Iphone 4 Home button not working after upgrade to OS 4.3.1

I hae been following this thread since day 1 and it seems there are a HANDFUL of reasons the Home button ceases to work sometimes.

Me personally, after 6 months of testing over 500 iphones at work, guess what it came down to for me?

The Facebook App.

Yep, the facebook app was so busy doing something, my Home button press was being delayed by about 30 seconds,maybe more.

On all the phones that I had on my workbench that displayed this symptom, I CHECKED all ribbon cables Nope all were ok. What IOS? they were all on different IOS, some 4.3.3, some 4.34, some 5.0, some 5.01 etc..

Removing facebook APP made my home button return to normal function. Remove it test and see, worst case you can just reinstall it its free ater all.

Just removed the Facebook app and the Facebook Messenger app.

After reboot of my iPhone4 (IOS 5.01) I still have the same problem with the home button. Going to reinstall those apps now.

I do have the same issue... And its kinda blowing me away... It got me insane sometimes.. I already tried different kinds of method just to resolve this issue but still it does persist... But i observed everytime im using this otterbox defender casing for iphone... My home button is just doing fine at all no more worries .. But you know sometimes using this kind of iphone 4 casing is just too big in your palm .. And i wanted to change my casing for sometimes. . So i concluded that this problem on my iphone 4 might be a faulty hardware i guess.... Because i observed there is a difference when im using otterbox case defender and not using it.. So please Apple support team help us to resolve this issue :( before your consumers decided to use other smartphone devices instead of iDevices..

This might sound a little crazy, but my home button started to work again after I disabled/deleted my iCloud account on my phone. I had deleted it because my phone was becoming slow and unresponsive in other ways, and another forum suggested that as a solution (which worked). And now my home button is working again. Maybe this would apply to other people's situations too?

iPhone 4, iOS 5.0.1

Here is a way to get around this issue. Not a perfect solution, but at least your iphone will work: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/tips/comments/working-around-a-dead-home-button /.

For me it starts working when ever I connect it to charges. I tried couple of things in the URL below.

http://www.iphonestuffs4u.com/iphone-home-button-not-working/

http://www.iphonestuffs4u.com/iphone-home-button-not-working/

Now I guess its working( last 5 mins) and hope it works for ever and we live happily ever after 🙂

i update my os to 5.1 and i m facing this proble,

Apple should take some action..they r too much careless..

I, too, have noticed this issue from time to time on my phone and my wife's phone–both iPhone 4 (not 4S), and on my previous iPhone 4 that was exchanged many moons ago.

In most cases, it's simply software and not representative of any underlying hardware issue. You can always take it to the Genius Bar or phone up AppleCare for a consult but I think it's unnecessary in most cases.

Things to consider trying before taking the phone to Apple:

a) Restart your iPhone. I reboot mine every 2-3 days on average and see this happen maybe once per day at most. Past 2-3 days, I start seeing it happen more often.

b) Close your background tasks (often this is the biggest culprit, having too many background apps open)

• From the Home screen, double-click the Home button to display recently used apps.
• Tap and hold the app until a red minus appears. Tap the red minus to quit the app.
• Tap on the Home screen, above, to return.
• Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4211
  

c) Reset your iPhone. (This is often a last-resort before restoring the phone)

d) Backup your iPhone, and do a full Restore via iTunes. (Set the iPhone up as a New Phone if you want to troubleshoot the button itself--if the issue remains, then it's a hardware issue and the phone will need to be serviced. If not, you may restore your iPhone data.)

e) Restore your iPhone Data. (If you did the backup to iTunes, it'll go a LOT faster.... iCloud backups are fine but take some time to restore unless you have the iPhone plugged in at the same time you're restoring from iCloud) You can restore your iPhone backup from iCloud and have it pull your applications from the Mac instead of re-downloading from iTunes (this takes A LOT longer via WiFi). When you are ready to re-restore, just do the restore in iTunes as you did earlier, then set up the restore of your data from iCloud directly on the iPhone while it is plugged into your Mac or PC. I've done it more than once and it saves A LOT of time compared to doing it untethered to the computer.

As I mentioned earlier, this intermittent issue with the button not working on the first click, sometimes giving a double-click instead of a single-click, has been on every iPhone I've had since multitasking was first introduced in iOS 4. I'm currently running iOS 5.1 and it's gotten better but I do believe it has more to do with software than hardware.

One last thing--be sure to keep your screen clean. Dirty screens can interfere with the function of the phone by giving false-touches while you're simultaneously pressing your home button.

This might do the trick
1- Open any app
2- hold the power button till the ' slide to power off ' appears

3- then press your home button ( do not press both of the buttons at the same time )
4- your app will close and your home button will be brand new 🙂

................................................

how to close an app (or even use your home button's functions) when your home button isnt working :
Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Assisitive touch -> enable assistive touch -> create a gesture -> and a white circle ( that will function as your home button) wiil appear on your screen

Zare3

correcting my earlier post :

3- Press and hold your home button 🙂

The May 7, 2012 update for our iPhones seem so far to have corrected my home button issue. It's been approx. 5 hours with no need to use the floater but the home button it self.

I'm crossing my fingers.

Hi, here's a tip that worked for me wheras all other solutions worked only a few hours in the best case.

Just plug your charging cable in the iPhone and apply a little pressure on the connector to the bottom in order to create a couple on it. Of course the pressure should not be too important, don't break the connector.

This operation seemed very strnge to me but I was desperate enough to try it and it workd like a charm!

Hope this will help.

Gilles

With the millions of views this thread (and many like it), one might think a *real* solution was on the way.

1. I have owned every version of iPhone since the first 16GB version. So has my wife. We upgrade every time.

2. I am always careful with my phone. We don't get them wet, no kids, no damage.

3. A faulty home button is so so so frustrating. It is the only thing that has ever made me consider a new platform.

4. My phone is out of warranty, and I didn't shell out for AppleCare, so I imagine I can go eff myself XD

5. Apple, am I being punished for something? Tell me what I did wrong!

Seriously guys. What Would Jobs Do?

Managing running apps and regular iOS restarts was one of the ways I have been managing this issue and it has worked consistently. The only problem is that I had to adopt this as a way of life.

Post iOS 5.1 update, I decided to drop the routine to see what happens. So far, after a week, I have not had the button issue reoccur. Fingers crossed.

p.s. I have not needed to wash the buttons with isopropyl alcohol, unscrew my iphone or whack it anywhere.

I have the same probelm. It's very annoying.