Child Item

Site Totals

61432 Questions Answered 270 Categories

Faulty Proximity Sensor in Galaxy Note 3

I just wanted to make other users aware of an issue being reported by users of the GN3. With me, it started a few weeks ago and gradually got worse. Initially, during a call, the proximity sensor would not activate and sense that I had lifted the phone away from my face. Running my finger over it brought the screen back up. About a week ago, the proximity sensor started to completely fail. During a call, lifting the handset away would not activate the screen. Neither would swiping my finger over the proximity sensor, or using a cloth to clean it. I was unable to hang up phone calls until the other user did.

Another user is reporting it here: https://community.verizonwireless.com/thread/814442

I am posting this on the official Verizon Wireless forums because the first customer representative I spoke to stated that because she could not find the issue on their Verizon site, it was probably an isolated incident (even after I provided the link above to her). She then transferred me to second tier support. With second tier support, the rep was much more helpful. After some initial troubleshooting questions, she had me factory reset the phone again with her on the line. With the issues still persisting, she identified that my phone is still under warranty and is next-day shipping a replacement device.

Issue: Proximity sensor does not activate the screen during a phone call, leaving the screen off and not allowing me to hang up

Troubleshooting steps attempted, but did not result in fixing the issue:

Cleaning the proximity sensor area
Using finger to test the proximity sensor during a phone call (resulted in same off screen)
Removing case
In some cases, pressing any of the physical buttons (power, home) still did not power the screen on in the middle of a phone call
Factory reset of the phone
Blowing air at the ear piece to remove dust (no dust visible)

Some users are reporting that the glass could potentially be weakly glued onto the phone (http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-note-3/323701-note-3-proximity-sensor-issue-during-calls.html). Pressing on the glass near the ear piece firmly sometimes resulted in the proximity sensor re-activating temporarily. This worked for me once, but stopped completely. Other users have disabled the proximity sensor for phone calls and have opted for manually pressing the power button, but I believe this is a poor work around for a device that is $700 full retail.

Other users have tested the sensor and have noted that it's definitely a hardware issue, having gone through the same troubleshooting steps outlined above. If there are any other workarounds you've identified, please post them here. Otherwise, with the number of users reporting failed proximity sensors, Verizon and Samsung should be aware of a possible quality control issues with the first generation of GN3's.

Comments

phillip_greene

There are a whole bunch of similar reports around the internet as well. I used a proximity sensor test app on my phone and it would register the covering of the sensor but would never register uncovering. Good luck around here though. This is "clearly" a customer community and not actively monitored by Verizon reps. Even though it confirms my suspicions it's a phone issue I'm glad I'm not the only one, but at the same time im sorry other folks are having trouble.

Edited for continuity.

Message was edited by: Admin Moderator

flamtap

This seems to be a "known issue" now. I had this problem and took my phone to the Verizon store. They were able to repeat the problem and called in to their tech support, who quickly said it was a known issue and to just replace the phone as it is still under warranty.

So if you have this problem and your Note is under warranty, Verizon should replace it.

inxcess

I disabled the Samsung Push Service and now my Note 3 works perfect. Didn't affect my email accounts nor text messages. I also disabled most of the Samsung apps as I don't use them.

inxcess

I thought I had mine fixed by shutting off the Samsung Push Service. Worked for a few days and started acting up again. My phone is only 3 weeks old so I didn't want to go through the exchange thing for a refurb phone. I called tech support and he asked me to reset the phone, but this time he said to make certain that Automatic Restore was not checked in the back up / reset settings.....very important. Did the factory data reset and now the phone is working great without shutting off anything. Although, I did go back and shut off a lot of bloatware. Hopefully it works for you. Make sure you remove your sd card if you have one before the reset.

Child Item