Any updates from Verizon on their (or Samsung's) progress toward fixing these multiple 2.2 problems?

Like thousands of others, I've had multiple issues since the 2.1 > 2.2 upgrade, including freeze-ups, general slowness, Bluetooth connectivity hell, and ridiculous battery life.

Since some other minor work-arounds have been effective, I'm anxious to see if a new work-around I just saw (in a Galaxy Tab thread, yet referring to the Fascinate) may or may not help -- a suggestion to remove the "feeds and updates" widget due to some issue with the Facebook news feed.

(I'm trying several things, but hoping to avoid a hard factory reset, not wanting to chance problems with backing everything up.)

Here's another temporary fix I had success with, for the issue of horrific battery life with the 2.2 upgrade -- Go to Settings - WIreless & Networks - Wi-Fi Settings - Advanced, then set "Wi-Fi Sleep Policy" to "when screen turns off" instead of the default "never". Uses noticeably less battery that way.

I also saw some minor improvement in speed by going to the RAM manager tab (in Task Manager) and occasionally clearing both Level 1 and Level 2 of RAM.

Another issue I haven't yet figured out, though, is a Bluetooth connectivity problem with my Ford Sync in my car. Maybe about 30% of the time, the Bluetooth won't connect, or actively disconnects the phone. (Rarely had been a problem with 2.1.) Only gets fixed with a complete reboot, or sometimes by turning Bluetooth off, then on again, then it ALWAYS force-closes, then turning Bluetooth on again. Ugh.

But obviously, this OS SHOULD work properly without having to jump through ANY of these hoops.

Throughout this forum over the past month or two, I've seen multiple promises from Verizon, saying that Samsung was working on a fix or update for all of this. Whether it would be in the form of a patch, or perhaps a direct upgrade to Gingerbread 2.3, ANYTHING would be appreciated.

Does ANYONE have any word on progress towards a fix? There are truly THOUSANDS of dissatisfied customers suffering through these multiple problems.

I'd even be somewhat reassured if another Verizon rep posts here, even if just to say that Verizon and Samsung are indeed still actively working on it, not just cutting us all off into oblivion and hoping the problem goes away.

Accepted answers

Veraky

Downloading the update as i type this although I never had any issues with my fascinate so im not expecting much and unfortunately won't be able to say if it fixes anything. The link above does exist but isn't linked properly, this should work: http://support.vzw.com/system_update/samsung_fascinate.html Hope this update works for everyone else!

All comments

AyaniB_VZW

Hi radiocynic,

I completely understand your frustration. I would love to speak with you in effort to discuss your options. Please PM me your wireless number. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thank you for your engagement in out community forums,

indianafanatic

AyaniB_VZW wrote:
Hi radiocynic,

I completely understand your frustration. I would love to speak with you in effort to discuss your options. Please PM me your wireless number. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thank you for your engagement in out community forums,

This, of course, means that there is no fixing your Fascinate - the only options being suck it up and deal with it or trade it in for a Incredible 2, X2 or possible a Droid Charge.

3 weeks ago, Samsung submitted their solution to the problem to Verizon and Fascinate owners are still being strung along...

nickjr

indianafanatic wrote:
AyaniB_VZW wrote:
Hi radiocynic,

I completely understand your frustration. I would love to speak with you in effort to discuss your options. Please PM me your wireless number. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thank you for your engagement in out community forums,

This, of course, means that there is no fixing your Fascinate - the only options being suck it up and deal with it or trade it in for a Incredible 2, X2 or possible a Droid Charge.

3 weeks ago, Samsung submitted their solution to the problem to Verizon and Fascinate owners are still being strung along...

I am still hoping for a fix, especially now since the fascinate supports Netflix which I have been waiting for sometime.

greend21

A friend of mine works for verizon and I asked him about the fix Samsung sent to Verizon for testing on 6/30. He said the phone replacement policy was in effect before they got that update, but then was taken away once they got it. Since the replacement policy was put back into effect about two weeks later he is pretty sure the update did not fix the problems. I am assuming Samsung is working on another.

CoachClark

I have had all of the same issues with the Fascinate.

Before the update the phone worked great, once I updated to 2.2.1:

It's incredibly slow

Battery life is 2 hrs

Freezes

Will sometime detect a usb connection (when there is none and I'm holding the phone)

just to mentions some

The major issue for me is THE BLUE TOOTH CONNECTION DOES NOT WORK. IT'S ALWAYS "PAIRED" BUT CONNECTS AND MOSTLY DISCONNECTS RANDOMLY. I HAVE AN AUDI Q7 AND IT WORKED GREAT UNTIL THE UPDATE. WHEN I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF A CALL AND IT DROPS, I FIND MYSELF SEARCHING AROUND FOR THE PHONE WHILE I'M DRIVING SO I CAN CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION. THE VERY THING THAT I PURCHASED FOR SAFETY IS GOING TO GET ME KILLED !!!

If you have automatic credit card payment, stop it, don't pay your bill and see if they will listen to you then. I'm no longer paying over $200 a month to die in a car crash!

radiocynic

Quick update and response...

I'm awaiting shipment (for both my wife and myself) of Droid Charge phones to replace our Fascinates. The folks at the VZW store were all really helpful and gave me no argument with the replacement policy, although, man, VZW seems to make it really difficult for them to process all the paperwork and get the procedure done. Pretty nightmarish and time-consuming for both customer and the retail reps at the store. After a few hours, it was determined they'd ship me the replacement Droid Charge phones and backplates, but the only way I could make this deal happen was to drive to the only store that had Droid Charge batteries in stock (30 minutes away) and buy them and get them reimbursed. So I did that, then when we receive the shipments we'll still have to bring the phones into the Verizon store to get the SIM cards. (It seems that all 4 of these components are necessary separate segments of the execution of the replacement policy!)

Overall, if it all works out, I'll be happy to have received 4g phones w/ better camera, bigger displays, etc. as long as they work well. Back when the Fascinates seemed to work well, we really liked them, so we'll be happy with the fact that the Droid Charges have the reputation of being "glorified Fascinates" as long as they actually work again. There seems to be no help in replacing various accessories (cases, belt clips, desk dock) other than a discount on repurchase of the new ones for the Charge.

@CoachClark -- Yep, ALL of the same problems, indcluding the Bluetooth connectivity. Mine involved the Ford Sync system, so I think we can safely say it's a problem with the phone, not your Audi. The only way I can feel safe-ish that my phone is connected is to (almost EVERY time I get in the **bleep** car) turn the Fascinate's Bluetooth off and on again, allow it to crash and ForceClose, then turn it on again and allow the car to re-find the phone. Obviously not acceptable long-term, but it has worked. Also had success in improving battery life by setting Wi-Fi sleep policy to "when screen turns off" instead of "never". Again, shouldn't be necessary, but it's a temporary fix.

So hopefully my replacement phones will solve all of this, as I really don't have time for it all. I appreciate Verizon at least providing a remedy, even if complicated. Good luck to everyone else here, too, in either getting replacements, or possibly having the allegedly upcoming ED05 or later updates solve all of this!

ChristinaB_VZW

CoachClark wrote:
I have had all of the same issues with the Fascinate.

Before the update the phone worked great, once I updated to 2.2.1:

It's incredibly slow
Battery life is 2 hrs
Freezes
Will sometime detect a usb connection (when there is none and I'm holding the phone)
just to mentions some

The major issue for me is THE BLUE TOOTH CONNECTION DOES NOT WORK. IT'S ALWAYS "PAIRED" BUT CONNECTS AND MOSTLY DISCONNECTS RANDOMLY. I HAVE AN AUDI Q7 AND IT WORKED GREAT UNTIL THE UPDATE. WHEN I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF A CALL AND IT DROPS, I FIND MYSELF SEARCHING AROUND FOR THE PHONE WHILE I'M DRIVING SO I CAN CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION. THE VERY THING THAT I PURCHASED FOR SAFETY IS GOING TO GET ME KILLED !!!

If you have automatic credit card payment, stop it, don't pay your bill and see if they will listen to you then. I'm no longer paying over $200 a month to die in a car crash!

Hi CoachClark,

Effective 07/28/11, an update is available on the Fascinate and the issues you describe. This is not an update to the Gingerbread software, but it is an update from ED04 to ED05. to get the software on your device, follow the steps below:

Press Menu

Press Settings

Press About Phone (Scroll down to find)

Press System Updates

Please note that this update can take approximately 30 minutes, and you should have at least 50% battery power when you complete it.

I have also supplied a link below that provides you with the steps, as well as the benefits of this upgrade.

http://support.vzw.com/system_update/samsung_fascinate.html

I hope this information is helpful. Have a great day!

danielsfamily

I got a "server unavailable message." I am at my wits end with this. I have been a loyal Verizon customer for many years. How do you take a perfectly good phone and screw up with an "update"? We have three of these phones and we have all been hating Verizon big time every since the update.

danielsfamily

Two hours later: server still unavailable.

jmaxwell92264

ChristinaB_VZW wrote:
CoachClark wrote:
I have had all of the same issues with the Fascinate.

Before the update the phone worked great, once I updated to 2.2.1:

It's incredibly slow
Battery life is 2 hrs
Freezes
Will sometime detect a usb connection (when there is none and I'm holding the phone)
just to mentions some

The major issue for me is THE BLUE TOOTH CONNECTION DOES NOT WORK. IT'S ALWAYS "PAIRED" BUT CONNECTS AND MOSTLY DISCONNECTS RANDOMLY. I HAVE AN AUDI Q7 AND IT WORKED GREAT UNTIL THE UPDATE. WHEN I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF A CALL AND IT DROPS, I FIND MYSELF SEARCHING AROUND FOR THE PHONE WHILE I'M DRIVING SO I CAN CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION. THE VERY THING THAT I PURCHASED FOR SAFETY IS GOING TO GET ME KILLED !!!

If you have automatic credit card payment, stop it, don't pay your bill and see if they will listen to you then. I'm no longer paying over $200 a month to die in a car crash!

Hi CoachClark,

Effective 07/28/11, an update is available on the Fascinate and the issues you describe. This is not an update to the Gingerbread software, but it is an update from ED04 to ED05. to get the software on your device, follow the steps below:

Press Menu
Press Settings
Press About Phone (Scroll down to find)
Press System Updates

Please note that this update can take approximately 30 minutes, and you should have at least 50% battery power when you complete it.

I have also supplied a link below that provides you with the steps, as well as the benefits of this upgrade.

http://support.vzw.com/system_update/samsung_fascinate.html

I hope this information is helpful. Have a great day!

The above isn't very helpful. I get a "Webpage not found" message when I click on the link.

Veraky