Navigation soft keys

[Josh90]

I have a brand new Xperia 5 and the softkeys are a nightmare. Firstly they do respond, android is aware that I'm pressing them because I have haptic feedback on and I feel the vibrate every time. However, a lot of the time they don't perform the action, I feel the vibrate but nothing actually happens. I have gesture mode off for obvious reasons, so I have the traditional 3 nav keys: back, home and recent apps. Also it's much more effort to get to multi-window now but that's a separate issue. I have done the latest updates and this has not helped. I believe it is detecting micro movement of my finger as some sort of gesture still, even though I'm not using gesture mode, but this is really not good enough for such an expensive phone.

[Strampke]

Does it happen in Safe mode too?

(Safe mode, go Support app, Get Support, Swipe the pictures)

Is it worse on the lower half of the screen than on the upper half?

[Josh90]

I've looked at safe mode, I don't have any 3rd party apps yet and didn't install any of the bloatware, it's a completely blank device so this hasn't affected it. The issue isn't the screen, but I downloaded a rotation app to test the nav keys at the top instead of the bottom, and it's exactly the same. Anyone on android 9/10 can easily replicate the issue in an exaggerated way by pressing the home key and dragging slightly about 2mm then letting go, you will feel the haptic feedback but nothing will happen. It's just whichever app controls the nav keys (I believe the "framework" module). The issue is it often happens on normal quick taps. I've read online many many people complaining about the new softkeys, but this really isn't acceptable when it affects basic functionality.

[Jrnr]

Do a factory reset or even a software repair and let us know if you still have the issues. these issues should not be there after all.

[Josh90]

Done, issue is still there, other people with pie/android q say they have the same issue when using "3-button navigation". I would learn the new gestures, but they don't offer anther new, everything is slower and takes more button presses to do the basics. I think "3-button navigation" was just put in as an afterthought. I dunno if people used to use this, but press and hold the recent apps button on oreo and it puts the app in multi window mode. Now it does nothing. They're really pushing this new gesture nav but it is not good. I wish I didn't have to upgrade my XZ1 compact, that was a near-perfect phone (once I got an app to kill the data activity icon). There's always something but this time it's a big something.

[Strampke]

Small curse, you're right!

Holding the recent apps button with the classic layout didn't react with split screen.

We will never understand the thoughts of developers at Google when they create and/or dump features.

They're supposedly thinking of our natural interaction experience but meanwhile have entered a level that's high above us as average users.

[Josh90 · Accepted solution]

Ok I don't have time to mess around waiting for Google or Sony (don't care who is ultimately responsible), im going low tech to fix this, sandpaper to the screen to make it less slippery, that way less chance of travel/motion during my soft key presses. Thanks anyway all.

[Josh90]

Found an app to re-instate the press and hold split screen function.

Not sure on the rules on links here but https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nu.nav.bar

(Or search store for Navigation Bar by Wormhole Space)