Q: iPhone 4 Home Button not working properly

open a 'Apple' app, such as contacts, hold down the 'sleep button' and wait until, turn off. after that press the home button.

And it should work fine now.

This is great - thanks very much!  I don't want to turn this in to insurance yet because I want to hold out for the iPhone 5...

having same issue though it might be a app but did not seem to be issue.

checked all running apps and keep that down to save battery life.  finaly i started shutting things down feature wise.  when i turned off the location service it seams to clear up big time and no issue. 

thing is so many things want to use location service its a pain. 

see if this helps any one ? 

I turned the location services off, and the home button worked. So I then tried turning it on again and it is still working. Touch wood it continues. Thanks nospel for the tip.

It has stopped working again - so this does not solve it long term. Still looking for repair.

Hey, I had the same problem that you have described, for the past 3 weeks my home button has been really annoying switching between being responsive and not. I went along to a genius bar and they suggested using assistive touch (found in accessibility settings) but I couldn't stand not having the home button and so this morning opted to pay £119 and swap my old handset for a brand new one from apple. Oli.

I am almost certain that this is a bug in the message center. It used to happen with Google's Google Voice app. As soon as I got a notification that I had a message, the home button would stop working. Since Google's Google Voice app was complete junk, I deleted it and everything was fine.

Now, I suspect that the Skype app is causing the same problems because my home button stopped functioning when friends started messaging me on Skype over the past week.

Apple needs to address this. There are a lot of people with this problem, and turning on Assistive Touch is an admission that this is a bug that they are addressing.

It's very disappointing, and it's about time they offered a real solution.

It seems as if I was wrong. This hardware solution worked instantly:

"Its a hardware issue that Apple overlooked. Try this work around to save money. Plug your iPhone USB cable into the phone (No need to plug the other end to anything) and grip the part right where it is plugged into the phone. Slightly bend it up towards the screen, just a little (You might even hear a click) and presto! This is guaranteed to work most of the time. If it doesn't, you need a new Home Button then."

I found it here:

http://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/56206/Home+button+sometimes+not+working

I hope this ends up geing the true solution.

I'm having the same problem..

Previously I'm having the same situation and I did like what Daniel 1903 explain. Then this is the 2nd time I'm having this problem. Unfortunately, I can't fixed it anymore.. My iphone is still under warranty, is it I can claim under hardware damage? Can somebody guide me? TQ..

Solution:Hi guys i had water in my home button a week ago.then after huge exploration i got solution my home button is just like new.guys this solution will help u in both the case if u got water or dust(your button misses its response some time) .take a metylated sprit(90 % ethanol) taking in mind that it should be clear nearer to water or isopropyl(100%) .switch off ur mobile or let it on it doesnt matter becoZ these chemicals doest effect the circuit of iphone take three drops of either u have got on button and press button abt 20 times then let your phone in free space for 15 minutes ,repeat this process three times and after each time chk your button ,your button will start responding more abd more each time. The reason beyond it is the both chemicals are volatile and can mix with water and evaporate itself along with water and dust inside your button .guys plz save your money .thanks.

I m an electronics engineer and we do such things to evaporate water molecules from circuits . Try this and enjoy!!!

Follow my post u have got dust like sony erricson sets got in their button

Perfect solution. I had noticed my home button had become non responsive after unplugging it from charging in the car. I rebooted several times, didn't think about this suggestion. I grabbed my USB charger, plugged it in, and pushed slightly downward and the button started responding immediately. Thanks for the post.

Holy crap!

The USB solution posted by Payam Minofar actually worked!

Still, I'll bet there is a limit to how long that will fix the problem. It seems likely that what it is doing is flexing a switch/membrane inside the phone so that it works like it's supposed to. The problem is that the switch/membrane will probably relax and cause it to not work. I suspect that, eventually, the USB port will get messed up doing this.

Seems to me that it is clearly a design defect if so many people are having the problem and the "fix" is to basically bend the innards of the phone.

I have the same concern about ruining the guts of my iPhone before iPhone 5 is released. Therefore, the big caveat is be gentle!

Maybe we can mark the post as solved, then.

And, indeed, thank the people who came up with the actual solution. The link is in my post.