Do you know if there is a way to completely "turn off" the capacitive touch function? I have found a bunch of article online, and read though tons of forums to no avail

I even tried running the touchRead() on a separate core, but experienced the same loss in function

I slightly changed the code to the below (just to make the timing go quicker).
In the first test I ran the exact code below, and after the first run, only 3/5 lights came on (this is after the touchRead(4) ran)
In the second test, the only thing I changed was commenting out the print line... then ...

Does everything work if you set an interrupt instead of a direct read?
https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/blob/master/libraries/ESP32/examples/Touch/TouchInterrupt/TouchInterrupt.ino


I did try this, great suggestion. It did not work either, I even tried detaching the interrupt before ...

Wi-Fi was commented out and not being run while testing

Good, I don't want wifi interfering.

Wi-Fi was commented out and not being run while testing

Some context for my issue, I'm designing a custom flashlight and have already received the prototype pcb. I thought I'd try to add capacitive touch but now 2/5 of the lights don't work. The lights DO work when I run a code that simply turns each one on and then off to test the leds. However, when I ...