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iPhone 13 mini The mysterious case of the permanent screen!

H

heycal

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 25, 2013
826
22
Here's a puzzle that has stumped Apple Geniuses, customer support employees and their senior advisors, and the finest engineering minds at Apple. The following problem has followed me from iPhone 6, 8, and now 13 mini. And I'm talking multiple handsets of the 6 and the 8, not just one each.

Seems no matter what device I have, the screen sometimes remains on when I place the phone down on a table or any surface.

It can be after I send a text, taken a photo, checked a website or anything else. It also doesn't always happen. But for several years now, it's been happening regularly. The screen is on when I place the phone down, and stays on about 30% of the time maybe. Only manually turning it off, or another alert coming, changes things.

I've done countless restores and erasures and put back apps one by one and every other trouble-shooting step one might think of at the direction of apple, and yet the mystery has never been solved. The best guess I have is that there is some glitch associated with my phone number as unlikely as that seems, since that is the only constant factor in this drama.

I finally gave up with Apple support a couple of years back, and learned to live with it. But now that I recently got a new device, I thought I'd ask here if anyone has any fresh theories.
 
If you set up the device fresh without applying a previous backup- can you reproduce the issue with no additional apps installed?
Does it happen in just one specific location?
 
ericwn said:
If you set up the device fresh without applying a previous backup- can you reproduce the issue with no additional apps installed?
Does it happen in just one specific location?
Click to expand...
I'm guessing I did try that with Apple folks at some point.

It can happen in different places and surfaces.
 
I can only speculate of course but since it’s going on across multiple devices already it has to be software, settings or data related rather than hardware.

I’d start fresh, simplify down to the onboard apps and slowly build out until you trigger the behaviour again.
 
ericwn said:
I can only speculate of course but since it’s going on across multiple devices already it has to be software, settings or data related rather than hardware.

I’d start fresh, simplify down to the onboard apps and slowly build out until you trigger the behaviour again.
Click to expand...
I may have tried that with Apple too. I can't even remember now after countless hours with them a few years back.

At this point I'm just looking to see if someone comes up with something me, or Apple tech support, hasn't thought to try yet.
 
BugeyeSTI said:
Did they have you try a completely new AppleID and setup as new with no backup with only the native apps installed?
Click to expand...
I believe we may have.

I think the physical act of laying the phone on a surface can trigger the problem by mistakenly signaling to the phone that it is still in use and thus the screen stays on?
 
heycal said:
I believe we may have.
Click to expand...
It sound like like your not sure exactly what has been tried? That’s understandable if that has been a bit of a saga! But @ericwn is surely right in both diagnosis and suggested solution - this must be some kind of setting/software bug if it’s occurring across multiple devices, and starting from a fresh install with a fresh Apple ID is the obvious way to solve (or at least isolate) the problem.

heycal said:
I think the physical act of laying the phone on a surface can trigger the problem by mistakenly signaling to the phone that it is still in use and thus the screen stays on?
Click to expand...
It’s hard to see how this is the case - putting a phone down like this is totally normal usage, and we all do it dozens if not hundreds of times a day. I’ve never seen or even read about behaviour like this. I think it must be a software thing.
 
PeteBurgh said:
It sound like like your not sure exactly what has been tried? That’s understandable if that has been a bit of a saga! But @ericwn is surely right in both diagnosis and suggested solution - this must be some kind of setting/software bug if it’s occurring across multiple devices, and starting from a fresh install with a fresh Apple ID is the obvious way to solve (or at least isolate) the problem.
Click to expand...
No, not sure what was tried, since so many things were and it was some time ago. But I'm guessing the above method was one of them since it's an obvious one, and it is sounding sort of familiar now.

I remember all sorts of troubleshooting and screen recordings and engineers and all that, and finally I just gave up. Unless someone has some brand new approach here, I'm guessing this problem follows me to my grave -- or I get an android or perhaps a new phone number, which I don't want to do since I've had this one forever.
 
Does this effect happen in the same place or does it not depend on the place? Is the SIM card used the same? This effect does not depend on the use of Wi Fi or cellular communication or airplane mode?
 
Megabass said:
Does this effect happen in the same place or does it not depend on the place? Is the SIM card used the same? This effect does not depend on the use of Wi Fi or cellular communication or airplane mode?
Click to expand...
I'm guessing it does happen in different locations, but I'll see if I can check. It definitely happens at my house.

I don't think it matters if it's wifi or cellular or airplane mode, so that is something I can try and check as well. It's super frustrating to test different scenarios since it's an intermittent problem that doesn't always happen. May not happen for a day or two.

I did not remove the SIM card from my old phone to transfer to the new one, so I guess it's a brand new one already in the phone when it was delivered to my house.
 
heycal said:
No, not sure what was tried, since so many things were and it was some time ago. But I'm guessing the above method was one of them since it's an obvious one, and it is sounding sort of familiar now.

I remember all sorts of troubleshooting and screen recordings and engineers and all that, and finally I just gave up. Unless someone has some brand new approach here, I'm guessing this problem follows me to my grave -- or I get an android or perhaps a new phone number, which I don't want to do since I've had this one forever.
Click to expand...
No suggestions on the overall problem, but why do you think changing your phone number would make a difference? What possible connection could there be? However, if you did want to test it there's no need to change your phone number. You could borrow a SIM card from another phone for a bit (assuming the phone is unlocked or if locked, the SIM is from the same carrier).
 
ApfelKuchen said:
No suggestions on the overall problem, but why do you think changing your phone number would make a difference? What possible connection could there be? However, if you did want to test it there's no need to change your phone number. You could borrow a SIM card from another phone for a bit (assuming the phone is unlocked or if locked, the SIM is from the same carrier).
Click to expand...
The theory is that the phone number is one of the only constants, so perhaps a different one would solve the problem.

To try your experiment here, I'd need to borrow a SIM card from someone else's iPhone on Verizon? And would I be getting their calls and texts during this time?
 
mpavilion said:
Why not just remove the SIM first (use wifi), and see if it makes a difference?
Click to expand...

Good thinking, one could even just use Airplane Mode as a first triage step and then re-enable one network kind at a time.
 
You know, I almost never set my phone down with the screen still on... but realized I had done this earlier, so let it sit to see what happened. The screen never turned off. Are you sure this isn't a universal problem (and you just happen to be in a subset of users who do this often)?
 
I've seen this issue countless times over the years. I'm not sure whether it ever happened on my old 4S, but it certainly happened on my 6 and my current 8.
 
mpavilion said:
You know, I almost never set my phone down with the screen still on... but realized I had done this earlier, so let it sit to see what happened. The screen never turned off. Are you sure this isn't a universal problem (and you just happen to be in a subset of users who do this often)?
Click to expand...
Interesting! So it's an occasional glitch that others experience as well?
 
Nermal said:
I've seen this issue countless times over the years. I'm not sure whether it ever happened on my old 4S, but it certainly happened on my 6 and my current 8.
Click to expand...
It happens to you too?

I also don't recall it happening my iPhone 4.
 
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