Hey all, just wanted to let you in on some interesting problem I am encountering with my Nexus 5. Posting this here because it seems to me that it is a software (Android OS) problem; see below.
It’s about 2 years old now and having a returning issue that I had when I just got the phone. It was fixed within warranty then and I haven’t had the problem since. I have done some google searching, but cannot find my problem. Searching is difficult because of the nature of the problem.
When my Nexus 5 (stock Android 6.01) is turned on, it no longer responds to the volume and power buttons.
Holding the power button long enough will restart my phone, but the “Power Off” UI button never appears on my screen.
Booting works fine, phone touch screen works fine, I can boot into FASTBOOT and navigate the menu using the volume and power buttons.
I can select Recovery Mode and start it, but get stuck at the “No Command” screen. No amount of holding volume buttons, spamming volume up, or holding the power button simultaneously has any effect. Only if I hold my power button long enough it will reboot again.
The result is that I can basically do anything with the phone while I leave my screen on. When the screen goes off, any music that I had playing continues, but there is no way to turn the screen on again as the phone does not respond to any of the three buttons (volume up, volume down, power).
At first I thought the buttons might be broken… But that doesn’t explain why they respond perfectly well in FASTBOOT… So, it has to be some software problem. This behaviour started today 01/03/16 around 16:30 (GMT + 1). My carrier is T-Mobile Netherlands. Maybe some update messed it up, or…? I’m basically clueless lol.
I will try a full phone reset soon and let you in on the result. In the meantime; any ideas? Including ideas on how to search (all I’m getting is results on broken buttons)?
Firstly as far as a fix I would probably just recommend a full reset, and if that doesn't solve your problem then a reinstall of the OS from a downloadable factory ROM.
There's likely something along the lines wrong with the software driver that handles button press input, and as that's likely on the system partition, a factory reset without the re-installation from an image may not fix it.
I'm not an engineer so I can't say that I know too much about it, but I remember reading a while back when Android was really young that Android handles button input in a similar manner to ACPI on a computer. This could happen on computers too if your ACPI drivers were broken or missing, which was possible way back when Windows was young. The buttons obviously work, and the firmware/BIOS before said software layer recognizes the input.
It could also by some chance be some app, or combination of apps installed that only on your hardware, changes the RAM in just a way that breaks this software layer. Incredibly weird and strange issues like that are not that uncommon still.
I discovered a new issue; my phone wasn't charging anymore. This lead me to believe the issue had something to do with the battery. So.. I removed the back cover, unscrewed the larger plate at the top of the phone and disconnected and reconnected the battery. Now my phone is charging and everything is working again (including lock and volume buttons).
The first thing I'm thinking about is an issue in RAM, but then the problem should have been fixed after draining the phone once or restarting. As BlueKoda said; probably a driver issue.
So, if anyone encounters a similar problem; try reconnecting the battery. I should have thought of this before, but I didn't expect it would solve anything.