Switching between landscape and portrait orientations is one of the oldest smartphone features. Considering that the majority of games and media streaming sites prefer the landscape orientation, it’s impossible to imagine traversing through daily usage without the screen rotation. Sadly, some users have had a hard time with this option. Namely, it seems that screen rotation is not working on Android for some users.
To fix this problem, we suggest following the steps we listed below.
Table of contents:
- Disable and re-enable Auto Screen rotation
- Test the sensor
- Update the firmware and disable gestures
- Reset your device to factory settings
How do I fix my screen rotation on my Android?
1. Disable and re-enable Auto Screen rotation
The first thing to do is simply restart your device. This usually helps and, after a swift reboot, everything goes back to normal. Especially in cases like this, where a temporary system halt might be causing the screen rotation issue on your Android.
In addition, make sure to disable and re-enable Auto screen rotation. There’s a Quick Access tile where you can toggle on/off this feature, but you can also navigate to Settings > Display and find Auto screen rotation among other options.
In case these two troubleshooting steps failed and screen rotation is still not working on your Android, check the next step.
2. Test the sensor
There are more than a few third-party apps that can help you test and calibrate various sensors on your device. On the other hand, almost every device has built-in diagnostics (often referred to as Test or Engineering modes) which you can use to test the Accelerometer and determine if the sensor is working as intended or not. Even better, on some devices, you can use this to recalibrate the sensor and fix it.
The USSD codes (the codes you enter in the default Dialer app) are different for every OEM so you’ll need to Google your device to get the code if it’s not on our shortlist. Below, you can find the codes for Samsung, Nokia, Xiaomi, and Sony devices.
- Samsung – *#0*#
- Xiaomi (Redmi and POCO) – *#*#64663#*#*
- Nokia – *#*#372733#*#*
- Sony – *#*#73788423#*#*
Once you enter the code responding to your device manufacturer in the Dialer app, it should take you to the Test menu. Once there, select Accelerometer and ensure that the sensor is working as intended. If there’s an option to calibrate it, follow the on-screen instructions.
On the other hand, if you prefer third-party apps to do this for you, you can use the Sensor Test app (download it from Play Store). Test the rotation and see if the display rotates to landscape and back to portrait when you change the orientation.
If not, make sure to continue to the next step we provided below.
3. Update the firmware and disable gestures
Bugs like this are not uncommon, especially if you recently acquired your device. Initial software releases often lack optimization and, sadly, that is nowadays a normal practice in the hyper-competitive smartphone market.
Release hardware first, and fix half-baked software later. So, make sure to navigate to Settings > System > Software update and install all available updates as soon as possible.
In addition, for the sake of troubleshooting, we suggest temporarily disabling gestures. For the time being, stick with classic on-screen buttons as, the majority of reports concerning rotation, appear while gestures are enabled.
To do so, navigate to Settings > System or Settings > Advanced and open Gestures. Once there, select the classic 3-button layout instead of full-screen gestures.
4. Reset your device to factory settings
Finally, if none of the previous steps worked for you and screen rotation is still not working on your Android, we can only suggest resetting your device to factory settings.
Here’s how to reset your Android device to factory settings:
- Back up everything using Google One Backup or OEM-specific service.
- Open Settings.
- Choose System.
- Select Reset options.
- Tap Erase all (factory reset).
- Tap Erase all.
And, on that note, we can conclude this article. Make sure to report the problem to your OEM so they can address it in future updates. Thank you for reading and feel free to tell us about your problem or share alternative solutions we missed in the comments section below. We look forward to hearing from you and providing additional instructions if needed.
