Search button doesn't work (but long-press does!) Help =)

[lifebringer]

Hello,

I've had my Droid X since about a week after launch.

Today I noticed that the Search button isn't really working. Pressing it on the home screens or in applications does nothing. Also, sometimes when I press the search button, there are also wierd "soft" restarts (as I would call them) where the phone goes black and then appears the "Droid X" logo on startup (but not the full Motorola logo when you first power on the phone), then the phone starts up again. I can reproduce this consistently by opening Gmail/WikiDroid or a handful of other apps and pressing the Search button. The screen goes black, then the Droid X logo appears and the phone restarts (again, it's a quicker restart than a full boot).

PHYSICALLY, the phone is fine; the button actually works fine, as pressing and holding the search button brings up a voice search without problems!

I use the button pretty often, so I removed the last few applications I updated with the market, including a few that have background processes. Same problem. I'm rooted, but uninstalled Titanium Backup (to eliminate its background process as a possible cause) and the WiFi tethering programs aren't running -- and I've been rooted for a while, this problem isn't related. Still on 1.13.604.MB810 (2.1-update1)... Update: I uninstalled a LOT more applications that were recently installed. I may not have used the search button for a few days, but I'm certain I uninstalled past the point where I must have used it last.

Menu button > Search does nothing as well! Good to be sure there is nothing wrong with the physical button. This is a software problem caused by some kind of recent change, which is strange considering I've uninstalled several WEEK'S worth of applications. Can applications change the core OS?? I thought this was a clean, Linux-based OS, but this is Windows-like behavior. Strange. And I refuse to do a factory reset!

I can't even click "Search" (the touch-button at top right) in the Market now!!


Any ideas?




I'm also curious if this is worth checking with Verizon about. Again, the button works fine physically, so I can't for the life of me figure out what changed recently to cause this problem! Or, should I just wait for the 2.2 update and hope that fixes it? Yelp!

Thanks!

Terminal Emulator commands? (sorry im trying to learn fast) ;-)
Is this exactly how's its supposed to be typed? thx for the patience.

No patience needed! I was in the same boat... This problem happened with Sapphire 1.1.1, and some users of Sapphire (pdroid, skull_one, shiodooru) figured out you can make a symlink to get it to work again (assuming it's the same problem, which it sure sounds like it). I'm just a messenger!

The easiest way to mount /system if you don't want to mess with the commands is to open Root Explorer, go into the /system directory, then at the top right click "Mount R/W". Then switch over to terminal emulator, type "su" and allow superuser access, then type that full line exactly how it is above. I *think* that's all you should have to do... reboot, and see if it worked.

After a few tries (improperly mounted the folder, and one try I had an existing file with that name) ran this command where it didn't give me an error after executing and presumably the link was created. I unmounted and rebooted, but no change. Still no search.

Any more ideas? I cannot hold out without being able to search the Android Market (that's pretty crippling to an Android phone!)...this is ridiculous. Who is to blame? Google? Motorola? Some third party app that somehow broke the search today?

Any more ideas? I cannot hold out without being able to search the Android Market (that's pretty crippling to an Android phone!)...this is ridiculous. Who is to blame? Google? Motorola? Some third party app that somehow broke the search today?

you should still be able to use the search icon located in the upper right of the android market app. i rarely use my search button. i have so many other ways to search....of those with bad search buttons, does the search button on the pullout keyboard still work?

Clicking the search button in the upper right of the market does the same thing mentioned in my thread: does a "soft" reboot of the phone. It's the same thing as going into Maps/Gmail/Wikidroid/etc and clicking the search button once. Again, doing a long-press on the search button brings up voice search just fine...

Also, I downloaded and messed with a GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk someone posted on these forums (put that in the /system/app/ folder (and the /data/app folder under another name...no luck either way, including using the "ln" link command referenced in that thread...

[lifebringer]

I did a factory reset, which fixed it. Wasn't as bad as I thought...thank God for Titanium Backup!