Liquid 4 touch soft key sensitivity issue

[Guest Ricky Lui]

[update]

Another discovery again!!!

Inspired by three_pineapples and navygino! Thanks!!!

The issue of the soft key will be gone in this 2 situations on my Liquid.

- open the plastic cover and touching the USB charge port with any metallic material. (Probably like what navyging mentioned.)

- touching the device as shown in the below screen. (sorry for the poor artwork :) )

touching by fingers at the red spots.

sometimes just touch the bottom spot will do the work. sometimes need to touch both spots. It's random.

Like three_pineapples said, I think probably caused by the proximity sensor.

Could other Modacos who have the same issue try my testing methods and see if it works?

If it is, I think we can gather more voices and reported the issue to Acer.

FYI, the touch screen works fine. Just the soft keys have the problems.

[update]

Just found something interesting.

Here was what I did just now.

- place the device horizontally on table.

- charging the device with USB connected to PC.

the issue was GONE!!!

but then I tried not moving the device, and gentally remove the USB cable, the issue was back again.

Anyone has idea of what's going on?

Seems like through some electric shock, the soft keys wake up from sleep~~~ :)

[Original]

Hi all,

I found an low sensitivity issue with the 4 touch soft key.

Especially for the Home / Search / Back key (the Menu key seems fine most of the time) when placed horizontally on table.

It always has no response when I touched it.

And I have to hold the phone in my hand again and face it upward more than 45 degree to get the soft key back to work. (they probably fell asleep when lied down??? :))

These buttons normally works fine at a fresh wipe.

But by the time goes on, more apps installed and more cached data, the issue came back again! Even restart won't solve the issue.

Remember the first day I bought the phone, I tried 3 phones and all of them has the same issue.

And the sales cheated me saying it is the screen protector issue.

I tried the screen protector from the box and from ArmKit, both are having the same problems...

In conclusion, I think it is a software issue rather than a hardware.

And I read a review (from ADVERT LINK REMOVED or GSMArena?? Can't remember :)), they said Nexus One has the similar issue too!!!

The sensor of the soft key seems off position when placed horizontally. Maybe some miscalculation of the touch point.

Just wonder anyone suffer from similar issue?

thanks.

Edited January 20, 2010 by Ricky Lui

[Guest scrap2434]

+1

same here.

[Guest navygino]

As far as I know, this is every Liquid user's problem....no solution yet........

The search button is still okay but the 2 below is not working.

But.................It you put you phone on metal (conductor, i.e. your table is metal), it is working without problem.

Edited January 20, 2010 by navygino

[Guest three_pineapples]

Again i'm the one without the problem :)

I find that it doesn't work when you have it on a soft surface since the phone moves down when you push. But this is just a sensitivity issue. On a flat table it works fine.

I'm still on stock 1.002.05, unrooted, around 30 apps installed from the market (so excluding the ones bundled with the phone).

I've had it for a month and have not performed any sort of hard reset or wipe.

Do you all have the proximity sensor disabled?

[Guest Ricky Lui]

Again i'm the one without the problem :)

I find that it doesn't work when you have it on a soft surface since the phone moves down when you push. But this is just a sensitivity issue. On a flat table it works fine.

I'm still on stock 1.002.05, unrooted, around 30 apps installed from the market (so excluding the ones bundled with the phone).

I've had it for a month and have not performed any sort of hard reset or wipe.

Do you all have the proximity sensor disabled?

thanks for the sharing, pineapples. :)

The issue happens no matter on soft or hard surface.

And I have proximity sensor enabled all the time.

And I just found that when I connected it with USB to PC, the issue was gone!

[Guest navygino]

thanks for the sharing, pineapples. :)

The issue happens no matter on soft or hard surface.

And I have proximity sensor enabled all the time.

And I just found that when I connected it with USB to PC, the issue was gone!

Yes, like some sort of "connected", like putting it on a metal surface.....

[Guest three_pineapples]

if you move it after doing the USB trick does it stop working again? Does the same trick work when using the AC adapter?

I have the proximity sensor disabled. I was just wondering if it was a bug with that, which causes the phone to think the proximity sensor should be in use, and that you are close to something, so it turns off the touch screen...or something!

[Guest scrap2434]

if you move it after doing the USB trick does it stop working again? Does the same trick work when using the AC adapter?

I have the proximity sensor disabled. I was just wondering if it was a bug with that, which causes the phone to think the proximity sensor should be in use, and that you are close to something, so it turns off the touch screen...or something!

Nah, I had my proximity sensor disable and same thing. Turn it on... same thing.... just buggy.

[Guest Mux_Mux]

Same problem for me!

ByeZ!

[Guest navygino]

- open the plastic cover and touching the USB charge port with any metallic material. (Probably like what navyging mentioned.)

Not really need to open the plastic cover.......

For example, put it on you desk (wood, glass, anything that is not conductive), it is not working.

put it on a conductive material (metal plate, computer case,), it is working.....(I mean no need to remove the back cover....)

[Guest syncro]

me and other users in an italian forum we see the same problem and we think the soft keys needs to close the electric circuit with the hand (maybe the metallic surfaces works for that).

What I think is that's a wanted effect in order to avoid the activation of the soft keys when the phone is in a pocket or on a table (in this case I could press accidentally a key).

If I'm not wrong this issue could be fixed when Acer release the sources.

syncro.

[Guest drigerott]

You can just touch the phone every where and works... not only where you said

[Guest chunga]

like I said in a earlier thread, it's a floating ground problem, plastic and glass are in a different electrostatic charges, when you touch plastic you are transmitting your hand in a different level than the glass and the sensor detects the touch but you discharge your hand quickly by touching the glass and you have to charge it again holding. the plastic. when the phone is plugged there is a huge difference in electrostatic between your finger and your computer, which make touch sensor to perform better. It is needed two different levels of electrostatic.voltage to make the sensor activate.

hope this helps.

[Guest navygino]

like I said in a earlier thread, it's a floating ground problem, plastic and glass are in a different electrostatic charges, when you touch plastic you are transmitting your hand in a different level than the glass and the sensor detects the touch but you discharge your hand quickly by touching the glass and you have to charge it again holding. the plastic. when the phone is plugged there is a huge difference in electrostatic between your finger and your computer, which make touch sensor to perform better. It is needed two different levels of electrostatic.voltage to make the sensor activate.

hope this helps.

But the other 2 "button" is working fine in all situation...

[Guest chunga]

my 4 keys perform equally, I guess :)

[Guest pete.major]

I used to have this problem when running stock ROM... in fact, the first thing my friend said after picking up my lovely new acer was "huh, these buttons on the bottom don't work that well..."

I was constantly have to poke the buttons two or three times. I recently upgraded to 1.008 (or whatever) and I can't remember having to re-poke the buttons ever!

Is it possible that the sensitivity is just a software issue, like the "edges of the screen" issue which also seems to be fixed in 1.008?

[Guest syncro]

I used to have this problem when running stock ROM... in fact, the first thing my friend said after picking up my lovely new acer was "huh, these buttons on the bottom don't work that well..."

I was constantly have to poke the buttons two or three times. I recently upgraded to 1.008 (or whatever) and I can't remember having to re-poke the buttons ever!

Is it possible that the sensitivity is just a software issue, like the "edges of the screen" issue which also seems to be fixed in 1.008?

I think it could be a software problem... what I understand is that the softkey are disable by the software if the phone cannot detect your hand (maybe with an electrostatic measure)

I hope the problem will be solved with the release of kernel sources and new custom roms.

bye,

syncro.

[Guest Ricky Lui]

me and other users in an italian forum we see the same problem and we think the soft keys needs to close the electric circuit with the hand (maybe the metallic surfaces works for that).

What I think is that's a wanted effect in order to avoid the activation of the soft keys when the phone is in a pocket or on a table (in this case I could press accidentally a key).

If I'm not wrong this issue could be fixed when Acer release the sources.

syncro.

thanks for your sharing.

but in my point of view, if Acer really implement this because of preventing the accidental touch, then I think their R&D staff haven't used touch phone before...

1st, Acer has a power on button which is the first defender of accidental touch.

2nd, Android has a screen lock which is the second defender of accidental touch.

With these 2 locks, the possibility of accidental touch is very low, right?

Why would they choose to scarify the usability of normal use because of preventing the accidental touch?

And even the touch keys are touched accidentally, I can't think of any severe consequence. Since they are not the Send key, won't make calls or send out sms/emails accidentally, right?

like I said in a earlier thread, it's a floating ground problem, plastic and glass are in a different electrostatic charges, when you touch plastic you are transmitting your hand in a different level than the glass and the sensor detects the touch but you discharge your hand quickly by touching the glass and you have to charge it again holding. the plastic. when the phone is plugged there is a huge difference in electrostatic between your finger and your computer, which make touch sensor to perform better. It is needed two different levels of electrostatic.voltage to make the sensor activate.

hope this helps.

my 4 keys perform equally, I guess :)

Yes chunga, I agree with you. I think it's some kind of electroxxxxx (I am a newbie in this... :)) issue + software/kernal issue.

But the Menu key always work!

Just the rest of the 3 keys are having the issue.

I used to have this problem when running stock ROM... in fact, the first thing my friend said after picking up my lovely new acer was "huh, these buttons on the bottom don't work that well..."

I was constantly have to poke the buttons two or three times. I recently upgraded to 1.008 (or whatever) and I can't remember having to re-poke the buttons ever!

Is it possible that the sensitivity is just a software issue, like the "edges of the screen" issue which also seems to be fixed in 1.008?

pete, I am also using 1.008 + Lickonn Custom ROM.

Like I said, at the beginning of a fresh wipe, the keys are find.

Just as time goes by, like used 1~2 days, the issue started to come back~

I am not sure is it some sort of application make the issue appear.

If any one has the same issue, could you list the apps you installed?

[type in cmd "adb shell ls -1 /system/app"]

[Guest Albibek]

Actually it's very annoying bug, especially, when you change many settings.

The issue was on the original 1.008, and didn't disappear after upgrading to 2.000.16.

Also found, that in 2.000.16 (maybe I wasn't carefult enough actually) the sensor button setting appeare(look for it in the Sound settings). Tried different levels - it doesn't help anyways <_<

I sometimes(only sometimes :mellow:) can get the button work by just putting the whole palm to the device's back.

Publishing my app list, hope it helps. http://pastebin.com/x7ATDByA

Looks like HTC Eris have the same problem

What are the chances that it's a hardware problem? I still have time to get money-back for it or try to exchange for the working unit.

Edited March 9, 2010 by Albibek