When touch screens don’t work, frustration sets in quickly. The biggest problem is that the touch screen is often the only way to interact with your phone or tablet. When that suddenly goes away, it can feel like you’re locked out of your device.

While some unresponsive touch screens may require professional repairs, there are several steps, ranging from simple to advanced, that you can try to get things working again.

How to Fix a Touch Screen That Isn’t Working

We’ve found that the following steps can help a touch screen start working again. You should try them in this order, but some may not apply to your device.

1. Restart the device. It may sound pretty basic, but when your touch screen stops working, a simple restart is usually all it takes to fix the problem.

2. Clean the touch screen and screen protector. Sometimes, a touch screen will stop responding due to built-up dirt or problems with the case or screen protector.

   Since this is pretty easy to either deal with or rule out, it’s a good idea to thoroughly clean your device if a reboot doesn’t do the trick.

   • Clean your hands to avoid passing dirt onto the screen. Wipe the touch screen with a lint-free cloth. The cloth may be dry or wet but never use a sopping wet one.
   • Remove the screen protector. If a screen protector gets dirty underneath, is slightly wet, or gets too warm, it will stop registering your touch.
   • You may need to clean the screen after removing the protector if it has a tear or you haven’t taken it off in years.

3. Dry off your smartphone. Touch screens can also stop working, become unresponsive, or work erratically if it gets wet. In that case, drying the phone out thoroughly sometimes fixes the problem.

   Follow these steps to dry out an Android or an iPhone/iPod.

4. Gently tap each corner of the phone. When a touch screen stops working after a phone is dropped, it’s sometimes due to the digitizer connection coming loose internally. Gently tapping on each corner of the phone may cause it to reconnect.

   If that doesn’t work, fixing the digitizer requires taking the phone apart.

5. Remove the SIM card, memory cards, and peripherals. While it’s less common, problems with SIM cards, memory cards, and peripherals (such as USB devices) can sometimes cause touch screen problems in mobile and Windows devices.

   Be sure to power down fully and unplug your device first.

6. Turn on Safe Mode for Android or Windows Safe Mode. A downloaded app or program might be causing the touch screen to become unresponsive. Restarting in Safe Mode, where these apps and programs don’t load, can help diagnose the issue.

   If you find that the touch screen starts working when you enter Safe Mode, there is a problem with some app or program you downloaded. Start with recently downloaded apps and go from there, deleting each one until the touch screen works again.

7. Adjust iPhone 3D Touch sensitivity. If you’re experiencing an unresponsive or inaccurate touch screen on an iPhone with 3D Touch, it may be a sensitivity issue. Assuming the touch screen works at all, you’ll need to adjust that setting.

   Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > 3D & Haptic Touch. Adjust the slider between light and firm. Try turning off 3D Touch if the screen is still inaccurate or unresponsive.

8. Calibrate your Windows touch screen. There’s a tool available that helps to reset the center of each touch you make on your device. If your touches seem slightly off, this might help restore everything.

9. Update touch screen drivers. The latest drivers can often fix issues like this one.

10. Roll back the touch screen driver if a recent update caused it to break. This isn’t common, but it’s worth a shot if you noticed problems immediately following a driver update.

11. Disable and re-enable the Windows touch screen. Similar to a reboot, this will refresh Windows’ connection to the touch screen, hopefully fixing the problem in the process.

Reasons Why a Touch Screen Stops Working

Various factors can cause a touch screen to stop working, including:

• A dirty or wet screen.
• Low touch sensitivity settings.
• A peripheral interfering with the screen.
• Outdated drivers.