iPhone 4 Home Button not working properly

Before moving on try pressing the home button a few times. If the feel and the sound of the button does not feel right try cleaning your home button with alcohol. If the pressing felt right and the sound was normal, read below.

Cause of the probelm:

When you use your iphone while its charged or when you stress the charge port when pulling the charger out the force causes the home button to misalign. The home button can be misaligned in mainly four directions. forward, backward, left and right. The solution that was proposed for putting the charger in the port and pushing upward addresses the backward misalignment.

Here is the solution:

First you need to find out in which direction your home button was miss aligned. To find this, put your finger on the home screen button and tap and hold now move your finger to the right while pressing down and release. If the home button responded that means your home button is misaligned to the left. If the home button didn't respond, then press the button but this time move your finger slightly to the left. Try different directions untill you find the direction of misalignment.

Now put the charger cable in the port and try to re-align the button. If the misalignment was to the left (as mentioned in my example) try to push the charger port to the left. You can effectively do this either by pushing or trying to pull out the right side of the charger cable while keeping the left side inside.

Remember, if your home button responds even once in 100 atempts that means that your home button is perfectly fine and does not need to be replaced. All you have to do to fix it is to realign the button.

How to prevent this problem:

Be very gentle when you insert the charger cable in your phone and try not to use your phone when it is being charged. Never put any stress on the charging port and the charging cable when they are connected. This will cause the home button to misalign again.

Hope this works for you.

Hi these two articles helped fix my issue with a non responsive home button, The first really worked for me so have a read was so thrilled that I didnt have to pay for the home button to be fixed!!

http://www.applecor.info/how-to/a-z/85-iphone-4s-non-responsive-home-button.html

This second article helped me through whilst the button was not working properley it just tells you how to enable the assistive touch which is OK for the short turn

http://www.applecor.info/how-to/a-z/95-assistive-touch-buttons-iphone-gesture.ht ml

Woo well chuffed, so thought Id share and give credit to the site that helped me finnally fix my problem 🙂

Unbelievable - but it worked! Thank you.

Worked perfectly! I am amazed 🙂

I tried everything bar WD-40 (didn't want to spray liquid onto the phone), nothing worked.

Just today, I was doing a general clean of the phone in the bathroom (dry-wiping it) and pretty much as soon as I took it out of its case, it slipped out of my hand and dropped about 3-4 feet onto the tile floor. Fortunately, it didn't break (even though it seemed to fall flat on its back) and what is more, the home button actually works now!

Not advisable to try this, of course, but I was shocked. So a slap on the back of the phone, as suggested, might actually work, I was only afraid to slap strong enough!

My Solution:

I have an iphone 4. My home button worked intermittently, I kept pressing the home button until I my screen showed my home screen reduced by approximately 50%. I then noticed that if I scrolled the screen to the left, I could see many of my apps. The Apps that I saw were open, and were sucking up the phone's memory. I am guilty of using the home button to switch from app to app, instead of properly closing each app. So when I pushed the home button, the phone did not have enough memory to operate properly; thus, the reason the button didn't work was due to a delay, and not because the button itself didn't work.

Once I was able to see each app that was open (see above paragraph), I swiped my finger upward on the screen(from the home button to the earpiece). By doing so, it closed the apps. I then performed a hard reset, by holding the home and power buttons until the apple logo is visible. My home button worked just fine after the above procedure.

I hope this is helpful to you.

Wow! Thanks, not sure which of the two worked either since I tried both too. It did work though so thanks, I was starting to think the home button might have gotten broken or useless and I was not looking forward to using assistive touch. So thanks it worked! 😉

What finally worked for my iPhone 4S is a version of the calibration solution:

1. Press and hold power button until you see the slide to turn the phone off.

2. Slide and turn the phone off.

The phone then rebooted, and the home button was working again.

The home button of my iPhone 4 suddently not working this morning. The button click down seems normal. Thanks for this posts. I tried couple methods people mentioned:

1. use a small amount of Rubbing Alcohol and pretty the button to clear it.

2. Use compress air and spray to the charge area

3. Use compress air to spray on the home button while pressing on and off.

I am not sure who one works or a combination of them. The home button is now working fine!

When I use method 1 to rub and the button, I see that the button is kind of work (1 out of 10 works).

Then I wait for a minute, and try the method 2. Not much useful. Then I connect the cable and try to hard reset the phone (press the sleep button and the home buttom). Since I know my home button is barely working, my finger is pressing button in surround motion. Fortunately, I can hard reset the phone.

Afterwards, It's still not really work well. Lastly, I use compress air again. I press the button on and off while I spray the side of the button constantly. I did the same procedure for all angle of the button.

Amazingly, it works!!! My button is back. I think all those step contribute to this fix. But I think step 3 helps the most.

I hope this is helpful to you.

Thanks for all others who share their experience!

I have had the home button issue for 8 months and 3 ISO software updates later it still don't work consistently, there are two only two options 1. Use alchol cleaner and massage onto the home button it will seep around the edge and does seem to resolve for a while or 2. There is an on screen home button available from the Settings, General, Accessibility, Assistive Touch. Or I guess 3. Replace the button ..good luck

HAVE you open the phone? These parts are under the back cover of iphone?

Is it just me that finds it astounding that this is obviously a serious issue for many, many users yet Apple is pretty much ignoring it?

I've tried a couple of teh tips to get mine working...

Calbrate ideas - nothing

WD-40 (actually I used Inox but whatever) - nothing yet but I'll let it seep in some more...

About a year ago I subscribed to this conversation as I had the same problem and I too am amazed that the thread continues. I have since replaced my phone so no problem now but kept my email elerts to new posts out of interest to see if Apple would address what is an obvious weakness in design. I see below we are now up to 35 pages! I sincerly hope they are not all on the same topic. The easy answer to the problem is, if you are out of warrenty, simply go to any number of third party service centres that have sprung up advertising while you wait screen replacement and home button replacement. In Melbourne, Australia you can have that done for as little as $20.00. 😉

As I mentioned I tried the lubricant approach. After sitting overnight the home button works as expected. Time to sell it on eBay before it clags-up again!

This worked. It actually worked. How did you figure this out? This was the last thing I tried. The next idea was to throw the thing under a car. Thank you.