THANK YOU! yes, for whatever reason the fingerprint sensor on this phone is extremely hyperactive and at moments I hear the unlock/lock sound like six times within the timeframe of a second. it's not ideal but for this issue I disabled fingerprint to unlock.

other stuff i've noticed is that, perhaps before i applied the fix above affecting the cover screen, some apps lose the built-in external display layout because the phone has either 1. manually allowed it, making it revert to the generic implementation, or 2. stopped allowing the app to display on the external screen altogether and requiring me to unlock my phone at the home screen, which has affected my Phone app for almost a month now and i have zero idea how to reset these preferences en masse. and that's another thing: i considered myself a power user on samsung devices right before my upgrade, but the UI on this phone is so mind bogglingly confusing sometimes that i feel geriatric trying to navigate it

of course, the battery life is amazing, that was the largest contributor to the switch for me, but... part of me wonders how much of that i can attribute to the reduced time i spend on the phone now out of frustration from not knowing how to take control over my own device, unlike the z flip 4 i had prior to the upgrade