Touch screen grounding issue

george v

Hi all,

I have a problem with my phone. When I put it on a material that has good electrical insulating properties, for example on a couch and try to use two or more fingers, e.g. zooming in - zooming out on a picture, the touch sensing of the screen blocks and becomes not responsive. One finger is always sensed but 2 or more fingers are sensed only for a short time or not at all. The more fingers you put on the screen the easier is to make it stop sensing your fingers.

This behaviour is more obvious when you repeatedly move your fingers inward till they touch and outward again.

When multi touch sensing blocks, one way to make it work again is to touch with one finger of your other hand the hull of the phone, e.g. the charging socket of the phone, making in this way a kind of grounding.

For visual demonstration you can use a multi touch sensing app, such as MultiTouch or other similar one.

The problem never occurs when:

  - phone is handheld

  - it is charging

  - it is lying upon a not so good insulator, e.g. on a wood or a whasing machine.

I have made some videos that illustrate the problem:

https://vimeo.com/user91642697/review/300242218/9a1cf539cb

https://vimeo.com/user91642697/review/300242398/3c98980531

https://vimeo.com/user91642697/review/300242502/3a1b927d5d

The strange thing is that I sent my phone to Nokia for repair and they exchanged my phone with a new one which however exhibits the same problematic behavior. This led me to think that many of Nokia 7 plus may suffer from this problem.

Could anyone else please confirm that he/she has the same problem with their phone?

BigBan

The issue has been reported several times on Nokia’s forums, as well as some other forums, but the fix is nowhere to be seen.

 

According to several reports that appeared on Nokia’s Support forums as well as the XDA developers forum, the screen of the phone becomes absolutely useless and doesn’t respond to any kind of touch. This behavior appears randomly and doesn’t seem to have any special pattern to accompany it, which means it can happen at any time during the use of the phone.

 

“I just bought the Nokia 7 plus from Hmd Gbl India website on preorder. The device started hanging right from the first device setup. The screen keeps being unresponsive to touches all the time. Locking and unlocking makes screen usable again. Please help me in trouble shooting the issue. I am frustrated,” one of the posts reads.

 

“Sometimes phone is working but its touch stops working.i have to lock the phone and then again its touch start working,” another comment reads.

 

There’s a temporary fix that stops this “touchscreen freeze” by locking the smartphone and then unlocking it again. However, that doesn’t promise that the issue won’t repeat itself. It’s highly whatsapp dp impractical to lock and unlock the device just to make it work properly for a time. It’s probably most frustrating when the issue occurs while users are playing a game.

 

Those who successfully showed the problem to their local service center were offered a replacement (either screen or a complete device.) That said, the company is likely aware of the issue, although there is no official statement.

 

“They took a video of that issue and sent it to Nokia for replacement. They approved my replacement and gave me a approval letter and requested me to visit the shop where i had purchased the phone. The shopkeeper took my old phone back along with all the accessories and approval letter and within 5 mins they gave me a new unit,” said a comment on XDA developers.

 

While there is no official word from HMD, a moderator on the Nokia forum said that the company is looking into the Nokia 7 Plus Touch Screen Issue and has asked whether any of the people affected by the issue are running the June update.

george v

 @BigBan

This is a completely different problem than the one you mention

In this problem the touch screen never freezes. It is always responsive but only for one finger. One finger touches are always sensed.

But 2 or more fingers cannot be sensed.

The correct links of the videos are here:

https://vimeo.com/300242218
https://vimeo.com/300242398
https://vimeo.com/300242502

The problem you mention happens unexpectedly. But this problem can be reproduced under the conditions I mention.

flooring inspector

george v said:

Could anyone else please confirm that he/she has the same problem with their phone?

Great demonstration videos!

I tested my Nokia 7 Plus but I do not get the same behavior. However, I do remember I had another Android device years back that would behave differently to touch if it was laying on the table vs. when it was on my hand. I never looked more thoroughly into it as it was just a spare phone I got for free.

george v

flooring inspector said:

Great demonstration videos!

I tested my Nokia 7 Plus but I do not get the same behavior. However, I do remember I had another Android device years back that would behave differently to touch if it was laying on the table vs. when it was on my hand. I never looked more thoroughly into it as it was just a spare phone I got for free.

Thank you for your praise about the videos.

Could you check if your "Touch panel firmware version" is a Novatek one or a simple Goodix one according to this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nokia7Plus/comments/9ecq8x/greenishcool_display_novatek_v07/

I have tested 2 devices - both of them were Goodix - and they exhibited the problem.

And other people have confirmed the problem so far in this discussion:

https://community.phones.nokia.com/discussion/9434/serious-issues-of-nokia-7-plus-users-of-nokia7plus-please-have-a-look/p2

An easy way to test it is to download "Multitouch tester" from playstore, put your phone on a couch (much better insulator than a table) and try to put all your fingers of both hands on the screen and try to move them close and away repeatedly. If the problem is present the touch sensor will block and no finger will be sensed for some moments.

flooring inspector

george v said:

Could you check if your "Touch panel firmware version" is a Novatek one or a simple Goodix one 

My phone had:
Touch panel firmware version
Novatek-V07
Goodix-V1.017.16

Cannot test more because I returned the device already.

george v

Maybe Novatek displays don't suffer from this grounding issue.

user1529593405629

I also have the same problem 

george v

It seems that all Goodix touch panels have this problem but in most cases it remains undiagnosed by users who cannot imagine that for having e.g. zoom in zoom out inconsistencies the culprit is their display and not the software they are using at the moment e.g. the photo gallery.

user1536681031345

i have a multitouch problem on nokia 1. when i touch the screen with my finder then touch another point the first point doesnt respond or work .this problem annoying me so much and sometimes make me angry .
Pls fix dis problem why can't we use a phone the way we want at this price.
Nokia was chosen because we felt it should be better than competitors like infinix and tecno so why should it perform worse than them.p ks make a solution available ASAP

dsnc225

According to several reports that appeared on Nokia’s Support forums as well as the XDA developers forum, the screen of the phone becomes absolutely useless and doesn’t respond to any kind of touch. This behavior appears randomly and doesn’t seem to have any special pattern to accompany it, which means it can happen at any time during the use of the phone. https://ncseculogin.website/

“They took a video of that issue and sent it to Nokia for replacement. They approved my replacement and gave me a approval letter and requested me to visit the shop where i had purchased the phone. The shopkeeper took my old phone back along with all the accessories and approval letter and within 5 mins they gave me a new unit,” said a comment on XDA developers.

While there is no official word from HMD, a moderator on the Nokia forum said that the company is looking into the Nokia 7 Plus Touch Screen Issue and has asked whether any of the people affected by the issue are running the June update.

user1525839460137

Ironically.. I am having this problem after updating july security patch.. Till now no use.. I am currently running feb patch and still issue continuous 

Reda Abdulatef

I have the same issue that the touch not working well when phone is grounded on a table so what Nokia do for that issue؟

Jorn Janssen

Same issue. touchscreen just randomly stops responding. Novatek-V07. april 2019 update. locking and unlocking the phone gets it to work again but it's very annoying..

george v

Randomly unresponsive touch screen and touch screen grounding issue are two different and district problems that may coexist in the same device.
Unresponsive touch screen is definitely a hardware problem that some phones had from the factory which normally should never have reached  the retail market but for some reasons HMD's quality control process was unable to filter the out.
The only way for this to be fixed is either the phone to be replaced or just the screen to be replaced.
The other problem, the grounding issue of the touch screen, is a known issue from the past for phones like Google's pixel, HTC''s one model I don't remember, etc. All these firms having acquired experience and know-how meanwhile, have eliminated this issue in their newer models. Some of them like HTC was able and willing to fix this issue by updating its touch screen firmware. However HMD, being new and still inexperienced, now faces these problems that the other companies have already solved, and it seems that they don't listen to their customers and are extremely slow and  unwilling to acknowledge the issues that their customers report. From their reactions they seem that they want to cover the problems, a tactic that is in straight opposition with the expected behavior of a European company.
I had both problems in my Nokia 7 plus.
They changed my device and the unresponsive screen issue solved.
But the grounding issue on insulated surfaces like a sofa remained.
And this despite the relevant videos that I sent to then in a USB stick along with my faulty device.
I just live with this. I cannot do anything else with a company that refuses to listen to its customers.

Game14644

My screen dimming issue still not fixed