I recently purchased a USED S4 Active, and I am having an unusual problem with it.
I will leave my house in the morning. ALl during my drive to work, my data does't work. It's on, it just doesn't have "4g" at the top, and I can't use the internet, etc. Toggling the data does not help, neither does resetting the phone. About the time I get to work (after about a 15 minute drive), my data pops back on.
Today, at work, my phone connected to a stray wifi connection (One that I have used before, so my phone remembered it) just for a minute or two. Once it disconnected from the wi-fi, my mobile data was gone. Just like when I leave my house: It was gone for about 15 minutes, just like before, and then just popped back on like everything was OK.
I don't THINK this is an issue with my particular phone, but if it is I need to know so I can return it. I've searched high and low, but no one else seems to have had this problem. So I figured I would turn to the best!
Model: Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
Android version: 4.2.2
AT&T phone, but unlocked and working under the T-Mobile network.
Bump, i guess.
I have a bit of an update over the weekend. Apparently this isn't JUST from wi-fi. I had it turned off over the weekend, and I still would get dropped data for about 15-30 minutes at a time, about 2 or 3 times a day. I would have full bars, have good phone service, but just no data connectivity. The "Mobile Data" option is on the entire time, it never shuts off.
I'm going to the T-Mobile store hopefully today or tomorrow, but my hopes aren't high. I'd much rather get help from people who know what they're doing.
Related
So I'm pretty sure my phone is turning off 4g by itself.
On Saturday I noticed I wasn't getting 4g at my house. I live in Los Angeles between Hollywood and downtown so I was thinking I really should be able to get 4g here and I remembered when I was showing my phone to my friend Friday night I didn't see 4g either, just 3g, and that was down in West Hollywood where it is very flat.
So I took a drive around and couldn't get 4g anywhere. Drove to a Verizon store and the woman downloaded LTE on/off and turned it on. I thought my phone had been shipped with it off but then I looked at a screenshot I took to send my friend a few days before and it said 4g.
Today I was sitting in my car after I parked outside my house messing around and seeing if I could get my mp3s to show up on my car's screen when the RZD was plugged into the car's usb port.
I saw the phone go to 3g. I have 4g at my house. I checked the network settings and mobile was turned on. I went into the LTE on/off app and LTE was turned off. I turned it back on and phone changed to 4g.
So apparently my phone's 4g is turning off by itself I believe unless I am doing something. But four Verizon employees, one that owns the RZD, told me you need an app to turn it off and on.
Is this happening to anyone else? Could it be something I'm doing?
I have seen the power settings do this when the battery level falls below some threshold. There is a setting under 'Power' that seems to affect this. It changes a variety of other settings too (like turn auto brightness off, etc.) but does not turn them back on when the battery level gets better. Looks like someone forgot context-save-and-restore.
I have disabled the power setting 'Economy' to see if things are better tonight when I let my battery drain below 10%.
I can't vouch for the first time it happened, but I know this afternoon the phone was at around 85% charge. I had been charging it before I left the house.
You know what? Both times I noticed was after I had it hooked up to my car usb. No idea if that could do anything but will try again tomorrow and see if it happens after driving around with it hooked up. Default setting is to charge only but today I did set it to data to see if that would make my mp3s show up.
I'm in california on business and I can't have 4g. I have to keep the phone in CDMA only mode and it keeps a rock solid 3G signal. If i turn it to CDMA/LTE then it will grab 4g for a bit, and ditch it and I'll have no data. No idea whats up.
As long as my 4g is turned on it works great.
So does this mean no one knows of a way I might be accidentally turning off 4g myself?
I'll be hooking it up to car tonight when I go out and see if it turns off after that.
I dunno. Just got my phone today and I went from 4G to 1x. Its quite irritating.
Yeah, there's network issues today all over. I just lost 4g about 40 min ago and this time it is still turned on on my phone.
Here's another thread about that: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1380438
Sorry your new toy can't be used to its fullest potential right when you got it, must be frustrating.
The only problem I have with the new EVO is it will disconnect from WIFI every few hours forcing me to turn WIFI on and then off again. Anyone else have this problem or is it just me?
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
So far, mine has been rock solid on two routers. Hopefully you didn't get a bum unit.
Sent from my EVO LTE using XDA
i personally haven't had this problem, but you are not alone:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1671744
everyone is complaining about disconnect/reconnect there.
Yes.
Sometimes it's fine sometimes it's not.
I left in the car came back and it didn't reconnect to WIFI on it's own.
Even if I did a WIFI scan it would not reconnect.
Toggled WIFI and it reconnected fine.
FYI, I am rooted.
I have that problem...have had to reconnect 3 times today. No way to tell if you're disconnected either (besides not being able to hit websites, email, play store, etc).
I've had this happen to me a few times. Even with 3g actually. Anyone else experiencing 3g disconnects/reconnects?
Sent from my E4GLTE on XDA.
so, finally this is happening to me this morning, after 2 days of rock solid wifi. this morning I noticed when I turn screen on, wifi was off but connected itself real quick as I was unlocking it. I know it was disconnected because then I got 2 emails and gtalk messages that SHOULD HAVE come trough and notified me half hour prior.
I've been messing with the wifi sleep and power settings ever since, sending myself chat requests to test. it seems 20 minutes is the cutoff time before wifi drops to one bar or disconnects. this is a problem as chat messages should be pushed instantly, not when it gets around to reconnecting itself.
I've tried all different "yes no"options under keep wifi awake, power, etc etc and it seems 20 minutes either disconnects wifi or goes into some low-power wifi that is too weak to get push notifications. it seems to me it checks once every half hour for notifications if "never keep wifi from sleeping" is checked. again, this is a HUGE problem for things like chat programs, fring, anything that uses internet to communicate and not the 3g network.
again,I wasn't having thus problem for the last 2 days till I woke up this morning. This phone isn't getting secret background updates is it?? it still would need to tell me it downloaded and ask if I want to install, right??
me thinks this has to do with network scanning, for lte, as there is no connect or stay connected options for lte,I assume its gonna auto connect and disconnect to save battery like the thunderbolt did. I think its auto low-powering the wireless chip too except 3g in the same manner, unless never disconnect wifi during sleep is checked, and then it just turns it on and off. well,I have one of those weak internal-antenna routers so when it goes low-power, it can't stay connected of or moves or someone walks between me and the router. its a big problem to get chat notifications and Skype calls half hour later than they were sent because my phone is in done kind of auto-power-saving mode. I've spent the last 4 hours messing with this issue.
someone help!!
This morning my WiFi was connected without having to turn WiFi off/on again. I checked the other thread mentioned and my 'Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep' option is already set to 'Always'. I haven't rooted my phone yet so everything is stock.
For me it will show WiFi at the top as if it is connected but I try to do anything online and it won't work till I turn it off/on again. At that point I will receive any old notifications too.
I know for sure it's not my router because my Galaxy Tab continues to work just fine. I also have 3 computers connected to the WiFi with no issues.
Going to try a few more things and fiddle with the 'Best Wi-Fi Performance' option as well even though my signal shows full.
HTC!!!!! its always two steps forward, one step back!! something happened to my phone overnight because now connectivity is just jacked after the phone goes into sleep mode. no new apps installed
its true! the one X forums have way more relevant info than the evo forums have. they have a fix for this, but you have to be rooted. i also found this, which works for our evo:
http://blog.onthegosolutions.com/index.php/2012/05/01/hidden-power-saver-menu-htc-one-x/
How to access the hidden power save menu
Mine seems to not be staying connected when I let the phone sleep for a while. No problems while I am using it or signal dumping just when it's sleeping. I have my settings set to never. Annoying, hopefully fixed with a software update.
After setting the best wifi performance option on it seems that my notifications and wifi work better. Not sure how much this drains the battery though since I am at my desk with it charging most the time.
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
Papichulo06 said:
I've had this happen to me a few times. Even with 3g actually. Anyone else experiencing 3g disconnects/reconnects?
Sent from my E4GLTE on XDA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This started happening to me yesterday, as well as the phone rebooting when it attempts to connect to Veriz -- err, roaming data. I've also had the issue where I had to toggle WiFi to get it to connect to an AP again; these issues used to happen to my OG EVO way back when, so this has to be some sloppy software change management on HTC's part. My EVO's going back to Sprint; I don't pay to beta test.
I already posted in the other thread, but will say this.
Please call sprint and voice your issue. If/when they have enough complaints, someone at htc will look into it and it will hopefully be part of the next update.
Btw, I think one of the triggers is no wifi activity. If you're getting push email every 45-60 min, then wifi remains on. If not, then it shuts off after about an hour.
The hidden power settings applies only to when the battery is low (25 or 15% remaining). Either way, it doesn't fix the problem.
Notch another one with this issue.
I had the issue even when I turned on my phone for the first time. I connected to the wifi during setup and couldn't activate my dropbox because of lack of connection.
Once I got through setup, I turned off wifi, turned it on and it worked again.
But there has been a few other times, especially when I first enter a wifi spot, I need to turn off and turn on.
It is quite annoying. And like somebody else said, there is no way of knowing this until you try something.
this seriously is a huge problem. google voice calls don't come through, emails don't come, anything internet connection. once you on off it,I had 8 missed calls, ten work emails, etc etc. plus if it thinks its connected, shows the wifi bar, but not actually connected, it fubars your 3g data connection for a few minutes trying to connect to something. I am furious about this as I didn't have this problem my first two days with this beautiful phone. now I'm seeing the ugly side, and I don't like it. and I'm not rooted yet so I can't fix it!!!!
the google voice phone calls do NOT come through, and this is a major major problem. wtf was htc thinking??
I wonder if a suitable work around might be to use some wifi keep alive widget running that pings the router every 30-60 minutes...?
I'm not sure, someone more knowledgeable will have to let us know. I imagine it won't without being a huge battery drain. shouldn't auto sync do that anyway? I'll look and try later tonight if don't hear from any experts
I'm not sure what autosync is? I use k9 mail setup with imap/push.
I recently got my new htc one. I found a weird problem. In my case, the Sleep mode under Power settings seems no use to WiFi at all, if WiFi policy set to "always" on. That is, my Wi-Fi is never turned off during long sleep. (I found sleep mode worked with mobile data though)
However, I checked two of my friends' phones; theirs were not the case. With Sleep mode on + WiFi always on, WiFi was turned off after long periods of inactivity on their phones.
The weird part is, some online users and even HTC tech support told me Sleep mode affects mobile data only, but I felt they might just be brushing me off.
Can more people confirm how this really works on new htc one?
If it's my phone's problem, what keeps my wifi on? I have auto sync on, location service on, etc., but my friends too. I can't think of any difference. Power saver doesn't affect wifi either (but works with mobile data).
Any help is much appreciated.
shawnlan said:
I recently got my new htc one. I found a weird problem. In my case, the Sleep mode under Power settings seems no use to WiFi at all, if WiFi policy set to "always" on. That is, my Wi-Fi is never turned off during long sleep. (I found sleep mode worked with mobile data though)
However, I checked two of my friends' phones; theirs were not the case. With Sleep mode on + WiFi always on, WiFi was turned off after long periods of inactivity on their phones.
The weird part is, some online users and even HTC tech support told me Sleep mode affects mobile data only, but I felt they might just be brushing me off.
Can more people confirm how this really works on new htc one?
If it's my phone's problem, what keeps my wifi on? I have auto sync on, location service on, etc., but my friends too. I can't think of any difference. Power saver doesn't affect wifi either (but works with mobile data).
Any help is much appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bump.
Just woke up the phone manually after about 30 min of inactivity and saw that no data / no wifi was active, LTE came back on first then about a second or two later wifi came back on.
So me thinking wifi definitely dies with the LTE (or 3G) in sleep mode.
JHK1984 said:
Bump.
Just woke up the phone manually after about 30 min of inactivity and saw that no data / no wifi was active, LTE came back on first then about a second or two later wifi came back on.
So me thinking wifi definitely dies with the LTE (or 3G) in sleep mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So any idea what might cause my phone to act differently?
you guys are all running the same rom and build? its gotta be a fully apples to apples comparison, because different builds can have different attributes and wifi drivers.
Since Sense 3.6 / 4.0 there's a thing called SmartSync. It will turn off your data connection after 15 minutes of inactivity. There's a catch: it only works in the dawn (between 00:00 h and IDK, perhaps 05:00, 06 or 07).
Maybe it works in the same way in Sense 5 but now renamed to "Sleep Mode" and configurable? In what time of the day were you testing the phones?
I guess an app may be keeping your phone awake too...?
Hi - Let me start of by saying I'm new to smartphones. The Galaxy S4 is my first one. Also, if I'm not posting in the right place, just let me know! Anyhow, for a while now, I've been having a problem with the "Android System" battery usage. It will be fine for a while, but then all of a sudden, it will spike up to really high levels that I know aren't right. For instance, after 12 hours after charging, with the android system around 3% or so, all of a sudden it will jump up to the 40s, 50s or even higher percentages. I would say that these spikes happen on average every 12 hours, but can be more or less frequent, though never more than a day. I've done a lot of searching around online about this, and it seems to be a fairly common problem. However, I don't really see any real solutions other than one that involves something called gsiff_daemon. I don't think that this is the cause of my problem though because when I click on "show CPU usage", it never shows up as an active process. I asked a friend of mine who is pretty knowledgeable about Android phones, and he suggested turning off the wifi for a while and see if it happens. Well I turned off my wifi and for 6 straight days the Android System never spiked. Within a few hours after I turned it back on, it spiked. (By the way, I also tried this with GPS, but it jumped high with the GPS off too.) My friend then suggested that maybe it's happening because it's constantly scanning for a wifi signal, so he said try unchecking "network notification" in the advanced menu of the wifi section. However, it appears that this option is not on Verizon S4 phones, even though it is on other provider's S4s! So at this point, we're at a loss. I want to add that I I think most of this excessive android system usage is not a true battery drain because it's impossible for it to go up so fast (within minutes) if you've already used 50% of your battery, for example. However, I do think there is a slight increase in the battery usage when this happens because it seems that way according to the info coming from the GSAM Battery Monitor that I have installed (but I don't know if that's always reliable either). I also have Better Battery Stats, and I can provide any wavelock info or anything else that might be helpful. I think I may just have to do a factory rest, but any help would be great!!
I was about to suggest a factory reset but it seems you're already considering that option... how strong is the connection to your router? If you aren't getting a good signal that could be a cause. Try to increase the signal strength of your antennas, if possible.
Have you taken the new OTA update? It's possible the new radio in the update may resolve your issue.
Crawshayi said:
I was about to suggest a factory reset but it seems you're already considering that option... how strong is the connection to your router? If you aren't getting a good signal that could be a cause. Try to increase the signal strength of your antennas, if possible.
Have you taken the new OTA update? It's possible the new radio in the update may resolve your issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As it turns on, I actually got the update message about the new software this morning and installed it this afternoon. So far so good. We'll see if any spikes still occur. I thought this was the Android 4.3 update at first, but then realized that it was just a Verizon thing.
I do have a weak wifi connection at my apartment as I'm using some open free wifi in the area. But actually maybe there's something there about that that could be causing all this. This wifi connection is really weird where sometimes even though it says it's connected with a decent enough signal, the data connection is just a trickle and essentially dead and then I have to turn it off and use the regular mobile data.
Well it lasted 24 hours after the software update, but yet again, I got another spike in Android System. Maybe I'll call Verizon before I do a factory reset to see if they can be of any assistance, but I'm pretty sure they won't be, and it'll end being a waste of time and energy. However, they should know that this is happening frequently. There are probably a lot more people with this problem, but they don't even look at their battery meter to see. There's got to be a solution to this. I'm afraid though that even if I do a factory reset, it will happen again.
I just want to add that the spike happened with the wifi turned off. In fact, it often seems to spike (as it did today) as I'm driving home from work with the wifi off.
Is the "WiFi on During sleeping" Checked? Also have you tried another router? 2.4ghz or 5ghz?
Zmnypit said:
Is the "WiFi on During sleeping" Checked? Also have you tried another router? 2.4ghz or 5ghz?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have it checked that the wifi is never on during sleep. It seemed to me to make sense to conserve the battery. Do you think it should always be on? I don't know anything about routers to be honest.
Check this
try this out...
go to settings-> connections-> wifi -> advanced (left select button) -> uncheck- " scanning always available" .
it has to work...
:victory:
donnys18 said:
try this out...
go to settings-> connections-> wifi -> advanced (left select button) -> uncheck- " scanning always available" .
it has to work...
:victory:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no "scanning always available" option on my phone. Maybe this is another thing that Verizon changes from other carries with the S4.
Anyhow, I discovered something a couple days ago. This may be a new "phenomenon" (lol), but now whenever I have my wifi on and I turn it off, Android System surges. When I turn it back it back on, it stops. But like clockwork, once I turn it off, it spikes once again. lol This is crazy. I'm just going to do a factory reset. I went to a Verizon store yesterday to have them look at it, and the girl there said they've never seen anything like this and that I should do a factory reset. If that doesn't work, then they'll give me a new phone. So a least I know that there is light at the end of the tunnel! lol I told her though that all you have to do is google "android system battery drain", and a whole bunch of stuff will pop up.
Hi All,
Firstly, I'm new here so please accept my apologies in advance if this is entirely the wrong place to open up this thread. Forgive me if I've gone into too much detail here, but thought it made sense to put as much info down - much of the following mayor may not therefore be relevant to the particular problem I'm having.
I have a Galaxy Note 3, which I've had for some 19 months now and it has generally been very good and reliable. I drive quite a lot, and my car is a VAG group car which uses rSAP to connect via Bluetooth - this too has been very stable and reliable.
About 3 months ago I noticed that my battery life had suddenly reduced dramatically, despite no change in use from my part (no new apps, not suddenly watching YouTube 24/7 etc.). I figured the battery had passed it's best, so went to the high street and purchased a new genuine Samsung battery, but this behaved exactly the same as the original battery.
I then noticed, occasionally, that while at home, my WiFi was dropping it's connection to my router, complaining that "Authentication Failed" (despite the WiFi password not having changed). Disabling the WiFi on the phone, and then re-enabling it seemed to fix this.
The following month, I had a notification from my provider that I'd used 80% of my data allowance, and a few days later another warning that I was at 90%. I get 10GB per month in my deal, and AFAIK, I've never in the past come anywhere close to using this up. A few days later, I tried to get online to google something, and landed on an EE page telling me I'd used up all my data for the month, which would reset the following day. I put this down to the WiFi Authentication problem mentioned above.
The following day, the phone told me that an android update was available. I applied this update, and thats when things started going really odd! The phone suddenly became very slow to respond. Sometimes turning the phone on would yield the lock screen with no wallpaper, other times I'd get the wallpaper and nothing else (no digits to unlock the phone for example). And I noticed that when in the car, the rSAP connection would drop off after 10 minutes or so - I put this down to the phone being unresponsive, and called EE.
EE recommended that I return the phone to factory defaults, which I did. After this, the phone is definitely more responsive, but now my rSAP connection drops out after around 2 minutes, and then re-connects. If I am actually on a call, the connection stays up for a little bit longer, but still drops out after 5-7 minutes. If I have the phone plugged into a charger in the car, it stays connected for a little bit longer, sometimes up to 15 minutes, but still regularly drops it's connection.
I noticed that this new o/s has a new feature for "Trusted devices", which I've added the car as, but this made no difference.
It is almost as if, this new version has included some sort of bluetooth power saving feature whereby if nothing much is happening (i.e. I'm not actively in a call), the conneciton drops out after a couple of minutes - unless I'm on external power, in which case it drops out after a bit longer. Prior to the update, it would stay connected, sometimes for hours at a time.
Has anyone else encountered this problem, and can you offer any suggestions as to what I might be able to do to investigate further (eg. are there any bluetooth logs I can inspect?) or better, fix the problem.
Your help is much appreciated