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The sensor that turns the screen off in my pocket or at my cheek is suddenly turning the screen off when my thumb is within two inches of the top of the screen. It is difficult to grab the notification bar without triggering it, and holding my phone sideways is now an exercise in frustration. Is there a way to fix this? Did some update recently come out for the Galaxy Nexus (GSM)?

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2 Answers

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Z-Device test may show your sensor output: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=zausan.zdevicetest

Possible reasons:

If you updated just before noticing this problem, you might have to switch back or wait for another update to fix that again. Installing a 3rd party update like Cyanogenmod9 might also fix your problem.

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Installed Z-Device, but it has no active test of the sensor. It just indicates that it works and has a Max range of 5cm. I have no aftermarket anything on the phone. And I don't want to void the warranty installing Cyanogen. Any other ideas? – Myrddin Emrys Jun 8 '12 at 15:51
strange. proximity behaviour is not configurable. i tested on my nexus s with zdevice: the proximity always works but only trggers screen off when a call is active. Seems like your device does not check that condition any more. I guess it might be fixed by a wipe. If you have CWM recovery installed you can do a backup, wipe, test and restore in 10min to find out without too much trouble. Using Titanium backup before/after wiping is more work. I don't know a better easy enough solution. – ce4 Jun 8 '12 at 21:16
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The problem ended up being transient; I rarely restart my phone. Somehow it got stuck in 'on call' mode, so the proximity sensor was enabled despite nothing being running. A reboot resolved the silly issue.

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