Help please! Startup splash screens work, then display goes black!

tlogank

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I had just installed the Power Control widget. Was setting up an option for screen brightness and the phone immediately went dark. I turned it off/on, took out battery, etc. and I still can't see the home screen. I know the display works because I can see the Samsung and Verizon splash screens when booting up the phone. After that it just goes dark. Also, I can call it and hear the ringtone, but no display. Anyone help please? REALLY don't want to do a restore to default, but if that's my only option I will.
 

ibebyi

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hmm.. if you are absolutely sure that the power control widget caused it, couldn't you uninstall the apk using adb? Just a guess.
 

idesign

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Same thing here!

I had that same problem... I installed the power widget. It was working great and then when I made a custom widget and put it on my home screen, when I pressed the settings option it turned my screen black!

I've rebooted having to take the battery out and have performed a factory reset by holding down the volume buttons and hitting the power button but every time I turn on the phone it will show the start up screens and then go black! I have to take the battery out to shut it off.

I can even hear when it gets a text message or updated but can't view anything and have to take battery out.

I had to get it replaced by Verizon with a new one, but this is a software problem and should be fixable without replacing the entire phone.

Any help or suggestions?... because I'm stumped
 

dr0idg0d23

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You can use odin.

Download:
Odin(THIS IS THE PROGRAM USED TO FLASH SOFTWARE ON A BRICKED PHONE): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/458252/Odin%...in3%20v1.3.exe
Odin Restore file for /system(WILL WIPE PHONE AND RETURN TO STOCK): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/458252/Odin%...System.tar.md5
Odin Restore file for kernel(JUST RESTORES STOCK KERNEL): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/458252/Odin%20Files/Stock-i500-VZW-Kernel.tar.md5
Odin Restore file for recovery(JUST RESTORES STOCK RECOVERY): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/458252/Odin%...covery.tar.md5
PIT file for use in Odin Restores(NEEDED FOR ALL SYSTEM RESTORES): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/458252/Odin%...00-VZW-pit.pit

DOWNLOAD ALL OF THE ABOVE AND STORE IN A FOLDER ON YOUR DESKTOP FOR USE IN THE FUTURE BECAUSE CHANCES ARE YOU WILL NEED THEM AGAIN.
NOTE:I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU COMPLETELY BRICK YOUR PHONE THOUGH IT WOULD BE EXTREMELY HARD TO DO.

1. Start odin.

2. Put phone in download mode: remove battery and hold volume down while plugging into computer. (you will know phone is properly connected because one of the top left boxes will tun yellow and say "(com)4" or some other number after (com) it does not have to be a 4.

3.Be sure auto restart is checked on the left. this should be the only option on left of screen checked.

4. click on pit, then double click the pit file you downloaded from above.

5. click on PDA and select the system.tar file you downloaded from above.

6. Click start. (IMPORTANT: DO NOT UNPLUG PHONE DURING THIS PROCESS UNTIL IT IS COMPLETED AND THE PHONE HAS RESTARTED AND THE BOX AT THE TOP OF ODIN SAYS PASS.) The phone will remain off at this point until you reinsert the battery. once phone is fully loaded back to lock screen it is safe to unplug and close odin.

7. You are done. you may now setup and sync your phone, root and, reinstall clockwork.

(NOTE: Your phone does NOT have to be rooted for this to work.)
 

aquid

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Same here.

Soon after I install the Brightness Toggle widget and another dimmer, my screen went blank. This is my first Android phone and I am new to it.

Things I've noticed:

Occasionally I can get the screen to flash for about 0.1 of a second to get a glimpse that it is indeed running. I had it in slient mode when I was trying to dim the screen, so no sounds to tell. Seems these brief flashes may correspond to alerts or pop ups.

Even though the phone is on and operational, the screen does not accept touches when it is blank. I've a few times been able to tap it in that split second it does come on and get it to take that touch, but seems unresponsive to other touches and quickly blanks again after pattern lock timeout.

Since I had a pattern lock on (young kids), the hard reset does not really hard reset. The pattern lock is still set after a reset as well as other settings apparently - like brightness. I don't know if the hard reset would work with no lock?

I finally downloaded the USB drivers from Samsung support to get the Gadget Serial driver needed for Odin. I could not get the phone to connect PC Studio since it was locked and unresponsive.

I downloaded the above files and followed the instructions. 3:44 minutes later it succeeded and the phone rebooted with battery added, showed the SAMSUNG, Galaxy S, Verizon Wireless logos, then blank again. With the occasional glimpse, I can still see that it has the pattern lock screen and not the original slide to unlock. It looks as though not all settings are getting reset.

Any more ideas? I was hoping not to have to return this phone to Verizon because it had not had any problems with lags or GPS in the 2 days I had it before the blank screen problem.

I would appreciate any help you more experienced users may have.

Thanks!
Jeremy
 

dr0idg0d23

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Are you still having this problem? If so let me know and I will send you a link to a thread that will fix it.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using DroidForums App
 

NOsquid

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Post up the link, lots of people have this problem and do a search. It happened to me too a month ago, lots of brightness widgets seem to cause it - I have searched many forums and found the same story. Verizon exchanged my phone without any fuss.
 

aquid

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Yes, please post the helpful link

It's bound to still be causing people a problem. I now stay away from brightness related controls, but would really like to be able to dim the screen a little more at night.

I tried 6-8 hard resets to no avail with the lock pattern set. I flashed only the /system with odin as mentioned here. After several days messing with the phone, I just exchanged it with Verizon. They hadn't heard of the problem at my local store, but gave me no trouble. If I'd have kept it longer to mess with, I would have tried flashing more to reset the phone. Adb was not available for use because I could not USB mount the locked up phone.

I have no GPS issues with the second phone, like the first. I have noticed quite a few pauses/lags on the second phone while dragging on the screens or hitting the back button that I had not noticed on the first.

Maybe about time now to root and clean up the bloat and customize. I've just been checking out a stock android phone from Verizon so far. I can't believe around 100+ processes running on this phone. Crazy! I'm new to android, but have been running linux approaching 2 decades now. I would have guessed around 1/3 of that many processes would be needed.

Post the helpful link please.

Thanks,
Jeremy
 
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