Database Users

Screen flicker workaround

Hi everyone
I want to share a workaround to all of us who owns a defective S5
Symptom: You unlock your phone and it doesn't show anything. Actually, the phone is working. Capacitive buttons light up and you may heard some activity in the phone
Your phone has a defective screen. There are a lot S5 which have this problem, according to several forums. After several tries, unlock and lock over and over, the screen light up and you are able to use your phone. The problem is when you receive a call and you want to know who is calling you, the screen doesn't illuminate and you won’t be able to know who is.
Here's a workaround which makes your powerful S5 usable and take out from your drawer.
Solution:
The more effective way to fix it is: change defective screen! But sometimes it could cost as much as a new phone, or simply you can't afford it, and it's better to change your phone instead, and you put your S5 in a drawer.
The technical explanation of this problem is: Screen doesn't receive enough electrical current at low brightness levels (maybe the flex is defective, get old, etc)
Most probably the wake up problem exist together with screen flicker at low brightness levels
The wake up problem rises up more in dark environment, when light sensor make low bright screen
The lock screen light up screen, with a dim effect: when you lock the phone, it slowly turn screen off, and when you unlock, it make and effect of dim screen.
When you are is in dark environment, the effect is very slow, preventing the screen illuminate because the technical problem explained before.
When you are in very light environment, you lock screen and sensor light make the screen very brilliant and chances are you defective phone wakes up correctly.
We can use an app which give us complete control over brightness subsystem. I use an app called Velis AutoBrightness:
Once installed from Play Store, it shows a Setting Wizard. Follow the instructions. Below are some notes
• 1/7: Welcome Screen
• 2/7: How bright... Most probably is your phone always have flicker in low brightness. Choose "AMOLED" or "AMOLED bright". By the way choosing any one of those cure always minimum brightness failure!
• 3/7: Choose High sensitivity
• 4/7: On, if you want additional brightness when charging. Irrelevant for this thead. Choose your favorite setting
• 5/7: Same of 4/7
• 6/7: Choose enable: That enable the app
• 7/7: Some additional notes: Press Done
Now important settings: go to Menu > Settings > General: Settings Mode > Advanced
Service Activation settings:
• Disable system handler > ON: When you use Power saving mode, you surely noted screen flicker, which is very annoying, and make unusable power saving mode. By set this ON: Android doesn't set screen too dim; instead Velis have a minimum of brightness set by Wizard 2/7. (Surely you find out that you avoid screen flicker, by setting autobrightness off and slider in 8-10%)
Sensors settings:
• Screen-on sensor value override: Set this value to 30000. Read below this post if you want technical explanation of this setting
After you establish these settings, you'll be able to unlock your phone all the time!
This is the trick: When you unlock your phone, you'll note that the screen is very bright (because Screen-on to 30000) and quickly adjust to the environment light. The failure is that electrical current to screen is defective, and when exterior light is dark, the screen make a dim effect and doesn't light up.
Note to Marshmallow users:
• This app make use of Screen overlay permisions: And marshmallow is very restrict with this kind of app. This is specially true when you are installing an app. All you have to do is deactivate the app in notification screen: press "OFF" button, adjust system brightness upper enough to not flicker the screen, install your app, and activate Velis Autobrightness again
• Because of Doze mode, wake up from this mode may avoid your screen light up, the first time you use your phone. Let 10-15 seconds your phone wake up, lock again, and unlock again, and velis will make its work!
I hope this post make your smartphone usable. I barely apply this trick to two phones, but I think this is a good workaround!

I used this app & the flickering is still available

What worked for me is downgrading the firmware on my g900f all the way back to Android 4.0. My phone came with version 5.0 and I noticed the problem only after I kept installing samsung's system updates. Will report if the problem starts up again but I'm running rooted and running nougat just fine so I don't see a reason to keep upgrading the firmware.
Edit: nevermind, this didn't work

Reyse said:
The technical explanation of this problem is: Screen doesn't receive enough electrical current at low brightness levels (maybe the flex is defective, get old, etc)
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Does anyone know for sure if it's the flex cable or some capacitors? I notice only the lower half of my screen flickers.. I bet there's a simple electrical fix for it instead of replacing the whoooole display

fbs said:
Does anyone know for sure if it's the flex cable or some capacitors? I notice only the lower half of my screen flickers.. I bet there's a simple electrical fix for it instead of replacing the whoooole display
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Click to collapse
Hello,
Have you change jour battery? If it s old it could cause some issues...
But try to buy a genuine one, I think that your battery must be old now.
Bye

cedouic said:
Hello,
Have you change jour battery? If it s old it could cause some issues...
But try to buy a genuine one, I think that your battery must be old now.
Bye
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Click to collapse
it doesn't make any sense. the lower half of the screen flickers in green even on charger

fbs said:
it doesn't make any sense. the lower half of the screen flickers in green even on charger
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Click to collapse
I noticed that screen only flickers at low brightness when using Boeffla kernel for LOS14 and others based on it.
No issue for the same device with LOS or Stock based kernels.

zlazaar said:
I noticed that screen only flickers at low brightness when using Boeffla kernel for LOS14 and others based on it.
No issue for the same device with LOS or Stock based kernels.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you're wrong
I was using los16 with stock kernel for months with flicker everyday

fbs said:
you're wrong
I was using los16 with stock kernel for months with flicker everyday
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Click to collapse
+1 to that , i even went back to stock and the screen flicker appeared and such issues are well known already with samsung amoled panels back in 2014-even some panels from 2018 . So def not kernel related.

I was using los 15.1 and this problem got worse. The phone was barely usable as mentioned by the op. In my case, the screen would start flickering below 60%. Then I switched back to stock marshmallow. I noticed that 100% brightness in los 15.1 is actually only about 70% in the stock rom.
I have been using the phone at 80% brightness for some weeks now and the problem has significantly reduced. But not completely gone, it's much much better. Also, you might want to avoid using dark wallpapers.

Is this normal or problem? Brightness.

Good afternoon,
I do not know if it is something normal or it is a real problem that requires technical support. The case is that I have the mobile without automatic brightness, and when I set the brightness to very low levels, when unlocking the terminal, when you turn on the lock screen with the wallpapers, it appears as a slight flicker of the screen, thousandths of a second, almost imperceptible if you do not stare. Something like when you start to light a light bulb until you get to have light at all, but with a very slight flicker.
It is not an extreme flicker that completely turns off the screen or any of that, it may even be the operation of the brightness sensors (which happens to be strange because the automatic brightness is off), but I worry that it may have more problems in the future. Also I have noticed that having the brightness to the maximum of half of this problem does not occur, only with low brightness. There is also no blinking once unlocked using the phone itself, everything works perfectly. It is as if the lock screen was automatically adjusted when unlocked.
Should I contact technical support or just foolishness of mine?
Regards and thank you very much in advance.
PD: I have EMUI 4.0, NXT L29 with b192

Maybe you can upload a video so we know what ur talking about.

I think I've actually noticed something like what you're describing in my device. In summary, ever so slight flicker of brightness when display is on low/lowest level with automatic level off. I assumed it was normal

gm007 said:
Maybe you can upload a video so we know what ur talking about.
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I have tried to record videos, but it is very difficult to appreciate.

MuPp3t33r said:
I think I've actually noticed something like what you're describing in my device. In summary, ever so slight flicker of brightness when display is on low/lowest level with automatic level off. I assumed it was normal
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I also think it's normal. It's like an automatic contrast adjustment to accommodate the eye to the screen. I think it's a matter of the IPS NEO screen.

Does anyone else have this?

Auto brightness strange behavior

Hello to all,
I have a strange behavior with my auto brightness. It sometimes will slightly increase then decrease again quite quickly. This happens not all of the time but regularly. It even happens in dark conditions without any varying lighting conditions that could cause this.
My phone has already been reset a number of times so am wondering if it is software related or hardware related.
Anyone else notice this?

It's a known issue (known by us, not ZTE, apparently). I believe the light sensor reads the light from the screen itself, bouncing on you, then corrects for that, the light changes accordingly and it starts over again

0Kajuna0 said:
It's a known issue (known by us, not ZTE, apparently). I believe the light sensor reads the light from the screen itself, bouncing on you, then corrects for that, the light changes accordingly and it starts over again
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Click to collapse
Thanks for that. It could indeed explain it.

0Kajuna0 said:
It's a known issue (known by us, not ZTE, apparently). I believe the light sensor reads the light from the screen itself, bouncing on you, then corrects for that, the light changes accordingly and it starts over again
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Click to collapse
I picked an Axon 7 up today and I too notice strange behaviour by the light sensor.
I've tried searching the forums and Google for this issue and I could only find this thread.
Is the issue hardware related? Do you think it could get worse over time? I'd love to read more about these issues but am having trouble finding anything about it.
Edit: symptom is an aggressively jumping auto brightness bar. The brightness is occasionally lowered and raised in rapid succession, even in stable lighting conditions.
EditEdit: I've not updated the phone since I received it. It's on 6.x.x. Could there be a recent update that tackles these issues, or makes them more bearable?

Maybe it's solved by turning off assertive display in settings. I haven't noticed this issue before on mine but a lot of other issues e.g. fingerprint sensor acting weird and giving continuous "finger moved too fast" or "partial fingerprint detected,please try again" errors (but when it works, it works really fast) that most of them were related to software. The stock ROM is quite buggy though. (Mine is Chinese A2017)

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.

Screen Flikering Issue with auto brightness sensor on Zenfone Max Pro M1 6gb

Has anyone noticed Display keeps flickering when auto brightness is on. Even if phone is kept at a fixed position & same amount of light is exposed to the sensor it still keeps flickering. I mean if I'm watching movie it automatically dems or increases the brightness. please confirm how many user experiencing this problem! as per i know it was not resolved from 301 to till 331 update. is it manufacturing defect particularly with specific variant ?

I wouldn't call it it a flicker. More like the auto-brightness feature is so badly programmed that it doesn't transition from dim to bright and vice versa in a smooth, gradual or dynamic manner, like in older and cheaper phones.
My eyes get a shock every few seconds, trying to adjust to the sudden jumps in screen brightness. It's a real pain.
And yes, the issue has persisted through all the OTA updates without any sign of improvement.
Instead of addressing this most basic and "glaring" issue, Asus seems to be intent on introducing bloatware and EIS for the phone and announce it like it's the second coming.
The latest update was supposed to bring with it, system optimization but I don't see any form of basic optimization, let alone calibration, with the screwy display.
I can only guess at Asus' sense of priorities. Or if they're actually blind and/or stupid.

May be it was true that autobrightness was programmed badly manner it was not transist smoothly from dim to bright. But afterall we are facing it at serious level and uptill now asus has not solved yet. I just want to confirm that How many user experiencing screen flicker issue after enabling auto brightness or it was particularly manufacturing defect with specific varient.

its an autobrightness calibration issue,software update will fix it in future,lets hope so

Hello everybody! I found a bug: brightness is flickering even when "auto brightness" ("adaptive brightness") is disabled. Brightness can encrease for few seconds and then decrease to previous level. I read in some reviews that max pro m1 has adaptive brightness which changes depending on content on the screen. I tried to change a lot of display settings, developer settings, i tried to adjust CABC (Content Adaptive Brightness Control) through Nova Launcher (but later I read that CABC controls only autobrightness), and even hard reset. I flashed custom ROMs but it didn't help. Only Lux Dash app helps avoid this bug. But it is not very comfort to use it and I think there must be desicion on firmware level. Did anybody has this problem and any solution? May be somebody has this issue and found custom ROM without flickering brightness?
Sorry for my English, it's not my first language. And thank you for answers!