Database Users

My HTC HD2 screen turned black / low light

The phone stayed in my pocket most of last night, but I picked it up to see when the last bus would go and thought the battery was dead. But it's like the sensors are broken, the screen is on the lowest brightness setting, just like the LEDs are completely broken. It has flashed a few times, and the brightness did come up to a normal level for a few seconds, but today it's completely dark/low light.
This makes it very hard to use the phone, does anyone have any idea what could be wrong? I'm thinking about reflashing it, but I'm not sure that would help?

I think the screen is broken... I tried to hard reset it and it still doesn't light up. It's completely dark, so I can't see anything when I'm outside...
This is really bad...

Brightness adjustment fail

I installed a battery booster app from the market, and it had an option to dim the screen, it was on 11%, well i tried to adjust it, and i guess i went way to far and it turned my screen black, i cant see nothing.
im on the Darkstone build.
is there a way to either delete that app or what, i know the phone works as i feel the vibration from me sliding it to unlock from home screen.

aznsHD2 said:
I installed a battery booster app from the market, and it had an option to dim the screen, it was on 11%, well i tried to adjust it, and i guess i went way to far and it turned my screen black, i cant see nothing.
im on the Darkstone build.
is there a way to either delete that app or what, i know the phone works as i feel the vibration from me sliding it to unlock from home screen.
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Click to collapse
The LCD still light up but very dim, so try going into a dark room and wake up the phone. Then you will be able to see the contain on your phone.

10507 said:
The LCD still light up but very dim, so try going into a dark room and wake up the phone. Then you will be able to see the contain on your phone.
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Click to collapse
no its literally black, i cant see anything.

aznsHD2 said:
no its literally black, i cant see anything.
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Click to collapse
Not even in a totally dark room?

10507 said:
Not even in a totally dark room?
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Click to collapse
Like i said it is BLANK. seriously blank. its not dim or nothing.
Is there a way to restore the brightness on here, because i cant see anything im doin on it.

what you can try to do is, grab a friends phone and try to immitate the same touches on both devices, the best way to do it is by unlocking it, pressing the menu key, click on the corner to make sure u go to the settings, scroll all the way up and find your way to "display" tipically the 4th (or 5th in my case because i have cyanogen mod) and brightness (should be the one at the top) and just try to drag ur finger from left to right to increse it (as it should over pass any 3rd party app) and see if it works, but..... keep in mind these things dependeding on what phone you use to guide you....
screen size
DPI scale
sense??? or not! as settings are different
and other things, also..... when you unlock it make sure its on the home screen
i also believe if you go outside you can see the screen a little bit under the sun, but not completely sure
hope this helps, oh and by the way, if you have a build based on sense go to a sprint store and use an EVO lol, or if u have stock froyo grab a nexus one from a friend and use that (but like i said before, keep in mund the screen size)

yea thats what i was tryin to do. no luck.

I had this problem twice and rejoice, I have a solution!
Simply download "DroidExplorer" for windows.
Boot your phone in android.
Once booted (when your screen turns black), plug in USB, and launch DroidExplorer.
In DroidExplorer, look for the "Screencast" icon (little android icon).
Run that, you will see your screen. Reset brightness to a normal level.
You are saved

aznsHD2 said:
I installed a battery booster app from the market, and it had an option to dim the screen, it was on 11%, well i tried to adjust it, and i guess i went way to far and it turned my screen black, i cant see nothing.
im on the Darkstone build.
is there a way to either delete that app or what, i know the phone works as i feel the vibration from me sliding it to unlock from home screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When this happens, try shining a bright light on the screen, make sure the device is woken up (i.e. press a hard button) and view your screen from different angles. Even if the backlight is completely off, the LCD display is still active and the graphics elements just about visible.
With this method, you should be able to make enough of your screen to navigate to the brightness settings.
Screencast in Droid Explorer (for your PC) is also a good last measure.
Most apps that control brightness has this problem on HD2, so be careful about going too low in all of them. In Tasker, for example, 30 is the lowest setting that works.
Even the standard screen dimming that occurs a few seconds before screen timeout is not calibrated correctly. In all Android builds/kernels I have tried, the backlight is turned off when it should be just dimmed. Cyanogen(mod) has a setting for the dim level, but the maximum you can use is 26, which still turns off the backlight.
Curiously, sometimes (very seldom) after waking my phone up from standby, the backlight is in a much dimmer state than usual. When sliding the standard brightness from min to max, the actual brightness range varies from barely visible (but still on) to the regular dimmest level. So the device *can* support incredibly dim levels, but I've have found no way of getting into this state predictably. It has happened only 3-4 times over the past 2 months. A reboot fixes it, but I've also gotten out of this state after a locking/unlocking cycle.
So there seems to be several layers to the backlight brightness:
- the actual hardware (which supports much lower brightnesses than we're usually allowed access to)
- the Android API (which probably is the layer turning backlight off below 30, and which occasionally is fooled into using a much dimmer range than usual)
- whatever app providing the GUI (usually showing a range of 0-100% or 0-255).
Does anyone know if there's a reason for the threshold? Is it somehow risky for the LCD display hardware to be very dim?

[Solved] Brightness dims very dark every wake?

Ever since as long as I can remember, my phones brightness will dim to a brightness so dark you just can't see it. Even if you manually set the brightness, once you lock and wake the screen, it's fine then suddenly switches to dark.
I've used multiple ROMs and they all do it. Is it a device issue, or could it be a kernel issue? I've not screwed with kernels so I don't know if it could be it. If it's a device issue, I'll be getting a replacement ASAP.
Any help is appreciated!

Now that I'm able to Google, I realize it's a common problem with the S4.
Sent from my SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 4

Serfma said:
Ever since as long as I can remember, my phones brightness will dim to a brightness so dark you just can't see it. Even if you manually set the brightness, once you lock and wake the screen, it's fine then suddenly switches to dark.
I've used multiple ROMs and they all do it. Is it a device issue, or could it be a kernel issue? I've not screwed with kernels so I don't know if it could be it. If it's a device issue, I'll be getting a replacement ASAP.
Any help is appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only time I had the screen go dim like you describe is I remember once following a phone call. It goes dark when you put the handset to your ear like it's supposed to, and lights back up when I pull it away from my head. I was stepping out of a truck into the broad daylight when I tried to hang up my phone, I couldn't see the screen very well. The other party ended the call, and my screen timed out while I was squinting at it. I pushed the home button and it lit right back up nice.
You got something going on, and if you tried all those different roms, say... can you nandroid back to stock? Did you try that?
I'd try everything I could on the outside chance of repair instead of replacement. If you get a replacement you might be stuck with that MF3 where you cannot install a custom recovery.

fukenbiker said:
The only time I had the screen go dim like you describe is I remember once following a phone call. It goes dark when you put the handset to your ear like it's supposed to, and lights back up when I pull it away from my head. I was stepping out of a truck into the broad daylight when I tried to hang up my phone, I couldn't see the screen very well. The other party ended the call, and my screen timed out while I was squinting at it. I pushed the home button and it lit right back up nice.
You got something going on, and if you tried all those different roms, say... can you nandroid back to stock? Did you try that?
I'd try everything I could on the outside chance of repair instead of replacement. If you get a replacement you might be stuck with that MF3 where you cannot install a custom recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mf3? Is that something new with the S4s to prevent custom ROMs?
It does not go pitch black. It goes very dim every time I wake the device. If you Google S4 screen dimming it's a wide problem.
Once you wake it, it's fine for 2 seconds and dims quite dark. It is not screen timeout/sleep/etc since I can still see the screen.
Sent from my SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 4

I'm on MDJ and don't get any auto dimming of any sorts. Auto brightness is off, brightness controls about 1/3 brightness (indoors), but Power Saving mode is on with all three options on.

My S4 is MDL. I found out the problem (More than likely) was the Paranoid Android ROM. I was on ver. 3.69 and since switched to CM 10.2 Nightlies, latest as of today, and no screen dimming. I will install my usual apps and use it as normal and if it happens, it's probably an app. However, the only apps I use are ones such as SwiftKey, LightFlow, ASTRO, Chrome, and Dashclock.

I'm on stock MDL. It has only been occurring since I upgraded from MDB 3 days ago, and is a huge PITA because brightness controls are unresponsive during this time - I go into settings to adjust brightness since I have removed all the brightness controls from the notification panel as they've always worked just fine, and turn off auto brightness, scale it all the way to max, and it is still dim as crap.... Only fix I've seen is to reboot, which is obviously not ideal in most situations when I need to wake the device! I'm using STOCK kernel, STOCK ODEXED ROM as well, nothing crazy should be going on to screw with brightness settings being unresponsive either!

KryptosXLayer2 said:
I'm on stock MDL. It has only been occurring since I upgraded from MDB 3 days ago, and is a huge PITA because brightness controls are unresponsive during this time - I go into settings to adjust brightness since I have removed all the brightness controls from the notification panel as they've always worked just fine, and turn off auto brightness, scale it all the way to max, and it is still dim as crap.... Only fix I've seen is to reboot, which is obviously not ideal in most situations when I need to wake the device! I'm using STOCK kernel, STOCK ODEXED ROM as well, nothing crazy should be going on to screw with brightness settings being unresponsive either!
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Click to collapse
Do you by chance use Light Flow?
I solved the problem. I had "lcd_backlight" control flipped on in the settings of Light Flow. It fixed it. To tell if it's an app problem, just factory reset and try, once you boot up, to lock and wake the device to see if it happens. If it doesn't, it's an app problem more than likely, or even a general setting. Troubleshoot for the win!

Serfma said:
Do you by chance use Light Flow?
I solved the problem. I had "lcd_backlight" control flipped on in the settings of Light Flow. It fixed it. To tell if it's an app problem, just factory reset and try, once you boot up, to lock and wake the device to see if it happens. If it doesn't, it's an app problem more than likely, or even a general setting. Troubleshoot for the win!
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Click to collapse
I do use Light Flow, but I don't have either one of the LCD Backlight controls enabled, never have and never will, so I don't know how that could be affecting my phone at all.... That's a good start for some, but not for me, unfortunately! Good catch though
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S 4 using the XDA app

Serfma said:
Ever since as long as I can remember, my phones brightness will dim to a brightness so dark you just can't see it. Even if you manually set the brightness, once you lock and wake the screen, it's fine then suddenly switches to dark.
I've used multiple ROMs and they all do it. Is it a device issue, or could it be a kernel issue? I've not screwed with kernels so I don't know if it could be it. If it's a device issue, I'll be getting a replacement ASAP.
Any help is appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had this issue before on my Galaxy S3. I ended up replacing the front glass because of a dead pixel. Come to find out I had a sensor issue and that was causing my brightness auto going to whatever level it wanted.
Perhaps you're experiencing that too. Haven't heard or read of any sensor issues yet with the S4 but you could be the lucky winner!

Screen color changing? Negative effect?

Has anybody experienced any issue with their screen colors seemingly fading out to create what almost looks like a "negative" effect? It's like it gets very bright and washed out. It's fixed by turning off the screen and turning it back on, but I don't think I should have to do that. Anybody experience anything similar to this?

volrus said:
Has anybody experienced any issue with their screen colors seemingly fading out to create what almost looks like a "negative" effect? It's like it gets very bright and washed out. It's fixed by turning off the screen and turning it back on, but I don't think I should have to do that. Anybody experience anything similar to this?
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Click to collapse
This I believe happens on Galaxy S5 Mini (I have it) where when it is set to Auto Brightness and I go outside under direct bright sunlight, the screen will boost brightness beyond the manual Maximum setting that you can set. In turn though, the colours on the screen will go psychedelic where things look very bright and washed out. When I go back inside, usually it stayed extremely bright, soI had to put it to sleep then wake it up again to put the psychedelic brightness back into sense.
On the Note 4, I tried this yesterday, colours didn't go crazy, it stayed pretty much spot on, but I still had to put it back to sleep and wake it to fix the brightness.
It's possible I wasn't patient enough to wait for it to return brightness back to normal after leaving direct sun light, but I did give it 10 seconds and it didn't go back.

I got the same experience with my note 4. At the beginning I thought that it was an issue with my screen. But it could be good to know if it is or not. If one day I will get a black broken screen... This issue appears only under the sun light.

volrus said:
Has anybody experienced any issue with their screen colors seemingly fading out to create what almost looks like a "negative" effect? It's like it gets very bright and washed out. It's fixed by turning off the screen and turning it back on, but I don't think I should have to do that. Anybody experience anything similar to this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried disabling the "Adjust screen tone" under display settings to see if it has any effect?

volrus said:
Has anybody experienced any issue with their screen colors seemingly fading out to create what almost looks like a "negative" effect? It's like it gets very bright and washed out. It's fixed by turning off the screen and turning it back on, but I don't think I should have to do that. Anybody experience anything similar to this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its brightness boost happens in bright environment if you close the auto brightness it will be gone. its not an issue. but gets too bright when not needed sometimes. but in direct sunlight where manuel max brightness not enough it helps alot and it doesnt look weird in a situtation like this.

ZE552KL screen flickering at lowest brightness level

I would take a video of this issue, but I don't have a good enough camera. It's really, really hard to capture unless you have good video recording tech, which I don't have. :crying:
My issue is that, when I set the brightness to its lowest level on my Zenfone 3, the screen starts flickering. This is especially noticeable with white backgrounds. You can tell that the screen is flickering (perhaps refreshing?) rapidly and it makes the phone painful to look at.
Someone actually created a thread about this issue here on XDA a few months ago, with a video showing this issue, but unfortunately, the video doesn't capture the flickering properly. Here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/zenfone-3/help/ze520kl-low-screen-light-level-20-t3603502
How to reproduce:
-Turn auto-brightness off
-Slide brightness bar all the way to the left (AKA to the lowest level)
-Open a white background/grayish background or blank page in Chrome
-Screen starts flickering
It happens across the phone, and intermittently. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. In Chrome, in games, whatever. I once thought it could be related to charging the phone, but the screen has flickered on low brightness even when my phone wasn't plugged in, and at 70-80% battery. I might try resetting the phone to see if it's a software defect; I really hope it is.
Turning off hardware overlays in Developer Options does not resolve this issue.
I'm currently on ASUS stock Nougat, unrooted. I can't root right now. I don't have any screen overlays apart from CF.Lumen, which isn't set to come on during the day, when the flickering happens, and I don't use any screen color modes apart from the default settings. I also always have auto-brightness turned off.
Just wondering if anyone else is having this issue. I might try recording it one day.
Thanks.

Update 1: Removed my 64GB SD Card from the phone to see if that made a difference. It didn't. So the flickering isn't related to power management, AFAIK.
Next step is to wipe the phone completely, including its cache partition from stock recovery, and set the phone up as new again. It might be a hardware issue, but my fingers are crossed.

I've had this issue since I got the phone, ZE552KL. Turning off auto brightness fixes it for me, so I have a feeling it has more to do with ASUS' auto brightness algorithms than anything else.

sensi277 said:
I've had this issue since I got the phone, ZE552KL. Turning off auto brightness fixes it for me, so I have a feeling it has more to do with ASUS' auto brightness algorithms than anything else.
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Click to collapse
I always have auto-brightness turned off. I think it might have to do with the ambient light sensor. I've tested it using SMMI and it works just fine. But I wish there was a way to disable it, since I don't need it. I'm kind of disappointed in this phone.
I'm going to try a full reset, and perhaps a custom ROM to see if it's a hardware or software issue.