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Some iPhone X Displays Plagued By Mysterious 'Green Line of Death' (thenextweb.com)
Some iPhone X owners are reporting a random green line appearing on their displays. According to The Next Web, "the defect has already started to take on the endearing 'Green Line of Death' moniker." From the report: Several users across Apple forums and social media have reported the error -- I've counted over a dozen accounts, and MacRumors mentions it's read "at least 25" such reports. Oddly, the issue doesn't appear to affect users immediately, only showing up after some time with regular usage. In some cases it alternates with a purple line, for variety. It generally appears towards the right or left sides of the display, and sometimes it simply disappears altogether. Weird. Either way, it appears to be a hardware defect affecting a small number of users, and Apple appears to be replacing affected units. Mac Rumors first reported the issue.
Do the phones crash when the line appears? If not, this name makes absolutely no sense.
#DeleteChrome
Not really.
It's more that it's a failure that both very visible (a randomly sticking line/column driver) and not fatal (it just messes that line up) and rather unusual, so it's getting attention.
That apparently two/four column drivers can maybe, sometimes, stick, then maybe unstick on their own or maybe require reset... that's sorta impressive at the hardware level. To get *that* close to everything working, but be so close that this happens now and then. It's probably not use damage (physically damaging the interconnect would be permanent and get worse with time), I'm betting either a defect in the display ASIC (occasionally locking up a line) or a defect in display quality control (letting a few units with some just barely working connects through).
Given the rate of failure, this would probably have slipped by nearly any QC above the factory production test level (i.e. anything Apple would be doing).
Reminds me of a local radio station whose transmitter had a very intermittent failure problem... It'd work fine for days, then random lose tx power for a minute. Then keep working fine again. Intermittent faults are the worst.
I had a Dell monitor develop a similar issue. Dell UltraSharps are individually tested and calibrated so it wasn't malfunctioning at the factory, but after shipment it had a dodgy green column that would flicker on and off, especially when the monitor had been on for a length of time. Turned out to be a mechanical issue; the panel had shifted slightly in the monitor housing, and as the panel warmed up and expanded with use, the pressure was causing one of the column lines to short.
The problem could be similar here; thermal expansion and/or battery swelling may be causing pressure on the display. Since the display is held in place at the edges, the strain would be concentrated there, eventually causing a column line to short or separate.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I have a Moto G4 Play phone. Not old. Bought last year. It has ... drumroll please .. a removable battery and micro-SD card.
Battery bulging would just pop off the back cover, worst case. $20 for a new battery, and it pops right in, same as a Blackberry from 10 years ago.
Storage? I can pop in a micro-SD card and expand it. No waiting for 2 hours at the Apple store. Both of the problems that you mentioned weren't intrinsic to the iPhone, but rather caused by Apple's (and many other similar phones') boneheaded designs.