Monthly Archives: August 2009

The main menu - deliciously self-explanatory...

I’ve never encountered a stuck pixel before.  Not talking about dead pixels here – which are, well, dead, but stuck ones.  I noticed on my iPhone’s charge screen that one pixel was lit up green when it should’ve been black, from a bit of googling, green seems to be a common ‘stuck’ colour, but theoretically a pixel can be stuck in any colour.

It gets weirder.

Well, kinda.  The fix does, anyway!  My initial fear was an insurmountable hardware problem.  But not so!  If you suffer from the same problem, then point your iPhone or iPod Touch at:

http://www.ebaspace.com/iphone-app/#home

First option to select is ‘Test for Stuck Pixels‘ – probably not necessary as presumably you wouldn’t be reading this unless you had the problem.  However, you will be presented with a webpage in Safari with bands of solid colour that you can scroll up and down to make your rogue pixel (or pixels) visible against a contrasting background.

Once you’ve confirmed you have a case of stuck pixel, scroll back to the top and click the Home button.

The next option you need is ‘Repair iPhone LCD‘.  This will launch a new Safari window, and will basically unleash a dazzling array of strobing colours onto your screen.  Obviously if you are sensitive to strobing colours then you should probably get somebody who isn’t to do this for you!

On occasions I’ve left this page open (touching the screen periodically to keep it live) for five minutes and had the problem cleared, other times it has required longer – so basically leave it running as long as you can tolerate it!  You should be able to see the offending pixels during parts of the colour cycle, and thus have a good idea about when it’s done the trick and unstuck the pixel.

I was pretty dubious that simply visiting a webpage could fix the problem, but whilst I’ve had some re-occuring (interestingly this has only started happening since the 3.0.1 update for me – although others have reported stuck pixels pretty much since the birth of the iPhone).  So there you have it, bombarding your screen with gaudy colours can sort it!