Froyo lockscreen freeze

[Guest Meizirkki]

A quick Googling reveals that Blade is not the only phone affected by this. :unsure:

I have the finnish TFT/5mp Blade: no problems with Eclair, but every Froyo rom is unusable.

Edited January 4, 2011 by Meizirkki

[Guest Ralph Martin]

Reports of the screen freeze happening on Eclair too.

Sadly it's looking like a hardware issue. I wonder if the TFT phones get this?

I've had a few on my TFT with Stock Orange ROM.

[Guest Trippple]

oops

Edited January 4, 2011 by Trippple

[Guest Trippple]

Ok, I have a Dell Streak. When I got it a few weeks ago I had de android 2.1 everything was fine.

Then I updated it to 2.2.... been having freezes the entire time.

But I noticed that when I turn the screen to the Potrait position, it sometimes responded(somewhat) to my finger and with a little finger trickery I could unlock it. What I noticed then is that after the "freeze" as long as i used it in portrait it was fine and in landscape I had problems. So i disabled the automatic rotation of the screen and tried that. But no succes, still te same problems. But it did seem to happen a bit less. (I think)

Been having these freezes for several weeks now and I noticed that it only happens when i have the phone/tablet in my pants pocket. When i have it on a table or desk, it never freezes.

I also tried other lockscreens, but no change.

I hope I can help, if anybody wants me to try anything, plz let me know.

BTW, english is not my native language so plz don't hate me if I screwed up anywhere.

[Guest chall32]

Been having these freezes for several weeks now and I noticed that it only happens when i have the phone/tablet in my pants pocket. When i have it on a table or desk, it never freezes.

Must admit, on the (very) few occasions I've had a freeze, I've noticed it after my phone has been in my trousers pocket. I don't remember any where my phone has not been in my pocket.

Playing with logcat, I notice that each time the touchscreen is, er, touched, it results in a couple of events:

01-04 21:28:12.735: ERROR/ViewRoot enter(295): Dispatching touchevent to com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow$DecorView@31ba0fc0 touchevent action is 1 X= 452.83075 Y=48.518085

01-04 21:28:12.735: ERROR/ViewRoot exit(295): Dispatching touchevent to com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow$DecorView@31ba0fc0

A very quick google around and I found this: http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blad...e/#entry1466066

Looking in LogCat, there's a potential power sapping report being broadcast multiple times per second whilst the screen is touched:

E/ViewRoot enter ( 4787): Dispatching touchevent to com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow$DecorView@32e971b0 touchevent action is 2 X= 240.91109 Y=396.66116

E/ViewRoot exit ( 4787): Dispatching touchevent to com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow$DecorView@32e971b0

W/WindowManager(  124): waitForLastKey: mFinished=true, mLastWin=null

This causes the CPU clock to raise to ~100% whilst the screen is being touched. I haven't noticed this on my other phones, and they do not spike when the screen is touched. It may be worth investigating these reports to see if it can save any power when the device is in use.

So another google around (specifically for multiple touchevents) I found this: http://www.badlogicgames.com/wiki/index.ph...on_Touch_Events

After the Touch Event Flooding problem was reported and supposedly fixed in Android version 2.0 many people still had issues with high CPU usage while the touch screen was touched, munching away on their frame rates. The problem was first reported in this [1] thread on the Android developer group. A subsequent thread on the Android platform group was then posted where a Google engineer shed some light on the issue.

The problem can not be solved by inserting a Thread.sleep() in the Java side touch event handler as claimed in various places. While no detailed explanation of the problem is available it is suspected to be a combination of driver and kernel issues. Christopher Tate, Google engineer, remarked that he suspects that the touch panel driver is firing too many events, and while they might not reach the Java side due to a Thread.sleep() they still have to be processed.

Changing the priority of the game/rendering thread also does not solve the problem.

Finally a bug was filed on the Android bug tracker.

The problem is especially bad on first generation devices like the G1, Dream or Hero where a rendering-bound game running perfectly fine at 30fps can drop to 12fps when the screen is being touched. On newer devices the problem is less pronounced due to higher CPU clock speeds an other factors. It can however still impact the frame rate of a game or real-time application.

The problem seems to have been somewhat solved in Android version 2.2 (Froyo). However, first generation devices which suffer the most from this issue are not likely to receive an update to Froyo.

A complete rewrite of the responsible system parts with improved performance is expected to be available in Android version 3.0 (Gingerbread) according to the bug tracker.

Looking at the bug on Android bug tracker: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=7836 it appears that the bug has indeed only been fixed in Gingerbread (see comment 55).

So after all that, could it be that the touchscreen freeze problem is caused by very high rates of touch events (aka touchscreen flooding) and/or subsequent stuck high CPU use (maybe even the touch screen driver crashes?) which in turn impacts the ability to unlock the phone?

Just an idea......

- Chris

[Guest lixcab]

Thanks, Chris! That's a lot of research. I might try switching hwaccel off in froyo to see if that makes a difference.

[Guest chall32]

Thanks, Chris! That's a lot of research. I might try switching hwaccel off in froyo to see if that makes a difference.

Cheers. Would be good to see what happens.

If anyone who badly suffers with lockscreen freezing can edit build.prop (using something like ES File Explorer - http://www.appbrain.com/app/es-file-explor...ngs.android.pop ) and set:

debug.sf.hw=0

Reboot after setting. Oh, and yes your phone maybe a bit laggy after setting.

- Chris

Edited January 5, 2011 by chall32

[Guest lixcab]

OK.

Switched off hwaccel and I thought "I wonder what my quadrant scores are now?"

First run: 878

Second run: 975

Third run: 1012 (!)

And yes, I did check Angry Birds and it is still running pretty fast. I also checked build.prop and hwaccel is definitely 0. I'll post back if I get a screen freeze.

Running Paul's Alpha 4.

[Guest _mika]

OK.

Switched off hwaccel and I thought "I wonder what my quadrant scores are now?"

First run: 878

Second run: 975

Third run: 1012 (!)

And yes, I did check Angry Birds and it is still running pretty fast. I also checked build.prop and hwaccel is definitely 0. I'll post back if I get a screen freeze.

Running Paul's Alpha 4.

Try lock->wake back and forth multiple times.. My blade usually freezes on 4th or 5th time.. I've found that the easiest way to reproduce the freezing..

[Guest lixcab]

Try lock->wake back and forth multiple times.. My blade usually freezes on 4th or 5th time.. I've found that the easiest way to reproduce the freezing..

Thanks, _mika.

Lock -> wake 20 times and still running fine.

[Guest kang.t7]

I can receive calls, but cannot answer as touchscreen is unresponsive & when i press the "BACK" button it goes to home screen.

Wish the blade had a Answer Hardkey :unsure:

Its not the phone Freezing, IT maybe the Touchscreen Driver?B)

[Guest lixcab]

I am happy to report that I managed to get my Paul's Alpha 4, HWAccel=0 San Francisco to freeze! Not sure how, it just did - maybe pressing power key to toggle screen on and off 20x does cause the screen freeze somehow?

Moving on...

[Guest nick_sub]

I've been trying to keep track of the threads on the ROMs using the new kernel based on the recently released source code but it's hard to keep up! From what I've seen there have only been one or 2 people who have experienced a lock screen freeze with it. Is it safe to assume this bug is now fixed?

[Guest targetbsp]

I've only seen 1 person report a lockscreen freeze and one other report a freeze that happened during use and so was probably cause of overclocking.

[Guest nick_sub]

I've only seen 1 person report a lockscreen freeze and one other report a freeze that happened during use and so was probably cause of overclocking.

Thanks. Time to give Froyo a go then...

[Guest uotinam]

As someone mentioned before the screen is NOT FROZEN, it just fails to respond to touch....so your not able to unlock the phone.

Holding in Power button displays the shutdown menu, but your not able to select anything.

I have had the problem both times past 2 mornings, and random times over the past 1-2months with Froyo 2.2 (various builds)

Removed LauncherPro this morning will see how it goes.

[Guest jurrasstoil]

As someone mentioned before the screen is NOT FROZEN, it just fails to respond to touch....so your not able to unlock the phone.

Holding in Power button displays the shutdown menu, but your not able to select anything.

I have had the problem both times past 2 mornings, and random times over the past 1-2months with Froyo 2.2 (various builds)

Removed LauncherPro this morning will see how it goes.

just get a rom with the new kernel :D

[Guest uotinam]

just get a rom with the new kernel :D

Hi Jurrasstoil,

Like what do you propose, is this the known fix or a suggestion ?

Thanks in advance......

[Guest arun687]

Hi Jurrasstoil,

Like what do you propose, is this the known fix or a suggestion ?

Thanks in advance......

It's supposed to be a known fix. The new kernel built from the source released by ZTE fixes most issues.

Just try the latest version of Japanese Jellyfish or Desoftened or Froyo G2 Roms and you should be good.

[Guest GlobalTommy]

It's supposed to be a known fix. The new kernel built from the source released by ZTE fixes most issues.

Just try the latest version of Japanese Jellyfish or Desoftened or Froyo G2 Roms and you should be good.

I've tried Japanese Jellyfish and FLB-Froyo G2 and it didn't help in my case. When I take off the phone battery cover the screen is works fine. It looks like hardware problem in my case. And more I use the phone more often it's happening. The worst is that I bought SF for my girlfriend as well and it's starting to have the same problem. Doesn't anyone came up with some solution like sticking tape somewhere in the back or something.... I think I'll just have to take my phone back to Orange.

[Guest Ralph Martin]

It looks like hardware problem in my case. And more I use the phone more often it's happening.

Interestingly, my phone last week displayed this problem a few times, AND regularly kept showing me my touchscreen presses were way to the right of where they actually were. I too got to the point of thinking the phone would have to go back under warranty. However, the problem seems to have cleared itself this week, and has stopped completely. I haven't installed any new system level software, so its a mystery to me...

[Guest boffy]

I've installed the Japanese_Jellyfish_RLS7 and 4 days of normal use and no crash compared to 2+ crashes a day on Alpha3. Will update this post if it recurs.

[Guest K.Rens]

I bought a new Orange phone on the 27th of december 2010.

My phone has these crashes 3-4 times per day.

Tried on both Japanese_Jellyfish_RLS8 and flb-Froyo 6.

I cannot disable the alarm, cannot answer phone calls.

It's certainly the digitalizer, because the screen is still updating, it's just not registering movements or all movements are stuck in the right hand side of the phone.

When I try to shut down the phone, it automatically clicks on cancel when I press ok, just since that button is on the right.

It seems to be releated to high load.

If I start typing messages in eg skype, the screen becomes unresponsive.

If I use the multituch vis testing tool for a few minutes, the screen becomes unresponsive.

If I use handcent SMS, I get more of these problems.

So it seems very likely I'm facing the driver issue, loading the phone to 100%?

Or I just have a bad CPU, being unable to process heavy processes combined with multitouch.

Even on a clean rom with eg skype I have this issue...

Hope this helps in resolving this issue, which many people seem to have.

I hope Orange will take back my phone when I ship it from Belgium...

[Guest socialworker]

@K.Rens:

The 'software' lockscreen-freeze bug was fixed in both JJ8 and FLB6 since they use a new kernel.

Your symptons don't even sound like the original problem, so I'm pretty sure your freezes are hardware related, get your phone exchanged.

[Guest K.Rens]

Ok, seems like you are right. For the first time, squeezing the phone is solving my issues... :-(

So has to be a hardware issue.

I'm from Belgium and cannot get my phone replaced.

I can ship it to them, but they do not reship it out of the UK.

Going to contact a friend in the UK, maybe they can ship/receive it for me :-(