Q: Iphone 4 Home button not working after upgrade to OS 4.3.1

We bought 12 IPhone 4s at July 2010, half of them have this Home button issue now, went to Apple, nothing they can do except replace the phone for $200 each. Apple does not want "fix" this, they just want to sell sell sell? I would definitely agree this is a combination of hardware and software issue, it looks like there are a good percent of iPhone 4s are having this problem...It will be more problematic phones after more iPhone 4s are going to be out of one year warrranty soon...Guess Apple will have a press conference teach us how to press the Home Button...

Regards,

John

I had the same problem with my iPod touch. I tried all the solutions recommended here except for the alcohol one (bumping, Canceling Voice command, hard restarts, Safari cleanup, quitting apps, force quit app). None of them solved the problem permanently. Some of them used to solve the problem temporarily.

Since I had warranty left, I thought enough is enough and went to the Apple service centre. Luckily I got it replaced no questions asked.

For the sake of my new iPod touch, I hope that the problem was purely with software and an update will solve it.

As is true with others on this thread, I've gotten in the habit of closing all the open apps I'm not using by double clicking the home button and then pressing one of the apps until the minus signs appear.  I also power down the phone completely and restart it about once a day.  I've been doing this for about two months and the problem only occured once; whereas, before doing this, it had been occuring far more frequently.  My guess is that it becomes unresponsive because of a multi-tasking issue.  It's also possible that some phones' home buttons don't work because of a hardware issue.

I have same problem too, but after trying all remidies that was posted in different forums, turning the email off helps a lot, i am not sure if this is the only reason but i also deleted some of the applications and photos leaving more available space. It works great for me for almost a day now.. Will update if this will really solve the problem.Hopefuly..

I think this is more software related than hardware related. My home button was working perfectly fine, then I updated to 4.3.5. Now the majority of the time it doesn't work...I'd say it doesn't work 7 times out of ten. I can press the home button multiple times in a row and nothing will happen. Sometimes I'll press it once and the screen will come on. I guess I'll wait for iOS5 to see if that helps.

Thanks to everyone's input. I just read everyone's input.

My home button was responding so badly I could not use the phone at some point since it was so erratic. I was not even double clicking at all to close the apps.

I turned it off...put two drops of Windex on the button. Dried it up, upside down, with soft paper towels while also pushing the button when the windex was inside. Saw immediately some improvements. Repeated it 3 times, every time getting better.

Now my home button is superfast, and it double clicks and work well. I was lucky. No software issues at all.

I would try this first, before doing all the software efforts.

Thanks guys.

I take it all back. After cleaning the home button and working for a while, it STOPPED working all together and the phone was stuck on sms messages.  i could not even make phone calls.

I was lucky/conservative enough to have bought Apple Care and I got a new phone. At least they change it quickly.

I have had this problem for at least 6 months, and I was hopeful that upgrading to IOS 5 last night may have fixed the problem.... unfortunately not!

My theory is that it has something to do with multi-tasking/background processes that interfere with button signal.  Here is something you can try that works for me:

1) turn off mail push notification (Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendar>Fetch New Data)

2) turn off Spotlight Search (Settings>General>Spotlight Search)

3) clean out background app task.  Double click the home button--if you can--then press & hold the icon until an X appear and start pressing on the X untill all is removed.

4) power down

I had the same problem and waited for the ios 5 update it never fixed the problem today i had the home button replaced took the shop about 1 hour now the phone is perfect.

Good input from all of you - I tried to reset/calibrate the Home button and many other of the suggestions mentioned. But like a bolt out of clear sky, I realized I was spending days on the issue of getting a fxxking phone to work, when I could do something else. I went down to the retailer and send it to service (on the day one year since purchase I realized in the store - lucky me).

What I'm saying is - it's not ok that a piece of pretty sofisticated and expensive equipment like the iPhone don't work longer than a year!

Totally agree with Noejda.

I've had this home button problem come and go and now it seems it's back to stay. Sometimes it works perfectly other times not at all. The worst thing is the intermittant nature of the problem like it won't work to 'wake up' the device without numerous presses but once done it works pretty much fine.

Thinking back I've never had a button failure problem like this happen so soon on any of my previous mobile phones even going back to the old Motorola Startac!

Mine has been getting worse the past few days.   I've tried several things and this was the only one that seemed to have an immediate effect.

Im having the same problem with my home button after upgrading to 4.3.1 on my iPhone 4S and i have the problem with iOS5 as well. Apple is most definitely aware of the problem. They either dont know how to fix it yet or dont care. I've had other annoying issues with my Apple products that have never been resolved. I'm annoyed at this button and considering switching to another type of phone.

iPhone 4S was a typo, I have an iPhone 4