iPhone Touch Screen Not Working or Responding? 14 Ways to Fix!

Basil Rathbone

• Filed to: Fix iPhone System • Proven solutions

Having only a screen to interact with your iPhone, it could be quite frustrating if the iPhone touch screen not working or not responding. When this happens, most users rush to the nearest Apple Store only to find that the problem was not as frightening as it looked like.

If your iPhone is acting up too and is no longer responding when you touch the screen, before contacting Apple's technical people, you can try a few fixes on your own.

Part One: Why Is My iPhone Touch Screen Not Working?

The touch screens work on detection and respond according to the interference in the flow of current that occurs when you touch a certain area.

If your iPhone fails to respond to your touch, it means that there is no interference, and thus no activity took place. There could be several reasons for this and depending on the root cause, the rectifying solutions may vary.

Part Two: 8 General Solutions for iPhone Screen Unresponsive

The solutions explained in this section are general and do not require any technical knowledge. Before moving to the advanced troubleshooting methods explained in the next part, you must try these:

1. Remove Any Case or Screen Protector

This is a basic solution. A cheap quality screen protector can become a strong insulator for touch detection, and your iPhone's screen may fail to recognize when or on which area it was touched. If your phone's screen has become unresponsive, responds late, or responds only when touched in certain areas, removing the screen guard may fix the problem.

2. Remove the SIM Card and Other Peripherals

Although highly unlikely, sometime, a faulty SIM card or conflict-prone peripherals may make your iPhone's touch screen non-responsive. In order to resolve the problem, you can try removing both of them, first, one at a time, and then both of them together if the issue is not fixed.

3. Charge Your iPhone

Yet another most common and obvious reason for your iPhone not responding could be that its battery is too low or drained out. Plugging your phone to a power outlet and leaving it alone for 20 to 30 minutes could charge it enough to fix the problem.

4. Clean Your iPhone Screen

If your iPhone screen is dirty or is covered with dust particles, either or both of the two may block the direct contact of your finger's touch with it. If the screen is protected with a screen guard that has become dirty, replacing it with a new, clean one would be the safest solution. On the other hand, if your phone has no screen guard, to clean the surface you can:

1. Power off your iPhone.
2. Grab a clean lint-free soft piece of cloth, preferably microfiber.
3. Slightly damp the cloth with plain water.
4. Gently clean the surface of your iPhone's screen making sure that the pressure is not too hard.
5. Next, gently wipe the moisture off the surface with the dry part of the cloth.
6. Power the phone back on and see if the issue is resolved.

Note: You should never use any cleaning solvents or chemicals, even in diluted form.

If Your iPhone's Screen Responds Late

5. Soft Restart

If by any means your iPhone can detect your touches but responds late, you are still in luck, and the first thing you must try to fix the problem is to restart your phone. Depending on the model the process may vary. To restart:

Press and release the Volume Up button, quickly press and release the Volume Down button, press and hold down the Sleep/Wake button, and slide the slide to power off the bar when it appears.

Press and hold down the Sleep/Wake button, and slide the slide to power off the bar when it appears on the screen.

6. Adjust 3D Touch Sensitivity

Your iPhone screen may also become less responsive if its 3D Touch is not configured properly or has some issues. That said, adjusting the 3D Touch Sensitivity manually is yet another way you can make your phone's screen respond to your touches normally.

To adjust 3D Touch Sensitivity in your iPhone, you can:

1. Go to Settings.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Accessibility.
4. Tap 3D Touch.
5. Move the 3D TOUCH SENSITIVITY slider to the left or right.
6. Hard-press the image on the same window to check the sensitivity.
7. If the problem is still there, you can try turning off the 3D Touchtoggle switch from the top altogether and see if it does the trick.

7. Check Device Memory

Over-populated device memory could be another major factor your iPhone may respond late to touches. Therefore, it becomes important to keep a close eye on its usage and clean up the storage on a regular basis.

You can follow the instructions below to check the available memory on your iPhone:

1. Go to Settings.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap About.
4. Check the memory next to the Available

Note: An alternate method to check the device's memory is, connect your iPhone to a Windows or Mac computer, launch iTunes, click the Phone icon from the top, check the memory from the top section of the right pane of the Summary window.

If more than 80% of the memory is used, you should consider backing up some large files like videos, photographs, etc. and then removing them from your phone to free up some space.

8. Delete/Update/Reinstall Problematic Apps

If you have downloaded and installed an app recently and noticed that your iPhone started acting up after that, it's probably the program that is the main culprit and must be removed at the earliest. You can follow the easy steps described below to remove an unwanted/culprit app from your iPhone:

1. Press and hold down any app icon on the Home.
2. Wait until all the icons start wiggling.
3. Tap X(Delete) present at the top-right corner of the app's icon you want to remove.
4. Tap Delete when the confirmation box appears to permanently delete the app from your iPhone.

Part Three: 6 Advanced Solutions If Your iPhone Touch Screen Is Not Working

If the general solutions fail to help you fix the issue, you can try the following advanced solutions:

1. Force Restart Your iPhone

The first thing that you should and must do as soon as you detect that your iPhone is not behaving as expected is to power off and then power it back on. Restarting an iDevice has a proven record of rectifying most of the issues.

However, since your iPhone fails to detect your touch at all, and a normal restart requires you to slide the slide to power off on the screen, the only option you're left with is force restart.

2. Perform DFU Restore

Device Firmware Update or DFU is a state when your iDevice is active but is no longer able to accept inputs from you, and neither does it show anything on the screen, not even the Apple logo.

DFU Mode is almost similar to the Recovery Mode with the only difference where the latter shows the iTunes logo with a cable on your iDevice's screen.

If your iPhone fails to detect your touches, putting it in DFU Mode and then restoring its iOS may rectify the problem. However, because the process erases all your data from the phone and puts it to factory default, any information or files stored on your iDevice will be gone forever.

To perform a DFU Restore you must:

a. Put Your iPhone In DFU Mode

Put iPhone 8 or Above In DFU Mode

1. Connect your iPhone to a Windows or Mac computer.
2. Press and release the Volume Up.
3. Quickly press and release the Volume Down.
4. Press and hold down the Sleep/Wake.
5. As soon as the screen goes black, press and hold down the Volume Down button again while still holding down the Sleep/Wake.
6. After 5 seconds, release the Sleep/Wake button while still holding down the Volume Down button for another couple of seconds.
7. Notice that the screen remains black and nothing appears on it but iTunes still detects your phone.

Note: If the Apple logo appears on the screen at any point during this process, this means your iPhone could NOT enter the DFU Mode, and you need to retry.

Put iPhone 7 Plus or iPhone 7 In DFU Mode

1. Connect your iPhone to a Windows or Mac computer.
2. Press and hold down both Volume Down and Sleep/Wake buttons simultaneously.
3. Release the Sleep/Wake button after 8 seconds while still holding down the Volume Down button for a couple of more seconds.
4. Notice that the screen remains black and nothing appears on it but iTunes still detects your phone.

Note: If the Apple logo appears on the screen at any point during this process, this means your iPhone did NOT enter in DFU Mode, and you need to start all over again.

Put iPhone 6S Plus or Earlier In DFU Mode

1. Connect your iPhone to a Windows or Mac computer.
2. Press and hold down both Home and Sleep/Wake buttons simultaneously.
3. Release the Sleep/Wake button after 8 seconds while still holding down the Home button for another couple of seconds.
4. Notice that the screen remains black and nothing appears on it but iTunes still detects your phone.

Note: During this process, if the Apple logo appears on the screen at any point, this means your iPhone could NOT enter the DFU Mode, and you need to start all over again.

b. Perform Restore

1. Launch iTunes if it wasn't initiated when you connected your iPhone to the PC.
2. Click the Phone icon from the top.
3. Click Restore iPhone from the iPhone Recovery Mode section in the right pane of the Summary
4. Click Restore and Update on the iTunes window and follow the on-screen instructions to restore your iPhone from DFU Mode.

Note: If iTunes launched automatically, and an information box came up telling that you're in Recovery Mode after you put your phone in DFU Mode, you can safely ignore the message and click OK on the box.

3. The MacGyver Solution

Underneath the screen of your iPhone, there is a mesh of cables that are connected to a circuit plate, a.k.a. logic board or sometimes also referred to as motherboard. All the cords that are spread across the device meet at a ‘rendezvous' to form a joint and this joint are further connected to the logic board of your iPhone.

If your iPhone dropped on a hard surface such as a floor for a couple of times, the chances are that the connection between the cords and the logic board got to lose, which is further keeping your device's screen to respond to your touches normally.

The MacGyver Solution has helped many users resolve the non-responsive screen issue on their iPhone, and you can give it a try as well.

To do so:

1. Place your iPhone's upper-right corner between your thumb and finger in a way that your finger is at the phone's back while your thumb is on the screen.
2. Hard-press the upper-right corner of your device's screen for a couple of seconds.

WARNING: Make sure not to press the screen too hard as doing so may damage the circuit or the entire logic board altogether, and you may end up having a physically damaged iPhone.

4. Resolve Touch Disease

Seen only in iPhone 6 Plus models, the term ‘Touch Disease' refers to the issue where the phones stopped responding to the touches after they fell on the floor for a couple of times, and the cables connecting to the logic board got to lose.

The only solution in this situation would be to take your phone to an authorized Apple store and let the professionals do their job.

5. Downgrade to a Former iOS

Sometime, the updated version may make your iPhone act weirdly. If you have updated to a newer iOS, downgrading back to the earlier built could fix the issue. To downgrade:

Back-Up Your iPhone

1. Connect your iPhone to a Windows or Mac computer.
2. Launch iTunes.
3. Click the Phone icon from the top.
4. Select This Computer from the Backups section of the Summary.
5. Check the Encrypt local backup.
6. Enter and re-enter a strong password in the box that pops up.
7. Click Set Password, and wait while iTunes backs up your iPhone to the computer.

Perform Custom Restore

1. Download the correct .IPSW file from here. (https://ipsw.me/)
2. Connect your iPhone to a computer, launch iTunes, and get back to the Summary window as explained earlier.
3. Press and hold down the SHIFT key and while holding it down, click Restore iPhone from the upper section.
4. Use the iTunes box to locate and select the .IPSW file you downloaded.
5. Click Open.
6. Follow the on-screen instructions from there to restore your iPhone to an earlier iOS.

Once done, you can restore your iPhone data back.

6. Fix iPhone System with dr.fone

Instead of using iTunes, you can also consider trying a different, more efficient iDevices' troubleshooting tool called dr.fone, which not only rectifies most of the iOS-related problems, it even makes the entire process quite simple and straightforward.

To use dr.fone to fix unresponsive screen issue in your iPhone, you can:

1. Connect your iPhone to your computer and install dr.fone on your Windows or Mac.
2. Launch dr.fone and choose Repair option from its main interface.
3. Select iPhone/iPad Won't Turn On from the issue list on the next window. Click Start.
4. When the next screen comes up, follow the shown instructions to put your iPhone in Recovery Mode.
5. On the next window, review the information all the boxes are populated with.
6. Click Select from the bottom of the window, and locate and select the .IPSW file you downloaded in point a.
7. Follow the on-screen instructions from there to restore your iPhone back to a former iOS version.
8. Restore your iPhone data back once the process is done.

Conclusion

iPhone's screen getting unresponsive is not an uncommon issue. However, if none of the above solutions is helpful, you should rather look for technical assistance from Apple itself.