This hidden setting on your Galaxy Z Fold 7 can crash your screen

Tinkering with developer options might seem harmless, but one particular setting on Samsung’s latest Galaxy Z Fold 7 can render your expensive foldable temporarily unusable. A moderator on Samsung’s official South Korean community forum has confirmed that adjusting the minimum width setting in developer options to an unsupported value triggers a frustrating glitch.

When this happens, unfolding your Z Fold 7 results in either a completely black or white screen. Even worse, the lock screen becomes completely unresponsive to touch, leaving you staring at what essentially becomes a very expensive paperweight. The issue seems to stem from forcing the device to operate with display parameters it wasn’t designed to handle.

The minimum width setting in developer options allows advanced users to modify how apps and interface elements scale on their screen. While this can be useful for customizing the user experience, Samsung’s foldable displays have specific requirements that don’t play well with arbitrary values. The complex nature of the Z Fold 7’s dual-screen setup makes it particularly vulnerable to these kinds of display configuration conflicts.

Fortunately, the fix is straightforward if you know what to do. Simply press the power button on the side of your device to bring up the lock screen normally. Once you unlock the phone with it unfolded, navigate to Settings, then Display, and select screen layout and size. Change the screen size setting to any different value than what’s currently selected. If it was set to the minus setting, switch it to plus, or vice versa. After making this change, you can switch back to your preferred layout and size settings.

The mod has issued a warning alongside this solution, reminding users that modifying developer options can lead to device malfunctions, app errors, and potential security vulnerabilities. That said, if you leave this bit alone, you can still tinker with the developer options, as long as you know what you’re doing.

While this is a software bug that can easily be fixed, some potential Z Fold 7 buyers have noticed potential hardware issues, as some demo units aren’t completely unfolding flat. Luckily, both these issues don’t seem to be affecting a wide audience.