Related
Hi all,
On a number of occasions, I've used Market apps to control the screen brightness, either manually (like a brightness widget) or scheduled (using Timeriffic - a great tool for automatic profile changes throughout the day).
Apparently, these apps are not aware of the correct minimum brightness supported by the Leo, making it too easy to go too low, which essentially disables the display completely.
Touch still works, so if I'm lucky enough to remember the location of the widget/slider/controls, I may be able to turn brightness back up to a "sane" level.
For example, Timeriffic turns the screen off with a brightness level of 10% - 15% is the lowest working setting.
If I'm unable to fix it this way, I'm basically forced to reset. The problem is that Android *remembers* this setting after a reboot, and reapplies it just when the device is vibrated slightly at the "Android" logo animation. Thus, with a black screen, it is impossible for me to unlock the SIM, hard to unlock the screen lock, and virtually impossible to correct the brightness setting. I need to remove my data.img ("hard resetting" Android) and restore what I can from backups.
The problem also seems to occur with the standard screen dimming which occurs at about half time before the "screen off" setting. I can see the display start to dim, then it suddeny turns off. In this case, however, Android of course reverts to normal brightness at the touch of the screen or press of a button.
On a related note, I have experienced (like right now) that brightness range used by Android is much dimmer then normal. That is, using the regular brightness slider in Settings, I can only vary between almost invisible (min) and quite dim (max). Curiously, in this situation, the display can get *much* dimmer than normal, without becoming disabled.
Any ideas on these issues would be most welcome!
Workarounds found later in this thread:
- Shine a bright light on the screen - the graphics are still there if you look really hard. It's not a joke!
- Use Screencast in Droid Explorer to "remote control" your Android
- adb shell "echo 255 >/sys/class/leds/lcd-backlight/brightness"
ugumba said:
Hi all,
On a number of occasions, I've used Market apps to control the screen brightness, either manually (like a brightness widget) or scheduled (using Timeriffic - a great tool for automatic profile changes throughout the day).
Apparently, these apps are not aware of the correct minimum brightness supported by the Leo, making it too easy to go too low, which essentially disables the display completely.
Touch still works, so if I'm lucky enough to remember the location of the widget/slider/controls, I may be able to turn brightness back up to a "sane" level.
For example, Timeriffic turns the screen off with a brightness level of 10% - 15% is the lowest working setting.
If I'm unable to fix it this way, I'm basically forced to reset. The problem is that Android *remembers* this setting after a reboot, and reapplies it just when the device is vibrated slightly at the "Android" logo animation. Thus, with a black screen, it is impossible for me to unlock the SIM, hard to unlock the screen lock, and virtually impossible to correct the brightness setting. I need to remove my data.img ("hard resetting" Android) and restore what I can from backups.
The problem also seems to occur with the standard screen dimming which occurs at about half time before the "screen off" setting. I can see the display start to dim, then it suddeny turns off. In this case, however, Android of course reverts to normal brightness at the touch of the screen or press of a button.
On a related note, I have experienced (like right now) that brightness range used by Android is much dimmer then normal. That is, using the regular brightness slider in Settings, I can only vary between almost invisible (min) and quite dim (max). Curiously, in this situation, the display can get *much* dimmer than normal, without becoming disabled.
Any ideas on these issues would be most welcome!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know these app(s) but if they are writing their settings and configured values into a ini or settings file, than you might be able to connect via adb and change the setting by this way.
With tools like Droidexplorer or ADB magic, browsing through the files should be very comfortable and you might find the correct file.
this happens on regular android devices ...i have a couple of them
thatruth132 said:
this happens on regular android devices ...i have a couple of them
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What happens? That brightness is set too low, essentially disabling the screen, so you're forced to hard reset or perform some root magic? How do you cope with it? Or does it happen that the permitted brightness range is just dimmer than usual?
Btw, until there is no light-sensor support in kernel, you can't use such apps for the brightness
Stills a good advice
I have had the same issue with the brightness range being too low. The max brightness is really dim and the colors don't seem right. That may just be the dimming effect though. If I restart the phone it seems to take care of this. I have not had the screen go below the minimum level and turn off though.
is there a fix for this. i just experienced this problem
I experienced the same with Multicon widgets.. had to delete Android and start over
somebully said:
I experienced the same with Multicon widgets.. had to delete Android and start over
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh wow, not good at all, crap...
so that means if i do that i'll lose everything huh?
Theres no way to restore the factory brightness or factory settings for the android?
aznsHD2 said:
Oh wow, not good at all, crap...
so that means if i do that i'll lose everything huh?
Theres no way to restore the factory brightness or factory settings for the android?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As long as you have a working WinMo it should be possible to edit the values of brightness, but I have no idea where this information is stored.
Deleting Android folder and unzipping again is esentially restoring to factory settings.
yea this happens to me all the time, its a *****. it cuts off at exactly 12% for me. what i do is have aldiko(a book reader) on the home screen. if i click on it and open a book i can just swipe on the left side of the screen to adjust brightness. since i know that its on the home screeen on the right side middle, i can usually find my way back to it.
somebully said:
As long as you have a working WinMo it should be possible to edit the values of brightness, but I have no idea where this information is stored.
Deleting Android folder and unzipping again is esentially restoring to factory settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
which means that i'll lose everything such as data correct? new contacts etc. msgs...
any thing on this... isnt their a file in the android folder that i could maybe replace to restore to factory settings.
and could someone post a screen shot of their phone so i know where the numbers for the pin code lockscreen. tryin to get past that, then i can adjust my brightness
LOL I experienced it one time. And I must delete data.img to restore the phone. After this, I don't use any brightness tools (except ones already in the Android build).
If anyone have solution, please point us
Well i was able to get my screen back to normal. lol.
I didnt delete the data.img, i simply copied it and then removed it, started a fresh install, and then just marked on my screen where the numbers were, turned it off, put the old data.img back. Followed my marks, and was able to unlock it and then found the power control widget. And bam! screen back to bright...
This might work for you!
Erm... In similar circumstances I found this worked...
I was trying out different Android builds and I found a screen brightness widget. It had various available levels of brightness, one being 0%. As soon as I selected it I felt pretty stupid as true to it's word it gave me 0% brightness placing me in a similar position to the OP.
My Solution. I used my (very bright) led torch to light the screen. By playing around with the angle and beam width I found I could just make out the on screen graphics enough to re-adjust the brightness level.
Simples!
Just as " Justblair " said .. you can place your device under a very bright light thus you'll be able to see the screen and what it's showing .. idk what build you guys are using but in cyanogen you can adjust the lowest dim level so that any app or widget tries to set the brightness to 0% it's automatically set to your preset, 15% for instance.
I've only faced this problem once
Is it absolutely necessary to flood the main thread with all these useless noob posts?
It really has nothing to do with Android development on HD2 and should be posted in the General section IMO.
kawazaki said:
Just as " Justblair " said .. you can place your device under a very bright light thus you'll be able to see the screen and what it's showing .. idk what build you guys are using but in cyanogen you can adjust the lowest dim level so that any app or widget tries to set the brightness to 0% it's automatically set to your preset, 15% for instance.
I've only faced this problem once
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cyanogen allows you a max dim level of 26 - which is too little on the HD2.
In Tasker, 30 is the lowest setting that still provides light. Maybe Cyanogen can be patched for the HD2 in coming builds?
Thanks for the tip on shining a bright light on the screen.
Another tip is to use Droid Explorer's "Screencast" feature, to view and control your Android's screen on your PC desktop. Of course, the brightness setting has no effect here.
I installed a battery booster app from the market, and it had an option to dim the screen, it was on 11%, well i tried to adjust it, and i guess i went way to far and it turned my screen black, i cant see nothing.
im on the Darkstone build.
is there a way to either delete that app or what, i know the phone works as i feel the vibration from me sliding it to unlock from home screen.
aznsHD2 said:
I installed a battery booster app from the market, and it had an option to dim the screen, it was on 11%, well i tried to adjust it, and i guess i went way to far and it turned my screen black, i cant see nothing.
im on the Darkstone build.
is there a way to either delete that app or what, i know the phone works as i feel the vibration from me sliding it to unlock from home screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The LCD still light up but very dim, so try going into a dark room and wake up the phone. Then you will be able to see the contain on your phone.
10507 said:
The LCD still light up but very dim, so try going into a dark room and wake up the phone. Then you will be able to see the contain on your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no its literally black, i cant see anything.
aznsHD2 said:
no its literally black, i cant see anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not even in a totally dark room?
10507 said:
Not even in a totally dark room?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like i said it is BLANK. seriously blank. its not dim or nothing.
Is there a way to restore the brightness on here, because i cant see anything im doin on it.
what you can try to do is, grab a friends phone and try to immitate the same touches on both devices, the best way to do it is by unlocking it, pressing the menu key, click on the corner to make sure u go to the settings, scroll all the way up and find your way to "display" tipically the 4th (or 5th in my case because i have cyanogen mod) and brightness (should be the one at the top) and just try to drag ur finger from left to right to increse it (as it should over pass any 3rd party app) and see if it works, but..... keep in mind these things dependeding on what phone you use to guide you....
screen size
DPI scale
sense??? or not! as settings are different
and other things, also..... when you unlock it make sure its on the home screen
i also believe if you go outside you can see the screen a little bit under the sun, but not completely sure
hope this helps, oh and by the way, if you have a build based on sense go to a sprint store and use an EVO lol, or if u have stock froyo grab a nexus one from a friend and use that (but like i said before, keep in mund the screen size)
yea thats what i was tryin to do. no luck.
I had this problem twice and rejoice, I have a solution!
Simply download "DroidExplorer" for windows.
Boot your phone in android.
Once booted (when your screen turns black), plug in USB, and launch DroidExplorer.
In DroidExplorer, look for the "Screencast" icon (little android icon).
Run that, you will see your screen. Reset brightness to a normal level.
You are saved
aznsHD2 said:
I installed a battery booster app from the market, and it had an option to dim the screen, it was on 11%, well i tried to adjust it, and i guess i went way to far and it turned my screen black, i cant see nothing.
im on the Darkstone build.
is there a way to either delete that app or what, i know the phone works as i feel the vibration from me sliding it to unlock from home screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When this happens, try shining a bright light on the screen, make sure the device is woken up (i.e. press a hard button) and view your screen from different angles. Even if the backlight is completely off, the LCD display is still active and the graphics elements just about visible.
With this method, you should be able to make enough of your screen to navigate to the brightness settings.
Screencast in Droid Explorer (for your PC) is also a good last measure.
Most apps that control brightness has this problem on HD2, so be careful about going too low in all of them. In Tasker, for example, 30 is the lowest setting that works.
Even the standard screen dimming that occurs a few seconds before screen timeout is not calibrated correctly. In all Android builds/kernels I have tried, the backlight is turned off when it should be just dimmed. Cyanogen(mod) has a setting for the dim level, but the maximum you can use is 26, which still turns off the backlight.
Curiously, sometimes (very seldom) after waking my phone up from standby, the backlight is in a much dimmer state than usual. When sliding the standard brightness from min to max, the actual brightness range varies from barely visible (but still on) to the regular dimmest level. So the device *can* support incredibly dim levels, but I've have found no way of getting into this state predictably. It has happened only 3-4 times over the past 2 months. A reboot fixes it, but I've also gotten out of this state after a locking/unlocking cycle.
So there seems to be several layers to the backlight brightness:
- the actual hardware (which supports much lower brightnesses than we're usually allowed access to)
- the Android API (which probably is the layer turning backlight off below 30, and which occasionally is fooled into using a much dimmer range than usual)
- whatever app providing the GUI (usually showing a range of 0-100% or 0-255).
Does anyone know if there's a reason for the threshold? Is it somehow risky for the LCD display hardware to be very dim?
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 ...
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)
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
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.
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.
Click to expand...
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.