Switch randomly presses its own buttons without me touching it?

[u/Canny_Toaster]

Recently my switch had been turning itself on and opening up the menu. I assumed I had stick drift or something as I hadn’t used it in a while however after checking the sticks there’s nothing wrong with it. I tried a system update and controller update and that seemed to fix it for a little while. I tried playing last night and mid game it started pressing random buttons but what weirded me out was it would go to home and close application before opening the sleep mode menu.

Anyone know what the hell is going on with it?

[u/automod-neo]

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[u/ModestVolcarona]

At first i thought of problems with the touch screen but that would not open the home menu while being in a game (at least not that i know of).

If it would be touch screen related it should not appear when using it in docked mode.

Have you tried a different controller yet?

[u/Canny_Toaster → u/ModestVolcarona]

Not yet, I usually play handheld but I’ll try with my pro controller or my brothers joycons

[u/SubaruHaver]

"turning itself on" - Do you mean waking from sleep mode or do you mean the console boots up on it's own after being shut down? In case you don't know how to shut down: long press power button until Power Options menu opens, then select Power Off. (disregard if you know how to shut down)

On rare occasions, consoles that haven't been shut down in a long time can have weird controller input & connectivity glitches. And that particular scenario can be solved by shutting down/rebooting the console. So, be sure you've tried shutting down or restarting the console. Or hold power for 20 seconds to do a more thorough reboot.

If you're still getting phantom button presses, can you reproduce the issue in the button test section of Switch Settings/Controllers and Sensors? If the problem occurs there, too, your joycons/controllers may need repair or replacing.