Mobile Hotspot turns on and immediately turns off

[jdslaw]

Why does my mobile hotspot turn on and then immediately turn off?

[darkmatterSC]

I have the same issue on my Droid Bionic.  Turns on, then off immediately.  If I reboot the phone, the problem goes away, but eventually reappears.

[vzw_customer_support]

Hey there jdslaw!

Wow! Well I can imagine how difficult that can make connecting devices to your phone! Let's see if we can fix this!

Is your phone all the way up to date? Please check under Settings, About Phone, System Updates. When did this start happening?

I would suggest clearing data on some applications. Go under Settings, Applications, Manage Applications, then click on All. Click into each one and hit the "Clear Data" button on Data Collections, Data Collector Services, Data encryption, DataCollectorProvider, DataOffload and Device Statistics Services. Then power cycle phone and see if the hotspot runs better and stays on.

Please let us know if this works or if you need further assistance.

Thanks!
MichelleG_VZW

Please follow us on Twitter @vzwsupport

[EB_]

MichelleG_VZW,

    I see there's nothhing as a follow-up from your post.  I have the exact same issue with a Razr Maxx.  Yes, mine is fully up to date, Android V4.0.4, System Version 6.16.211.XT912.Verizon.en.US (need any other indicators of 'currency'?).  When I first got the Razr Maxx a couple months ago I configured the Hot Spot a couple days ago after getting the phone because of the normal focus of first, 'it needs to work as a phone to reliably send and receive calls', second it needs reliable email and calendaring, beyond that it's amusement but my phone needs to be reliable as a business tool.

    For this issue of the Mobile Hotspot, when I first set it up to enable, and to be very clear, THE HOTSPOT WAS NOT ON, the phone started draining battery at such a ridiculous rate that it was discharging faster than it was charging and eventually shut itself off because it RAN OUT OF BATTERY,  That was really pathetic to see.  After it gained enough charge to boot up again, the Hot Spot worked each time I used it occasionally over a couple week period.  More recently (the past two to three weeks) when I tried and really wanted to use it, it's back to the same issue, starts up and seconds later turns itself back off, never really UP to be able to use.

     What's the answer?  Sure, I or jdslaw could 'reboot' each time we want to use the Mobile Hotspot, but what does that make the 'business tool' that I was relying on, it turns it into a POS.  If I wanted a POS I'd buy an iPhone, and I'm speaking from experience there as I ran through a half dozen over a year period.  I moved to a Motorola then, the first Droid phone on the market, and it was a good phone outside of the worthless (and still today) Google-built Exchange client (I use TouchDown because I need something reliable).  Motorola's next phone out though, the Droid 2 Global, was a complete POS (and I have the bug list feedback to validate it), so I moved to HTC and their Thunderbolt.  I was a reliable phone for the most part, but with no GSM AND LTE.  So that brings me to up to date back to Motorola with the Razr Maxx.  A generally good phone (turn off the equalizer or the audio is crap), that has LTE AND GSM, although for the CMDA component HTC beats is out as the Moto has no eHRPD, so no data AND phone at the same time. 

     The answer is 'please just make a phone that is reliable', where an excuse doesn't have to be made all the time to 'reboot', 'reset to factory defaults', etc.  All those 'troubleshooting' methods aren't doing a damn thing to uncover the root cause of an issue so it doesn't keep happening.  Why not work with someone to actually improve the product to fix the issue instead of turning out another flavor of stink?  Allow for turning on a diagnostics mode so that someone can say 'this is what it's saying right now at this CPU register, data structure, whatever!  Saying 'reboot' or 'reset to factory defaults' doesn't do a thing.

     I'm happy to help resolve this issue, and you can use all the technical terms you'd like as I've been in the computer and telecom world for almost 35 years now so I think I've heard about all of them and know what the majority of them mean in detail.

Dave

[EB_]

Mellisa,

     The issue is not a setting, it's either literally the "Provisioning Server" (something clearly out of our control, only in control of the 'big Verizon in the sky', or figuratively that and something broken in that piece of the software on the phone as you can't even get to the Settings section for the Hotspot, we'd be able to get access to that "after" the "Provisioning Server" does its thing.  At this point it's stuck outside of the 'sweeping the real problem under the rug' troubleshooting steps of "reboot" or "reset to factory defaults".  Those aren't acceptable "solutions" to the problem, only band-aids.  If there is a real troubleshooting process you'd like to go through (like setting the phone or process to some data collecting / diag mode, I'd be happy to help there.

Dave

[EB_]

Melissa,

    One other point of clarification.  Although I can't speak for Hermitt my assuption is that he's in the same boat.  Yes, getting past this point "Tethering and Mobile Hotspot settings > Mobile Hotspot Settings > Manage Devices > Manage allowed devices" at least once has happened, the problem is the inconsistency.  When I first got my Razr Maxx in August, I tried to enable the Hotspot a couple days after and it would keep failing, exactly like if is now.  The phone also got in some mode where it was sucking battery so bad it was discharging faster than it was charging.  At this time I don't recall what the process was (with the OS Monitor app) that was sucking all the battery.  After the phone rebooted (because of losing power from being out of battery) the Hotspot starting working fine.  I used it several times over the next few weeks and the the 'next time' happened where now it's back to the same state again (and most likely the state that Hermitt's phone is in), where the Hotspot is starting up with the 'Provisioning Server' message that comes up, then underneath the Mobile Hotspot line in the Menu it says "Turning Mobile Hotspot on" followed in a couple seconds by "Turning off Mobile Hotspot".  When I click on the "Mobile Hotsport settings" mneu I see the SSIDand encryption setting that I've used so I know it has my settings in there.  With the short duration of 'Turning on' & 'Turning off' it is never really 'Up' to allow for me to connect my laptop to the Hotspot.

    Sorry for misspelling your name last time.

Any suggestions,

Dave

[Pcovault]

Yes, I report the same thing with my Droid Bionic.  I've use the mobile hotspot for many months without problem.  But since the ICS upgrade I have this problem exactly as follows:

I will toggle hotspot on. The phone reports "turning on Mobile Hotspot" and the hotspot icon appears. 

Immediately (within one second) the phone reports "turning off Mobile Hotspot" and the icon disappears.

This problem persists until such time that I reboot the phone.  Then the hotspot works properly for a "while" where "a while seems to vary from hours to days" until we get back into this problem state and then I have to once more reboot the phone to use my hotspot.

Seems pretty likely to me that this is some sort of glitch that came in with the ICS upgrade.

-Corbin

[EB_]

Corbin,

Thanks for sharing that there's someone else out there with the same

issue. I find the problem more than annoying and gets the phone teetering

on POS status.

What puts the phone fully into POS status is typically several times a

day, when I go to check Exchange or Gmail, I'll show a solid 4G LTE

connection, but I'll experience a 'not connected' message on those, web

browser, etc. The fastest way to clear the problem is to put it in

Airplane mode then right back out, where I'm good for another few hours

and if I'm lucky a couple of days.

Motorola, while you're fixing things (and don't pass the blame onto

Google, you should have tested all this), why don't you 'fix' your phones

to have eHRPD mode for CDMA too, like HTC does, so I have simultaneous

voice and data in non-LTE areas!

Dave

[Hockeyho]

I have a Razr and it does the same thing and I agree with you Dave rebooting is not a fix.

It's a band-aid to get us working for the moment...

If I wanted a phone that I have to reboot every time to use the hot spot, I certainly would have

paid a lot less than I did for this one. I can say I will not pay it again!!!!

[meaningless]

I'm bumping this topic because I have the same trouble.

How terribly annoying having to hard reboot in order to use the Hotspot capabilities.