Database Users

Screen locked

I was playing a game on my Vibrant on my break earlier today and upon exiting it my screen locked up. Rather than wait for it, I pressed the power button to turn the screen off and went back to work.
A little later I brought it out to check the time and saw that the screen was on am pretty sure I saw that it said "Scanning media" at the top and assumed it had reset itself. A little bit after that I checked my phone again and saw the NoLed icon for new emails. I pressed the power button to turn on the screen and then tried to swipe it to unlock it but nothing happened.
That's pretty much where I am now. The volume and power buttons work but the screen is unresponsive (I can bring up the "Phone Options" screen but can't select any of the options) and none of the "soft" buttons on the bottom work either. Is my only option to do a hard reset?
And if it helps, this is a completely stock phone. Never been rooted.

I would just pull the battery.

I remember having something like that with NoLED, tr pressing the power button to wake it up and press the home key (unless you have it disabled in NoLED prefs) to get to the lock screen and unlock it.

Press and hold the power button until the phone reboots. That should take care of it.

icandy75 said:
Press and hold the power button until the phone reboots. That should take care of it.
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Thanks! That did the trick. Could have sworn I tried that already but apparently I didn't hold it down long enough.

power button wake up problem

is anyone having issues with waking up this phone? Randomly to get the screen back on I will have to press the power button about four times for the screen to come back on. its really starting to bug
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App

press harder. I learned quickly that it takes a firm push and you have to hit the button w/o your fingers getting caught up on the sides of the phone.
it's either that or you got a bad button

I have the same issue, this along with the lag I get at times when I attempt to use the camera has me seriously considering returning this phone. The Inspired I returned had non of these issues just a tinny speaker.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

Mine wouldnt go to sleep today when pushing the button. Seems to be a few bugs with this phone eh?

I'm starting to look at re-mapping the keyword to allow the volume keys to wake it up, and then use the fingerprint reader to unlock it. That power button seems to fragile to me. To turn the screen off I just use Extended Controls.
Any thoughts?

Widget locker has an option to use the vol buttons for wake

I kinda have the same problem but its when i press the lock button the screen shuts off but then comes right back on. I press it again, it shuts off, then comes right back on.

I had the same problem - power button wouldn't wake phone from sleep.
I had to do a battery pull to resolve the issue.
I'm using the lastest FW.

Motorola phones (Not just Atrix, but Droid X also) have some funky business that sometimes prevents/delays the screen from turning on, even if the button press is registered. This happens with the power button and also the volume buttons if they're used to wake the device (Like with WidgetLocker). I haven't been able to narrow it down, but I suspect it's related to (ab)use of PowerManager's preventScreenOn()

[email protected] said:
Motorola phones (Not just Atrix, but Droid X also) have some funky business that sometimes prevents/delays the screen from turning on, even if the button press is registered. This happens with the power button and also the volume buttons if they're used to wake the device (Like with WidgetLocker). I haven't been able to narrow it down, but I suspect it's related to (ab)use of PowerManager's preventScreenOn()
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It sounds logic to me, because even editing the right keyboard file to add a wake_dropped to the volume down, it won't turn on the screen. I hate when they change things the way they do with this, the bootloader, etc.

How can I hard reset this thing?

So I was using the camera today and accidentally hit the power button. The screen turned off and the camera appeared to stop, but I can not power the device back on. holding the power button did nothing, nor did just pressing it. Normally I'd remove the battery at this point, but as you folks know, this is impossible unless I want to break my device. Anyone know how I can hard reset this thing or will I just have to wait until the battery dies? (Which will take a very very long time.)

I've had some very weird power problems with my Tab to the point where I'm thinking of sending it in for RMA. It sounds similar to your problem.
After leaving it for a period of time "sleeping", I come back and press the power button, and the display does not turn on.
Over a 5-minute period of fiddling with holding different combinations of the 3 buttons at the top, I got it to hard power off. It does take quite a while to hold them, longer than I would have expected!

My went to RMA. I asked for a refund.

Cyvillian said:
I've had some very weird power problems with my Tab to the point where I'm thinking of sending it in for RMA. It sounds similar to your problem.
After leaving it for a period of time "sleeping", I come back and press the power button, and the display does not turn on.
Over a 5-minute period of fiddling with holding different combinations of the 3 buttons at the top, I got it to hard power off. It does take quite a while to hold them, longer than I would have expected!
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I think all you have to do is hold the power button for a very long time, like 10 seconds. My friend and I both had the problem where it wouldn't turn on after a while asleep and this is how we forced it to reboot.

THANK YOU!!!!...looked everywhere for this. So, holding the power button for 10 sec works.

Focus is dying, what could it be?

i suspect the power/lock button is FUBAR, but there are some other symptoms that do not resemble just a bad power/lock button. here are the symptoms that indicate it is the power/lock button:
1. when the phone is off, almost impossible to turn on. sometimes have to press and hold power button 10-12 times before it will shut on
2. when the phone is on and i press the lock button to lock the phone, most of the time it thinks i held the button and says "slide down to power off" although sometimes it doesn't respond at all. it almost NEVER locks when i press it (like it should be doing)
3. when the phone is on and i press the lock button to unlock the phone, most of the time it shuts off completely and i go back to step 1
symptom that indicates another problem not related to power/lock button:
1. if the phone is off and i press the power button, when the phone responds it will sometimes say "samsung" like it is turning on, and then nothing else will happen. i won't get the ATT screen and it won't boot up. this some times happens multiple times before the phone finally boots
currently i've been letting the phone time out automatically instead of the lock button, and using the camera button to unlock it. i've also been trying to not let it turn off at all, because getting it back on is really tough.
is there anyway i can disable the lock/power button...and/or is there an alternative way to lock and turn on your phone that doesn't require the use of that button? even if i tell myself not to use it, there are still times in your pocket where the darn thing gets pressed. for me that could mean it kills my phone and doesn't restart for the rest of the day, which i'm sure you can imagine is not ideal.

tuffluck said:
i suspect the power/lock button is FUBAR, but there are some other symptoms that do not resemble just a bad power/lock button. here are the symptoms that indicate it is the power/lock button:
1. when the phone is off, almost impossible to turn on. sometimes have to press and hold power button 10-12 times before it will shut on
2. when the phone is on and i press the lock button to lock the phone, most of the time it thinks i held the button and says "slide down to power off" although sometimes it doesn't respond at all. it almost NEVER locks when i press it (like it should be doing)
3. when the phone is on and i press the lock button to unlock the phone, most of the time it shuts off completely and i go back to step 1
symptom that indicates another problem not related to power/lock button:
1. if the phone is off and i press the power button, when the phone responds it will sometimes say "samsung" like it is turning on, and then nothing else will happen. i won't get the ATT screen and it won't boot up. this some times happens multiple times before the phone finally boots
currently i've been letting the phone time out automatically instead of the lock button, and using the camera button to unlock it. i've also been trying to not let it turn off at all, because getting it back on is really tough.
is there anyway i can disable the lock/power button...and/or is there an alternative way to lock and turn on your phone that doesn't require the use of that button? even if i tell myself not to use it, there are still times in your pocket where the darn thing gets pressed. for me that could mean it kills my phone and doesn't restart for the rest of the day, which i'm sure you can imagine is not ideal.
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You seem to have a (hardware) problem with the power button (obviously).
There are a couple of ways to turn on the phone/display without the power button:
- camera/back
- connect power charger
- usb connect
Last 2 are not practical and first you already do. You should try and see how much would it cost to replace the power button, if you're out of warranty. Should be cheap, and beats workarounds.

is there any way to lock it rather than letting it just time out? what about turning it on?
do you feel pretty confident that the seemingly unrelated symptom where the "samsung" screen comes up and then shuts off while trying to turn the phone on STILL indicates the button is broken? just worried this problem extends further than just the button.
thanks for your help.

tuffluck said:
is there any way to lock it rather than letting it just time out? what about turning it on?
do you feel pretty confident that the seemingly unrelated symptom where the "samsung" screen comes up and then shuts off while trying to turn the phone on STILL indicates the button is broken? just worried this problem extends further than just the button.
thanks for your help.
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There's no other way to turn it on (except plugging it to charge) and you found the one workaround, with the camera.
I am *very* sure that the power button is the culprit in your case, most likely the spring that pops back the button is either broken or out of place.
If you keep the power button pressed, in 2 seconds you'll see the slide message, but if you keep it pressed, then it just turns off after 2 more seconds. So, yes, it's the power button and nothing else, in your case.
Fix that and you should be back to normal.
And you're not the only one with this problem. Recently, I've tried to help someone else here, with the same problem, as you can see here.

thanks. i called around and a guy here in town said it will take him 30 minutes for $30 to fix it. i'm taking it to him at lunch, so hopefully i'll come back with a fully functional phone--he also was pretty certain it was the power button, and had seen this before. thanks for your help.

well it wasn't the power button. apparently there is a battery connected to the power button that is dying. but you can't even order a new battery, so pretty much once it's dead, it's dead for good and you have to do the camera button workaround like i was doing.
though he did solder the battery to the board a little more (that's another problem, from the factory it is soldered to the main board so even if you could replace it, you'd likely damage the board), and it seemed to fix the problem. he claimed it would only be temporary and within a few weeks the problem will likely come back.

tuffluck said:
well it wasn't the power button. apparently there is a battery connected to the power button that is dying. but you can't even order a new battery, so pretty much once it's dead, it's dead for good and you have to do the camera button workaround like i was doing.
though he did solder the battery to the board a little more (that's another problem, from the factory it is soldered to the main board so even if you could replace it, you'd likely damage the board), and it seemed to fix the problem. he claimed it would only be temporary and within a few weeks the problem will likely come back.
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That is weird indeed. I don't think I ever heard of another type of battery being used in phones, tied to buttons. Unless it's a capacitor but anyways...
Thanks for sharing the info with us!

I know this is thread is almost a year old, but unfortunately, it seems my Samsung Focus (v1.3) also has the exact same issue.
The worst bit is that every other aspect of this once glorious phone still works and I was very happy using it, not really feeling the need to upgrade.
I was using a custom ROM which I flashed back to AT&T original 7004 but that did not work. It doesn't seem to be a software issue at all.
The symptoms are the same - tapping the power button to lock the phone gives you the option to slide to power-off and after a second it will do that anyway (without any interaction). When you try to boot, it won't progress past the SAMSUNG screen and in the rare chance it does boot, it will work for an hour or two before dying again. Connecting power helps a little (as you can't turn off the phone with mains power connected), but only just. I have tried using the original battery which I initially suspected was causing issues but even a generic battery has the same issues. I'm tempted to spend $20 on a genuine battery but I don't think it will really help given the generic battery did work properly when the phone was itself.
I'm now faced with upgrading to the Lumia 920 but with new models around the corner I think I'm going for the budget Lumia 520 which has similar specs to the Focus (except LED flash) and will hold out for the new flagship model, or buy the 920 when it falls a bit more.

Hi - just wanted to add my experience with this issue (as my focus exhibited these exact symptoms today). Unlike some people, though, even if my phone managed to boot up, it would shut down again after a few seconds on the tile screen.
Like cysser0, I also suspected the battery at first, but replacing the long-life I had purchased last year with the original battery (which I keep charged as a back-up) had no effect on the symptoms. To be brief, I tried all sorts of things over the course of an hour. Nearing the end of my tether, and resigning myself to try a format as a last resort, I discovered that if I held the power button and the volume button down, I could get the phone to stay on. Releasing either of these buttons would result in the phone switching off suddenly.
Wrapping a rubber band tightly around the top of the phone has allowed me to continue using the phone for the moment, and I have managed to do a backup of all my content (not that I will be able to restore it on this phone, it seems).

NEED HELP. Power button stuck.

My power button gets stuck and as you know when you long press it it reboots the phone. So basically my phone is just constantly rebooting and rebooting, its practically unusable. I need help if anyone knows a way to disable the function of power button, I mean so the power button wont do any function anymore, or swap it with another button.

I had the same problem. Got the button replaced, it worked for a month or so and I started getting the random reboots again. A search on the internet reveals that this is a common problem with the S3, and I doubt they fixed the issue for the S3 neo.
1.5 years of use and my power button is broken, my volume buttons are mushy and my camera doesn't focus at all. The build quality on this phone is a joke.
You'll probably have to have your power key replaced as well. Or do what I did and remove it from the motherboard. You won't believe how flimsy the solder is. I now use the accessibility shortcut button to lock / unlock my phone. It's a hassle and it takes up screen real estate, but at least it works.

SpaceDye said:
I had the same problem. Got the button replaced, it worked for a month or so and I started getting the random reboots again. A search on the internet reveals that this is a common problem with the S3, and I doubt they fixed the issue for the S3 neo.
1.5 years of use and my power button is broken, my volume buttons are mushy and my camera doesn't focus at all. The build quality on this phone is a joke.
You'll probably have to have your power key replaced as well. Or do what I did and remove it from the motherboard. You won't believe how flimsy the solder is. I now use the accessibility shortcut button to lock / unlock my phone. It's a hassle and it takes up screen real estate, but at least it works.
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Mine stopped doing it now but I'm sure it will start again. You are right, build quality of this phone is really lame. That part on the sides that looks like metal is mostly worned off from my phone. Camera focus is crap and volume is lower than before, I can barely hear notifications. Maybe I'll remove the button too, but I'm concerned about how to boot the phone if it turns off.

You can turn on the phone by connecting the charger, immediately booting into download mode (before the battery icon comes up) and restarting from there. It's not the best solution, but at least I have a functional phone until my oneplus x arrives sometime this week

try to do this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXSbBG4NV-w

samo_say said:
try to do this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXSbBG4NV-w
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I tried something similar and boy it works for a while.

SpaceDye said:
You can turn on the phone by connecting the charger, immediately booting into download mode (before the battery icon comes up) and restarting from there. It's not the best solution, but at least I have a functional phone until my oneplus x arrives sometime this week
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That's actually a fantastic idea. I thought about flashing cm that has no offline charging and booting that way, but this is better solution lol.

SpaceDye said:
. I now use the accessibility shortcut button to lock / unlock my phone.
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You can try nova launcher since it has a gesture for double tap to lock screen, or maybe a 3rd party app.

use soft lock to lock screen without pressing power button