yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[HTC One S] craigspc:
Hmm... Not sure if the following info is of any interest/relevance to your problems. However, a friend of mine is now in a very sticky situation with this problem, as he invalidated his warranty before the issue started...

He has owned his One S for about 5 months now, and it worked flawlessly right up until he dropped it on a marsh during a hiking trip a week or so ago. Although the phone had a soft landing (in a grassy puddle), the phone's LCD got water damaged.

Knowing that water damage wouldn't be covered by warranty, he opted to pay to have the LCD and digitizer replaced at a repair shop (not HTC authorised as far as I know). The actual repair looks a very tidy indeed, but within hours of getting it back - he started having exactly the same issues/symptoms that have been discussed in this thread.

I don't personally have a clue whether the water or the repair lead to these symptoms, but my friend is adamant that the software revisions / firmware etc. are exactly the same now as they were before the accident & repair.

As I say, I really don’t know if this will help anyone here. But as an layman – I’m just wondering if something like a piece of that metallic isolation/insulation tape that you see inside most phones isn’t covering something up that it should be (and causing interference)?

Anyway, Just thought I'd throw this onto the table.

Regards,

Craig.
[HTC One S] Sneakyghost:
That is actually quite interesting as it clearly shows that the issue can be influenced by pure hardware factors.

This adds to some rather minor hints we got before. Those where: altered behavior after physical impact, a fixed assembly gap on a repair letter from user lamyron, slightly altered occurrence after an attempt to fix it from another user. Also it was repeatedly said by some users that they think it must be hardware because if it wasn't, all phones should theoretically exhibit this problem. Since they don't, we can assume some physical flaw (software is always identical on every chip).

However, more than that cannot be read from it. Thoughts about what exactly caused this (be it the water, the dirt or improper assembly after fixing or even a slightly different LCD module) are intriguing but will remain pure speculation.

Thank you for reporting.

Feel the Viper! :D
[HTC One S] craigspc:
You're welcome. As I think you gathered, I was trying to avoid placing blame on any one factor - but it does seem clear (at least in some cases) that the problem can be triggered by physical factors alone. Having said this, though, I can now confirm that despite the way in which this particular issue started - relocking the bootloader and flashing the latest RUU has surprisingly resulted in a slight improvement. :eek: Very unusual.

Anyway, I hope those of you with a One S manage to find a solution soon. I might not have this problem myself, but I remember the huge problems that I had with the touchscreen on the Sensation when they first came out, only to have HTC insist (for months) that nobody had ever reported the problem to them before. Not a nice feeling.

All the best,

Craig.
[HTC One S] aardbeix15:
HTC Netherlands offered me now a complete screenreplacement as fix for my home button issue. I never turned in the phone before for repairs. For me it is clear they think it has somethin to do with the atenna-transmition-shielding of the screenbuttons.

I also was able to replace my complete phone but since I then should recieve an S3 back I didn't go for that option.
[HTC One S] Sneakyghost:
Normal. Most people reported the problem solved or better after a RUU only to find out it would come back after any time inbetween a few hours (read: instantly) to a few weeks. That's what I find disturbing. Thats exactly the oposite. For a software problem there could be numerous explanations for a slow build-up but for hardware this would only happen once (from good to bad with hardware wear and tear) but not each time after flashing another software.

Never heard about that. Anything similar to this issue apart from the very unwilling uncooperative HTC Support? Mind to share?
[HTC One S] zoesdad70:
My twopennies worth:

I found this listing for a replacement One S screen on the interwebs. To me it looks like it comes complete with capacitive buttons. If the problem lies in interference with the capacative buttons, then this would help support that line of thought.
[HTC One S] Sneakyghost:
I myself just love speculations so i will jump onboard:

What makes that so clear in your eyes? I much rather tend to believe that the bad connection from Antenna-spring to back-cover is to blame for inconsistent results since the cover is soft and the connection prone to environmental influence whereas the shielding sits tight and is assembled by robots ( i think) which make variations unlikely after an initial training and adjustment phase. In the beginning i thought these faulty devices might have come out of such an initial phase where the machines would be adjusted. I have worked in strongly automated environments for a while and i remember very well that it often took hundreds to thousands of product samples until the production lines would work flawless but looking at the serials that have been reported i would rather not pursue that theory anymore. It seems like all device generations show this problem and it feels more like it originated from somewhere beyond the automated processes (automated processes generate highly stable outcomes and if variations occur, they tend to happen on a much larger scale and wouldn't turn up so randomly across multiple manufacturing generations).

End of speculations...
[HTC One S] Sneakyghost:
Amazing those chinese folks... already began to kang the parts of that phone... i wonder if the quality is as high as HTC's :D i bet not.

I just launchend an Inquiery with them via the Alibaba-Site. I asked if they would possibly send out a testing sample. I'd be willing to dissect my poor phone and insert that (probable) cheapo kit. If that resolves the problem we could place a collective order for those interested. I migh also just buy it on my bill and sell repairs via ebay for a fair price (non-profit for fellow xda members i think).

Zoesdad is always good for some Ideas. Thanks for inspiring me again :D
[HTC One S] craigspc:
The issues with the Sensation were different to what you guys have experienced, in that it was more to do with a lack of responsiveness. It was often impossible to unlock your phone, sometimes the phone wouldn’t recognise your initial touch, and sometimes it would (during a swipe) randomly open or tap on something that was along the route that your finger took.

Over time, the problem (at least in my eyes) broke up into three categories/groups. The first was an issue with the grounding / earth pin on the phone that wasn’t making contact with the outer metal chassis of the phone. The second involved people that were using certain third party chargers and car adapters. I think (but don’t know for sure) that these first two groups were experiencing problems due to a build-up of static charge, which could be solved by either bending out the grounding pin (to make it touch the metal frame) or by using a suitable charger. The results weren’t always immediate, but worked for a lot of people.

The last group were those who were using the original HTC charger and none of the known fixes helped at all. I don’t recall HTC ever making an official statement on the matter, but they did verbally acknowledge (to me and others) that they would be rolling out a new OTA that should help. This same message was being given out to us for weeks and weeks and weeks, but then there was a point that an OTA was released that made a difference for quite a number of people.

A year or so on, I still see similar problems when you replace a Sensation’s digitiser with a so-called “original” one from ebay (no prises for guessing where they come from). The difference now, is that you can often calibrate the digitizer by flashing PG58DIAG.nbh (not sure where it originates from), which will calibrate pretty much any digitizer to almost any Sensation phone.

Anyway, I’m now rambling and don’t want to take your thread off topic any longer. :)
[HTC One S] Sneakyghost:
No man you don't. That's totally fine with me. It's (been) PulpZillas Thread anyway :D

I am quite eager to be educated on these things and a detailed and structured problem description does tell me a lot more than you might think. Don't you see the connection between a not working ground pin and a not properly working antenna "Pin" ?

I do. It simply tells me that the Problem's actual cause is a layer below the immediate and obvious reason.

Those faults are major design flaws that make devices prone to suffer from such things.

Its not like because i know that now, i could go like: "Hey HTC, i know what your problem is and i can help you solve it!" because i am not an engineer and they won't listen to me anyway but i think this tells a long story and it helps me decide on future phones.

I just get to know the Tech better and i learn to judge good from bad by discussing these things. You get my point?

Years ago i would walk into a shop and say: "Hey, that Siemens ME45 is just crap because its all plastic - the predecessor was much better because it had more solid material!" and i was totally mistaken. That was from judging by the look and feel.

Nowadays, the same fault would be to judge the Samsung GS3 versus the One S. Obviously, the haptics of the One S suggest way better build quality but we only know for sure by looking at the inner parts and how they work together.

Also, the main reason i hijacked PulpZillas Thread is education. This educates people. Sure, affected users suffer some pains but it also makes us learn a lot!

now i am rambling and taking (my) the thread OT... :D
[HTC One S] gibarian:
Hi all,

I've acquired an HTC One S some time ago, and I'm also experiencing the Homescreen-Issue.

Read this entire topic an then some, and it seems to me that HTC is taking a sweet time addressing this critical issue. Agreed?

In order to shake things up a bit, I have spent some time now posting on other (quite famous) websites which do phone reviews, pointing out this problem and suggesting HTC should take some action. Politely yet straight to the point.

You are all welcome to do the same, even if others already did this before you. I believe that it will have the most impact on review sites, since that is where potential new customers will check out opinions before buying. Thus if I was head of the HTC Marcom department , it would matter to me what people say there, especially if they point out critical issues that might turn new customers down... I would then fix the issue, and reply to these comments in order to show that my company cares and listens to its customers and works on providing them "the best customer experience possible" ;)

It might not be the most elegant way to act, but neither is releasing flawed devices, ignoring customer complaints or delaying response. I do NOT want to wait "a couple more weeks" for months until a new update comes out and (maybe) fixes the issue.

Join the fight :)

Thomas
[HTC One S] Sneakyghost:
Thanks.

We had been discussing this already as you might be aware of, quite some time ago. I was opting for a slow pace and give HTC time as i know from some of their folks that they are desperately trying to cut costs by even removing parts of Sense for less development expenses. I feel that we need to remain fair.

But as Zoesdad and i had already discussed on chat a week ago or so, we all feel like its about time things start moving again. Situation is a bit stuck and i am fairly certain that HTC considers the problem over and done with since update 2.21.

Jason Dunn had agreed to send the thread link and the report sheet to their dev center in taiwan, yet i am not too sure that will have a big effect.

We need not forget that the S4 which up to today is the only affected variant has been come to its production end already. It has been fully replaced by the S3 and will not come back according to what i heard. Not 100% here but fairly sure.

So, it is more than likely that HTC is quite satisfied with the 60% fix rate 2.21 has and will let things just die off. The rain will wash the ashes away after a while.

If we still want to have them working on it i suppose what you did is the only way we can still go. Blackmail them with bad rep. I hate to do that but i don't have any new idea anymore.
[HTC One S] gibarian:
No need to thank me Sneakyghost, it's for all our sake, including mine ;)

I like the way you think, and I tend to do the same. Blackmailing is not the right way to do things. Yet in this particular case, I consider this not as blackmail, but simply as stating the truth. Fact is that some people do suffer from the home screen issue, and this makes the phone pretty much unusable in some cases. This is unacceptable!

Potential clients must know that currently, if they get this phone, they may well encounter this problem. They must also know that HTC is dragging its feet, mostly even not admitting the issue. I recently sent them a mail to point out the issue (politely, again!), and I'm still waiting for a reply. Nice!

If we have this issue, we have to make sure other people will not get into the same mess. I'd rather have nothing to report and only have good things to say about this phone (it is actually a great device... mostly), yet as of right now, it has flaws and customers need to know.

I will thus keep on going with my comment/review posting, and the more people join me, the better. I already got a reply on my 1-star review on Amazon.de (I always try to give a fair review, point out qualities of the product and state that I'd give 4 stars if it was not for this bug), from a guy saying that the bug was annoying yet not fatal. He's right, but come on : did we really pay for a phone that only works under certain circumstances? I read another guy's post earlier on in this thread saying "Would you buy a new car and not complain if its first gear didn't work?" Exactly! A cell phone, ANY cell phone, is supposed to work on EDGE even if the signal is weak...No ifs or buts.

I already have to cope with:

- a meager battery life (tip: when browsing for a long period of time and only reading text, use the "invert colors" mode in the browser settings to get white letters on black background - triples battery life when browsing, not kidding. AMOLED display doesn't like white color :),

- an HTC Task widget that doubles or triples entries for no reason,

- network connection issues (suddenly constantly switching from 3G to HSDPA and resulting crawling connection),

- sync issues for contacts/people (ICS issue here, no blame on HTC)

- constant worry that the black metal coating might fall off for no reason. Hasn't happened yet, fingers crossed!

Anyway, HTC needs to do something really soon about the home screen bug, because for me that's the cherry on the cake. If they fix it (and preferably all the other bugs too, while they are at it - dream on), then I'll start recommending their products. Until then, I plan to post some more comments/reviews, and keep them updated of my progress for good measure. I'm sure they will appreciate the fact that I'm fluent in 3 languages: french, english and german :) Makes many websites to post on, and I wouldn't mind some help. Even copy/pasting takes a while, not mentioning all the accounts to create :/

Ok, back to work! I'll keep you posted ;)
[HTC One S] Sneakyghost:
Apart from the home button issue all others are under control with the latest update and some custom tweaks. Well sorry, no, I remember I never checked on tasks.

- Battery: perfect with SmartAss2 governor and undervolting. An getting up to 25, sometimes even 30 hours with moderate use. Normal use probably. I have set many things to dark colors. That is an open secret :D

- signal problem: fixed with radio 1.06s and also 1.06es, remaining are wrong icons in some situations.

- Home button issue is mainly under control with radio 1.06s but worse for many with the succeeding 1.06es, so partially fixed.

- contact picture sync with Facebook is working sometimes but still broken for some I think.

- paint chipping was only with an early batch. Afaik they all got replaced and if it doesn't show within the first week your phone is not affected.

Feel the Viper! :D
[HTC One S] gibarian:
Good news here then, but let me add my 2 cents:

- Battery is indeed decent in moderate use, but I'm still pissed when I have to stop browsing or whatever after a couple of hours because otherwise I won't make it to the evening... Non-repacable battery. Bravo! But ok, I'll settle on that one. I use Easy battery saver btw.

- Signal problem: Nope, not settled, at least not for me. I experienced it today! Radio is 1.60es

- Home screen button: As I said, really bad for me and many others, so no kudos here for HTC

- Task widget: just trust me on that one or use it a couple of days, you'll see ;)

- Sync issues: as I said, that's an ICS issue so no complaints to HTC

- Coating: Ah, didn't know that, good news :)

I already got some people reacting on my review on Amazon.de: Danke Leute ;) Hilfe gerne angenommen, bin nicht so gewandt in Deutsch und kenn die bekannten Webseiten nicht so gut XD

Will attack the french front soon: Messieurs-dames, votre aide est précieuse. Postez votre mécontentement, histoire de faire bouger les choses. Merci! ;)

On the US/UK front, things are going forwards. Will have to change my posts a bit due to your info Sneaky. No more ranting about coating :)

Websites I posted on are the following (as far as I remember):

-Amazon.de

-Amazon.co.uk

-Amazon.com (?)

-Cnet.com

-Cnet.co.uk

-Cnet australia

-Techradar

-GSMarena

-some others I forgot. Been posting a lot XD

I'll name this operation "Operation Rolling Thunder" XD No relation to Vietnam, just the name ;)

And last but not least: I posted a review on HTC Europe! XD Should be published in 72 hours. I'm curious ;)

Join the effort, let's get things moving!
[HTC One S] Sneakyghost:
I had done the HTC site already and seen there where numerous people mentioning it.

regarding Radio: as i said, 1.06s is quite ok for about 60% of affected phones (figures we got from HTC Support in some mail i can't remember who and where). It nearly fixed it for me (just came back from the highway where i was stuck for 2 hours, big truck crash at 2am what the hell... sittin between two towers, no signal, Issue bugged me all night). But apart from those rare occasions its fine. The 1.06es you got there is the newer one and not as good. It makes it worse. I recommend flashing back. Thank god that is possible! RUU 2.21 and 2.31 share the same hboot and are thus compatible for backflash. Got them in my DropBox. Feel free to grab them if you like.

And "browsing a couple of hours"... well, what shall i say... you bought an OLED screen phone. Those have not reached the efficiency of the LCD panels yet. They will though. Some day they will be more efficient for sure. But currently they just suck it all up. if i get 3 hours screen-on time and 15 hours overall usage time i am happy. If i have less screen on and the said kernel and settings, it'll easily do 20plus.

Mate, link us to your reviews, will ya? we can jump onboard and make it an ugly thread of pissed of users there.

Thanks.
[HTC One S] gibarian:
All right, will do.

Sneaky, would it be ok for you if I started a new topic for the whole anti-marketing campaign? Its not about getting credit for the whole thing, it's more to keep oversight of the incoming posts. I think that your thread is more about defining the issue, offer leads and solutions on how to fix it (or at least try), whereas mine would be about organizing an information campaign and rally people. I plan to post on all the threads I can find (english, german french) and invite people to join in, follow the new thread and update the website list where we will post our reviews....

I would really appreciate your support throughout the whole campaign, and I'd like to crosslink this thread with the new one. Your first post is as complete and structured as it can ever be ;)

I plan a few phases:

Phase One:

- 1: prepare reviews/posts in different languages, which people can copy/paste or modify to their needs if they wish to join the campaign

- 2: create a document with target websites to post comments on and add links to my posted reviews/comments. People will update as they go and add the websites they posted on etc.

- 3: set up the new thread, with explanations on how to etc, and advice (remain polite etc.)

- 4: start posting on different threads complaining about the issue to rally people to the new thread

- 5: contact people who left their credentials in the spreadsheet and inform them of the action

- 6: Start flooding websites along with all other participants

End of phase One: send update to HTC on progress of the action, with advice to give clear written official feedback, or else phase 2 (in a polite way, message will be submitted to forum and acknowledged before emission).

Phase Two:

- 1: Prepare email/letter to be sent to carriers in different languages

- 2: Add carrier list to the spreadsheet document

- 3: start flooding carriers/support addresses with email

End of phase One: send update to HTC on progress of the action, with advice to give clear written official feedback, or else phase 3 (in a polite way, message will be submitted to forum and acknowledged before emission).

Phase Three:

- 1: Prepare emails to be sent to reviewers, bloggers, tech websites, press

- 2: Add press/contacts list to the spreadsheet document

- 3: start flooding press/contacts addresses with email

End of phase Three: by then, hopefully things will have changed. We'll be at the end of the line I think...

I'm still toying with the idea of sending a warning shot to HTC somewhere during phase One, but I doubt it will do any good. Empty promises, like the ones we got for months now...

Anyway, what do you think? Anyone?
[HTC One S] zoesdad70:
I like it! :D

Just to add to this, to all those who are UK based, please can you report your experiences of the homescreen problem, and your network provider's response, to the BBC Watchdog programme? The more people report this, the better the chance of them doing a report on it.
[HTC One S] opiswahn:
Anyone got news for that ominous new OTA to come with a fix?
[HTC One S] zoesdad70:
I'm suprised unbranded phones aren't getting it yet.