OneUI 6.1 Breaks Some Galaxy Displays (but Not All)

Samsung recently released OneUI 6.1 for older Galaxy devices, shipping Samsung's big Galaxy AI features to phones like the Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra. However, while features like Circle to Search and translation tools are great to have, they're not worth much if your display is unresponsive.

TechRadar noticed Galaxy users complaining about their displays not functioning following the OneUI update on both Reddit and Samsung Community forums. On Reddit, the OP says that after installing version 6.1, their display is totally unresponsive to touch inputs. The only way to get things working is by using the S Pen. Restarting the device doesn't help, either. The OP of the Samsung Community forums thread tried wiping the whole phone, and still the display was unresponsive.

While this might signal a potential widespread issue with Samsung's latest OneUI update, the good news is it doesn't appear to be quite so serious. We don't have confirmation yet, but at this time, the issue seems relatively isolated to third-party displays only, otherwise known as non-OEM screens. If you have the original display your Galaxy shipped with, or replaced the original display with a genuine Samsung screen, you likely won't experience the unresponsive issues these users are complaining about.

If this is truly the cause of the issue, it's another example of a company deprioritizing customers who use third-party parts over the manufacturer's. While I highly doubt Samsung would intentionally brick devices in this way, other companies have in the past: Apple disabled Face ID on iPhone 13s that didn't move over a specific microcontroller from the genuine display, which effectively blocked non-genuine display replacements. The company eventually relented and issued a software update to fix this issue.

Intentional or not, companies like Samsung and Apple want you replacing your device's parts with their tech. When they purposely make the experience worse to persuade you to do so, that's called parts pairing, and at least one state (Oregon) is fighting back. While this might not constitute parts pairing, it points to a greater issue: You shouldn't have to worry about your phone not working just because you used a display Samsung didn't make.

Either way, expect an update soon to patch this issue if it is an accidental incompatibility with third-party displays. You can revert back to OneUI 6 in the meantime, but you will lose your data, so if you can get your phone working using the S Pen, that might be the better approach for now.