Database Users

[Q] Galaxy S4 I9500 Screen flickering problem

Hi, started this thread to see if anyone had the same problem I'm having with my screen.
I have a Galaxy S4 GT-I9500 (Octa-core variation), it is running 4.4.2, rooted, stock Touchwiz.
The problem is that the screen starts to flicker almost as if it would want to turn off, when in low light conditions and auto-brightness on, it continues to flicker unless I set the brightness between +2 and +5. I can reproduce the issue without auto-brightness setting the brightness to the lowest, one notch above the lowest and there is no flickering. It is noticeable in white backgrounds and also when swiping down the notification center, that's the most noticeable instance but you can see it in the home screen and in any app.
I started noticing it when I had 4.2.2 Jelly bean (rooted), and I updated to Kitkat hoping it would be solved but it is the same, I updated through Kies and rooted, no Factory reset, I want to try that as last resort.
Funny thing I discovered is when I set Juice Defender to control my brightness it does not flicker even in -60% brightness, but when the dimming happens before the screen turns off it does flicker (and the dimming thing is controlled by the OS I think, not Juice Defender).
I wish I could put up a video but I don't have another phone to film it.
Anyone know if this is software or hardware? What can I do?
I'd like to add, that I changed the battery, disabled overlays in developers option, forced GPU rendering, tried Pimp my rom and played with all the settings, checked and unchecked every option in Display settings and it still flickered given the low brightness conditions.

I think I've found the best solution out there for most annoying screen flickering issues... Done a substential amount of digging and finally discovered the app "Twillight" works like a charm by enabling backlight control feature... Try it out first, then thank me and share your experience here ...

Alliance rom screen dimming issue

Running the Alliance rom, clean install on stock slot. No other major issues that I can think of. I've got it set to maximum brightness, not on auto dimmer. When the screen dims after 30 seconds or so, when its about to turn off due to inactivity, half the time when I tap the screen, it recovers to full brightness. The other half the time, it gets a little brighter than the dim mode, but not much. It stays way dimmer than the full brightness setting that I keep it on. I have to pull the notification bar down, slide the dimmer down, and back up to maximum, and I'm good to go until the next time it does it. Which could be in 30 seconds when it dims again.
Anybody else having this issue?

scott_65 said:
Running the Alliance rom, clean install on stock slot. No other major issues that I can think of. I've got it set to maximum brightness, not on auto dimmer. When the screen dims after 30 seconds or so, when its about to turn off due to inactivity, half the time when I tap the screen, it recovers to full brightness. The other half the time, it gets a little brighter than the dim mode, but not much. It stays way dimmer than the full brightness setting that I keep it on. I have to pull the notification bar down, slide the dimmer down, and back up to maximum, and I'm good to go until the next time it does it. Which could be in 30 seconds when it dims again.
Anybody else having this issue?
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I have the same thing happening. Personally I have been too lazy about it to check through settings to see if I've done something. I'll check on it and see if I can find a fix.
*Update*
I've checked through all my settings and can find nothing that might cause it. I don't have Auto Brightness set, nor do I have Auto Adjust Screen Tone turned on. I saw nothing in the Alliance Settings either. I believe it is a system setting that is probably buried in code somewhere (far beyond my knowledge).
**Update** I reported the bug in the Alliance Forum.

I tend to agree. I've looked through settings, etc. just as you have, to no avail. I'm nearly certain it's done it since install, so I don't think it's something that I've changed. But I could be wrong. I've also tried it with auto adjust turned on, does the same thing. Auto adjusts to a dimmer setting sometimes

[Q] How to stop dim before power off?

Anyone know if it is possible to stop the screen dimming just before it powers off? after a few recent ROM flashes it flickers when dim.
Note: this is nothing to do with auto brightness / screen timeout / Airview / Hardware fault or any settings that I can find.
I appears to be a system default that cannot be changed.
I am hoping that something in Build.prop or whatever can be altered, to either remove the dim completely or have the dim not go as low.

When battery is low or when turning it off?
And I think this is more kernel than rom related.

Never mind

GDReaper said:
When battery is low or when turning it off?
And I think this is more kernel than rom related.
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Click to collapse
Neither, it flickers as the dimmer comes on just before auto screen timeout blanks the screen.
only started a while ago after ROM/Kernel flash.

Screen flicker workaround

Hi everyone
I want to share a workaround to all of us who owns a defective S5
Symptom: You unlock your phone and it doesn't show anything. Actually, the phone is working. Capacitive buttons light up and you may heard some activity in the phone
Your phone has a defective screen. There are a lot S5 which have this problem, according to several forums. After several tries, unlock and lock over and over, the screen light up and you are able to use your phone. The problem is when you receive a call and you want to know who is calling you, the screen doesn't illuminate and you won’t be able to know who is.
Here's a workaround which makes your powerful S5 usable and take out from your drawer.
Solution:
The more effective way to fix it is: change defective screen! But sometimes it could cost as much as a new phone, or simply you can't afford it, and it's better to change your phone instead, and you put your S5 in a drawer.
The technical explanation of this problem is: Screen doesn't receive enough electrical current at low brightness levels (maybe the flex is defective, get old, etc)
Most probably the wake up problem exist together with screen flicker at low brightness levels
The wake up problem rises up more in dark environment, when light sensor make low bright screen
The lock screen light up screen, with a dim effect: when you lock the phone, it slowly turn screen off, and when you unlock, it make and effect of dim screen.
When you are is in dark environment, the effect is very slow, preventing the screen illuminate because the technical problem explained before.
When you are in very light environment, you lock screen and sensor light make the screen very brilliant and chances are you defective phone wakes up correctly.
We can use an app which give us complete control over brightness subsystem. I use an app called Velis AutoBrightness:
Once installed from Play Store, it shows a Setting Wizard. Follow the instructions. Below are some notes
• 1/7: Welcome Screen
• 2/7: How bright... Most probably is your phone always have flicker in low brightness. Choose "AMOLED" or "AMOLED bright". By the way choosing any one of those cure always minimum brightness failure!
• 3/7: Choose High sensitivity
• 4/7: On, if you want additional brightness when charging. Irrelevant for this thead. Choose your favorite setting
• 5/7: Same of 4/7
• 6/7: Choose enable: That enable the app
• 7/7: Some additional notes: Press Done
Now important settings: go to Menu > Settings > General: Settings Mode > Advanced
Service Activation settings:
• Disable system handler > ON: When you use Power saving mode, you surely noted screen flicker, which is very annoying, and make unusable power saving mode. By set this ON: Android doesn't set screen too dim; instead Velis have a minimum of brightness set by Wizard 2/7. (Surely you find out that you avoid screen flicker, by setting autobrightness off and slider in 8-10%)
Sensors settings:
• Screen-on sensor value override: Set this value to 30000. Read below this post if you want technical explanation of this setting
After you establish these settings, you'll be able to unlock your phone all the time!
This is the trick: When you unlock your phone, you'll note that the screen is very bright (because Screen-on to 30000) and quickly adjust to the environment light. The failure is that electrical current to screen is defective, and when exterior light is dark, the screen make a dim effect and doesn't light up.
Note to Marshmallow users:
• This app make use of Screen overlay permisions: And marshmallow is very restrict with this kind of app. This is specially true when you are installing an app. All you have to do is deactivate the app in notification screen: press "OFF" button, adjust system brightness upper enough to not flicker the screen, install your app, and activate Velis Autobrightness again
• Because of Doze mode, wake up from this mode may avoid your screen light up, the first time you use your phone. Let 10-15 seconds your phone wake up, lock again, and unlock again, and velis will make its work!
I hope this post make your smartphone usable. I barely apply this trick to two phones, but I think this is a good workaround!

I used this app & the flickering is still available

What worked for me is downgrading the firmware on my g900f all the way back to Android 4.0. My phone came with version 5.0 and I noticed the problem only after I kept installing samsung's system updates. Will report if the problem starts up again but I'm running rooted and running nougat just fine so I don't see a reason to keep upgrading the firmware.
Edit: nevermind, this didn't work

Reyse said:
The technical explanation of this problem is: Screen doesn't receive enough electrical current at low brightness levels (maybe the flex is defective, get old, etc)
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Click to collapse
Does anyone know for sure if it's the flex cable or some capacitors? I notice only the lower half of my screen flickers.. I bet there's a simple electrical fix for it instead of replacing the whoooole display

fbs said:
Does anyone know for sure if it's the flex cable or some capacitors? I notice only the lower half of my screen flickers.. I bet there's a simple electrical fix for it instead of replacing the whoooole display
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Click to collapse
Hello,
Have you change jour battery? If it s old it could cause some issues...
But try to buy a genuine one, I think that your battery must be old now.
Bye

cedouic said:
Hello,
Have you change jour battery? If it s old it could cause some issues...
But try to buy a genuine one, I think that your battery must be old now.
Bye
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Click to collapse
it doesn't make any sense. the lower half of the screen flickers in green even on charger

fbs said:
it doesn't make any sense. the lower half of the screen flickers in green even on charger
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed that screen only flickers at low brightness when using Boeffla kernel for LOS14 and others based on it.
No issue for the same device with LOS or Stock based kernels.

zlazaar said:
I noticed that screen only flickers at low brightness when using Boeffla kernel for LOS14 and others based on it.
No issue for the same device with LOS or Stock based kernels.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you're wrong
I was using los16 with stock kernel for months with flicker everyday

fbs said:
you're wrong
I was using los16 with stock kernel for months with flicker everyday
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Click to collapse
+1 to that , i even went back to stock and the screen flicker appeared and such issues are well known already with samsung amoled panels back in 2014-even some panels from 2018 . So def not kernel related.

I was using los 15.1 and this problem got worse. The phone was barely usable as mentioned by the op. In my case, the screen would start flickering below 60%. Then I switched back to stock marshmallow. I noticed that 100% brightness in los 15.1 is actually only about 70% in the stock rom.
I have been using the phone at 80% brightness for some weeks now and the problem has significantly reduced. But not completely gone, it's much much better. Also, you might want to avoid using dark wallpapers.

A5 2016 sometimes won't wake up, screen flashes

Hi,
I have this phone for little over 2 years. For over 1 week now I'm experiencing my phone not being able to wake up when I use the power button/home button. Whenever I push the button, the screen flashes for like 1s blue color, you can also see that the notification panel is blacked out and part of it green and it doesn't wake up. Sometimes it doesn't even flash. It used to take about 10 tries to wake it up but today I couldn't wake it up. I performed soft reset, I couldn't see the booting animation at all but it rebooted, buttons lit up and I was able to get in. It's like the phone is working fine in the background but the screen doesn't light up. I can turn down/up the volume, take a screenshot, get into settings, open apps, write a message but the screen is black. Even my alarm went off this morning but I couldn't dismiss it.
I downloaded an Always On Display app. Although I don't actually see the screensaver when it's locked, it's still on and it's easy to get in beacuse of it.
It all started with the screen flickering on minimum brightness. In February this year I had the screen replaced for the same issue but this time it's worse because of the blacked out screen.
Any ideas what it could be? Faulty display again?
Thank you

tessicorn said:
Hi,
I have this phone for little over 2 years. For over 1 week now I'm experiencing my phone not being able to wake up when I use the power button/home button. Whenever I push the button, the screen flashes for like 1s blue color, you can also see that the notification panel is blacked out and part of it green and it doesn't wake up. Sometimes it doesn't even flash. It used to take about 10 tries to wake it up but today I couldn't wake it up. I performed soft reset, I couldn't see the booting animation at all but it rebooted, buttons lit up and I was able to get in. It's like the phone is working fine in the background but the screen doesn't light up. I can turn down/up the volume, take a screenshot, get into settings, open apps, write a message but the screen is black. Even my alarm went off this morning but I couldn't dismiss it.
I downloaded an Always On Display app. Although I don't actually see the screensaver when it's locked, it's still on and it's easy to get in beacuse of it.
It all started with the screen flickering on minimum brightness. In February this year I had the screen replaced for the same issue but this time it's worse because of the blacked out screen.
Any ideas what it could be? Faulty display again?
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's over to have this phone for little over 2 years now you should have to change
TIP:
Flash a new stock rom of your phone from sammobile via ODIN.

Sophia.xda said:
It's over to have this phone for little over 2 years now you should have to change
TIP:
Flash a new stock rom of your phone from sammobile via ODIN.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be great, but I'm not a person that buys new phone every 2 years. I was thinking about it though .
When it comes to flashing. Do you think that would help? I don't want to end up with a black screen unable to set the phone up again. Cause overall it's working great .

Hi, i have the same problem, i'm from Belgium, and I have blinking screen problem and wake up screen problem :s
is it a software issue (nougat???)
before the big update (marshmallow i dont have any problem)
i'm on firmware A510FXXS7CRJ6_A510FLUX7CRJ1_A510FXXU7CRJ6_HOME.tar.md5

Turn screen brightness up abit to stop the blinking of screen. It's an issue of the screen hardware itself at low brightness after wear and tear. As for the hanging issue, maybe it has to do with your AOD app? Try uninstalling the AOD app OR flashing a stock Rom OR custom rom OR factory reset and use your phone at a higher brightness that the screen does not blink and see whether it still persists.

conanDO98 said:
Turn screen brightness up abit to stop the blinking of screen. It's an issue of the screen hardware itself at low brightness after wear and tear. As for the hanging issue, maybe it has to do with your AOD app? Try uninstalling the AOD app OR flashing a stock Rom OR custom rom OR factory reset and use your phone at a higher brightness that the screen does not blink and see whether it still persists.
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Click to collapse
Thanks, because of my past experience with the same problem earlier this year I know about that "solution". Unfortunately, it makes the battery die faster as expected. Which is sad because I used it mainly on low brightness. So it's really not a solution at all.
I got rid of the AOD app because I found out that the phone lights up on 2nd try. AOD didn't work at all. I have to wake it up, put it to sleep and wake it up again which is always successful and the screen lights up. The screen flashes white about 3 times in a row now otherwise it works.
I haven't flashed it yet although I wanted to. But I will see what can I do. Thank you though!

I'm having the exact same issue using LineageOS.

It's already been 2 years, but since this thread is one of the first results on Google, I'll gladly add a solution.
Exact same problem for me, went through two screen repairs under warranty, and it would always come back a year later. No difference between Samsung OS and LineageOS, though I haven't tried rooting it.
Found on Ifixit: this issue is related to the AMOLED screen technology used by Samsung (among others). You can look it up, apparently there is a bad (?) voltage management in low brightness which worsen with time.
I could fix it with the "OLED Saver" application on Play Store. It works around this voltage management and allows you to reduce the brightness without the green flickering.
I still got white flashes after the installation, but not anymore the day after. I could even disable this application without the issue coming back.
I don't know what kind of magic cleanup this app performed, but it really is a (screen) life saver.