[Samsung Galaxy S (4G Model)] sconsylman:
Alright, the Galaxy series, although awesome, suffers from some issues. None are as frustrating as when the damn capacitive (bottom) buttons stop working!

Normally it seems that all four bottom buttons don't fail at the same time, just one or two. This doesn't seem to be as much of a physical problem as a software one, probably an application running in the forefront that is blocking them. Now it is hard to do much of anything if the settings button (left side) fails, as you cannot access most settings for your apps. Both my outside buttons rarely work, the aforementioned settings button (left) and the search button (right). Search button doesn't matter to me, I can call up search on screen easily enough. The other two are home and back buttons. Back is more necessary than home. So to work around this Samsung-induced-pain-in-the-ass, I swapped the search button function for the home.

Here's how:

Make sure you are roted and have a rooted file manager. Root Explorer tends to work best.

1. Open Root Explorer, and make sure it is mounted r/w.

2. Navigate to

/system, /usr, /keylayout

.

3. Tap/hold

Broadcom_Bluetooth_HID.kl

, and select 'Open in Text Editor'. If you get a Warning message, that means you are mounted r/o so you just need to click the Mount R/W button above.

4. Change key 139 to read HOME instead of MENU.

Change key 102 to read MENU instead of HOME.

Hit the back capacitive button and choose to save. It will create a Broadcom_Bluetooth_HID.kl.bak file also so if you want to undo this then just erase the new Broadcom_Bluetooth_HID.kl file and then erase the .bak off the other file.

5. Now open the

melfas_touchkey.kl

file the same way by holding it until it allows you to select 'Open in Text Editor'.

Change key 139 to read HOME instead of MENU.

Change key 102 to read MENU instead of HOME.

Hit the back capacitive button and choose to save. It will also create a .bak file.

6. Open the

qwerty.kl

file by holding it until it allows you to select 'Open in Text Editor'.

Change key 102 to read MENU instead of HOME.

Change key 139 to read HOME instead of MENU.

Hit the back capacitive button and choose to save. It will again create a .bak file.

7. Back out of Root Explorer and restart your phone.

Now, when you push your home button it will bring up your settings menu in whatever application is open, and your settings button will do the home function (or nothing, as my outside buttons do as they don't usually work). I now use my back button to get me to home, it just takes a few more pushes as it goes one step at a time. Not as much of a pain as not being able to set program functions, that's for sure!

Note: Depending on your setup, the file names might be slightly different on other Android devices, but they will always be very similar. They'll all have a bluetooth.kl, touchkey.kl and qwerty.kl (or whatever your keyboard layout might be). You can also fool around with other key settings if you wish to experiment, depending on what is and is not working at the current time. Just save your original .bak files so you can put it back to normal easily. If you alter the .kl file more than once, it will overwrite the .bak file again (which is not used by the phone) so make sure you copy the .bak's to another directory (such as /sdcard/backups or your regular computer).

Hope this makes your lives easier and don't forget to thank me if I helped you.

;)