iPhone 4 Home Button not working properly

The new IOS5 software has an assistive touch feature that gives you a new home key button. Go to Settings, General, Accessibility, then select Assistive Touch. It works all the time. The home button gets dirty. I have cleaned mine with rubbing alcohol, and it works for a little bit then goes back to not working. The assistive touch button never fails.

Thanks for the tip about the assistive touch! My home button does not function properly anymore, and I'm not that confident in myself to open my iphone and fix the problem. The assistive touch is a great workaround!

Edit: I just tried cleaning my home button with a cotton tip and alcohol, this also worked! So now i have a working home button AND the assistive touch :-)

I actually did the blowing dirt out thing but just with my mouth blowing extremely hard, it actually worked! And I was at the stage where even pressing it 100 times wouldn't work, that's why I came here.
Very good tip there!

I had the same problem with my iphone 4, about 2 months before my warrantee ran out. When i booked an apointment at the genius bar they said they would have to wipe the phone first. So i had to go off because I didn't want to loose everything. So the warrantee ran out before getting around to it and still no fix, i thought it was going to be really hard to get my home button working again.

I found a tutorial online for completely replacing it, i didn't want to mess around with vacume cleaners, wd40 or any simple fix because I didn't know exactly what it'd do. So i figured I'd buy a replacement home button. It was cheap as a can of wd40, and it took me about an hour to take the phone apart and replace the home button. It now works better than ever, I have to remind myself not to push the button so hard as it's so sensitive now.

So I wanted people to know that these simple fixes really can't be guarenteed to work because we don't know the circumstances of the break. My love of my iphone has returned and it cost me chips to do.

Like anything electrical, don't **** around and risk breaking things further, just replace it. Or pay for it to be repaired professionally.

I have tested millions of phones. I have never tested "Assistive Touch". There is a poppel on the motherboard and there is a protruding piece of plastic under the button. They must be aligned to work properly. A poppel is the electronic connect function and is the click (pop) you feel at the end of compression of the button. Many poppels can be bad from the manufacturer. Blowing and knocking the phone around may align the button plastic with the poppel. If you’re going to blow something into the phone use condensed air not your mouth. You are blowing saliva into the phone and will later corrode the contacts. I also, agree with Aceed.

I could see how this could happen. My 'poppel' was glued very securely to the plastic button face. I was surprised to see it's a sealed unit, but I imagine if it's not quite aligned properly on the plastic button face, it won't compress fully. On the back of the button there's a guide to where it should be. I can imagine in some cases the button may have stuck itself incorrectly during the production line!

I'm surprised compressed air would have the power to dislodge the poppel from its adhesive bond with the button. I could see how compressed air may knock folds out of it where it hasn't been pushed quite uniformly and distorted it.

I didn't get on too well with assistive touch. It got in the way a lot of the time.

It's not like I'm spitting all over my iPhone. I did it, and since then I had no problems whatsoever

I have also blown on my home button as you suggested, and my home button is working now. When I start having problems again, I blow again, and it starts working.

I just fixed my home button by completely taking the iPhone 4 apart. My problem was that a tiny plastic/silicone "dot" was loose and displaced to the side. I first thought it was a debris but it turned out to be the most critical piece. The switch is an enclosed domed switch with the dome acting as a spring. The actual contact is enclosed but the said "dot" act as an actuator that comprsses the dome. With it dislodged or moved to the side, the dome does not get compressed right. Probably the compressed air would move it around and improve it randomly. The permanent fix I made was to Super Glue the "dot" to the top of the dome. Now it works perfectly. It certainly is a design flow as the "dot" can be easily detached.

"I had the same problem on my iPhone 4, with ios 5.0.1. So I googled home button not working iPhone, and I found this forum..

None of your post were really helping me so I got so annoyed so I hold down the button and started to blow air on it... Around the whole button..just simply exhaling on it very hard..

And it works perfectly again...

So maybe it was only dirt.."

I seriously just tried this, thinking "This can't possibly work, but I might as well try."

Holy crap, it worked! My home button works against! I doubt my blowing did anything, though. I have a feeling holding down the home button and dislodging whatever was in its way did the trick.

Thank you so much! I was about to spend money I didn't have to replace the phone.

Hi, I have been having a heck of a time with my home button & I was to the point that every time I needed a different app or page, I had to fully shut the phone off.

That worked but very tedious!

I first thought it was because I was close to my memory capacity. So I dumped 1200 pics after I downloaded them of course. Still not better.

Last straw:

I finally decided to do a restore. You know the kind that when u need it done fast but says 12 hours? I did an unplug praying my notes & personal info wasn't lost. Thankfully I did a full backup!

I realized I was using my iPad cord. The manual says use orig cord. Switched that out & did the restore.

Well after the lengthy restore, (which was like 45 min in total after the cord switch. I recommend doing the last part with iPhone itself over wifi if using cloud!

Well it didn't help. Just angst ridden panic waiting to see what info was lost.

Nothing lost.

Then I read this post & I tried compressed air & fixed it immediately!!

Thank you!

I wish I had wandered on here a week ago!

Oh & mine was an iPhone 4

why is "dust" only affecting iPhone 4 users? i personally don't think its because of any dust particles. i believe this may have something to do with the software update. I didn't have this issue until the a month or so ago. I know I'm not the only iPhone 4 user who is having this issue and iPhone 4S users haven't incountered anything like this. For those who have "fixed" the problem by blowing air on the home button or by taking it apart and putting it back in may not have the same problem as others. I have used the compressed air to blow away and dust particles but that hasn't helped. I don't wanna take my phone apart so i'll be taking it to the Apple store and see what they say.

The assistive touch solution is brilliant. Still taking my phone to the Apple store to complain but this is a great temp fix.

Dust is only affecting the iPhone 4 users because Apple changed the design in the 4s. The 4s home button is connected to the front housing with a rubber like seal. Therefore not nearly as much dust/dirt may enter.

- I strongly believe that it is dust that is causing this fault. I have recently pulled apart a friends iPhone 4 which had a inoperative home button and cleaned around and the home button itself, afterwards and still to this day (3 months later) the home button has been in full operation.

Have a look at what i removed...

Thanks,

Daniel.