Can't slide to unlock iPhone

I get this too sometimes. Even when I go to slide to answer a phone call. It happened on my 1st gen. & now it has happened a few times on my 3GS...So far I haven't found a solution.

ive also had this a couple of times. If its happening on 3G AND 3GS devices then its pretty much nailed down as a software issue.

The hardware is not properly handling the touch screen. This is not normal, and there's no settings mistake you can make which will cause this.

Give AppleCare a call. They will walk you through some basic steps, such as forcing the iPhone to restart, and, quite possibly, doing a full Restore on the phone from your most recent backup, and if that doesn't cure the problem they will arrange for you to swap out your iPhone for a replacement.
--Bob

Same problem here. This behavior began after the 3.0 update. The only way I have found to remedy it is to do a re-boot. After re-boot, phone is fine for a while, then the unlock problem returns. (3G 16GB)

I thought about exchanging the 3GS, but I figured there wasn't much of a point if my first phone did this as well. But maybe I'll give it a shot...

Have this problem on a 3G. Slider has been ignoring me about 1% of the time: sounds like not much, but I use the slider at least a hundred times a day, and a touch interface starts to feel really flaky after just a couple of these incidents! The problem survived the upgrade to 3.0 recently and continued to hassle me. Just started an AppleCare case on it and they basically said, “Maybe a restore will fix it, but if not we’ll replace the phone.”

Will report back here when I know the outcome.

A couple days since restoring, and I haven’t seen the problem again so far. However, I think it needs to go a week with no trouble before I’ll start to trust it.

Several more days with no problem. Looking good. Looks like restoring did the trick.

Glad that worked for you, but I don't think there is a universal work around for this.

Rebooting works. I administer 10 iPHones in my office. ALl of them that have 3.0 have this problem, along with occasional problems awaking from sleep at the press of the power button...

This is something that most likely will just need to wait for the next update for most people.

I had this problem intermittently a few months ago on my iPhone 2G. I used to clean the screen and it would let me "slide to unlock" as usual.

Two days ago, the slide bar was stuck again. Cleaning the screen did not work, so I forced it to shut down by pressing the front and top buttons. This did not rectify the issue. I then tried connecting to iTunes and syncing/backing up just to see if something would jolt it awake--nothing. I ended up forcing it to shut down again and it finally worked when I rebooted it.

It worked for a day, then stopped again. I tried the above steps and those didn't work, so I restored the factory settings then restored from my backup. This did not work, so I took it to an Apple Genius Bar. The Genius told me that the touch screen was dead and it would mean either I spend $100+ on a repair or get a new phone. Unfortunately, they were renovating the store, so they couldn't assist me with either fix, anyway ("You'll have to call the help line or take it to the nearest Apple store 95 miles away"). Since my phone is no longer under warranty (I've had it about two years), these options would be out of my pocket and there was nothing Apple would do about the cost. I understand the warranty issue, but I invested $400 on a product that was essentially useless after two years due to component faultiness and not user abuse! If I spend another $200 on a new one, should I expect to have to go through this again in a couple years? It is very disappointing, to say the least.

I got a new replacement phone on Tuesday and on Friday it stopped being able to slide-to-unlock.
I have tried to restore and resync about 5 times now and it doesn't seem to be fixing the problem.

This is my 3rd iphone.
I have an appointment at the Apple store.
Each time that an issue happens, they give me a new phone and I have to buy the screen protectors again.
It is store policy to not touch the screen protectors or give you new ones (that you originally bought at the Apple store) even when their product fails.

Hopefully the 4th time is the charm, because the 3rd time wasn't.

My wife's iPhone (8GB 1st gen) is now suffering this touch screen interface failure. This appears to be premature hardware failure. I too am disappointed. She babies the phone. It looks brand new.