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iPhone 4 Proximity Sensor not working

D

DonnieZ

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 18, 2010
33
8
Noticing someting wierd with my new iPhone 4 - the proximity sensor doesn't seem to work well (or at all..)

When the phone is up against my ear or if I'm cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder the proximity sensor should disable the screen and touch controls until it detects that I've pulled the phone away from my head. My iPhone 3G excelled at this. My iPhone 4 however seems to want to keep the screen on at all times, causing "cheek dialing" issues, mostly trying to initiate FaceTime.

Anyone else experiencing this?

- DZ
 
Same issue

I have the same issue and it's really becoming an issue for me.
I posted something similar yesterday. I was highly frustrated and used a poor choice in topic title and was blasted by half the forum.

But yes I think the proximity sensor is slow to turn off as you place it to your ear and very easily activates the screen just in normal shifting and positioning during a phone conversation.

I have hung up on calls, started face talks and place calls on the speaker phone on over half my calls.
 
ive already hung up on 4 people since i got it yesterday, another reason for people to hate on the iphone for not being a good...phone lol
 
It's happened to me a few times, accidently bringing up the keypad or speakerphone, when i'm talking. Doesn't happen enough to make me really mad....yet, and adjusting how i hold it usually helps, but could get really aggravating down the line.

Someone else was having the same issues in another forum yesterday.

Hoping something in the software can be adjusted. Hope it's not a hardware issue. I don't know how it works though.
 
Yep. Same issue here.

I'm taking it back tomorrow, see what happens. I have never hung up or changed settings with my cheek so often!

Annoying.
 
Weird. I have 2 full days on my iPhone 4. Didn't happen once on the first day.

Today, it's happening every 3 minutes on a call. I called Apple regarding it, and it occurred no less than 5 times during a 10 minute call. It put him on speaker phone 3-4 times, and muted him once or twice.

He told me to reset the phone, which I did, and it hasn't happened yet. We'll see.

In the meantime, anyone experiencing this should do a hard reset, and if you can, report back with your results.

(on a related note, it only seemed to happen with my left ear)
 
I have been having the exact same problem. First I thought my phone was dropping calls due to reception issues; got a case and it’s become a “non-issue,” I guess and realized my cheek has been busy causing all kind of mutes, contacts, etc etc etc it’s annoying


Any solutions or speculations? I prefer productive and constructive ones please

Update: will try a restore at report back
 
It happened to me too at least 5 times. Hard reset didn't fix it. I'll do a reset all settings and see bow that works.
 
I've had the exact same issue, if you don't press the phone on your ear really hard then the screen activates.

I happened to be looking in the mirror when I was on the phone and I could see that the screen was flashing on and off like mad.
 
I had the opposite problem. My proximity sensor was screwed up in such a fashion that when i pulled the phone away from my face the screen would always stay black. Made an appt with the genius bar and they replaced the phone. New phone worked fine in the store. Took it home and restored from backup and it suddenly started doing it again. That got me thinking. I read somewhere that someone else fixed it by doing a "reset all settings". I did it and it worked! There's some kind of setting being carried over from my jailbroken iphone 3g to my iphone 4. So please give this a try before complaining to apple.
 
Same problem here, I've managed to put at least 3 people on hold, cut off two. I'll try resetting and report back.

Brings a whole new meaning to 'Facetime' though.
 
Just ran into this problem today. I heard dialing on the call and thought it was coming from the other phone, but no, it was my own face dialing. Later in the same call my face put it on mute. For the grand finale, it went to my contacts and tried to dial another person.
 
just wanted to chime in that i had the same issue - kept hitting buttons with my face. i couldn't have a conversation without constantly beeping numbers. i tried the "reset all settings" trick and it seems to have done the trick. i just had a two hour phone conversation and it didn't happen once!

(my old phone was a jailbroken 3G, too...though, i don't know if that actually has anything to do with it or not)
 
I have been having the same problem. My 3G3 was not jail-broken though. I am going to try to reset settings and see what happens.
 
I'm in the same boat wrt the screen activating when it shouldn't. It's been happening to me since launch day and never happened before with either of my iPhones. This, along with variable signal strength / call quality, has me about to switch back to my trusty 3GS. Even with the bumper, which I bought along with the phone on day one, comfortably holding the phone with my left hand like I always have causes calls to slowly fade to static. Moving my hand of course slowly brings it back. I'm hearing impaired in my right ear, so switching to that hand/side isn't an option for me. :(

Spoke to a nice lady at Apple support today about my return options (travel for a living and can't return to store where I bought it) and it's obvious that they're frustrated/concerned, too. Anyway, with only 14 days to return it from purchase, I'm watching and hoping for a software update soon. Fingers crossed.
 
I am also experiencing much face-dialing with iPhone 4. Never did with 2G or 3GS. Seems to only happen to me when I am holding the phone with my shoulder (always the right shoulder) which apparently tilts the sensor slightly away from my head. I do not seem to have the issue when holding with hand. Is the sensor in a different location than the older phones, or is it a sensitivity issue?
 
Add me to the face-dialing list. I've inadvertently hung up on my gf, muted her, put her on speaker phone, face-dialed a couple of people I did NOT want to dial, texted my brother some gibberish, etc.

I've had 5 total iPhones over the years (this is number 6) and have NEVER had any issues like this. And it's not like I'm holding the phone any differently than I have before. Like others, I've noticed mine does it when I'm holding the phone with my shoulder.

I probably wouldn't even think anything of it (and would likely just pay better attention when wedging the phone between shoulder/head) if I hadn't had 5 previous iPhones and know it shouldn't be this "sensitive"...

I'm not going to return my phone over it, though. I'm not hardly a big phone-talker, and my phone is flawless in all other aspects. I'll just put up with it and pay closer attention, but wanted to chime in that I've noticed the issue too!
 
Could this be a hardware issue? Literally every single person who has replied to this thread has these issues.
 
DonnieZ said:
Noticing someting wierd with my new iPhone 4 - the proximity sensor doesn't seem to work well (or at all..)

When the phone is up against my ear or if I'm cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder the proximity sensor should disable the screen and touch controls until it detects that I've pulled the phone away from my head. My iPhone 3G excelled at this. My iPhone 4 however seems to want to keep the screen on at all times, causing "cheek dialing" issues, mostly trying to initiate FaceTime.

Anyone else experiencing this?

- DZ
Click to expand...

Very much so, yes. :(
 
Same thing here. Sometimes it happens sometimes it doesn't. Usually the person on the other side of the line tells me that they can hear a beeping from their side which indicates that the phone has activated facetime or placed them on hold.

I have done a restore and a hard reset and the problem still persists. Like others have said, this is my 3rd iPhone and never have had this issue before.

Will take back to Apple and see if i can get a replacement
 
I am having this same exact issue...I thought it was just me. I have muted and hung up on people more than 5-6 times now. It doesn't always happen though. Never had this issue on 3G or friend's 3GS
 
What do you think we should do about this issue. It's not widespread, but it's large enough to be an issue, no doubt...should we wait, call apple? Any ideas
 
I was having the same issue so I called Apple who is now sending me a new phone. The rep told me that this should not happen and the phone must have a bad Proximity Sensor. I sure hope the new one works better because that is just annoying.
 
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