S9 Plus Screen Flickering, Green Tint/Bars, Black Screen Issue

[Sohel]

tldr; Turning auto brightness off and setting brightness to the lowest might work.

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I have been using the Exynos model for past two years. About a month ago or so the device first exhibited screen flickering issue all of a sudden. Green bars, black screen area, sort of animated and laggy. For the time being, only immediate lock-unlock attempts were causing the screen flickering (meaning, when I unlocked immediately after locking the device, the screen was causing trouble). I left it as it was and just kept avoiding immediate unlocking. Anyhow, after maybe a couple of weeks, out of nowhere the screen appeared to be flickering permanently and the device was rendered totally unusable. I tried doing some troubleshooting, factory reset, odin flash, etc. and none of them worked. Could not visit a service center in this lockdown situation.

Later, I figured that in my case, the screen is working at a very low brightness and partially working at full brightness but not working at all in between. It's just 90% black, 10% green and such. For about a week, I have been using it at a low (i.e. 5% to 10%) brightness. Left the auto brightness, always on display, and screen-on iris recognition settings turned off. I use Bixby or Google Assistant to set the brightness if I can't see the screen. With these setup, it's working for now. As of the software, I am on the latest firmware (May 2020 security patch).

From my observation, the issue had something to do with heating. I am not certain but I feel like the issue occurs more frequently if the device is used for prolonged period and heated up due to gaming or mobile data usage. I would suggest anyone who is stuck during this time before you can repair, should your device work at a low brightness then clean up the phone, get rid of unnecessary apps, games and reduce/avoid long usage that cause heating. Also leave the medium power saving mode on as it limits the CPU usage which supposedly help reducing the heating as well. Do not use night mode, gray wallpapers, etc. Use light or colorful backgrounds, apps, etc.

Thanks. Stay home and safe.

[SeekingAlpha]

I had a hardcore version of this issue, thought the phone wouldn't come back. Many thanks to everyone in this thread - if it wasn't for this I wouldn't have kept trying over and over. My phone seems safe... at least for now

1) Phone model: S9+, European SM-G965F, Exynos
2) Last update was on 19-Nov-20 (6 days ago, issues started shortly after). I believe this update almost bricked the phone. Update version: G965FXXUCFTK1, 110.82mb

3) 2-3 days ago an odd flickering started happening. Green / beige and brightness oscillations. Thought nothing of it at first, mildly annoying

4) Today while using the phone it flickered green once or twice and then went fully black all the way. Tried resetting it a bunch of times, - nothing, not even green on the screen. Whatsapp web continued to work, but I couldn't use the phone since the screen was 100% black
5) Tried putting it in the freezer as another poster suggested, didn't seem to do anything
6) Finally sat down and did a cycle of over 20 resets (volume button down + power button), mixed with "download mode resets (volume button down + power button + bixby button). I mixed it up with the phone being connected to a wall charger and to a notebook. When it was connected, each reset would bring up a circle with the battery % count (i could see this)
7) Still could see nothing. After reset #20 roughly the screen started to come back to life with a 1cm line on the top of the phone, showing 4g and battery. Very green, barely visible and would often disappear
8*) Kept insisting on the resets and mixing it up. Turned off all the lights in the room and could see a reddish tint on the screen. Eventually it magically came back to life, still quite damaged but enough for me to see the brightness slider. Sliding it up all the way brought the phone back. It quickly started deteriorating, but it was time enough to follow the instructions here on installing Oled Saver (used the exact configurations posted by user Glenn0504 on page 2)

9) Also using always on display (AOD) as instructed here

10) All the while I was resetting I was trying to hit the brightness slider (screen was fully black). Only after I managed to resuscitate the screen did I realize my settings force the number PIN after reset, so it was futile. I would've needed to try to tap the PIN with the screen black, slide down the notification bar and then try the slider. The recent update

11) As a tip, in my phone at least after this new update, the brightness slider is almost exactly on the mid-point of the volume button (after a single scroll down - after two scrolls it goes all the way almost to the bottom of the screen)

Hope its going to continue to stay stable. It's still not 100%, but its usable

Does anyone know if there's a way to rollback the previous software update? Before this update the phone worked 100%. Or a way to download the update that supposedly fixes this (guess its not available through my provider yet)

[meme207]

Hi my phone started flickering last night and within a couple of hours it started to change the screen colour to green and I can't read anything on my phone.  I'm not sure what the issue is, if its a hardware issue or if its a screen issue. I only dropped the phone once 2 years ago so for me to find this happening now is rather confusing. Could anyone suggest what should I do? Unfortunately, I do not have a warranty on this device.

[Members_XhBfasN]

Same problem here!! Very disappointed from Samsung!! Are they going to solve the problem or what? 

[danayalon]

Same problem here, went to the samsung lab today. They wanted 40 dollars just to get a test while i showed them that alot of pepole were facing this issue. 

I think its just phone companies being phone companies and ruining older phone with software "upgrades" so we all buy new one. 

Well i am buying an iphone thanks to this problem, so long galaxy.

[marcelaguimvasc]

This saved my life! Has anyone found a permanent solution for this?

[Renish]

Few days back I also start getting this Yellow/Green/Black flickering issue on my S9+ and it is just out of warranty. Phone just worked for one and half year. Loosing trust on Samsung.

I tried everything from safe mode, clear cache, uninstall apps, factory reset phone, etc. but nothing solves the problem. This appears to be hardware issue. Only way to use the phone is to reduce or increase the brightness. As mentioned above sometimes I need to blindly look for the brightness slider right at the center of volume button.

I found that this happens if switch ON-OFF-ON. To make it back working just wait for few minutes after turning the screen OFF. The longer you use the the screen, longer it takes to get normal after OFF. It works find if you never turn off the screen (I tested it for 4 hrs.). Also noticed that the flickering does not go until the phone is warm so if there is any background task with does not allow phone to get cold then screen does not get normal even charging hampers.

Samsung must be ignoring this just to avoid another backlash and recall.

[settogo]

Same issue with my Samsung S9+

Flickering started like 2 weeks ago when I was on WhatsApp call I thought it's some error. It didn't take long until it's started happening 50% of times when I'm unlocking my phone.

I made sure my phone has the latest Updates.

Samsung please do something!

[Renish]

Also noticed that phone gets too hot if using with flickering screen.

Have two more friends facing same issue and very disappointed with Samsung and have moved to iPhone. Because spending so much on such a bad quality and no support.

[Members_B0Cufpq]

Hello,

I have the same issue. It begun to do it randomly in september but since last firmware update my s9 do it each time.

In my opion if a trouble with proximity sensor (Maybe the software linked to it)... It's blocking the screen to restart.

[Members_B1WkvaD]

Same here for the last 2 moths.

The problem ocures when switching the screen off and on within few seconds.

Something that works until now:

When always on display is on, tap on the screen until the time you see the clock. Then unlock,

or,

set always on dusplay to bring the clock on its own.

When the clock is on then unlock.

Of course we need a permament solution for our high end phones, not just a workaround