Sony Xperia Sola - Touchscreen problems

[Jeffry]

Hello!

I have bought a Sony Xperia Sola Smartphone half a year ago. Since a few months I am experiencing problems with its touchscreen. The phone does not detect any touch in the middle of the screen for about 1-2 cm. This does not happen always, but about 75% of the times when I unlock my screen. The phone has already been sent to Sony, but I have received it back (after 3 weeks!!) without anything being done, except a software update, which I could have done myself and which did not help anything.

I actually can't be bothered to send it once again to Sony, that the support has it for another three weeks while I can't even write any messages nor check any of my mails when I am not at home.

I have set the phone at least 5 times back to the factory settings, that did not help. I have also put another SIM Card into it, same problem. I have tried it without any Apps installed (except the pre-installed ones, obviously, as they can't be uninstalled). None of this did help, the problem still exists.

Here are two screenshots of the phone. If the problem is not obvious, I don't know.

   

   As excpected to work                     Bugged. The black part in the middle is not working.

Other than that, when the problem as shown above is happening, it also happens often that the phone starts to detect touch while I am not even touching it, which means it goes into settings and presses random stuff (exactly in the black part).

Another thing is, that I have noticed (as well when the above problem exists) the Floating Touch seems to detect a ghost. The Blue-wave-background which moves when floating over the screen just keeps on moving, even if I put the phone on my desk and walk away.

The phone has two years of guarantee, I am expecting a more professional support, than one which tells me that there were NO problems found.

I hope I can get some help here.

Best Regards.

[Jeffry]

Heya, Thanks for your answer. Good to know that, I don't think that it is a coincidence, that both phones have it in the same area.

Can I ask, if you've sent it back to the support station before?

I'll post as soon as I got mine back, supposably arrives in 7-10 days from today on, according to the last two times.

[ameyshirke]

Strange!!! but from last week, I am also facing the same problem... I have also given phone to service center!!!

[Jeffry]

Thanks for sharing. Could you post again, when you got it back, and tell us what the service center did, and if it works? Would be great Because for me they only did a Software Update twice, which didn't help.

[kayess]

Hey jeffery. Actually I bought a used one. So I was worried if I could claim the warranty for this or not. Though its under warranty. And I was going to give it to the service centre the next day of posting my last post here. But in the morning I noticed the touch was working fine.
I believe its related to temperature or something. That's why when they check your phone it works. I'm just assuming.

But I can confirm that I had the same problem and now its fixed. When I got the problem I know my phone was hotter than normal. I think its because of the summer season now here in India.

Also there an inbuilt test for touchscreen.   dial  *#*#7378423#*#*   then "service tests" > "touchscreen"

This test is not that accurate than the app you are using. But Its useful when you reset the phone to factory settings and you dont have to install a new app.

[ameyshirke]

Hey hi Jeffry, I have given my phone on 24 May 13 & yet to receive from them. I shared screenshots of service test with them showing no response of touch screen on upper portion.

I hope they will replace the screen....

[Jeffry]

@kayess:

That's exactly as here. The touch is sometimes bugged and sometimes working fine. I don't think (at least for mine) that it is a problem of temperature, because the first time I noticed it, was in December last year, having -10°C outside. When it happened two weeks ago, the phone was laying on my desk for two hours, doing nothing. Room temperature was about 20°C. If that's too hot, I'd wonder ^^

Keep an eye on it, it might come back from time to time. Hopefully not, but if it does, yours has the same problem as mine has, randomly appearing.

@ameyshirke:

I hope so, that's what I hope(d) for mine too. I still don't have it back so far, I am expecting it to the end of this week, or the beginning of next week.

Replacing the screen seems the only reasonable fix, apart from sending a completely new phone, which would also be fine with me.

[kayess]

Ohk. So you can say that there is something in surroundings that is causing the problem. And where they test it, the same conditions might not be there.
But the issue is, They are aware of the problem in the Sola Phones. And Still they are not replacing it on your phone. That's really sucks.
I have opened a case on eBay for this item. If the seller agrees to take it back and give me refund That'll be good. Or Else I'll take it to service centre once.
I hope they fix your screen this time.

[Jeffry]

News:

I called the shop today (More than 4 weeks ago now that I gave it away the third time). Great story:

The people at the shop "tested" my phone for a few days, and then were in contact with some Sony hotline. They said that they will care about the problem when it is sent back to the repair station. So they did. Last week: WOW! They sent a different phone back, cool. The people at the shop turned it on and oh wonder: SAME PROBLEM! Hahahaha. The so called new phone was simply an exchange phone (which is probably just some phone which was sent back by somebody else too).

Well, they sent it back again last week.

The shop owners have now agreed to the deadline which I've set:

26.06.2013

^That's exactly 5 weeks for the third repair period then. (+2x 3 weeks from the other times = 11 weeks in total, that's 1/2 of the time I actually "own" it).

If the Sola is not in my hands and working by this day, I will get my money back. If that shall happen, I will for sure not buy another Sony product ever again.

Looking forward to this day. I hope I get it back by this day, because I really like the Sola.

[kayess]

Well that really sucks. Looks like you bought the phone but its actually hanging out with them.

If they dont do anything then you can try replacing the digitizer yourself. It costs around 40$ I saw on eBay.

Fortunately, My phone did not get problem after that. And is working fine. I hope it stays the same.
Also I don't have any warranty left for this.  So I'm just praying.
DO let us know what happened with your phone.

[Jeffry]

Indeed.

I see, the digitizer costs about 40-50$ which seems legit, but I doubt that I will even have the chance to do that on my own, as I either will have a working one by Wednesday or have my money back.

Good to know that it helps to replace the digitizer, which seems to be the problem. As I do have warrantly of 1 1/2 years left it should be expected that the repair station does replace that.

I hope for you that it does not start to bug around again.

For sure I will post again, as soon as I know more, at the latest on Wednesday we'll know, if they failed to repair it, or if they finally managed to do it.