HELP! My screen is dim and I cannot brighten it. What's wrong?

[Vgof]

I have had my z3 for a couple months now. Yesterday the screen dimmed down significantly and will not brighten back up no matter what I do. I have turned of "Auto Adjust" and all that. I have manually increased the screen brightness to maximum and it does not thing. The current brightness is good enough for indoor use in a area with not much light, but in a bright room or outside I can barely tell what is on the screen. I have powered the phone off and restarted it several times. It's like it is stuck in some kind of battery saving mode that it won't come out of. I made sure that all battery saving modes are turned off. Nothing effects the screen brightness no matter what I do. Please help!

[MarlonUk1]

can you try to boot on safe mode?

this looks like a hardware issue, I suggest to take your device to your local service center Local support

[Vgof]

I booted into safe mode, but I can't find the slider to adjust the brightness anywhere.  I went to Setting, Display, but the adjustment slider is not there.

[Didrik]

Hi @Vgof,

The setting you are looking for should be located under Settings > Display. As long as Adaptive brightness is disabled then your display should not dim by itself.

After you rebooted your phone to safe mode as @nolramlb suggested, did you still experience the same behaviour with your phone? If not, check under Settings > Battery and see if the STAMINA mode is enabled as this will dim the display slightly.

Please let me know if there was any change!

[Vgof]

Hi @Didrik

Okay tried all the things you suggested. No effect at all.  I am posting a screen shot.  In the screenshot you can see the brightness slider at the top.  The position of the slider button is the maximum brightness of my phone right now.  Moving the slider further to the right does nothing and has no effect on the brightness of the phone.  But moving it to the left of this position does dim the screen though.  This screenshot was taken while the phone was in Safe Mode.

[Antaeus]

Hi.

if you are running the latest Android 6 version for z3, the stamina version is way more aggresive than in android 5.

try to disable stamina mode and i m pretty sure than will be ok.

unfortunatelly Sony decided to minimize functionality to the last stamina version and offer less options to what we are able to select. Brighttness limitation is one of these if you enable stamina.

lastly stamina has two levels to work. If you select 1st level then it is activated under a certain threshold of battery % that you select (which is probably your "all a sudden" case) or you can put it always On.

please check this and report

[Vgof]

Hi @Didrik

Stamina mode is not eneabled on my phone.  I have only used stamina mode one time about a week ago.  I used the Ultra Stamina mode for an evening to get by, but turned it off the next day.  It does seem that my problem wiht the screen brightness started after I did this.  Not sure if it was just a coiencidences though. 

Screenshots of my phone.

       

[Antaeus]

After searching a while i found this: http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/06/26/android-l-feature-spotlight-auto-brightness-is-gone-adaptive...

probably doesn't help but might explain the way it works.

why don't you try the following:

go to the diagnostics menu--> light sensor and see how it responds there. At the same time take a strong light source e.g. a torch and point the light beam directly to the sensor and see if screen brightness goes up...

[Vgof]

I appreaciate the help, but as I have said multiple time, I have Adaptive Brightness truned off. 

[Didrik]

Thanks for the suggestions @Antaeus! Kudos

@Vgof, if there still isn't any change and there is a significant change in how bright the display is compared to when you first started using it is, as @nolramlb mentioned, not impossible that this is related to hardware rather than software. Before having your phone sent for repairs I would recommend that you perform a software repair using Xperia Companion. Consider that this will reset your phone, my recommendation is that you create a backup using the Backup option from the main menu in Xperia Companion before the software repair.

Let me know if the repair helped! If not I'd suggest that you have your device sent in to an authorized service centre to be examined. For information regarding how to send it in I recommend that you contact your Local support as they will have more information regarding the correct procedures in your area.

Keep me updated!