This is getting old

[firefighterguy]

First, I want to thank Rosa, the tech who helpe me fix my wife's Blackberry Curve so it was able to complete the system update. And she was a multi-tasking machine as she also addressed my issue with my DroidX.

What I am writing here is in no way, a reflection to the Tech I mentioned above. This is an issue I am still having with my DX. My first one was perfect. Except when it through itself into an endless boot load with the Droid Eye during the Froyo update and it throwing itself into 1X all.the time and having no data transfer. Since then I have had the same issue with the 3G dropping out. But with different issues on top of that as well. For instance, my next one sent to me also had a camera button malfunction - it wouldn't register the keypress/keystroke. That got sent back. I got another. That was having the same issues plus it rebooting itself and acting weird. Almost possessed. That was sent back. I got another. That one - same issue pluss when I go into the Android Market, I would download something ( i.e. Informed ALS Field Guide which I have had for a while with no issues) and the download would drop off. And disappear. As if the download was not even started. Alsong with some "meteor" action while I select icons on the screen and try to type. That one is going back. And the replacement I have now has the same issue with the 3G dropping off with no data transfers STILL. It dropped on me 3 times while trying to type this. And this one is unreliable with the screen selections. i.e. I press on the top right, and a totally different spot on the screen is selected. Sometimes across the the whole thing. And I noticed that the charge slot is quite loose. None of the other ones were this loose. The cord will pop out if I am not carefull placing the phone down to charge. God forbid if I try to use it while it's charging. Because I will deffinately pop out then.

Which brongs me to an other gripe. Why the hell am I going to get a "certified "like new"" phone (especially after all tbis) when I BOUGHT THE **bleep** THING OUTRIGHT. I didn't buy it with the discount. I bought it full retail price. If I buy a package of Pringles® and I notice something wrong and take it back,they will exchange it for a new one. Not an almost full container that was not completely tampered with. I'm just about ready to do to this phone what the old lady did years ago in the Discount Tire Co.™ commercial - throw it through your window to return it.

Before people start saying all the crap about " well, are you in a decent area?", "try switching around some of the settings," "maybe it's an app that is causing the problem?" and other rediculous things, let me me frank and clear. It would happen after a hard reset with nothing but stock apps and system settings. And I was in the Military. I know about characteristics with electronics like this and know my way around this type of thing. And I know that sometime unexplainable weird ju-ju happens with things. Hell, I've seen a piece of equipment power itself on with no remote wired in or no equipment around that had it's frequency. But this is several phones now. And I am extremely frustrated and **bleep** off about it.

This is just strict theory, speculation, and hypothesis on my part here. But I think that it may be something to do with the phone not being able to handle the slight fluctuations in the frequency and signals. My wife's Curve would be side by side with my DX in the same spot and my 3G will drop off completely while hers either has a normal SLIGHT fluctuation but handles it very well, or no fluctuation at all. And when I have both phones going to the same web page, mine will (when 3G drops off) will sit there for a very long time if not forever still trying to load the page (with no arrows either, mind you) while my wife's pbone goes right to it. And it's really sad when you take into consoderation the specs of this phone compared to her Blackberry Curve 9330. This this is supposed to smoke any other 3G phone - 1GHZ processor, at least 512MB RAM, total around 40MB (being modest) available storage. And that's not getting into other spec aspecs and ratios. But her pbone would have a tendancy to get to the page first and have it loaded before mine. Mine would still be outside smoking a cigarette and then come inside to have a cup of coffe. But then decide to take a nap. Which is rediculous. Because WHEN this expensive paperweight decides to hit on all cylinders, it kicks everything else in the junk. And then points and laughs. But unfortunately the performance is unreliable and as predictable as a schizophrenic at a noisy and busy shopping mall exhibiting signs of suicidal idiations (SI's).

Anyone want to go "Droid Golfing" with me? I've been itching to see what this does when struck with my driver.

But if any VZW supervisor actually read this in it's entirety, Rosa did go above and beyond to help me get my wife's phone to push the update on her phone. And she deserves A LOT of kudos for that. Especially because I was "that call." The one any representative dreads. You're watching the clock and you're getting excited because its 5 minutes before your shift ends. You can feel it. You can taste it. Almost freedom when all of a sudden your call light comes on. But then it ends up being that complicated situation that takes an hour or longer to resolve. And she even maintained her patience with me and made sure her job was done and done right before she let me go.....that is before I fumbled my phone and inadvertently pressed the end button ending the call. While I was in the middle of explaining something no less! But she did try calling back and at that point my DX decided that it was done working for a while because I didn't know she tried calling back until ten minutes later when for whatever reason I decided to turn my phone off and then back on again. And then I looked up at the top of my screen. And there was a voicemail. From her still trying to make sure sure it was still updating properly.

Sent from my bathroom via DROIDX on Verizon Wireless

[firefighterguy]

Really? I can't say "{word filter avoidance}
?" The "D" word I can understand.....

[ripplecutbuddha]

Apparently smartphones hate you. Get a jitterbug instead.

In all seriousness, just in case you're looking for help/advice, I would suggest either getting another brand-new phone, since the refurbs are clearly not cutting it, and giving the X one last go, or.....

Calming down, and making absolutely sure you've examined every possible source of the problem. Another poster went through similar issues with several phones, was about to go Droid Golfing himself, when someone suggested making sure the WiFi was powered off, as it can sometimes interfere with the performance of the other features on the phone when not being used directly.

This may not be the answer for all the issues you've had with several phones, but at the very least try your best to remove the emotional influence of the problems on you and be methodical.

I've read many threads dealing with issues, and I can't recall one that didn't have a solution in some way. There is also the likelihoood that you're just getting the same two or three refurbs over and over, hence the 'new phone' suggestion.  I don't know how valid this possibility is, but it was in my head, so there you go.

Thank you for your attention.

[firefighterguy]

Thanks for the reply. Perhaps I should have done a better job making the context I meant was clear. I did not mean to seem like I was loosing my head (though it is frustrating). The two jobs that I have had - military and now fire service - I am keeping my head clear and calm while I am troubleshooting it. I was trying to also maintain some humor while I was explaining the situation and just blowing off a little steam. This may have been just mearly an out for my to vent a little bit while hoping to get some feedback.

Feedback like the jitterbug. Nice! Lol. Yeah, I was starting to think that smartphones hate me too. I think they may be alive and have their own soul. And if that is the case, perhaps they have a great judge of character (haha). My WiFi is always off. And I even tried doing the exact opposite and turning it on (knowing it had the same likelyhood of working as a snowball lasting more than a minute in hell Lol). Its weird too. Because I thought that I had gotten the same couple of refurbs too. But the MEID's were all different. I even asked about a brand new unit. And I was basically told that that will not heppen because they have the refurbs for the fixing issues. And I tried (constructively) arguing my point about how I bought this outright and going into the ethical reasons why I should have a new one sent to me, and I mentioned that same thing - how the refurbs obviously are not cutting the mustard (they are cutting the cheese instead Lol). So now I am thinking about asking for a supervisor when I call this morning and have them send out a new old one. (that strangely made sense! ...weird....)

I honestly have to say it makes me a little leery of trying out the Bionic when it hits. I mean after all that has happened with this Motorola. Which I don't understand. We use their radios in the fire service. And here in Colorado (at least the parts that I am in) we use their radios using 800MHZ Simplex Channels. I have been in fires with them, gotten completely drenched with them, they have taken falls and other rough potentially damaging abuses. And they are still going strong. Though I do have to say, there are still some dead spots and sometimes tbey have a weird reaction when too close to a repeater. But its a lot more reliable than this thing. And I am VERY anti iPhone.

Could it be that the phones.I have gotten had an error in the algorithm internally? I don't know. Now I am grasping at straws. But the algorithm thing doesnt explain the other addition issues I have had. Maybe you're right? Maybe smartphones really do hate me? Maybe I can find one like a dog - exhibiting borderline codependant behavior. Maybe then I can find one that will put up with a yahoo like me.

Oh well. I just hope that I get some headway when I call again today. Thanks again for you response and your candor. It is appreciated.

[Wildman]

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firefighterguy wrote:
First, I want to thank Rosa, the tech who helpe me fix my wife's Blackberry Curve so it was able to complete the system update. And she was a multi-tasking machine as she also addressed my issue with my DroidX.

What I am writing here is in no way, a reflection to the Tech I mentioned above. This is an issue I am still having with my DX. My first one was perfect. Except when it through itself into an endless boot load with the Droid Eye during the Froyo update and it throwing itself into 1X all.the time and having no data transfer. Since then I have had the same issue with the 3G dropping out. 

Have you tried updating roaming by calling *228 and #2, this usually helps with this situation.

The cord will pop out if I am not carefull placing the phone down to charge. God forbid if I try to use it while it's charging. Because I will deffinately pop out then.

I have to agree the plug is to loose and kind of a pain at times...I use my dock to avoid this..

Which brongs me to an other gripe. Why the hell am I going to get a "certified "like new"" phone (especially after all tbis) when I BOUGHT THE **bleep** THING OUTRIGHT. I didn't buy it with the discount. I bought it full retail price. If I buy a package of Pringles® and I notice something wrong and take it back,they will exchange it for a new one.

I would guess this is because the device is coming from another source other than manufacture and do to the guidlines of the warrenty Verizon serves as a middle man to cover the device under Motorola policy... Also even if you dealt with Motorola they would most likely replace with a remanufactured device which is the same as a "Like New" from Verizon.  This is a common practice these days.  Not saying its right but is in the guideline of warrenty.

Before people start saying all the crap about " well, are you in a decent area?", "try switching around some of the settings," "maybe it's an app that is causing the problem?" and other rediculous things, let me me frank and clear. It would happen after a hard reset with nothing but stock apps and system settings. And I was in the Military. I know about characteristics with electronics like this and know my way around this type of thing. And I know that sometime unexplainable weird ju-ju happens with things. Hell, I've seen a piece of equipment power itself on with no remote wired in or no equipment around that had it's frequency. But this is several phones now. And I am extremely frustrated and **bleep** off about it.

After 2.2 update there was a new feature option under Settings / Privacy / Automatic Restore that has been causing a number of issues to continue to return on several device because this option restores system settings that usually caused the reason for hard reset, it is wise to disable this to avoid this issue...  I had one device replaced because of this before I identified this as the issue.

This is just strict theory, speculation, and hypothesis on my part here. But I think that it may be something to do with the phone not being able to handle the slight fluctuations in the frequency and signals. My wife's Curve would be side by side with my DX in the same spot and my 3G will drop off completely while hers either has a normal SLIGHT fluctuation but handles it very well, or no fluctuation at all. And when I have both phones going to the same web page, mine will (when 3G drops off) will sit there for a very long time if not forever still trying to load the page (with no arrows either, mind you) while my wife's pbone goes right to it.

It is hard to compare two different devices signal by the number of bars because the device displays information for signal from a calibrated source that the manufactured programmed to their specs and this can cause the number of bars vary from device to device.  I have had devices that gave perfect reception during calls when the device only showed one bar.   Just something to take is consideration.

it's really sad when you take into consoderation the specs of this phone compared to her Blackberry Curve 9330. This this is supposed to smoke any other 3G phone - 1GHZ processor, at least 512MB RAM, total around 40MB (being modest) available storage. And that's not getting into other spec aspecs and ratios. But her pbone would have a tendancy to get to the page first and have it loaded before mine. Mine would still be outside smoking a cigarette and then come inside to have a cup of coffe. But then decide to take a nap. Which is rediculous.

Comparing Droid X (Full Version Browsing) verse a BB with a mobile base browsing experience will always be slower because the mobile version disables all animations or unoptimized data and also do not forget that flash requires additional time to render but the full version requires more resources.

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[mchambers92405]

I have the Droid X to.... the 3G dropping off is a built in part of the system... it does it to save battery... there is a way to control it and stop if from turning off... but it still does at times... i have a friend that works at verizon and he asked his service ppl about it... they said that all the phones do that as a way to "control" the data... Droid X  uses a massive amount of data, so I see why it does that, but still i know what you mean... my wife had a HTC Droid Eris and we took it back 7 times and still never got the problem fixed.... they just kept saying it was her number profile... I love verizon and their phones... I just think their support network needs a few electronic 101 classes if you know what i mean... if something happens to the phone over and over... you think after the 7th phone they could at least swap out for a phone of the same value or at least discount for a different phone....

[Wildman]

Thats the Power Manger and its located under Settings / Battery Manager / Battery Mode..... If you set it to Performance Mode this is suppose to disable the option but its suppose to only trigger the auto disconnect after inactivity but it does seem like it has issues.

[firefighterguy]

Wow, Wildman! that response took some time!

Wildman wrote:

  Have you tried updating roaming by calling *228 and #2, this usually helps with this situation.

Tried that also. Along with battery pull, hard reset with only stock apps and system settings, power down/back up holding the "window" key to disable 3rd party apps, poweroff/back up to go into the Android recovery or boot loader to wipecache and things, and hard reset that way too, witchcraft and spells along with voodoo trances and curses (lol)

I would guess this is because the device is coming from another source other than manufacture and do to the guidlines of the warrenty Verizon serves as a middle man to cover the device under Motorola policy... Also even if you dealt with Motorola they would most likely replace with a remanufactured device which is the same as a "Like New" from Verizon.  This is a common practice these days.  Not saying its right but is in the guideline of warrenty.

I called and after about an hour trying to explain Saturday night, I was able to talk to a Sup and got another sent out.  Not a new one, and not happy about that, but at least something was done.  But he did explain tha "certified new" thing and philosophy to me in a different way.  No one has done that until now.  I can live with that, and I can respect that train of thought.

After 2.2 update there was a new feature option under Settings / Privacy / Automatic Restore that has been causing a number of issues to continue to return on several device because this option restores system settings that usually caused the reason for hard reset, it is wise to disable this to avoid this issue...  I had one device replaced because of this before I identified this as the issue.

Oops! Brain-fart #1.  I forgot about that setting.  And I have reset after disabling that setting and unmounting the SDcard.

It is hard to compare two different devices signal by the number of bars because the device displays information for signal from a calibrated source that the manufactured programmed to their specs and this can cause the number of bars vary from device to device.  I have had devices that gave perfect reception during calls when the device only showed one bar.   Just something to take is consideration.

Huh...Forgot to take that into consideration.  So if I uderstand what you're saying it's like (for lack of a better example) like a side-band or modified side-band?

Comparing Droid X (Full Version Browsing) verse a BB with a mobile base browsing experience will always be slower because the mobile version disables all animations or unoptimized data and also do not forget that flash requires additional time to render but the full version requires more resources.

Brain-fart #2.  I can't believe I forgot about mobile web vs html browsing! Apparently I have been taking "stupid pills." Wow! that's like making youreslf a PB&J sandwhich and forgetting that you need bread.

Thats the Power Manger and its located under Settings / Battery Manager / Battery Mode..... If you set it to Performance Mode this is suppose to disable the option but its suppose to only trigger the auto disconnect after inactivity but it does seem like it has issues.

I have mine set to Maximum Battery Saver.  So that could be an issue? I makes sense how it could.  But whoever developed the setting forgot to let the 3G stay connected when you're actually doing something Lol!

Thank you for the enlightenment .

[droidsw]

wildman is THE man!

[firefighterguy]

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mchambers92405 wrote:

I have the Droid X to.... the 3G dropping off is a built in part of the system... it does it to save battery... there is a way to control it and stop if from turning off... but it still does at times... i have a friend that works at verizon and he asked his service ppl about it... they said that all the phones do that as a way to "control" the data... Droid X  uses a massive amount of data, so I see why it does that, but still i know what you mean... my wife had a HTC Droid Eris and we took it back 7 times and still never got the problem fixed.... they just kept saying it was her number profile... I love verizon and their phones... I just think their support network needs a few electronic 101 classes if you know what i mean... if something happens to the phone over and over... you think after the 7th phone they could at least swap out for a phone of the same value or at least discount for a different phone....

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You would think that that would be the point of having an unlimited data plan.  And it would render your signal more reliable. When I'm watching the stock market in real time or looking something up on the browser or something like that, I don't like the 3G dropping on me and hanging there because the machine thinks it knows what's best for me trying to conserve energy.  I am obviously wanting to use my energy Lol. I can understand having it automatically do that during a period of time for inactivity. But I would want it to pick itself back up when I try to do something.  That is why I have it on Maximum Battery Saver.  I thought in theory it would do that.  Sleep when I'm not doing anything and not try to ping the system looking for syncs and email notifications and let me do it manually - like when I pick up the phone and press the browser icon. Some of the things developers come up with or forget about is amazing to me.  I have flashbacks to when I was a kid and seeing the commercials that crack an egg in a skillet and say, "this is your brain on drugs." LOL (and I mean no disrespect to the dev's out there. Nor am I picking afight. Just a little good-humored ribbing)