Imagine locking your Pixel phone and placing it in your pocket, except the phone doesn’t lock, the touch screen is still working, and there’s a good chance an accidental touch has pulled the notification shade.
This and many other glitches like it are frustrating Pixel owners after they installed Google’s big update this week.
The update is causing ghost touches and more
Complaints of buggy lock screens on Pixel phones have been piling up on official and unofficial Google forums.
Based on the reports, the phones are taking a few seconds to lock the screen after the power button is pressed. To make sure the phone is actually locked, Pixel owners are waiting a few seconds every time.
Some are seeing the notification shade respond randomly in both locked and unlocked states. The UI (user interface) actions don’t seem to register the touches, so some actions take more touches than they should. Other lock screen elements don’t dim with the rest.
The following Pixels, some of the best Android phones available now, are struggling with these bugs the most:
Wireless charging and cameras are also glitching in many of these phones after the update. The official forums contain even more bug reports in other parts of the phone UI as well.
“It’s driving me insane”
Pixel owners say the glitches are driving them insane. | Image by Reddit
The lock screen delay and its accidental touches have quickly become frustrating for Pixel owners.
A Reddit post from an official Google account suggested standard troubleshooting steps, but the suggestions didn’t resolve any issues for the pixel user.
Recommended For You
Google support shared instructions for troubleshooting. | Image by Reddit
Google only started rolling out this update on November 10th, so some Pixel owners on T-Mobile’s network haven’t received the update yet, and they seem thankful for the delay.
Google has yet to officially address this slew of Pixel issues, so for now, we don’t know when the bug patches are coming. However, enabling the “tap to wake” feature or disabling face unlock may mitigate the post-lock ghost touches. If you haven’t installed this update on your Pixel yet, it may be wise to turn off auto-updates until Google responds.
Faisal Rasool has been writing about mobile tech for the past ten years. His favorite cousin used to be a mobile technician and, as a kid, Faisal learned how to repair and tweak phones in his workshop. Faisal's first phone was the Samsung Galaxy Europa (released 2010). More Android smartphones followed it, including the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Galaxy S6, Huawei P8, and currently the Galaxy A56.
He's a life-long Android guy because he loves other open-source platforms. He's been covering such platforms for websites like How-To Geek, Android Headlines, Android Police, SlashGear, and now PhoneArena.
Faisal has a bachelor's in English literature and he likes to write stories and paint in his free time.
A discussion is a place, where people can voice their opinion, no matter if it
is positive, neutral or negative. However, when posting, one must stay true to the topic, and not just share some
random thoughts, which are not directly related to the matter.
Things that are NOT allowed:
Off-topic talk - you must stick to the subject of discussion
Offensive, hate speech - if you want to say something, say it politely
Spam/Advertisements - these posts are deleted
Multiple accounts - one person can have only one account
Impersonations and offensive nicknames - these accounts get banned
To help keep our community safe and free from spam, we apply temporary limits to newly created accounts:
New accounts created within the last 24 hours may experience restrictions on how frequently they can
post or comment.
These limits are in place as a precaution and will automatically lift.
Moderation is done by humans. We try to be as objective as possible and moderate with zero bias. If you think a
post should be moderated - please, report it.
Have a question about the rules or why you have been moderated/limited/banned? Please,
contact us.
Things that are NOT allowed:
To help keep our community safe and free from spam, we apply temporary limits to newly created accounts: