I recently acquired a used Motorola Droid 3 with the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system and I am having trouble dialing when the phone answers with an automated phone menu–the dialpad keeps closing, or the screen locks… I think I am missing something basic. Any thoughts?
Thanks.
There should be a keypad button that gives you your keys back.
Could be that you’re triggering the proximity sensor, which is used to prevent you from accidentally hitting buttons when you hold the phone to your face/ear. It’s usually hidden behind/near the speaker. Hit “Menu” “Settings” “Call Settings” and you can turn off “Proximity Sensor” to see if that fixes it. There should also be another setting in there to keep the screen on longer during calls, if you want to try that.
You could also just use the speakerphone to make calls where you’ll need to use the buttons/screen while incall.
I’ve had this problem because of the proximity sensor. I would put the phone to my ear to hear the menu options, and boom, screen off/locked. It was annoying until I figured it out and started using the speaker phone option to prevent it. As voltaire notes, there are also settings that adjust the delay before the screen goes off.
Pull the phone away from your face and tap the screen or power button (whichever causes the display to become active again).
If necessary, “launch” the phone app (it’s already running, but the dialer screen won’t necessarily be showing).
tap appropriate keys and listen for response, repeat as needed.
As others have noted, there are settings you can change to modify this behavior so the keypad stays active longer, or reappears as soon as you pull the phone away from your ear.