iPad behaving erratically: "ghost touching"

My 3G iPad is about a month old. When in Safari, the device will suddenly scroll around a website as if I were touching the screen (I'm not), and then will randomly open up a page as if a hyperlink had been touched. It's also done this inside of a couple of apps. I re-boot the device, the problem goes away, but then returns a day or two later. I went almost 4 weeks without a single problem, and now this stealth issue has appeared. Has anyone else experienced this?

3G iPad

Posted on Jun 8, 2010 9:08 AM

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Posted on Jul 17, 2010 2:17 PM

I'm the original poster on this thread. I ended up taking my iPad back to the Apple Store. They ran some diagnostics, and found that my RAM was almost maxed out, which didn't really make sense. It indicated a faulty processor, so they gave me a new iPad. I took it home, synched, and it only took about 45 minutes to synch 30 gigs of data. My original iPad took about 5 hours to synch for the first time. Clearly there was a problem with the processor in the first one, but I didn't realize it at first, as it took several weeks before it started exhibiting the erratic screen behavior. Hope this helps anyone else who might experience this down the line.
110 replies

Jan 3, 2011 10:19 PM in response to merenkov

Well, I've had this problem off and on for some months (bought my iPad back in June) and all this time, I thought it was a dirty screen, hair, dust, flakes, finger smudges, you name it, etc. So I always did some cleaning, which APPEARED to solve the problem sometimes. However, wiping, cleaning, no water (always a dry microfibre cloth), never dropped, always well-cared for, the problem persists. Even after cleaning thoroughly (really inspecting at all angles for any tiny bits of hair, smudges, dust/flakes, etc.) and just setting it down on a table or c countertop, with or without the MacAlly Metropad case (like the Belkin GripVue-clear soft plastic that protects the back and edges that adds grip), it just acts strangely on its own. This is sporadic. Sometimes I won't see it for a while then sometimes it just happens throughout the day. It's frustrating. I'm convinced something is wrong. I tried the suggestion above stating to remove it from the case, give it a squeeze on both sides toward the middle, etc. Doesn't seem to work. I noticed that any pressure on the bezel (black around the screen) causes the screen to get jumpy. Not sure if that's expected or normal behaviour.

Message was edited by: mtnmedic

Message was edited by: mtnmedic

Dec 20, 2011 12:42 PM in response to inkshawn

I have had the same issue but I have managed to track the root cause down to a couple of issue.


After having 4 replacements from Apple we discovered that the iPad power supply was faulty and overvolting the ipad which skrewed the touchscreen completely.


Secondly, I have discovered that my BT Infinity broadband router seems to be so powerful that when placed in the same room will start giving phantom touching on my iPad. Turning off the wireless router stops the issue immediately.


I have had my iPad since Day 1 and it has been fine in the same environment so,


some level of Firmware / IOS change has meant the iPad is more suceptable to wireless interference and secondly faulty iPad power supplies will wreck your iPad.

Mar 2, 2012 6:24 AM in response to merenkov

I have same problem with my Ipad which is more than a year old. Apple refuses to repair it for free although it is clearly a design error. I live in Belgium and in Europe manufacturors have to provide 2 years of warranty. Apple refuses and says I have to return it to the seller. Seller says it is under warranty only if I can prove that it was faulty when I first got the IPAD.


So, I will have to buy a new tablet ... and it won't be an IPAD.

Oct 21, 2012 9:30 AM in response to merenkov

My iPad was doing the same thing - typing random letters, opening random apps, etc. Mostly it would type the same characters (CCCC;;;;;X:CCC:;;;CS). I did a restart, reboot, and even restore to factory settings. None of that worked.


I have a hard plastic case with a rubber covering. I took off the rubber covering only (leaving the hard plastic part on) to look at it and it acted fine. Then, I put the rubber covering back on and it acted weird again. Now I just have the hard plastic covering on.


So, my theory is that it has something to do with the case. Maybe it is pressing hard against the typing part of the screen, or rubbing against the screen somehow? Whatever it is, it worked.

Feb 23, 2013 11:25 AM in response to merenkov

I have a V3 with AT&T 3G. The screen was replaced locally and I recently noticed that the glass is not completely secured...I need to have new adhesive applied. I stared having the same erratic behavior issue yesterday. I immediately assumed that the issue was related to my screen...maybe some moisture got in from the bad seal or something.


Here is where it gets strange. We have a second iPad. This is a V2 with Wifi only, perfect condition. I was using my V2 for a few minutes and set it on top of my V3 on a nearby table. Two minutes later the V2 starts going nuts with the exact same issue. After a reboot the V2 was recovered. My V3 is intermittent. I found if I ground out the case and power it off for a few minutes it becomes usable for 1-2 hours.


My house has high static electricity on cold days. I wonder if the issue isn't related to static buildup or electrical interference. How could this go from one iPad to another? I might make a video of this but I'm afraid of messing up my second iPad. I read on another post that someone turned off their wireless router and the issue went away. I did disable Bluetooth, cellular, and wireless adapters with no improvement. My V3 has worked flawlessly from release day. As an IT guy I can’t buy into it being a hardware issue…that’s just what they say when they don’t know how to fix the real problem.

Mar 4, 2013 9:42 AM in response to mmmmmarc

Same for me.. Here in Malaysia... Bought it from an "apple store" which turned out to be just an authorised dealer.... And they won't repair it.... But has to get to a stupid service centre which works just 9-5 mon-fri.... Grrrr

And after updating the Os to 6.0.1 everything was ok... For months!!! So I didn't bother to take it to service centre.... And voila!!! It's back!!!!


Now It's been more than a year. So no chance of getting a replacement... Unless I buy a new one.... SONY? Galaxy?

It's a shame that even though its a wider issue which is happening for years... There's no official resp from apple! Shame on you!

Mar 5, 2013 4:10 PM in response to merenkov

hello,

=========================================================

TRY TO REPLACE IPAD POWER SUPPLY AND CABLE FIRST ⚠

=========================================================

Let me tell you my story: the ghost typing started to happen suddenly after 8 months of daily use. So I decided to have the iPad replaced and therefore I restored the iPad to the original state and uploaded new iOS (6.1.2) to it. Everything started to work normally - no ghost typing would occur. Happy again, I started to restore iPad from iCloud and because the process takes some time, I plugged iPad in the charger so it wouldn't ran out of power. BOOOM - ghost typing was back and worse than ever! Unplugged it - the problem was gone. So I replaced the power supply with another one and the host typing is fixed.

Mar 10, 2013 3:50 PM in response to zfiser

For me, I took my iPad 2 in on Wednesday last week after I started experiencing these exact same issues. I spoke to a service technician who resorted to doing a hard reset on my iPad as I could not duplicate the symptoms at the Apple Store. I was quite agitated that nothing was happening to prove the issue. I went home after having the hard reset performed and I restored my device with a backup done just before going into the store. It came back even worse. I then made another appointment Thursday, and i used my phone to record footage of its occurrences in case if it wouldn't do it again - which it didn't. the technician watched the videos and i then had my iPad 2 replaced with a brand new one. The problem (knock on wood) has not returned since I received the new one.


My issue now is my iPhone 4 is acting up!!! Doing the exact same things as my iPad was doing! It started last night, I erased all data on my device and performed a hard reset. I then backed up from an older back up thinking it would help and it worked all night and today until about 2 hours ago. It is now acting up AGAIN!!! Have any of you updated your iOS to 6.1.2? I'm starting to wonder if that is the issue now? Then again, this problem seems to have occurred for years. Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated!

Mar 10, 2013 4:56 PM in response to Rosie205

This problem began for me several years ago on a first generation IPad which I am still using. Over several months the sitaution worsened. I tried everthing. Finally my company's IT consultant suggested that I remove it from the tight Apple case that it was in. Amazingly that worked and I have had no serious problems since. I now keep it in a very loose fitting case. I am using it now. The problem, if there is a single problem, surely must have something to do with the touchscreen itself. One woukd think that Apple could figure it out.

Mar 27, 2013 2:02 AM in response to merenkov

For me the problem started a year ago. Even though Apple told me that it is a known issue they refused to replace my iPad 2 because one of the aluminium edges had a dent from a former fall (that happened months before without causing any problems). My questions about a causal connection remained unanswered.


After overcoming my anger about their replacement policy I discovered that disabling multitouch gestures could fix the problem for me (I am not sure if that worked immediately). Weeks later I even reenabled gesture support and everything was fine again.


UNTILL TODAY... it just started again! (Thank you Apple for your support...) 😐

Jan 13, 2014 6:22 AM in response to merenkov

I have finally figured out what solved my "ghost typing" problem. First of all, my problem only occurs when my iPad Mini is plugged in. If I use a cord that works correctly with the iPad there is no ghost typing. By correctly I mean that it charges the iPad and doesn't show a "Not Charging" indicator or a pop-up that says "this charger may not be supported by your device." As soon as I use a non-OEM charger that gives me one of those 2 indicators I will experience the erratic behavior. I'm not endorsing apple chargers as I am finding other 3rd party chargers that don't give me those messages and work great without the ghost typing. Not sure this will work for everyone, but it definitely solved my frustrations.

Feb 12, 2014 5:40 PM in response to jmkonline

I had a broken glass on iPad mini & everything still worked fine for months. The LCD (under the touch sensitive glass) was ok. Finally decided to replace the glass ($130) and after that I would get all the problems described. After turning off, and on again, it would be ok only for a few minutes. Took it back to the repair shop next day and let them see what was happening. They replaced the glass again and everything has been working fine since. There is a small ribbon cable between the glass & iPad not contacts all along the edges. The shop is pretty sure it was a bad touch screen (glass over the LCD) and nothing else. They said they see it occasionally and their supplier replaces them no questions asked.

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iPad behaving erratically: "ghost touching"

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