since only people with glass issues post that on the forum, it's not surprising that it looks as if it's a major problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, that's the main reason why I made this poll, due to so 'many' people reporting issues with their phones it might scare people off that intend to buy the phone.
Sent from my C6603

Hmmm could there be a connection between the popping screens and the very sensitive screens? Mine has the popping and also a screen that sometimes during internet scrolling has a life of its own speedscrolling up to the top of homepages when lifting the finger from the screen - an issue I have never ever had before on any of my many previus phones...???

mohlsen8 said:
i had the phone for 3 weeks. i bought a magnetic charger and was using that. last week i went to take the charger off the phone and the whole magnetic charging "module" came out of the phone with the charger. it's currently back at sony for repair - i'm really hoping they just send me a new one though. that was a fun discovery. anyway, no problems with glass or anything like that in the time i had it, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And most people complain the magnet is not strong enough! :laugh: Did you take photos?!

Yep:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/help/handtec-returns-t2919883

And bump.
I would assume that more then 42 people have this phone on this forum.

The plastic frame is so weak, i drop once and inside the frame its cracked . After that i use a case then dropped again this time between part of the plastic frame n front glass a piece of part came out. Rest is very good. No prob at all.
Sent from my D5803 using XDA Free mobile app

hello,
"Z3 Compact" bought the 28.09.2014. The phone is turned off itself in the middle of the day in my pocket. The battery level was approx. 75% => Black screen, not even light on the charger...:S
The Sony support told me to send them with charger and usb cable.
I am waiting for news... approx. 10 days...

NO issues so far... put a tempered glass screen protector on the phone pretty soon after buying it, but I never saw any screen popping or "life of its own" syndrom while I had the screen unprotected.

no issues so far , i had some bad experience with singapore firmware , but its all good now (using latest brazil firmware).
i did drop it a week ago , tempered glass cracked abit , phone also got abit of a spank on the top right corner, still water proof.
all good just no ****ing root

Sudden Death after two weeks.

Had this awesome phone since October 3rd. All fine and dandy till now, the vibration would work sometimes. It comes and goes but it's no biggie, I can live with it!

Gyroscope defect
Yes.
I had the phone for only 3 days and the phone suddenly stop rotating. I did a factory restore and even trying running the system test. Compass test tells me function is not available. Sony says it might be a hardware issue so I had to send it to Sony to get it fixed.

My mic has become strange. People say that I sound like I'm a mila away from it.

Instant cracked camera cover.

Hello guys, posting up to share a bit of frustration here..
Last night I came from the city and about 10 minutes later I decided to charge my phone, the left it on my desk next to me while I was browsing the net, then I heard a faint pop/crack/click odd sound. I know it came from the phone next to me as it felt something was not right. After a quick inspection I didn't noticed anything, but several minutes later I took a closer look and the camera class/cover has cracked on the lower right corner.
The one conclusion I have is given the outside temperature about 7-8C and that the phone didn't had time to warm up to the ambient temperature, therefore while charging up heated up a bit and this happened. This shocked me a bit, but a quick search on the net, revealed from some dutch forums, that this "charging glass crack' caused lots of problems with the S6 in the exact same manner.
Thus be careful with sudden temperatures changes.
Cheers.

wow, that sucks

Eh.. Get it exchanged.. That's manufacturer defect.

I would but reading the general forum of the provider I bought it from, all people complaining about backs and fronts have been slapped in the face with "user fault" and they request to prove this fault or reproduce it. Quite odd they still deny it while their own forums have at least 60 threads about the issue (s6).

Having worked with Verizon Wireless previously, I can attest to the fact that they aren't going to exchange that for you without a fight. There is no way you can prove you didn't drop it or slam it up against something. The biggest problem you will face is proving that you didn't do something to cause that to happen.

My own experience with the dreaded "eMMC read failed"... and aftermath

First of all, hello to all Note 4 owners and my deepest sympathies to those affected by this "bug" (whatever it actually is).
I got used Note 4 in March 2016. It was trade in for my Sony Xperia and guy told me he had it for around a year. I liked this nice device. It had great display and served me very well. Excellent, even better term.
It was until December 2016 when dreaded bug appeared, and I knew nothing about it at the time. You already know it - lags, restarts, freezes, unable to turn on, going to download mode, harder and harder to start up...
How it happened is what amazes me most. I have 2 batteries, both original. I exchange them sometimes when I am on longer time without charger. This night (before it all happened) I let phone charge down to 0% because it showed false % in battery bar. It would die at 15% and not charge over 92% for example. This was factory battery and not my spare one I got later. I found out battery % is reset each time I let it charge down all the way, then after it shuts down I charge it up and it fixes the percentage bar temporarily. Anyway, as I was saying, that night (day before I experienced the bug) I wasn't in a good mood and phone died on me sometimes in the early night. I was annoyed and I started up the phone, it got to homescreen then shut off because it was empty. I did it again. This time it got to boot animation. Again. Again. How foolish of me. I did it until phone couldn't be turned on at all. Then I set it up to charge and left it overnight. Tomorrow I took it and left to work. It was peak 100%.
Around 10AM I got some messages on facebook messenger, and I wanted to check them out and reply, I took a break from working. In middle of my typing, phone simply froze. Froze, it wouldn't react to physical buttons, virtual keyboard, nothing. Screen was on non stop with frozen facebook messenger, virtual keyboard on screen and my unfinished message.
I took out battery and turned it back on. Phone was never the same since then... First "light" freezes and after second or two it "let's go" and all messages I typed appear instantly in messenger. Sometimes I press power button to wake device it wouldn't right away. It was getting harder and harder... after investigation I learned about this production "flaw" from samsung, I've read many pages about this error, many of those here on XDA (by the way community here is wonderful)...
I bought another device because Note was getting in state of unusable. I left it alone on table and it stand there for some time.
I couldn't give up it's wonderful screen, power, pretty TouchWiz... and after I've read a lot about this, I decided to buy new motherboard. I got one from ebay in late August and it arrived sometimes in middle September. 60 US dollars. I asked seller will all functions work, is IMEI blacklisted, is WI FI working, does it has good memory chip (which is culprit for bug it seems) and seller kept saying to me everything works, is tested one by one before shipping, and he said "it must work, 1 year warranty!" I smiled a bit, it's how he said it.
I ordered also some tools for disassembling phone as I wanted to do it myself. Very cheap, 7$ and there is everything there, really nice kit. It got to me before motherboard. Then it arrived. Same night I wanted to do it, I couldn't wait to use my note again. I missed it.
One friend at work which owns mobile store and repair, told me to wait until tomorrow, he will do it for cheap but I was not patient enough. I thought I can do it. After couple of youtube videos I started it... Bottom line is I didn't heat up the device to loosen the glue and I ended up breaking the screen... And couldn't attach screen to motherboard, because Samsung made it hard without removing the screen too. I went to my friend and he scolded me for not waiting few hours and eventually found me used screen for 75$ more... They are 150$ around but he took it from some friend of his own to help me because he felt sorry and he got that friend's phone, got out the screen and transplanted it to my motherboard and casing over for free. I have working Note again...
Now, I don't know what to do with it? Do I sell it? Use it? I felt free to attach some screenshots from it, to add up to collective knowledge of XDA (it was my intention with this story in the first place). Who knows... maybe some info from here might help someone, sometimes.
Phone info showed my phone (motherboard) is made in 01.2016. Brickbug check app can't identify the memory chip (shows production date as 11/1999 which is not possible for note 4). It is fast now, one screenshot proves it. Friend said he stress tested the board (whatever it means) and it seems fine. All functions work, I tested everything too. Board color looks different - shade of green is different. KNOX warranty void status 0x0.
What is opinion of fellow XDA's about this? Do I use this thing, sell it... it cost me more than it's worth, and selling it will be just extracting mere costs I invested. But I like the device... I feel like just going through with it, whatever happens this time... maybe my pain with emmc fail is over.
Maybe some other members reading this, can screenshot their brickbug check app statuses? Those which have "healthy" devices and those having emmc issues too? Maybe we can build database of good chips, and which devices may be "safe"... I will sure add my results here in attachments.
I wish everyone owning this good little device much luck and as less problems as possible...
PS Mods can move thread to some other one regarding this issue but I'd like it stays thread of it's own... but I will conform to decision of Mod team. This is wonderful and helping site, thanks goes to owners which built it and mod team keeping the order, as well as userbase for contributing to collective knowledge and "hacking" the android and devices in a good way.
StreetKing

Two and a half years and still no issues. I'll gladly contribute to your database since I seem to have one of the "good" chips.