Nexus 4 does not perceive touch in a line

Question

I bought a Nexus 4 (LG E960) yesterday, and from the first moment there was a problem that it did not accept touch in the line of the volume down button. In a horizontal line, half a centimeter (1/5 inch) high, in the full width of the screen. If I tried to click in the line, it happened above or below. If I tried to slide a widget through the barrier, there was a visible jump. If I tried to sroll a list, it was interpeted as scroll-stop-click. So a random list item was selected. Quite disturbing.

I was sure it was a hardware problem, because the line was at the same place when I held the phone horizontally. Then suddenly the problem was gone, scrolling, sliding was smooth again. For 2 hours. This morning the line was misbehaving again. Now it works fine. I have no idea what triggers the bad behavior, and what stops it.

What could I do? If I take it back to the shop, they will sit on it for a week, and they might not even encounter the problem, much less solve it.

Did anyone have similar problems?

Answer 1

So I've had this same problem for the past month.

There is a 1cm or so high deadzone that spans the width of my screen just about lower than the midway point from top to bottom.

It is mostly always there, but some (seemingly) random times it goes away and all works well.

My troubleshooting led me to this:

If it's hardware, it's only because the software is telling it something it shouldn't be. I'm sure nothing is broken (i.e., from being dropped, etc.) Something is wrong, for sure, but not broken per se.

I took screen shots of temperature and voltage (using CPU-Z app) trying to figure it out. I paid attention to when it happened and when it did not. I boiled it down to two possibilities: temperature and/or voltage (I can explain how I came to this conclusion if you want... would take a bit more explanation).

I charge my phone with the charger plugged into the wall typically. I live in Asia so the voltage is a lot higher (but within the appropriate range of the phone). Yet, lately when I! go to sleep, I plug my phone into my laptop to charge, rather than the wall... when I wake up the problem isn't there. About 2 hours later or so the problem comes back.

I tried this for a week (charging my phone with my laptop) and the problem is dissipating. As quickly as it escalated (getting gradually worse) it is now getting gradually better.

Try it and see if it works for you. At night when your phone is nearly dead, charge your phone with your USB port attached to your laptop. Maybe it will help. I'm still troubleshooting specifics to see if it is definitive.

UPDATE: today, the day of writing this, I haven't had the problem at all and it's been nearly 7 hours and the 3rd consecutive night of charging with USB on my laptop.

UPDATE 2: happy new year! I've been charging my nexus 4 with my laptop's USB port since my original reply and the problem had disappeared. Let me know if this works for anyone else!

Nexus 4 - 4.4.2

Answer 2

As geohi said, I have this problem for a bit 2 months when I bought this Nexus 4. Last night was the first night I put my phone to charge via USB. Today I was super excited to see That my screen is fully functional. I will continue to charge it like this for few days to see what happens. No problems for about 9 hours so far. ¨

update: 4 days have been passed since my phone started to work well. Screen problem did not reappear not even for 2 minutes since then :) it's great!

Answer 3

I have the same issue, Google support suggested waiting for the 4.4 Android update to fix, else return for repair / replacement.

Answer 4

I also got d same prob.It is a hardware issue.I got the front touch panel replaced. It costs Rs 5322 in mumbai. My phone was in warranty so got it for free. Now issue is resolved. Nothing changed in d software to solve the issue.