Iphone 4 Home button not working after upgrade to OS 4.3.1

Agreeed fully,

This is that stupid connection of ribbon cable of home button !!

@Stiney: it is the cable connection issue beneath the home button , you need to get ur iphone opened by apple support and have it checked.

Normally, I am a "by the book" type, but I just did not want another meeting at the Genius Bar. I tried the rubbing alcohol trick and it REALLY worked. I could identify one location on the home button that had very poor response. Of course it was my most-used position. The alcohol trick really worked for me.

Folks,

Here is my experience. I had this issue for several months. I went along the software arguement and tried to fix it by resetting the phone, etc, in veil. I finally decided to go to the Apple store. After listening to me for 10 seconds, the apple technician said "I can fix it." He took the phone and went inside. 10 minutes later, he handed the phone to me and said "there were debris under your home button, and I cleaned it." Since then, my iphone's home button became as responsive as new!

I tend to believe that most of the problems out there are hardware related (unless your phone is jailbroken and/or is running some odd third-party apps). An easy way to tell would be to delete all apps except the built-in ones, and see if the problem remains. If it does, then it has to be a hardware issue. Think about it logically: it is quite impossible for Apple's built-in apps to slow down your phone so much that it cripples your home button.

Folks,

I'm wondering how many millions of iphone users are having issues with the Home button. In some countries, Iphone stores clearly refuse to service the issue as it is not bought from the same country. It is high time, Apple announces that there is an issue with the home button and provide the necessary information. It is good if all the home button problem related phones are givien to the Apple employees and find out how frustrating it is, thereby triggering them to work on the issue, especially, when you want to make a call to your boss when the home botton does not respond, you will start sweating. I bought three iphones over a period of 6 years and have been a loyal customer of Apple. My whole family uses iPhone starting from Iphone 2 to iPhone 4S.

I haven't found a pattern in the non functioning of the home button and having been a service engineer myself, solving the most advanced issues, i'm baffled to diagnose the issue.

There is nothing surprising in this issue.

THIS IS DUE TO LOOSE CONNECTION OF THE HOME BUTTON WITH THE FLEX CABLE UNDERNEATH.

Went to a second Apple Store today in the vain hope that they would admit to me there was a big issue and replace my out-of-warranty iPhone 4 for free.

Obviously no such luck.

They checked it and confirmed it was mechanical and had simply "worn out" in 18 months.

V.Poor

This evening, I will be sitting at my desk, surrounded by phone parts and tiny screws, replacing my Home Button with a kit I bought from iFixit.com

I'll let you know if my 10 years in electro-mechanical engieering pays off.

Gulp!

2 hours later...works like new 🙂

Nice and congrats! Any tips or tricks? How nervewrecking was it? I've been wanting to take the plunge for a couple months now, but I'm intimidated. I can tear down a server or a desktop like there's no tomorrow, but with how small things are inside the iPhone, I'm scared! Lol. I guess I'm a little gunshy after I broke part of the Wifi/Bluetooth/iSight Camera connector on my motherboard when I replaced the optical drive in my MBP recently. All three of those things have worked intermitently since. Sigh... I can't afford for that to happen to my iPhone! (truth be told, I couldn't afford for it to happen to my MBP, but I don't know what I can do about it!) The comments on iFixIt regarding finger oils causing signal interferance for cellular and WiFi signal has me particularly concerned as well. That and the fact that I'm worried the new home button will work for 6-12 months and then start acting up again. I recently jailbroke my phone and install Zephyr to help alleviate the stress not having a consistent home button causes. Chpwn previewed the 1.1 release and it looks like the swipe up gesture is going to negate the need for a home button all together soon! Obviously, I'd still like the button working however. Thanks for the update and any feedback you have about the process would be much appreciated! Keep us updated as to the health of the new button whenever you think about it if you don't mind 😉

It was fine really. I definitely need a new glasses prescription as I had to keep putting them on my head to focus really close. You won't believe how small a 1.5mm screw is until you see it!!

Just under an hour to break it down and just over an hour to build it up again

Use plenty of light ie a torch or a lamp. That will help enormously

I did it at work when it got quiet and had a nice large desk surface to work on (and no cats like I do at home!)

I also wore surgical gloves so, even though I bought a can of contact cleaner, I didn't need it.

I'm 6'3" with big hands but, as long as you use the correct screwdriver and are fairly steady and patient you should be fine. Have a break if you start to struggle with a particular screw and come back to it again.

I used needle nosed liers to place the screws onto the holes and they mostly worked really well. A couple are awkward to get to sit correctly before you screw them down but you just keep nudgin them around until theysit in place. Patience is the key

The screw template that iFixit provide on their website is excellent an as I took out each screw, I used Magic Tape to stick it to the plan in the correct place.

Two tricky bits stand out for me:
fitting the antenna terminal back on, which was a two handed job to get it o sit exactly over the socket so that you can give it a gentle push

Removing the front case as it's stuck down around the Home Button. Just be gentle and take it slow.

Read the instruction fully as they really are very good.

If you decide to go ahead, let us know how you get onand if mine starts to suffer again I'll give you an update

Don't expect or ask apple iphone users to open their IPHONES and fix them.

A normal user will end up messing all.

I'm "normal"...at least I think I am

What I have found is that:

Whenever i charge my iphone4 , what i do is that i push my connector a bit downwards while it is plugged in the iphone4 ( such that inside of the iphone4 the connection of the cable goes up ) the home button works fine whole day till i have to charge up again .

Ahsan

I'm hoping I found a simple solution, but I'm not going to get over eager. Only time will tell. Since pressing on the back of the speaker enclosure always seems to help, I decided to layer two pieces of electrical tape on the inside, bottom center of the rear panel so it lines up perfectly with the speaker enclosure. The rear panel slid back on very snugly, but not so snug that the panel needs to bend to screw it back into place (it is glass after all, so we don't want it to bend). Immediately after closing it back up, the home button regained normal responsiveness. I tapped on it about 50 times in a row and it registered every time. I'm sure the tape will compress slightly, but I'm hoping it still retains enough pressure to keep the button working. I will provide updates around a week from now and if it's still working, then again at a month. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

I've been having issues with my home button for about a month now... its driving me insane! My friends are having the same problem, ever since they did the new upgrade 4.3.1 or whatever it is!!! One of my friends even got a brand new iphone 4s... and it started happening to her again within a few weeks! hopefully Apple sort their sh*t out and do a new upgrade soon!!! im so close to throwing my iphone into a river!