yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus S General] Avinant:
Unrooted/no custom rom

I just experienced this problem today with my unrooted, stock 4.0.4 ICS build on my Nexus S for T-Mobile. I've had ICS for several months and it just now gave me this power button issue. I think it's a hardware problem but I have no proof. I tried tapping it countless times and finally got the context menu for power off to appear. After trying to power it off it froze right after the last vibration. This then made me think it's a software issue. Not totally sure, though. For now I just set my security to "none" so I can use my volume buttons to wake up my screen. I also installed an app called "Screen off and Lock" by KATECCA. It works pretty well and requires no permissions besides the need to control how your screen locks. It enables you to either use a widget on your home screen or an always on notification that lets you sleep the screen manually. I'll be using this work around until next week since I'm going on a trip soon and don't want to be phone-less.
[Nexus S General] tobice:
It's definitely a hardware issue. I had exactly the same symptoms including the weird fact that the phone couldn't be turned off properly. I even used the same workaround :D The only way to fix this is changing the broken button. I used my warranty and had it fixed. However I had to do it twice. This button issue is really really weird because if you reset your phone the button starts working properly - for a while, then it gets worse really quickly. When I send the phone for the first time, they just flashed back Gingerbread 2.3.4 and send it back (the protocol stated that they _updated_ firmware to the latest version). It really seemed fine for a while but after two days the button was again completely unresponsive. So when I went to the shop to send it again, I explicitly told the guy that it's not a sw issue and that they should really test it before sending back. It helped - they changed the button and since then everything is ok. So my recommendation is do the same... Hope this will help you :)
[Nexus S General] :
i buy this nexus s since they start to sell and nothing happened.
[Nexus S General] waterface:
I have encountered this problem. Same as in other users' case, sometimes pressing the button and releasing immediately still brought up the power off menu, sometimes when locking or unlocking nothing happened. Phone also turned on automatically after pulling the battery, as soon as i inserted the battery again. Very irregular and unpredictable behaviour.

BUT, the problem has now disappeared after I blew on the button, as if I wanted to eliminate dust from below/inside. Anyone who has this issue should try the same. It seems too good to be true, but maybe it's just dirt preventing normal operation.
[Nexus S General] Igotsanevo4g:
I also encountered this problem, but only on ICS. I've rolled back to gingerbread for the past week because I needed the great battery life, and no matter what I do the power button works as it should. Previously didn't work at all for 3-4 day stints.
[Nexus S General] harsha_1984:
ButtonRemapper for unrooted phone

Hi,

I am not able to install "ButtonRemapper" for my unrooted Nexus s.

should the phone be rooted to install the "ButtonRemapper" app.
[Nexus S General] rashone:
I had the power button issue of it always being on, in other words I would pull the battery and when I put it back in the phone would boot back up and the power button never worked right. Took it to the repair center and the tech took the phone apart, blew out around the power button with compressed air and it has been working fine for a month. He said it was likely dirt, pocket lint, etc. Simple fix to try though.
[Nexus S General] al_madd:
Yes...you have to root your phone..
[Nexus S General] kaytronika:
I just had this happen yesterday.

Managed to fix mine by removing the back cover using the 6 screws, this gave me access to the microswitch. I hope in my case it was just dust/fingergunk causing the plastic button/microswitch to miss-engage.
[Nexus S General] erseta:
I fixed mine moving the power button in different directions, like recommended in another post, awesome!!! :D
[Nexus S General] pinoy929:
So it is a hardware issue. My stopped working in October. I took it to a cell phone repair store claiming that they could fix any phone. I went to the guy and asked if he knew what was wrong with the button. He told me to wait while he shows it to a guy in the back.

He returns five minutes later and says, "look, we got it working. That will be $50."

Then I said to him, "I didn't ask you to fix it. I asked if you knew what was wrong with the button." Needless to say, he was being a ****, and even when asking what caused the button issue, he wouldnt tell me. I asked what kind of warranty did he have if it happened again and he said he didn't offer one. Three days later, the power button went back to being dead.

That was real annoying and a waste of my time going to that guy.

But seriously, if anyone has a real answer as to why the power button goes out, please let us know. I love my Nexus S and would like it to work as long as I can.
[Nexus S General] bord1er:
Mines is retarded cus it doesn't work when my nexus is hot then when cooled down it works perfect :confused:
[Nexus S General] pinoy929:
That's sound logic. I can see that being an answer, but my button doesn't work even when first turning it on non-hot.
[Nexus S General] bord1er:
Yeah that sucks still don't use touch wake up that kills your battery I found out the hard way
[Nexus S General] waterface:
Before going to the repair person who will steal 50 bucks from you, try the blow-the-dust-away solution, people. Seems like I wasn't the only one who could fix the issue that way.
[Nexus S General] ramananirudh:
The same problem occurred to me. I tried button remapper, but the search key does not appear among the list of keys...! infact only the three hard keys appear. why does this happen ? what do i do?
[Nexus S General] kalinusa:
JUST DID IT!!! IT WORKED!!!!! I dont know how long it will hold but right now it is working :)
[Nexus S General] mjschmidt:
Fixing Nexus S Power Button

I just wanted to leave a message here in case others are having this problem. My Nexus S power button started acting strange, not working occasionally, and my screen would sleep and wake randomly (as if the switch was being depressed at random times). Eventually it stopped working altogether.

I found this thread and saw the other posts about opening up the phone and cleaning the switch. This is what I did. In addition to using some compressed air to clean out the phone, I also made sure the power button was properly seated in the slot, and there was nothing to interfere.

Now, it's working fine again.

Thanks to all who posted here with that suggestion. Rogers wanted me to bring in my phone and charge me a $30 fee just to tell me what the cost to fix it might be, and they would only cover up to $100 of what the cost might be.
[Nexus S General] wchrisyu:
I had the intermittent power button issue.

It drove me nuts for about a week.

repeated clean installs, canned air blown on switch, etc.

I remapped my power button, but there were still some drain issues, so I contemplated cutting my power button and dealing with it.

Saw the latest update, applied it, magically everything works fine...going on 96 hrs as if it never happened.
[Nexus S General] waterface:
Forgot about this thread... So here's an update: button started acting weird again this summer. At some point it stopped working altogether, still if I turned off the phone it would get stuck, if I pulled battery it would turn on by itself.. never been worse.

So here I am one day walking on rocks by the sea, with my phone in hand to take pictures. Wind gust blows my beach towel off of my shoulder, i try to grab it and I lift my arm quickly- the phone slips out of my hand. I literally threw it on the rocks, bam! bounced three or four times like a pinball before miraculously landing without falling into the saltwater. I picked it up, it was off. I thought well, even with the protector case....I just threw it on hard rocks. It must be broken. It'll never turn on again.

Goes to show, I try to turn it on. And it DID turn on, and it was HEALED. BUTTON WORKING JUST AS IT SHOULD.

It has worked fine ever since.
[Nexus S General] Vladino90:
Problems with the Power/Lock button after 4.1.2 update (Samsung Nexus S)

Hi

I'm facing some problems with the power button of my Nexus S after installing the 4.1.2 JellyBean update. The thing is that after two days of using the new update the screen became to turn itself on like i would press the power button and on saturday evening the button stopped to respond at all. Any help ? Thanks!
[Nexus S General] rasengan82:
Ugh add me to the list... my power button is suddenly not working. When I pull battery and insert it back, the phone starts automatically. In fastboot the volume rocket do not work....
[Nexus S General] Vladino90:
Have you updated to 4.1.2?
[Nexus S General] polobunny:
You know people believed in a mythical link between flashing 4.1.1 and their power button stopping? Same for 4.0.4.

The software doesn't kill the hardware in this case, I'm pretty sure. Power button failures on the Nexus S even predate Gingerbread 2.3.7.
[Nexus S General] rasengan82:
Went to Sprint and they opened up the phone. They saw the power button was not sticked into the board or any dirt issues. They could not figure out what was happening so they just gave me a new ns4g...
[Nexus S General] Vladino90:
I don't think that is just a simple coincidence as long as after one day after updating to 4.1.2 the display was turning itself on like i was pressing the unlock button even though the phone was standing on the table untouched...and seconds before the button stopped for good the homescreen freezed for like 10 seconds....so ?
[Nexus S General] rasengan82:
Yeah guys I don't know the phone was my wife's pure stock 4.1.1 NS4G. The sprint guy didn't see anything wrong on the button itself. It was clicking, no dirt, no issues on the board but it was not working...
[Nexus S General] polobunny:
As I said though, people believe this is more than a coincidence, although this also happened before any ICS or JB update was pushed. Most of the people who saw this happen also happened to be people that flashed custom roms/kernels (more power button use?) and non surprisingly many people have flashed many many roms without any sign of dying power button.

Truth be told, the Nexus S power button is of bad quality and it appears quality control just wasn't there when it came to it.
[Nexus S General] RevengeITA:
my power button died 1 hour ago:crying::(
[Nexus S General] DirtyShroomz:
Here's what odd. My power button works just fine in recovery mode....
[Nexus S General] rasengan82:
Great ..... refurb is reboot happy....
[Nexus S General] wchrisyu:
There's nothing mythical about resetting PRAM on a Mac that won't boot, doing a firmware update on a videocard so the products at work don't fry every test kit you deploy, or taking down a trunk to reset all the 39XX's flat b/c you've got a ghost somewhere.

Sometimes you have to give your devices a burn down and clean install before you do something drastic.
[Nexus S General] al_madd:
Im sorry for your lost...
[Nexus S General] KiraXDA:
Any DIY Solution?

Has anyone figured out a DIY solution to the Nexus S broken power button since it is a hardware issue?
[Nexus S General] jimmychen6190:
you don't have 4.2.1?
[Nexus S General] Mawtin:
4.2 is custom because they stopped pushing updates past 4.1.x

She's running a pure stock
[Nexus S General] Ted Mosby:
My button died yesterday all of a sudden, I was able to get distinct click so I thought it failed electronically somehow. But then i disassembled the the phone and blew some air around the button hardest I could for few times. Apparently that worked for now. Tomorrow I am gonna buy some compressed air and treat it properly. It's definitively worth of a shot, all you need a small philips screwdriver and those thin plastic pry tools (like one for guitar, whole set is like 1$ on eBay).

GL
[Nexus S General] nd4spdbh:
The powerbutton will fail... no amount of air or cleaning it will fix it.

It will start out here and there at first then get progressively worse and worse. It has to do with the microswitch spring element inside the switch... it only has so many bends in it until it breaks, at which point it kind of just rattles around inside the tiny switch.

If you are REALLY good and can source the same micro switch you should be able to solder on a new one. You could do like i did and completely remove the switch and solder two wires on the VERY small solder pads on the pcb and have the wires go to the battery area for an emergency power switch. That stated BE VERY VERY CAREFUL when soldering to the two solder pads, you can and probably will rip them off with little to no effort, and once that happens your done there is no possible way to solder anything back onto the power switch pads as the traces go directly down to the center of the PCB. This is what happened to me.

BUT THERE IS LIGHT if your power button is COMPLETELY GONE

CM 10 Stable, flash it and enable volume rocker wake.

Buttonremapper download and install it, remap your search capacitive button to power button... this will get you all the exact same functionality (short press, long press) as the original power button so long as the phone is waked... thats where the volume rocker wake comes in.

I have been doing the above for many months without issue and actually love having the search button as the power button.
[Nexus S General] Ted Mosby:
Yeah, this button wasn't meant to be replaceable. There is no place where you can buy it and repair shops only want to change the whole motherboard. I don't have solder so when it fails it's over for me.

So bad that Samsung didn't provide better solution for the hardware buttons, like iPhone ones - completely replacable and really cheap. Now I only need to wait when volume rockers will start to fail.
[Nexus S General] strojek13:
few days ago my power button just stoped working, it has normal response on press, i opened it clean it and still it doest work.I found on this thread ButtonRemapper app and remapped my power button to volume down button restarted my nexus and i got in safe mode.if i power off phone frozze and if i remove battery it goes again in safe mode.any solution i would apreciate it
[Nexus S General] rillo561:
mine stopped working for about 2 weeks then it started to work again out of the blue. My contract is up in May so I think I"ll hold out til then.
[Nexus S General] Mawtin:
Luckily my button hasn't failed on me yet, but too bad it won't work for me. I always turn off my phone
[Nexus S General] ten24bytes:
I only get the list of 3 keys to remap, i.e. Vol +, Vol - and Power. How do I get the capacitive keys in the list?
[Nexus S General] strojek13:
Update:power button started working all by himself, i entered in recovery via adb wiped all installed new rom and button was not working but one week after that it started working, now i can sell it as working and update to nexus 4 :p
[Nexus S General] krazierokz:
I had a nexus s given to me because the power button crap and all I did was get a jig put it in download mode flash stock Odin then root one click and update from goo manager all is good now with TWRP recovery and updated ROMs with volume wake all is good here guys :p
[Nexus S General] namian_semazen:
NEED HELP FOR i9023

Okayy. I've read all the reply in this post, and my problem is bit different from you guys. All of you got the power button issue, luckily my device doesn't have that problem. Here is my only problem that can make me smack my phone to the wall :(. A couple of hours ago, my phone running out of battery while playing game and then shutdown by itself just like it does everytime the pop up asked me to charge my phone. Like usual, i plugged in my nexS and wait until the battery bar appears at the middle of the screen. After about half an hour I pushed the power button to turn on my nexS back. At this point, suddently the phone didn't want to boot up (bootloop). So I pulled out the battery quickly without unplug the charger then put it battery back and immedietly hold the power button + vol up to boot into fastboot mode. I hold it for about 1 minute but it wont boot up. I tried for the second time, still stuck at this point. I removed the charger cable then once again I repeated my first step, but it is still wont turn on :crying: . For your information, there is no such problem like this before. If I'm facing bootloop issue, I still can boot up to fastboot mod then go to recovery mod(TWRP) and easily restore my rom back. This is my first time my device wont boot up :(. I've tried using a different charger also try to charge it using usb cable but it is still blank. Now I can't acsess to any other mod such as fastboot, download, recovery mod and adb also do the same. One thing that happened after 20 minutes i left it with no battery and no sim card, put it all together pushed power button and the screen gave me a single blink/flash then blank like passed 1 hour. Second time, also single blink/flash on the screen but no boot up. Pulled out battery put it back plugged the charger without push power button still the same, a single flash with no battery bar at the middle of the screen. Anybody know why it should be like this? Please help me guys. I don't want buddy dead like his little brother (galaxy mini). Do I need to bring it to repair? If there is no way to bring my device turn on back,is there any other way I can acsess my internal storage because i dont want to loose all my data :crying: Please somebody i really-2 need help in this case :(

Sorry guys, I really need to fix my device first then I'll fix my english
[Nexus S General] Ted Mosby:
My power button died completely. Luckily I am using CM10 so volume rocker wake will do for now. But my real problem is that I can't operate in fastboot mode now. I can reboot in fastboot with adb, but device there is completely stuck and my PC just doesn't recognize it. So flashing basically anything important like factory image or new recovery is out of the question.

How come Samsung engineers didn't predict this situations? They just cold-bloodedly decided to solder tiniest button on the planet directly to the motherboard and hoped for the best. If Nexus S was Galaxy S for example, then I would have home hardware button just in case to wake up device. Stupidly, I bought my device without warranty expecting that this kind of stuff wouldn't happen. Also guy told me that device is only 6 months old, but who know how old was it in the first place.

Now I can only wait for volume buttons to start to fail because they are also the same kind of cheap piece of s**t like power button.
[Nexus S General] ten24bytes:
Dear Ted,

You can use this Flash Image GUI to flash a recovery of your choice from within Android:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1453617

It's free. Make sure to download the right recovery for your device and select recovery image in Flash Image GUI.

Hope that helps...
[Nexus S General] Ted Mosby:
Thanks, I will keep that in mind :).

I purchased electronic contacts cleaner spray today, disassembled device and than applied small amount to the power button, pressed 20-30 times and repeated that process after 5 minutes. It worked :D.

I was so happy when device didn't turn on automatically after I inserted battery :). I hope it will last for some time now.
[Nexus S General] ten24bytes:
Well that's cool. I'll try to find a cleaning solution myself too :fingers-crossed:
[Nexus S General] asanderford:
I spoke with Samsung about my power button after it completely ceased to work at all, at first I had a live chat online and got no where but then i called and have everything worked out and got my phone repaired and shipped back in less than 10 days. I even told the lady that I had rooted my phone and she didn't seem to care, as I wasn't charged for the repair or shipping. :good:
[Nexus S General] Ted Mosby:
After contact cleaning, button worked for a week. I ended up bringing it in Samsung service. They fixed it within 30 hours, charged 25$/20Eur (i have no warranty). Very satisfied :D
[Nexus S General] darko94:
Just to share my experience, I've had the same power button problem as you guys, but mechanically it felt ok, it had good feedback, and I could hear it click, but it registered as always pressed. So I've disassembled my Nexus S, and sprayed a dab or two of WD-40. Pressed the button a couple of times just to make the fluid flow into the button contacts,checked the button with multimeter before reassembling it, and it worked great. It passed about two weeks since repairing it, and I didn't have any problems whatsoever.
[Nexus S General] kozmo2k4:
WD-40 is not the same as the other (contact) cleaners.... Actually it is very bad to solid state parts (IC chips, etc) contact points and circuit boards...

You may want to dis-assemble your phone again, and using compressed air, clean the inside real quick... and hope for the best...

You wouldn't go and try to fix your phone with duct tape, would you? Well, you actually could....
[Nexus S General] darko94:
Although WD40 isn't same as contact cleaners, it's basically a white spirit with mineral oil. White spirit is used as solvent and it cleans dirt. It evaporates after use, leaving mineral oil for lubricating. I don't see why it is bad for mechanical contacts, I use it all the time on other electrical contacts, and never had any problems with it. Also white spirit is sometimes used for cleaning remaining flux on PCBs, I've cleaned the remains of the WD-40, and it should not cause any problems.
[Nexus S General] Me Gusta:
Mine didn't break on my I9023 in 2 years :D
[Nexus S General] zhort:
i have same problem

---------- Post added at 02:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:06 PM ----------

ty
[Nexus S General] thranduil93:
Hi everyone, i've been experiencing this issue from months, until today. I tried to open the terminal, removing the back cover and the undercover (i don't know the english term, sorry) reaching the motherboard. The problem (seems) to be the key that the external key presses. Simply blow away dust (in my case) and press several times that little key, making sure that the contact is well-placed, then re-assemble the phone and try. For me worked!

Try guys :)

Sorry about my english
[Nexus S General] Jimmy Moretti:
Hi, for me too the power button broke and one connection pad came off but phone was working. I went to a technician for putting a new button which he didn't manage to install and now phone is always as button is pressed. As you said the tracks go down and somewhere they make contacts . No more phone ;/. I should have left it without button. How do I cut this contacts so I make sure it's off. Any idea? thanks
[Nexus S General] explorer-10:
Daaang duude...you still rockin' that Nexus S? Upgrade to the newer ones already like the 5X or 6P, problem solved! It will make your life so much easier.
[Nexus S General] Jimmy Moretti:
I think wrong replay ;).
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] olivierb2:
Hi all,

I've S-OFF my HTC Desire with revolutionary and all is working as expected, recovery and custom rom (ICS). But I'm very interested to have a touch recovery (like 4EXT). I've tried to install by using the provided application, and all seems installed correctly, but when I tried to switch back on recovery, (vol down, then recovery in the menu), I get HTC logo during 1 sec, then back in the menu. I've reinstall a working recovery with revolutionary, but it seems that I cannot change my recovery anymore.

I've also tried to install the official Clock Mod recovery, but I get exactly the same result.

Is there a way to change the recovery image after using Revolutionary to root and S-OFF my HTC Desire?

Thanks

Olivier.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] stankyou:
Try to flash a recovery image manually using android flasher or adb.

via xda app