Q: iPhone 4 Home Button not working properly

Even in my iPhone the home button was not working. Later I gave the Iphone to service and now it is working fine.The problem was there was some dust particles inside and the service person cleaned it.

Now it is working fine. If you have the same problem , give your phone to service.

Holy crap, after trying out a bunch of the other tricks here, the hard reset was the thing that actually worked for me. Amazing, thanks!

I had the same problem, took it to the Apple store and they replaced it.

There are two possible causes:

1) Software, in which case a reset or restore will probably fix it or,

2) The primary cause: dirt or something interferring with the push signal. It is intermittant because it doesn't always cause a problem. It is coincidental that this happened after an update. There are always updates. Take your phone to apple.

In my case, don't tell me it's hardware issue.

Some people in this post suggested hard reset, which requires pressing the sleep and home button at the same time. However the home button is dead, how it's going to work?

Not really.

I tried simply press and hold the sleep button. This simulate the home button totally dead and as not pressed. The phone just wait for me to slide and off the phone. If I discard the slide, after a longer wait like 15-20 seconds, the screen just sleep off. It won't hard reset if the home button is physically dead.

So I try pressing and holding both sleep and home button, when the slide to off appeared I discard it. Right after a few seconds the phone screen goes off, and 1-2 seconds later the silver apple logo showed up as starting the phone.

i.e. the phone knows that I pressed the home button, just the software ignored me most of the time.

I have some 3rd party app data to be backed up first, so I cannot restore the phone from back up. Will try later.

same here. I have a japanese iphone. so its software.

Same problem here; it would always come back; I think its by design...

Changing my view now. I was able to hardware restart a few times, 100% successful by holding the 2 buttons. After few more hours of trying the home button won't allow me to do this anymore. It's just totally ignoring me.

I restored the firmware 4.3.5 that itunes allowed, with data restored. No luck.

Then restored with the firmware only, no data. Still no luck.

So it's physically dead now, and I'll need to take it for repair. Just feeling it decaying within 1 day, I first found this problem this morning, and it was still intermittent. And after each time phone restart, I can have few seconds using the home button. Now dead. Sigh...

When Apple swaps faulty phone for another one is it a new (in an original package) phone or refurbished one?

Guys, tapping on thr backcover behind the home button; and blowing air thru the power opening down solved the problem for now; I think it will come back and i'll have to tap again but it works for now.

In Australia they are all refurbished, they also won't let you upgrade, they will only swap over to the exact model you have.

Got my phone replaced. It looks new. The service man cut open the seal of a black box, he called it "service unit". Does this means refurbished phone or new?

I had the same problem, then somone told me this easy solution to re-calibrate the home button.

1. Press down the iphone power button until the slide to power off comes on

2. press down the home putton hard and hold it down till the home screen appears

and that is it.

Try sticking the hover/ vacuum cleaner (for all u yanks)to the charging port underneath, Seems to work for me anytime the home button is sticking. Cleans out any dust inside. Sounds strange but works.

I think you will find it's refurbished, service unit is just a better way to say it, they look like new and hopefully work like new.