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Okay, so this is probably the 5th time I’ve heard of this issue in our Phantips alone and I felt it was time to give it some attention. Apparently, some HTC Evo 3D users are reporting a mysterious black-screen-of-death issue where their screen will go black, become unresponsive and the capacitive buttons will remain lit. Battery pulls, shaking and cursing at the device don’t seem to help and the causes are from normal average use. All users report completely stock devices with no attempts at rooting or any hacking being done whatsoever.
Aside from our Phantips, I’ve come face to face with this this issue and was surprised to hear from a few of my personal friends that they too have experienced the same problem with their device. You may not have much to worry about if you’re paying for insurance or you’re still under your 30 day return window but I wanted to warn those of you who aren’t. Hopefully, this is one of the issues HTC will be addressing in their upcoming software update for the device. Have any of our readers experienced the black-screen-of-death on their Evo 3D?
I had a strange issue with my Evo 3D where the backlight and buttons would light up while the screen was off randomly and stay on. This would continue to happen after a couple minutes once the screen turned off. It was weird but not as bad as the black screen of death. Although I remember when my friend had a Dash and it would freeze up and stay that way till he pulled the battery.
Yep, I’ve been getting it about once every other day, seems to be getting worse, I never had it when I first got the phone (launch day). Usually associated with some degree of activity (not necessarily heavy use) and it never happens to me when the phone is idle. Screen just goes black, buttons are lit. Pressing power+volup+voldown triggers a reboot and gets things going again without having to take the case off to do a battery pull.
Have you tried a factory reset from the bootloader? It would be a pain in the ass, for sure, but not nearly as annoying as always rebooting.
Glad I didn’t flock to this device not into the whole 3d gimmick on phones, something great will come out for sprint in the near future (no not the photon)
Early adopters or “beta testers” as I like to call ’em always get all the bugs. I see you’re rockin’ the Evo. Remember the bugs that thing had when it first launched? T’was a mess..
Thats true but I waited a while before I got the phone I realized when I had my cliq xt at launch (first android phone) and I experienced those awesome random reboots.
Mine has not done this at all. I hope the best for my fellow 3vo peeps!
3D isn’t a gimmick and your not paying any extra for it then you would for a regular phone. Its one of the most hardware capable phones on the market.
I have had this problem numerous times rooted or not. Seems to have stooped since flashing custom roms.
Ditto here after flashing different roms (synergy, Airborne etc.) I never get it.
Got it a few times on the stock build…
Im 1000% happy with this phone, I paid 50 bucks for it, traded in my evo and never looked back.I rarely use 3D on this thing, but the true glory lies in the guts…. I mean hell this thing is rocking over 4k on quad on Synergy with ziggys kernel.
It might be a battery problem. My G1 had this exact problem: black screen, buttons all lit up. Batter pulling wouldnt do anything. I called htc, they sent me a new battery and it fixed everything
BATTERY, eh? Holy cow. Would have never thought of that. Going to try and swap out the battery and see if it helps..
The battery makes sense. Right before mine crashes the battery level starts falling like a rock. But the phone isn’t even warm so I don’t think there’s anyway it’s using the power that fast.
Good lord Chris you just gave the trolls more ammo. I hardly think something that has happened to a few people is worthy of a front page story.
There is a story you should probably run to get the attention of Sprint and Motorola. The XPRT and now the Photon with the phone call issue. Can’t hear the caller, caller can’t hear you, until you pull the battery and try again. Judging by the different forums, it’s certainly effecting a lot of people. Certainly more than the couple of people having this problem on the EVO 3D. This would actually be news worthy.
I’m not here to worry about trolls. I worry about our readers.
While I appreciate you telling me what you consider “newsworthy” like I said, in my close vicinity I’ve already come across this issue 3 times plus countless more on Twitter, Phantips, Facebook etc. It’s an issue that needed to be addressed.
Lol. The troll part is a joke.
But the problem with the Photon doesn’t need to be addressed? Look around the different forums. There are probably 50% of us Photon users having the call issue. I’m just worried that since the XPRT is still having the issue, we may not see a fix any time soon. I’m sure getting called out on these sites would help kick Motorola in the rear. Maybe you can help our cause. Lol.
Photon and XPRT will get their issues addressed in future posts, I assure you. Would do it right now but we’re called “Phandroid” not “CallYouOutDroid” =p
I’ve also noticed a similar “call bug” in my Evo 3D as well…. Either way, if you have a post in the forums that you think warrants a post, you should tell everyone to send it into the Phantips (for future reference).
OMG I was searching the internet for this exact photon problem. I got rid of the 3d because of signal issues and now I have the photon which I cannot hear people who call me. Its quite bad. I have to do a battery pull to fix it! I see now i am not alone! I want my 3D back but want it to also not have signal issues (
The last update for the 3d seem to fix most if not all of it’s problems. At least it did for me. Awsome signal, better call quality and no black screen. : )
Get out spammer
the Evo 3D fell far below expectations!!!! I had this phone for 4 weeks, had the same prob. and returned it for the Nexus S. This prob is way too frustrating for a “top of the line” phone. Furthermore, the 3d is all hype. It actually hurts my eyes to look at the 3D photos.
Ive been an android user for 2yrs now, im tired, real tired of “gliches”. Going to iPhone next (hate on that haters)
Good for you! The iPhone may just solve all your problems. I happen to be on the far end of the spectrum from you…I’m really happy with my Evo 3D. :)
I had this exact same issue and outside 30 days and no insurance. I argued all the way up till finally getting an exchange sent to me by Sprint. I hope I have a good one. HTC wanted me to send the phone in for repairs which is out of the question.
Haven’t experienced that issue. (knocks on wood)
Yeah, it was weird. Just totally normal use. Didn’t even have very many apps installed at the time. Black screened (but still backlit) and nothing helped =/
It actually happened to me while I was taking pictures. i panicked so I did a battery pull, but I did wait for a good 5 minutes — the wait was more like an accident. Since I have the Otterbox skin off anyway, I started cleaning it. Upon putting the battery back, it went back to normal.
To everyone that dId the battery pull, how long did you wait before putting it back on?
It’s HTC….nice Sense U.I but thats about it..
hardware is rubbish and build…they just can’t cram hight tech into slim phones. Just don’t have the technology.
Never had a problem with my E3D yet. Knock on wood. This has been the best Android phone ever.
I have had this on mine but I attributed it to the uc/uv that I was doing while screen was off. It was only after a long sleep period. Haven’t had the problem recently with Synergy and the nolights or silverneedle kernels.
When I had the EVO 3D, that happened a few times. At first I thought it was because I put ADW Ex on the device, but turns out I had the same issue happen using Sense. I don;t regret going back to my OG EVO running a Synergy ROM with Sense 2.1/3.0 bits.
Yes, the EVO 3D does have problems. The first 3D I purchased on announce day June 24th, upon shutdown with fastboot disabled, and USB power plugged in, would turn off, but not charge the phone, nor restart until the battery was pulled. I returned that phone on the 29th day at BB. They gave me a new model. I have left fastbook enabled. I have tried different batteries with the same results. Periodically, when I power down the phone, it will charge…but when I attempt to start the phone back up, it will only show a black screen….repeated power-button presses show the icon lights on/off at the bottom of the screen. Removing the battery with a cold boot at the point resumes normal operation. The Sprint store of course claims never to have heard of it….but the dude said he never powers off his phone. I believe its a power off (perhaps with usb charging plugged in), and subsequent restarts. If you never power down, you’ll most likely never have this issue.
It would happen to me while using Youtube on my first and also on my replacement one, battery pull would work but I got tired of it and returned it before my 30 days expired
Today’s update should cure this issue.
I really like my evo 3d, but I did experience this issue before. It occurred to me a few times when viewing youtube. even with this issue, i still like evo 3d a lot.
However, I want to comment on this statement in the article? “Battery pulls, shaking and cursing at the device don’t seem to help “. I thought “battery pull” is the way to reboot the phone when it occurred, at least that works for me.
Mine has crashed before rooting, after rooting and even after flashing a cutom rom and kernel. I have noticed that right before it happens the battery level will start to fall fast. About 1% every 10 seconds. Once it loses about 6-9% it’s crashtime. So far pulling the battery always fixes it.
I’ve had an issue where the back light comes on, the screen stays black, and the capacitive buttons on the bottom light up. The weird thing is that the phone doesn’t freeze up. The OS actually is running and I can unlock the phone and open apps… All while the screen is black. After about 7-10 seconds the screen will light up.
This will happen randomly on incoming calls (pretty annoying trying to answer with a dark screen) and after hitting the wake up button. I’d say it happens maybe 5% of the time and it can occur while plugged into the charger or while running on battery power. It’s not a deal breaker, but it is certainly annoying.
Is this the lock screen ‘half-state’ the update was supposed to fix? Any idea what could be causing this? I’m concerned that this will start happening more and more often until the phone stops working.
I have htc evo and this happened about six months into the phone. I just recieved a new phone, and within 3 days the same thing happened. The screen goes black. I find that it is related to how warm it is outside and/or in my hand. It think that the screen cannot tolerate warm or humid conditions.
Just my opinion.
Add me to the list. I picked-up my phone 6-days ago and it soft-bricks daily, more like 4-10 times per day…that’s pulling the battery each time. Last night it froze three times in a row while trying to take a picture; it worked fine all day today. I’ve reset to factory settings 3 times, Sprint has looked at the phone for a few hours twice and cannot recreate the error. I just took the phone in a few hours ago with it locked, and although i showed up with a locked phone, Sprint held the phone for a few hours and told me it was a software problem and they could not replace the phone, but offered a Motorola Photon as a replacement.
I’m fine with a software problem…but why am i one of the few and will it go away or will I have to pull the battery daily until I buy another phone? I wish HTC-USA would respond to my email or phone calls.
Again, if this is a software issue, why isn’t it wide-spread?