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I have a somewhat old Samsung S7 Edge phone which (strangely enough) has only the lower half of the screen not working. This is, the whole screen lights up and displays everything, but ONLY the lower half is unresponsive to touching. As such, I cannot unlock it and turn usb debugging on.

It is not rooted nor do I know how to do it; I don't really know a thing about coding.

I have seen many previous threads and web pages about this, but at most I am very confused and don't want to brick it.

It doesn't have any really important files, but very old GBA roms I would really like to keep, as well as some photos and pictures I may have. Any help appreciated!

End Anti-Semitic Hate
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Moonshaded-tmp
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  • Interesting. I had a Samsung S6 that suddenly did exactly the same thing. I didn't know it was a common problem with Samsung devices. Do you have any good links regarding this problem? To "fix" it, I recall letting the phone sit for a couple hours in a climate-controlled environment while it was turned off. When I turned it back on, it magically worked again. Maybe I just got lucky. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jan 28 '21 at 02:04
  • No, it just happened out of nowhere, after i left it charging overnight. As far as i remember, i found nothing regarding only half of the screen dying. Also, the phone was given to me by a familiar who constantly used a texting app, so the lower part of the screen has a "ghost" keyboard, like a slightly always visible mark of a keyboard on screen. Even that part worked fine before. But regarding turning it off, the only current way to do so is by letting it slowly die out of battery since the turn off option requires password, and it has been sitting in my drawer for the past year already... – Moonshaded-tmp Jan 28 '21 at 03:14
  • After sitting for the past year, is the battery still charged? – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jan 28 '21 at 03:16
  • No, it dies out after a week or so, maybe half a month on full charge. I periodically charge it and turn it on in hopes of it returning, but nothing so far. – Moonshaded-tmp Jan 28 '21 at 03:19
  • Hmmm... well, then, unfortunately besides a physical repair, I'm out of ideas of how to get the screen working again. Sorry. To get the data off the device, there are many good answers here on Android SE to get data off a device with a broken screen. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jan 28 '21 at 03:21
  • Thanks, i will try with some of the methods over here! If anything, is it relatively easy to undo a mistake when using adb? I never tried it before and if anything, i dont want to end up messing the OS or something along those lines. – Moonshaded-tmp Jan 28 '21 at 03:24
  • Good question. adb is often scary for people at first, as it's a powerful tool. Yes, you can mess things up with it, but personally, I never have experienced a problem. You may look at performing a backup image of the device before trying to extract specific files. I'm sure there are good QAs for that here too. Keep in mind that you are only extracting data, so your use of adb commands should be limited to those that read data and not write data. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jan 28 '21 at 03:29
  • I just thought of 2 "last ditch" things you can try. They are unlikely to help, but they shouldn't hurt, and do have a small chance of working. The first thing you can try is shaking the device vigorously at different angles. If that doesn't help, you can try squeezing the phone and pressing fairly hard all over the device. Just be sure not to break the glass (wear glass-proof gloves if you think there's a chance of the glass shattering). If there's a connection that is loose, one of these procedures has a tiny chance of resolving the issue. I once fixed a device doing this. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jan 28 '21 at 03:37
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    Oh, that sounds strange but the logic behind it completely makes sense. I will try that as well, thank you! – Moonshaded-tmp Jan 28 '21 at 03:41
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    Have you considered using an OTG cable and a mouse to unlock your device? – Firelord Jan 28 '21 at 06:02
  • Does this answer your question? Enable ADB and/or change USB connection mode on Galaxy S7 w/ broken screen – alecxs Jan 28 '21 at 10:36
  • If one half of the screen is still responsive you could try to use your device upside down or in landscape mode. Then you should be able to e.g. press OK on the dialog that appears when connecting via adb. – Robert Jan 28 '21 at 10:46
  • @Robert That's darn clever. :) Hopefully screen rotation is enabled or can be enabled (and works on that particular screen). – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jan 28 '21 at 11:04
  • ... even if not, OTG usb mouse or usb keyboard still can be used to add bluetooth keyboard (which can be used for confirmation of adb) – alecxs Jan 28 '21 at 12:19

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