Nook Simple Touch solution to unresponsive touchscreen

If you do a Google search for nook simple touch touchscreen unresponsive, you’ll see a whole bunch of frustrated Nook users. My wife got the original Nook (the one with the e-ink on top and the color touchscreen on the bottom). She eventually upgraded to the Nook Simple Touch and loved it, so I also got a Nook Simple Touch. Both devices have functioned well for months and months (over a year? I forget exactly when we got them).

All of a sudden, this week both Nooks have had their touchscreens turn unresponsive. Everything else worked—the hard buttons worked. I could force a shutdown. I could get the slide-to-unlock to pop up when I pressed the n button. The few times I could unlock the devices, the hard buttons on the side to turn the pages would actually turn the pages. But the touchscreen responding to touch worked only about 1 time out of every 20 times I tried. This was on both devices.

If you read these sad people’s stories about trying to get the touchscreens working again, they’ve tried just about anything: getting replacements from B&N, trying to get B&N to repair it in-store, waiting for a firmware update, charging the device fully, resetting the device to factory settings.

I did try a forced shutdown. I also tried a firmware re-update (just whatever the latest version is available on the Barnes and Noble website).

Do you know what it ended up being? A dirty Nook. That’s right. Our Nooks had been gathering too much dust and other crap. I wiped them both down with an only slightly damp tissue, and they both worked flawlessly!

Lesson learned! If you have a Nook Simple Touch, keep it clean. And when you’re not using it, put it in a protective sleeve.

152 comments

  1. Thank you so much! You saved me a whole night of frustration. I’m so glad I googled the issue and found your page before I continued pressing and pressing and pressing, etc.

  2. My wife thanks you. I never would have thought of cleaning the screen. It doesn’t look dirty at all. It must be body oil. A little Windex on a paper towel and she is off to read again.

  3. Many thanks to ‘A’ who posted on January 19th, 2014 at 23:54. My Nook Simple Touch was totally unresponsive and the solution given by ‘A’ worked very well. Thank you again!

  4. Thanks much. I was ready to ditch my Nook Simple Touch when I read your page. I gave the screen a thorough cleaning and the touch screen functions were all working again.

    1. Bruh. I tried like 10 times and it STILL DID NOTHING my NOOK looks like a round rectangle with a n button at bottom and 4 lines on sides 2 on each to flip pages. Tell me plz how to fix (btw this happened before all I had to do is leave it alone.

  5. The reason this works is that the e-ink touchscreens aren’t technically touchscreens, they use an array of IR emitters/receivers just above the screen and detect where the beams are broken. If there is more then one location, or the array cannot determine a position that is on the screen (piece of gunk along the edge), it gives no response.

    1. Thank you. I guess this solves why it does that. I, too, like some of the others was ready to deregister and re-register my Simple Touch. I had copied all the files to my computer, ready for this and thought I’d just Google “problems with Nook Simple Touch” came up. Thanks to the person who showed the solution and thanks to you for the explanation. I’ve had mine for over 2 years and wipe it regularly and keep it in a cover, so didn’t think it would be anything to do with that, but it worked so there must have been some dirt there.

    2. Does this include the top edge? I notice on the one I’m trying to fix the lip at the top if the screen is tightly closed on it.

  6. i don’t believe this!!! I was pretty bummed when the touchscreen was acting weird (I would press a letter on the keyboard and something else would happen) I thought it was time to get a new reader since I had mine for about 1.5 years already. But simply wiping it fixed it! Thank you!!

  7. I can’t believe the solution is so simple lol. On the other hand, I also can’t believe someone would let so much dust and grease build up on the screen. I wipe my devices on a daily basis

  8. Thank you so much! I have had mine since 2011, and basically assumed the circuitry got wet or quit. (It has been cleaned in that time.) What a simple solution. I was about ready to spring for a new one.

  9. Fanfreakintastic!!!
    My screen did not look that visibly dirty at all, but a simple wipe and voila.
    Thanks much

  10. Thank you so much my Nook is back to normal again, can not beleive such a simple thing like cleaning the screen x

  11. Brilliant! My wife’s nook is rarely used and kept in a cover. Screen looked spotless. Just out of warranty so delighted this worked.

    Thanks

  12. Brilliantly simple! Had tried all sorts of key combinations to try and hard reset and turns out it was just a dirty screen. Well duh.
    Many thanks for pointing out the obvious (in hindsight) solution

  13. nook does not always open to the last page and i cannot use the slider or go to page it keeps saying wait and force stop nook unresponsive

  14. Thanks for this devastatingly simple suggestion!

    I have two Nooks- a GlowLight from 2013, and a Simple Touch from 2012, but I haven’t been able to use my SimpleTouch because you guessed it, the touchscreen was unresponsive.

    I cleaned it up and now it’s working. Extremely slow and seems to freeze up a lot still, but at least I can no longer relegate it as junk.

  15. Amazing… I had left my Nook Simple Touch sitting in my nightstand, unread or unused because I figured the touchscreen had died. Looking for something else, I came across it and decided to check the ‘ole interstate of information to see if a hammer was the last tool needed.

    Amazing again, with some Winder and my old toothbrush, it resurrected itself.

    Thanks!

  16. what if cleaning it didn’t work? It had a screen protector on it that i removed and cleaned the screen besides.

  17. I cleaned the screen and still did not correct problem . I want to know I have over 50 books in memory is it possible to extract these books?

  18. Add my huge thanks! I was about to shop for a replacement Nook when I came across your solution. I too didn’t think my screen was dirty, but after wiping it down, like magic everything worked again. This has to be the simplest fix I’ve done. Thank you!

  19. Thanks! The solusion works for me also. After cleaning the touch screen, my nook’s touch screen works again!
    Unbelievable!

  20. Wow! I was preparing for the long and tedious process of resetting, upgrading, etc. but it took me just a few seconds to clean it and it worked! Thank you so much!

  21. Thanks a ton !!
    I rooted the nook and didn’t use it for quite some time. After couple of months tried using it. There was issue with touch. Did factory reset still issue was there! Now with your suggestion it just worked :) awesome !!

  22. My girlfriend’s nook stopped working a few days ago, we even tried to replace the screen with one that we bought a few months ago, it didn’t worked so she was thinking about buying a new one, but then I decided to try a quick google search before buying it and here I am. I tried what you suggested and it worked. Thank you so much for publishing it on your blog! Greetings from México!

  23. I tip my hat to you good sir. I had thought about the screen but it didnt look too dirty so i was dead set on looking into resets. A million thank yous

  24. I’m joining all the others who used this Soooooooooooooooooo simple solution. I was getting frustrated with my Nook and ready to trash it. I just cleaned it, and voila! It works like a charm again. Thank you so much!!!!

  25. Thank you so much! Just like everyone else i can’t believe this worked. I have had my nook for several years and thought i might have to give it up! So happy this was all it took!!

  26. Wow, that is amazing. My wife has been having trouble with her nook for weeks. I found your suggestion, and two minutes later after I wiped it down, it works like a champ! Thank you.

  27. Holy crap! My fiance and I were just talking about what device he should buy next since this Nook has stopped responding, and I never thought in a million years a little dirt or dust would do that, but my god people! This is like a brand new Nook! My fiance’s asleep now, but he’s gonna be a happy Nook owner tomorrow morning!- I’ll have him guess what I did to it to make it work again first :) Thank you so so so so so so much! :)

  28. Thanks so much for this, nothing was working properly although I wipe it regularly and keep it in a case, but yes, once again your simple solution worked. I thought it might be the battery or I’d got a virus. Was ready to de-register and re-register, but that was proving next to impossible anyway. You are my saviour.

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