[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] bobturismo:
Our phones are getting old enough taht teh buttons will jam up and possibly stop working. My phone would pull up the reboot/shutdown menu and then reset itself, I believe that my button just got smashed in really hard.

Don't freak out, if you need to turn your screen "ON" there are a few ways.

1. Plugging in a USB cable or something into the headphone jack, should turn the screen on.

2. Install an APP that uses the proximity sensor to turn the screen on

3. Pulling the battery and reinserting it without the USB plugged in, should reboot your phone.

How to fix it.

1.One user has success, disassembling his phone and using a pair of pliers to squeeze the metal casing around the power button back into itself. If you attempt this, be very gentle and squeeze a little bit at a time until it works. I would still install a program to turn on the phone just in case the button fails again while you are out and about.

2. I had some success, disassembling the phone and pulling the white button part out of the metal casing and then using a pick tool or needle to bend the contacts up. I got it working and then lost the little white button in the carpet I guess, thing went flying somewhere.

3. One user on here had success taking it to a cell phone repair place and they charged him $40 to replace it. Who knows if they actually did replace it, they may have just unstuck it, worth a shot to talk to those guys and see what they say. Personally I'd rather just put the $40 towards the insurance deductible

OR

You can send it here for repair http://mobiletechvideos.mybigcommerce.com/samsung-epic-4g-touch-power-button-repair/

4. Replace it yourself. I consider myself decent at soldering, I would not attempt this personally..

5. Swap the main board. Buy a phone with a bad screen, swap the boards and sell the rest or keep for parts. MAKE sure the new board has a GOOD ESN or sprint will NOT let you swap/activate the phone, as the ESN is tied to the main board. Now when I buy a used phone, I'll ask the seller do you mind if I call sprint and check the ESN? They will tell you right away if it can be activated.

Keep in mind that your recovery menu might use the power button to select choices, so you really have to think about things before you do them. You don't want to be stuck in teh recovery menu because you can't pick any options. I had to flash AGATS's recovery for JB, which fortunately uses the home button to choose option, (volume to scroll). I had to use Odin to flash it from a computer as I needed to reflash my ROM and could not do it from the current recovery menu because it needed the power button.

If you need to capture screenshots, there are APPS for that, I use Ultimate Screenshot, it's a hokey compared to the built in option, but it works.

There are also APPS for booting into recovery and recovery options, Quick Boot is one of them.

List of APPS

1. Smart Screen ON, uses proximity sensor to turn on and off your screen, I believe this is a paid app.

2. Proximity Actions ."Dypraxxx" has had success with an app called "Proximity Actions". You can thank him "here"

3. Gravity Screen Off On Thanks to syed239

4. Screenshot Ultimate (this is just the first one I tried, I'm sure they are better one's)

5. Quick Boot : Lets you reboot into recovery, shutdown, reboot into bootloader or just simply reboot.

Feel free to add info to this thread, there's nothing worse than your phone breaking and not knowing what to do about it. Hopefully someone that gets into a similar situation can use this thread to get back up and running until they can get a new phone or what have you.