[CM10] UPDATE 8-16 | POTENTIAL FIX | In-Call Blackscreen/Proximity Discussion - Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE

UPDATE:
It might just be fixed! I've received permission from deck to post this test build link here on XDA. Flash it and tell us what you experience! If you still get the black screen, take a cloth or use your shirt and wipe the area to the left of the HTC logo on your screen.
http://d-h.st/d8A
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Click to collapse
So this thread is for those of us who simply cannot get our proximity sensors to function properly in-call. I will attempt to explain what's going on, my ideas on possible explanations, and why this is actually a critical issue.
If you don't have this issue, please don't waste our time by telling us "oh I've never had this issue and I've been flashing since such and such, it must be your hardware". It's not our hardware, and if you don't have any help to offer, please don't further frustrate us, thanks. I have tested my proximity sensor with several different monitoring tools, ROMs, and even HTC's built in DIAG tool. I do not need you to tell me that my hardware is bad, I'm very much aware my hardware is completely functional.
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What's supposed to happen?
When you place a phone call, and audio goes through your earpiece, when you bring the phone up to your ear, the phone will utilize the proximity and light sensors to shut the screen off, so that you don't accidentally press any buttons with your cheek or face. It's incredibly useful.
What's actually happening in CMX?
In the CM10 previews that are being released in the IRC, for a smaller subset of users, when you make an outgoing call, moments after the call is connected, the screen will go black, regardless of whether or not you've put the phone up to your face. No button on the phone does anything. The call still goes through, and you can hear the other end and the other end can hear you. But you simply cannot get the screen to turn back on.
How do we get the screen turned on again?
There's several ways to get the screen back on, none of them are convenient.
You have to wait for the other person to end the call. This is extremely problematic if the other end does not pick up and you are forced to leave a voicemail message.
You have to take a very bright light source and put the phone directly up to the light source. The scren will turn on. You have to be very, very quick about this because if the phone moves just a tiny bit away from the light source, the screen shuts off and you're back to square one again.
You can take any IR-based TV remote and aim it directly at the speaker grille on the front of your phone and press a button.
You can press and hold the power button for 15 seconds until the capacitive buttons start blinking, and when they stop blinking, the phone reboots.
NEW! You can plug in any headphones into the 3.5mm jack, and the screen will turn on and stay on. Thanks yohaq from the IRC.
NEW! It is possible to bypass the issue altogether by using a bluetooth headset. Thanks to people in IRC for figuring this out.
As you can see, none of those are really realistic.
Why is this happening?
Let me get this out of the way right now; it's not a case of faulty proximity sensors/hardware. The call behavior functions exactly the way it should be in Sense ROMs and stock ROMs. I have a few ideas as to why it's going on.
The proximity sensor is simply just not being used at all, and only the light sensor is being used.
There might be slight variations in proximity sensor drivers among different phones, and for that reason, the "incorrect" driver might be causing the varied proximity sensors to malfunction.
The proximity sensor may not be sensitive enough.
arrogantbastard has a very thorough breakdown with his conclusions as to why. Check it out here: Post
What could be possible short-term fixes?
Now, I don't quite know how many of these (if any) are even possible, but here's a few ideas I have. Because my "if you don't have this issue please don't bother with this thread" forewarning is apparently rocket science to a few people, when I suggest that we try and remove files, I'm obviously referring to just us removing said files, not deck removing the functionality for everyone. Normally, I'd assume this was obvious, given the title of this part is "short-term fixes", but...
Completely disable the proximity and light sensors through the deletion of files (I highly doubt this would work)
Implement a Jewel-specific option (please note how it says "option" and not "setting that is forced upon everyone") to force the screen to stay on during calls (this seems like the most likely)
Implement a Jewel-specific control to tweak the sensitivity of the light/proximity sensors.
What steps do we need to take from here?
Honestly, we need AOSP developer exposure. So many people are shrugging it off as "bad hardware" when we know that's not the case. The following from you would be helpful:
Your experiences
If you've had issues before and now they are fixed, tell us how many days of testing you've done and how long your calls have been.
Your workarounds
Your ADB logcats (please attach them here)
Other Resources:
Proximity Issue in CM7 - Bugtracker
HTC EVO 4G LTE - Test Your Proximity Sensor
Arrogantbastard's extremely thorough dissection of the ROM/kernel in comparison with others:
arrogantbastard said:
That's a cool little app[referring to Android Sensor Box]. I played around with it in a couple of different lighting conditions. Here's what I observed:
{No case, no screen protector, ever}
On CM10, Build date Aug 15 02:31:06 PDT 2012, dirty flashed over 8/14:
- In "normally" lit room, with incandescent bulbs: light sensor reports 320 luxes, prox sensor very responsive toggling between 0 and 9.0 cm. Works as expected while in calls.
- Turn off lights (not completely dark, there is a tv on and ambient light from another room): light sensor reports 90 luxes, prox sensor defaults to 0 no matter what. Returns to 9.0 when lights turned on. Can place a call, screen goes dark when I place my hand over the sensor (as expected.) Screen will *not* come back when removing my hand. It will when I turn the lights on.
- Another room lit by fluorescent lights. Subjectively brighter to the eye (more white), but light sensor reports 225 luxes. Prox sensor starts at 9.0 and toggles to 0 when waving a hand over it, but will not toggle back to 9.0 when I remove my hand. Toggles back to 9.0 when I move into first room with incandescent lights. Same in-call behavior described with lights off above.
On Viper4G, Awesomesauce 1.3 kernel:
- Exact same behavior as above in CM10. That was not expected.
Viper4G, stock kernel:
- Light sensor reports same values as above, prox sensor toggles between 0 and 9.0 in *all* lighting conditions, even with the lights off with very little ambient lighting in the room. Screen turns on and off as expected in calls in *all* conditions.
MeanROM v1.5 (last version I nanded before jumping to Viper), stock kernel:
- Same as Viper/stock kernel.
Conclusions:
- In no case did I see any gradient values as reported by tbird, it always toggled between 0 and 9.0
- In-call behavior correlates well with what Android Sensor Box reports, which makes it a great little testing app
- Sense ROMs/Stock kernel works in *all* lighting conditions
- Sense ROM/Awesomsauce - does not work correctly in all conditions
- CM10 does not work correctly in all conditions
- It appears there is some sensitivity to measured light condition (or a sensitivity to light color/temperature) that is accounted or calibrated for within stock Sense that is not accounted for in CM10.
- Viper/stock kernel works in all conditions. Viper/Awesomesauce kernel does not. That leads me to believe that the kernel plays at least some part in the behavior.
- Anything else?
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As of now, anything you guys can do would be tremendously helpful. In my eyes there is nothing else stopping the CMX builds from being daily builds.

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Id like to state i have the same exact issue, and also elaborate a bit further.
When you place a call, the screen will go black. All lights on the phone turn off. Capacative lights, notification lights, screen backlight, all of it. These will not turn on unless the call is ended by the person you are calling, or by shining a bright light into the sensor. Also you cannot actually hear the phone ringing whatsoever on the CM10 side while the call is being placed. During this black screen time, there is no audio, no screen, and all of a sudden you will jsut hear "Hello" from the person you are calling. Audio only works when the call actually is connected to the other party and they start talking, nothing during the actual ringing of the phone. Once the call has been ended, the screen remains black, however the capacative lights will illuminate. Once they illuminate you can press the power button on the device to turn the screen back on.
i can confirm plugging in something into the audio jack makes the screen come on and stay on as well, but once unplugged, the screen goes back to an off state

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I'd like to state that another temp-quick fix is to plug headphones, or any other 3.5mm jack into the headphones. The proximity sensor is only in use while phone audio goes through the earpiece at the top, but if you're on bluetooth or any sort of headphone/3.5mm jack the screen stays on. It's easier to carry around headphones than it is to carry around a remote or a flashlight haha. And when I'm in a rush, I can't wait for the phone to reboot, the other person to hang up, or for the call to go to voice-mail.
Edit: I just realized liquid just edited his response haha, sorry for the double post!

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yohaq said:
I'd like to state that another temp-quick fix is to plug headphones, or any other 3.5mm jack into the headphones. The proximity sensor is only in use while phone audio goes through the earpiece at the top, but if you're on bluetooth or any sort of headphone/3.5mm jack the screen stays on. It's easier to carry around headphones than it is to carry around a remote or a flashlight haha. And when I'm in a rush, I can't wait for the phone to reboot, the other person to hang up, or for the call to go to voice-mail.
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Thanks for the suggestion, it's been added to the OP.

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yohaq said:
I'd like to state that another temp-quick fix is to plug headphones, or any other 3.5mm jack into the headphones. The proximity sensor is only in use while phone audio goes through the earpiece at the top, but if you're on bluetooth or any sort of headphone/3.5mm jack the screen stays on. It's easier to carry around headphones than it is to carry around a remote or a flashlight haha. And when I'm in a rush, I can't wait for the phone to reboot, the other person to hang up, or for the call to go to voice-mail.
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i can confirm this to be true, however i jsut cut the end off an old set of headphones. even just the plug stub works to turn the screen on lol

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Sooooooooooooooo Annoying
I agree. Ive been having the same problem since CM9. Everytime I revert to sense rom (Viper) the problem disappears, so I doubt this is a hardware issue. Mine occurs during phone calls and essentially renders the phone useless because I cant get the screen to turn on until the other person ends the call. The only 2 fixes that I have used are as follows:
1. Shining a bright light on the sensor
2. Rubbing my finger on the screen where the sensors are located (possibly due to acute change in light entering the the sensor???)
I did a bit of research and found a similar prob on cm 7 bug tracker which has since been since been resolved. There were at least 22 others with similar complaint, so Im sure this is a valid concern.
Of note, I noticed that there was a constant red light being emitted from one of the sensors the other night, not sure how that is related but seems a bit strange.
Also worth mentioning is that this problem occurs with and without screen covers, I currently have a ZAGG screen cover around the entire phone.

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htcman12 said:
I agree. Ive been having the same problem since CM9. Everytime I revert to sense rom (Viper) the problem disappears, so I doubt this is a hardware issue. Mine occurs during phone calls and essentially renders the phone useless because I cant get the screen to turn on until the other person ends the call. The only 2 fixes that I have used are as follows:
1. Shining a bright light on the sensor
2. Rubbing my finger on the screen where the sensors are located (possibly due to acute change in light entering the the sensor???)
I did a bit of research and found a similar prob on cm 7 bug tracker which has since been since been resolved. There were at least 22 others with similar complaint, so Im sure this is a valid concern.
Of note, I noticed that there was a constant red light being emitted from one of the sensors the other night, not sure how that is related but seems a bit strange.
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Can you link to that?

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94tbird said:
Id like to state i have the same exact issue, and also elaborate a bit further.
When you place a call, the screen will go black. All lights on the phone turn off. Capacative lights, notification lights, screen backlight, all of it. These will not turn on unless the call is ended by the person you are calling, or by shining a bright light into the sensor. Also you cannot actually hear the phone ringing whatsoever on the CM10 side while the call is being placed. During this black screen time, there is no audio, no screen, and all of a sudden you will jsut hear "Hello" from the person you are calling. Audio only works when the call actually is connected to the other party and they start talking, nothing during the actual ringing of the phone. Once the call has been ended, the screen remains black, however the capacative lights will illuminate. Once they illuminate you can press the power button on the device to turn the screen back on.
i can confirm plugging in something into the audio jack makes the screen come on and stay on as well, but once unplugged, the screen goes back to an off state
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Sounds like you don't have Touch sounds enabled. Try that. This was fixed though (for me) on the 8/15 build of CMX, so I don't have to have Touch sounds enabled for calls to work properly, but it does have to be enabled for Google Now to work properly.
---------- Post added at 11:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:07 PM ----------
htcman12 said:
Of note, I noticed that there was a constant red light being emitted from one of the sensors the other night, not sure how that is related but seems a bit strange.
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The red light turns on when the sensor is turning the screen off. The light will stay on for a while usually, unless you can get the sensor to turn the screen back on.

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htcman12 said:
Of note, I noticed that there was a constant red light being emitted from one of the sensors the other night, not sure how that is related but seems a bit strange.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe that light is from the proximity sensor. I'm not sure on that, but I think that is what it is. I think that is why the "remote control" thing works because it is picking up the IR from the remote. I'm not a hardware guys, so I certainly don't want to speculate too much.
Also, I'm assuming that if I want to post a logcat, I need to record it during the time this issue is happening? Any filtering I need to do on the log or just dump everything?

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Here is a thread I found that dealt with another phone's proximity sensor not working properly.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1658474
Steps are given on how to disable the proximity sensor altogether using a couple apps. One to identify what driver is being used to control the proximity sensor, and the other to actually disable the driver. I found another app, "Hardware Info", that gives detailed information about our phones hardware. CM3602 is the title being given to the proximity and light sensors.
After googling, it looks like CM3602 is a chip that controls multiple sensors and functions. In the app "Android Sensor Box" you can see that the light sensor, as well as all the other sensors on the phone are working great except the proximity sensor.
When using "Hardware Disabler", I can't seem to find CM3602 in the list of drivers to control. There is an option to rescan in different folders on your device, but the app is sorely out of date and it doesn't seem to want to rescan to find more drivers. Maybe there is a better app that can control drivers?

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Thanks for this thread. I have nothing to add to what has already been said other than I have the same issue. It works perfectly in any Sense based ROM, so I know it's software, not hardware.
I was wondering if it's actually useful to deck and toast to post logcats here? Do they lurk XDA enough to actually see them or should we be posting on IRC if/when we catch them there?

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arrogantbastard said:
Thanks for this thread. I have nothing to add to what has already been said other than I have the same issue. It works perfectly in any Sense based ROM, so I know it's software, not hardware.
I was wondering if it's actually useful to deck and toast to post logcats here? Do they lurk XDA enough to actually see them or should we be posting on IRC if/when we catch them there?
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Please do! The group policy on my work machine prevents me from running the adb executable. Post as many logcats as you wish.

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For further reassurance that your proximity sensor is NOT broken, please check this link here while running a Sense ROM to test it.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1677205
Thanks fella12 from IRC!

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arrogantbastard said:
Thanks for this thread. I have nothing to add to what has already been said other than I have the same issue. It works perfectly in any Sense based ROM, so I know it's software, not hardware.
I was wondering if it's actually useful to deck and toast to post logcats here? Do they lurk XDA enough to actually see them or should we be posting on IRC if/when we catch them there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
we can direct them to the link with all our complaints and symptoms in one location....will likely make diagnosing problem easier
---------- Post added at 09:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:42 PM ----------
Someone on the IRC channel posted as follows:
"i made 6 calls in the car, screen worked all 6 times. disconnected bluetooth, made a call, black screen of death"
hmmmmm, not sure what to make of this????

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I've added the Bluetooth workaround to the main post.

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megazac1 said:
Sounds like you don't have Touch sounds enabled. Try that. This was fixed though (for me) on the 8/15 build of CMX, so I don't have to have Touch sounds enabled for calls to work properly, but it does have to be enabled for Google Now to work properly.
---------- Post added at 11:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:07 PM ----------
The red light turns on when the sensor is turning the screen off. The light will stay on for a while usually, unless you can get the sensor to turn the screen back on.
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I am on 8/15 and have been using cmx since 8/2. Proximity issue in all builds for me. I have tried both with touch sounds enabled and disabled and it doesnt make any difference whatsoever

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htcman12 said:
Someone on the IRC channel posted as follows:
"i made 6 calls in the car, screen worked all 6 times. disconnected bluetooth, made a call, black screen of death"
hmmmmm, not sure what to make of this????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My guess is that on Bluetooth, the phone isn't expecting your face to be mashed up against it, so no need to kill the screen. Also, if you were to be browsing your phone (looking up contacts, reading email, etc) while on a Bluetooth call, having the screen shut off every time your thumb got too close to the upper left corner would be irritating.

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LiquidSolstice said:
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[/LIST]
What could be possible short-term fixes?
Now, I don't quite know how many of these (if any) are even possible, but here's a few ideas I have.
Completely disable the proximity and light sensors through the deletion of files (I highly doubt this would work)
Implement a Jewel-specific option to force the screen to stay on during calls (this seems like the most likely)
What steps do we need to take from here?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, but I don't want to lose functionality so that the minority can get it working.
Most people don't have this issue. It's something different about your phones.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

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Rxpert said:
Sorry, but I don't want to lose functionality so that the minority can get it working.
Most people don't have this issue. It's something different about your phones.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
I'm sorry, this is going to come off as rude, so I'm just going to say it again.
If you're not experiencing this issue, feel free to go find another thread to post in. I am getting really sick and tired of people who don't have the issue telling me that there is just "something wrong with my phone". There is nothing wrong with my phone. 4 different diagnostic utilities including HTC's built in DIAG tell me that my proximity sensor is just fine.
You wouldn't lose functionality. If you stopped and thought about what I said for two seconds, you would realize that the "possible fix" would ONLY apply to people trying to figure out how to fix this issue. Obviously deck is not going to destroy functionality by globally removing the files for the entire EVO 4G LTE CM10 branch. When I proposed deleting files as a short-term solution, that meant it was just that, a short term solution.
So let me say this again in really firm terms; if you don't have this issue, you don't need to be in this thread. Thanks.

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I think i found the problem, not sure exactly how to fix, bt i think ive found it.
I am using the "Android Sensor Box" app from the market. In Sense when I test the proximity sensor, the values range from 0.0 to 9.0 as i move my finger closer and further from the phones proximity sensor. It seems there is a great range of values it can read, such as 1.1, 2.4, 4.7, 6.8, 7.9, 8.3, 9.0, ect and everything in between 0.0 and 9.0. In CM10 however, it only reads 0.0 and 9.0, basically On or off. It seems the lack of resolution in this dataset is what is causing the issues for the proximity sensor.
Now I have been having the issue all along. Ive been using a Steinhill Screen Protector, and a seidio Case. In sense the issue was never apparent. In CM10 it never failed. I removed my screen protector and the issue did not resolve itself. But i never tried without the screen protector AND the case. Removing both and Viola, the proximity sensor in CM10 works like a charm. I made 15 calls and it performed flawlessly 15 times
It seems that we need more resolution in the sensor in CM10 for it to function properly. That being said i firmly believe that if the resolution of the sensor cannot be improved, the real issue comes down to screen protectors and more specifically, the ones that do NOT have cutouts for the proximity sensor. Zagg users who have the cutout do not seem top be experiencing the issues on IRC. Those who use the steinhill ones seem to have it, like me.