iPhone 5 Home Button Randomly Fails

[adminaaah]

So all of a sudden today my iPhone 5 home button stopped working. I restored to iOS 8.2 clean and the issue still occurs. It's rather weird. I have to push really hard on the home button around the buttom and then it works for like 5-10 minutes. Then it stops. If I repeat the pushing down thing it works again. Any suggestions?

 

[Retired Cat]

If you are confident in your repair skills, you can buy a replacement part and tool kit from ifixit and replace the button yourself.

The other option is to take the phone to an Apple Store or repair shop and pay for a repair.

 

[KUguardgrl13]

It's not uncommon for there to be home button issues with iPhones in general. I had to have the one on my 5 repaired before AC+ ran out because it was "crunchy". You can try finding out how much it will cost to repair, do it yourself, or just get a new phone.

 

[TMacGuy]

I remember loads of iPhone 4's having home button's failing prematurely.

iPhone home buttons are the spawn of satan sometimes.

Cheap fix if you feel like you can do it yourself. Much easier than on the 4 luckily since the 5 opens from the front.

-TMacGuy

 

[nox5]

Dust gets inside metal plates and couses bad contact between them. Plates are taped together. If cleaned button works like new.

 

[jpn]

So all of a sudden today my iPhone 5 home button stopped working. I restored to iOS 8.2 clean and the issue still occurs. It's rather weird. I have to push really hard on the home button around the buttom and then it works for like 5-10 minutes. Then it stops. If I repeat the pushing down thing it works again. Any suggestions?

the problem with the iPhone 5 top button relates to heat: if your phone has been on and running apps, the button tends to not respond at all. allow yr phone to stop all processing by manually killing the running apps and allowing it to sleep. within 2 to 3 minutes you will be able to hard push the top button and activate on/off/sleep.
this is useful to know if airport TSA demand your phone be turned on or off - if you can't turn it off at that time, you may have a problem LOL.