If you’re like lots of other Samsung Galaxy S4 owners, then you’ve probably updated to the latest and greatest version of Android dubbed Kit-Kat. Don’t be fooled, this latest inclination of Android OS is anything but sweet.
An issue that seems to plague Samsung phones, the S4 in particular, but also most likely the Note series of phones (amongst others) is the touch screen has intermittent responsive issues.
For me, the lower half of the phone buttons and touch screen would not respond to any touches (sporadically). The only way I got the phone to respond again was hitting the lock button and then pressing it again, the screen comes good again, but only temporarily.
Resetting the phone, factory resets and reinstalling the OS don’t even fix the issue. They’re temporary fixes but ultimately the response issues are due to bugs in one or more components of the new update. It seems too much focus was put on marketing and not enough on testing.
The fix I’ve found through trial and error comes down to a little service called WatchOn. The WatchOn service handles the universal remote functionality of the phone, the one aspect you probably never use.
- Go to settings, More and then Application Manager.
- Scroll across to, “ALL” and look for “WatchON” then press it
- Then you’ll see a few buttons, press on “Disable”
- You’ll get a message about causing problems, blah, blah. Press OK. You will then be prompted to install the factory version, say OK to that as well.
- The WatchON service will reinstall itself and after it’s done, press the “Enable” button. It’ll be one of two buttons how pressable.
That should be it. Supposedly disabling the GPS functionality also helps as does setting your lock screen widgets to “Clock”
If none of the above fixes work for you, you might have encountered a known issue with the Galaxy S4’s digitizer. My partner experienced the same issue, the bottom half of her phone stopped responding, no software fix/reset addressed the issue and a return under warranty revealed the digitizer had failed. This is reportedly a very common issue with the S4 and I would advise you get your phone checked out (especially if under warranty) if no fix works for you.
I have a Note 2 with a similar intermittent issue, for example, sometimes I type a text and every 5 letters it skips one :|. Nice to see I am not the only one…
Regarding the fix, I don’t have that service running because Note 2 has no remote functionality ( no IR ) and GPS is turned off but still the problem appears from time to time. Hoping the next OS update will fix this.
Thank you SO much for posting this! I was having an issue with my back and menu buttons on the touch screen of my Samsung galaxy s4 and I thought it was water damage or something but found your post and decided to try it. At first WatchOn didn’t show up in my list under settings> all apps but I found it in the Google play store and hit u uninstall thank you! thank you! thank you!
I also had problems with the touch screen on my S4 it would stop working at random time. Locking and unlocking the device would help sometimes but what really worked for me was setting a limit on the number of background processes.
On the S4 go to Settings > More > Developer options > Scroll to bottom > Select Limit background processes > set it to 3 or 4.
To unlock the Developer Options on the S4 go to Settings > More > About Device > tap on Build number until you see the notification that developer options is unlocked.
Great advice. After you install a few apps you can run into issues with lag due to too many background processes, that trick will also potentially save you some battery life as well. Thanks for stopping by and sharing.
awwwww shiiet my main man … my phone fake
Is it called samsung watch on or just watch on? I’m having difficulty even getting to the apps manager and scrolling thru to try n find it…
I can’t find it in the playstore
My wife’s phone has had this problem since she’s had it I just put in easy mode then back again now works perfectly.
Since the phone touchscreen refused to press how do I get to this place without pressing the phone
..
Yes, my screen doesn’t respond so how do i get anywhere in Settings to try any of these fixes??
HI, Just took off my old s4 glass being that it was cracked. I tried it with the glass off and it was “touching itself”. The digitizer cable has no damage. It works every once in a while for like 10 min’s but sometimes it gets really bad. While I took the glass off and the digitizer started peeling with it in the top left corner. Could there be interference from the case? Any ideas?
My phone screen does not work but the button Do work I can only talk into the phone but that’s no help I can get calls but can’t pick them up somebody tell me phone is not even two days old
My phone screen does not work but the button Do work I can only talk into the phone but that’s no help I can get calls but can’t pick them up somebody tell me phone is not even two days old
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