How can I fix an Lumia 950xl brightness issue?

[binnyandrews]

Re: Lumia 950xl brightness issue

It was definitely the insider build that caused it because I've rolled back with the WDRT and all is fine again. Got DTTW into the bargain too!

It is not just the insider build but also the production build. I am on 10.0.14393.67 and do have this trouble.

 

[osozu]

Re: Lumia 950xl brightness issue

Hi I have also problem with automatic brightness sometimes it happens that screen goes to lowest brightness, turn off scren an turn on helps, it start happening on latest AU build .67 on th2 builds it was ok. Also windows hello is slower to open phone than on th2 builds. Can anyone confirm that latest .102 AU update fixed this?

 

[Geordie Glazer]

I too have this exact same issue. Soft reset gets rid of it for a few days. It's like the proximity and light sensor aren't working properly. It sometimes gets stuck at a low brightness and trying to change the brightness does nothing. Soft reset it and all is well again, for a few days.

 

[Chandra Sekhar1]

I don't believe this is a fix nor Microsoft is even trying to resolve this issue given that Windows 10 Mobile is a thing of the past. I wish someone finds a hack to install Android on this phone.

The hardware is absolutely phenominal - especially the camera and speed. But Software is a completely different story.

To me, its just a lemon if its running windows.

Here are some of the known bugs that I've seen with this phone:
1. The phone rings, but I can't see who it is - the screen is blank - clicking any of the buttons doesn't help. Still blank screen.
2. The phone rings, it shows the caller, I click caller, it suddenly shows the calander notification while the phone already connects the caller - it doesn't let me go to speaker phone. If have 4 or 5 events which aren't dismissed, it wouldn't let me go to the phone screen to click the speaker phone button until I dismiss each one of the calander notifications.
3. The brightness of the screen goes all the way to the lowest and I can't see the screen at all if there is any light (even room light), and it wouldn't take any brightness setting when I tap the brigtness icon (it does toggle the brightness level on the icon on screen but the screen brightness doesn't change).
4. I want to make a call and I try to click a button to turn it on, it won't turn on. I have to fiddle with the camera sensor couple of times, then it shows the login screen.
5. I need to take a picture and clicked the camera button, the phone doesn't turn on. Again, I need to fiddle around with the sensor for few seconds and sometimes it fixes, sometimes not.

Issues with the software itself:
1. Missed Calls, Voice Messages and Text Messages notification. I love the way iPhone handles these. It shows me right when I turn on the device who are the people who texted or called or left voice messages - right away. I don't need to see if there is a missed call icon and the suffix number to now how many - it doesn't show who until I login and go to the specific app to look. This is really frustrating.
2. I click on the phone Icon and it launches the dialer. Now, I want to search for a person's name while in the dialer - it gives me a 10 digit number pad to type in the name. Really? I need to close out, go to People and then do the search. Why can't there be a tab like the history and favorites - a tab for contacts?
3. Not all videos play on the Windows phone. All my friends who have iPhone or Android will be able to play the forwarded video over MMS or WhatsApp. But it doesn't play on mine. It says its unsupported format.
4. I take a picture, and want to view what I took, it just keeps on doing the finalizing the picture for 10 seconds before I could actually see what I shot. If I take multiple shots, until the optimization/finalization is complete, it wouldn't let me take any more pictures. Couldn't the optimization/finalization be done later after the camera app is closed - in the background?

 

[chsoriano]

I gave up on this issue... thankfully the X3 doesn't suffer from this problem

 

[BMT001]

Re: Lumia 950xl brightness issue

I am also having the same problems. I am on the release preview ring and just started having problems with the last update. It's a huge inconvenience having to restart my phone 3 or 4 times a day. I have also noticed since the last update my battery life is almost half of what it was before and the phone is really hot. Another problem is my contacts I link my contacts. And 10 minutes later they are unlinked already. I love my 950 XL and W10M but if this continues I may have to consider switching back to my Note 5. I own a small business and I use my phone all day. I just need something that works and is reliable.

 

[chsoriano]

Re: Lumia 950xl brightness issue

I am also having the same problems. I am on the release preview ring and just started having problems with the last update. It's a huge inconvenience having to restart my phone 3 or 4 times a day. I have also noticed since the last update my battery life is almost half of what it was before and the phone is really hot. Another problem is my contacts I link my contacts. And 10 minutes later they are unlinked already. I love my 950 XL and W10M but if this continues I may have to consider switching back to my Note 5. I own a small business and I use my phone all day. I just need something that works and is reliable.

Sadly I think this is a device or combination firmware/OS issue. While I was using the 950 XL as a daily device I could go several days without having the problem, and then I'd have a week or so when the device would get stuck in that state 1-2 times per day. But because I was changing builds so frequently (Insider Fast), it's hard to tell if the different OS builds had any effect.

 

[PGrey]

Has anyone tried disabling DTTW, to see if it helps?
When I was using my 950XL as a daily device, that's what I did, when this was happening (relatively) frequently, and it fixed it, completely.

It only lasted for one or maybe two RP builds though, and I went back to DTTW, with a very-occasional screen brightness problem, maybe once/week at that point.

I was also able to "fix" this without a reboot, I'm trying to remember, but I think what I did was go into settings->display, and turn the auto-brightness on/off, or adjusted the overall brightness, but I was able to do it without a reboot.

 

[benualson]

Re: Lumia 950xl brightness issue

I have this same issue. I've owned my 950 xl since April. I've only started noticing the issue within the past month. It happened several times yesterday when I was doing phone calls.

 

[areithropos]

I am in this boat too; an annoying issue indeed.

 

[PGrey]

Has anyone tried disabling DTTW? This completely fixed this for me, at the time.

I turned it back on, because I used the feature so much, but at least I understood a bit more about what was happening.
For me, it seemed to be related to some of the light-sensor features, such as turning off and staying off, when in the dark, such as a pocket, purse, whatever. I had to be careful, to turn off the screen manually, as this feature often got me into the "dark screen problem", if I let it work, in conjunction with DTTW.

 

[chsoriano]

Re: Lumia 950xl brightness issue

I'm pretty sure I had DTTW turned off but still had this issue. I'm no longer using the 950XL daily, but I could try it to make sure. I'll try to remember to check the settings

 

[PGrey]

For me, I experienced this once, before the DTTW firmware/software update. After that, if I had DTTW enabled, it was pretty frequent, if I just put the phone in my pocket, without hitting the power button.
Either turning off DTTW or remembering to hit the power button to sleep before pocketing fixed it for me, more or less (the DTTW disable was more reliable, but that could be because it didn't require me to remember to do something too).
I agree, it's a VERY frustrating issue, and I'm sure it's fixable, but I don't think this type of thing is being considered a P0 bug, anymore...