When One UI 7 was released, Samsung announced that it had made changes aimed at making the transition between the internal and external displays smoother and more customizable, thus improving the overall user experience of foldable smartphones.
Great, except there's a rather annoying bug in One UI 7 that wasn't detected before production.
To summarize, since this update on my Z Flip 4 (yes, I'm waiting for the Z Flip FE to change), the aperture detection has started to malfunction, causing the main screen to remain black.
This happened only occasionally at first, then more and more frequently, and finally permanently for a good week.
Today, if I close my Z Flip, it's as if I'd turned it off. I can no longer read the time on the external screen, receive any calls, or open it for quick access. I have to open my Z Flip and force-start it (volume down key + fingerprint reader for 5 to 15 seconds) to be able to use it normally in the open position and avoid closing it reflexively.
It's like having a non-folding smartphone, except that when traveling, it would be risky to keep it unfolded.
I should point out that the external screen isn't dead because it can display the battery indicator.
I've also noticed increased overheating since upgrading to One UI 7, so you should know that force-start only works when the smartphone isn't overheated; otherwise, you have to wait a bit for it to cool down.
I've tried safe mode, wiping the cache partition, and resetting the settings, but all to no avail. A factory reset won't work either because all these attempts retain the current version of One UI 7.
After reading several forums, I've noticed that the problem affects both Z Flip 3, 4, 5, and 6 and Z Fold 3, 4, 5, and 6, so both older and newer models, and always following the upgrade to One UI 7.
I conclude that this problem is indeed a software bug.
It's a shame we can't temporarily roll back to the previous version of One UI; perhaps Samsung might consider this possibility in the future...
All that remains is to hope that Samsung will release a fix for this problem very soon, which I have no doubt will happen (*), especially since the release of the new Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7, and Z Flip FE is approaching, and any bad publicity would be unwelcome.
* I would say that zero bugs is a utopia because of the inherent complexity of software, human error, and the difficulty of testing all possible situations.
The more complex a system is, the more unexpected interactions can occur, and it is virtually impossible to test all possible combinations and usage scenarios.
But in principle, it is always possible to fix a bug, regardless of its nature.
