[Q] Handsfree mode constantly on/off, phone is useless. - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello guys... and girls
My phone have some strange behavior. 20 minutes ago, I was browsing the internet, and suddenly started to appear steering wheel in left upper corner. And it is so frequently that in one second it appear/disappear about 4-5 times. Tried to restart it but no changes. It wont recognize the charger also. Right now battery is on 3% and i turned off the phone. Even when the phone is off, charger doesnt charge the bat. Few days ago i have noticed that when i turn off mobile data or wifi, on screen appears "error in downloading data", and sometimes, "failure in initializing camera". And one more strange thing i have noticed is that mine subkeys lights turn on without touching them, and stays on until i lock the phone. Phone is rooted, and installed official 4.3 software. What should i do, because right now, the phone is useless?

Try flashing latest firmware with Odin and factory reset, but so many things at once sound like water damage to the motherboard.

Related

[Q] Device Freezing / Dying?

Has anyone experienced their phone freezing/locking up? I'm not talking about lagging/freezing applications, but the whole phone actually locking up.
My phone seems to be freezing up about twice a week and has been for the last 3 weeks. Each time it has been when the device was in my pocket or on charge at night (and subsequently the alarm does not go off).
When the device is frozen like this, it has no indications of even having power.The power button will not turn the phone off, on, or wake the device. Plugging the phone into power doesn't even turn the orange/green charging lights on, nor play the tone for when power is connected.
I physically have to remove the battery for a few seconds from the phone and re-insert before the phone will start up. I have even performed a hard reset on this device.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I'm thinking that it might be a hardware fault, or at a really wild guess maybe the HTC Attentive App.
I'm having no problems with crashing or freezing!
I have actually found the device to be very stable, a lot nicer cleaner and stable than my previous device (Sony Ericsson Xperia X10).
Had exactly that problem a couple of times already. The only solution is to pull the battery out.
Still - better than an iPhone crash which requires you to plug it back into the PC before it will work again.
I had a similar situation:
I was making an international call (card service), when finished i heared the card IVR prompt if i need to make another call. I wanted to hang up but the screen was black adn dead. power button did not bring into life and i was keep on hearing the active call. had to take the battery out to kill this situation.
typically windows behaviour
Thought I had narrowed this down to the HTC attentive app, but alas the phone froze again this morning after hitting snooze 3 or 4 times. Oddly enough, the power button would turn the screen on and off, but the lock screen wouldn't show, nor could anything be moved or controlled on the screen (live tiles were still animated though). Battery pull again.
Yeah, typical windows behavior. No where near as bad as Windows Mobile which I came from though
I have the same issue. Can be in the middle of a call or anything. Had it reboot once while on charge too. Did you just remove the attentive app? Would it be worth trying a Hard Reset if that wipes the device. If so how easy is it to put your old Apps back on. Or do I need to write a list and search manually.
I did a hard reset and just didn't install the app again.
"When you buy or download apps from the Zune PC client, those apps are automatically redownloaded to the phone when you reset the device and login with your Windows Live ID again. When you download apps from the phone itself, you have to go to the Marketplace again to manually find and redownload the apps you want."
http://www.winsupersite.com/paul/mailbag/101023.asp#9

[Q] Big problem

My phone displays the icon in the attached picture (when i shut it down).
It does not start-up, only from the recovery mode (with restart option).
The battery life dropped from 3 days to 12hours suddenly (once with this problem)
I notice that this problem appear from the day when i found my phone in the pocket unlocked, and a lot of app's were opened.
A messege "MTP connected" appears sometimes (without connect something)...
I made factory reset and a restore from a time when it was ok, and nothing.
What could be the problem?
Known issue. Clean the USB port and try a factory reset. If it doesn't work change the battery or bring it to a service center.
I tried with a new battery and same problem, i clean the usb port on the phone and nothing.... i mention that are some moments when it's working fine... (in most of times when the battery is on low level).
vanoss said:
My phone displays the icon in the attached picture (when i shut it down).
It does not start-up, only from the recovery mode (with restart option).
The battery life dropped from 3 days to 12hours suddenly (once with this problem)
I notice that this problem appear from the day when i found my phone in the pocket unlocked, and a lot of app's were opened.
A messege "MTP connected" appears sometimes (without connect something)...
I made factory reset and a restore from a time when it was ok, and nothing.
What could be the problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like it got hot and you have a hardware problem that you can't do anything about except for sending it in for servicing
Problem resolved, it was the electronic board from the bottom of the phone (the one with usb in and mic) and some tranzistors... very few services repairs in detail this phone, lot of services told me that i need to replace all motherboard..
But the important thing is that the phone runs smoothly

[Q] Charging only when turned off, 4.1.1.

Hi, everyone. I've seen the other threads and no one had a problem quite like mine.
Yesterday I've upgraded my Alcatel OT-997, ICS 4.0.4. with Kuano's TWRP and now it's:
Alcatel OT-997D, JB 4.1.1. - (details in this thread, 5th post) http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1981692&page=89
D means I can now use two SIM cards, which is cool.
The problem is the damn thing doesn't charge when it's turned on. It shows the lightning bolt over the battery icon, but in settings shows that charger is not connected. However, when it's turned off it charges, normally. I tried different settings in USB menu: Mass storage, MTP, Camera mode and Charge. Tried with and without Debugging mode. All of those work when connected to a computer in the sense that I can use internal storage, access both SD cards, and so on. But it doesn't charge.
I have tried 3 different cables, 3 wall outlets, and 2 PCs so it's not that. I suppose it's not a hardware problem otherwise it wouldn't charge properly when it's turned off.
So now I use schedule to turn it off before I go to sleep, and to turn on before I wake up, so it would charge while I'm sleeping. Anyone's got any ideas how to fix it?
Bump
Well I solved it with reinstall
Finally I've lost my patience so I tried the only thing that was left.
First I did a backup with TWRP.
Then, factory reset from TWRP.
Then, restore system from One Touch Upgrade 2.8.0 - lost the DUAL capability, software restored to 4.0.4.
Now comes the interesting part. It had the same problem as before, did not charge while on. So I tried a solution I found online a while ago but I never tried when on 4.1.1: Turn it off, connect charger, remove battery, wait a bit, press power button for approx 10 sec (nothing hapens), wait a bit, instert battery, turn it on and there it is. I'm not sure if it was this procedure that did the trick or it simply needed a reboot after update but it worked. It showed "charging" in battery stats.
Finally, restore with TWRP as Kuano explained in his post. Mind you, when I did the restore it was connected to my PC all the time.
Now two things I you should know:
First, before I did all this I connected it to my PC while turned off i.e. (PC - ON, phone - OFF). I noticed this: it was constantly connecting and disconnecting (the "piano chord" notification was coming from the computer speakers every 5 sec) like I was pulling the cable in and out. That is all I know about this, I didn't have the nerves to work on it.
Second, now that it is restored and charging, when I connected it to PC it couldn't change USB setting from Charge to MTP. It reported an error something like "service stopped". This happened only once and I did not try to do it again, I just don't have the energy for any more problem fixing right now. It charges, and I use airdroid for file transfer, that is all I need for now. If and when I get around to take a look at it I'll post here if there's something interesting.

[Q] My phone keeps freezing and shuts down usually when using google services

Hi everyone. I was having my s3 I9300 (stock rom; never rooted before) for like 2 years & with no flaw. Two weeks ago, I noticed that after it gets really battery low, the screen starts flickering weird horizontal lines, but it never freezes and shuts off.
However, 2 days ago, I was downloading something using the stock browser (blue earth icon), soon after, i turned the wifi off only to find out that my downloading was still going (downloading some album from tusfile.com) then in a blink of an eye, the moment I immediately turned it back on, the screens starts showing "flickering movement (just horizontal lines)" then immediately freezed. I was waiting for like 50 minutes, then decided to remove the battery.
After putting it back, then turned it on, "flickering" then freezes, then shuts itself off (i repeated the cycle twice or thrice, but it keeps doing the same sh*t) . After 10 minutes without putting the battery, i put it back in, turned it on. But this time, as soon as it got turned on, i immediately locked the screen by pressing the power button once (i just turned the screen off just to make the screen black)
After 10 minutes, i decided to use it again & everything was fine. The moment i tried the app "screen filter" just to darken the screen up, then the whole sh*t started again. I will never use that app again.
After 10 minutes of removing the battery, switched to recovery mode (in that mode, That green android was seemed lying down, it says "no command", & with a big red exclamation mark, he seemed dead) then I wiped the "cache partition", then factory reseted it, turned it on & everything was okay.
Since my phone was factory reseted, I download some app (Google Keep) and that app wanted me to update "Google Play Service". I was updating it fine, after it reached 87%, the whole sh*t started again but this time, I TOTALLY CANT TURN THE SYSTEM ON AGAIN!, unless i clear the "cache partition", then turned it on again. I repeated the cycle again, then decided to stop rely on Google Play again.
Then whole same thing happened when i was using G mail. Then Google Play. Then Play Service.
Shall I root my phone? Flash it to "CM12.1?
Thank you very much.

Screen turning on repeatedly

Hey everyone!
I picked up a Gear S about a week ago and until today, I've had no problems. I took the watch off charge this morning and everything was working as fine, used some apps etc, no issues. Then I checked my phone for updates and saw that the Gear Manager app had an update and I installed it. Since then, the screen on my Gear S has been constantly turning on and off. It will turn for about 9 seconds, then switch off and back on 2 seconds later. Turning the screen on manually works but everything is pretty much frozen. I can periodically get as far as the pedometer (because there's an icon for it on the home screen) or to the Apps menu but no further and then the screen will switch itself off.
I'm not sure whether an update to the Gear Manager app should affect the watch itself but I know that when I wiped my phone a few days ago and went to set up the Manager again, it factory reset the watch so I assume there is a direct connection between the software. I've tried disabling both Bluetooth and the remote connection to check if Gear Manager is causing the screen to behave strangely but it's still turning on and off. It's impossible to do a soft reset through the Gear S itself as the screen switches off before I can get to settings and I've tried doing a hard reset but nothing works.
I tried searching on Google for anyone having similar issues and the only thread I can find was posted on Android Central (yesterday I think) with a few people saying that they're having the same problem which makes me thing that the update to Gear Manager is the issue.
Edit: The only screen that doesn't seem to be affected is the PIN lock screen. Screen switches off there as normal and does not come back on.
Edit 2: I've never reset the Gear S before (and I only noticed the factory reset mentioned above after it was finished) but when I attempt to do a hard reset, the watch just reboots as normal without anything happening and all info / data is still there. I presume this really shouldn't be the case?
UPDATE: I'm an idiot / Samsung's instructions on how to do a hard reset are awful.
I decided to Google how to do a hard reset and discovered that when in the Recovery Menu, you need to hold down the Power button to choose an option (Samsung's instructions just tell you to press the Power button until you highlight what you want and I assumed it would automatically choose that after a few seconds because the phone would restart for me). Watch is now factory reset and so far the screen issue appears to be resolved. Another four hours of transferring music it is then.
@BOZG can you post a link to that thread?
I have the Same problem. Sometimes changing a clock face or installing/uninstalling a program seems to make it stop. I have yet to find a good consistent solution. Restarts etc. don't help. Hard reset will fix it but last time I just changed settings on and off and powered the phone on and off and eventually it stopped.
It seems related to when the phone is connected remotely over a cell network. I have the AT&T unlocked with a T-Mobile regular line, not the wearable line since I have a 5 for $100 business plan and the 5th line was not being used. Doubt that makes a difference though.
Followup:
Just now I had the watch off and charged to 100%. Powered up with phone off. Same issue. Watch face loads, the hands change to the current time, then it slides down the screen and looks like a reload because when it comes back up the time isn't correct. The hands reset to the right time. This happens a few times. I power the phone up. Bluetooth connects. I open the gear manager on the phone and it stops.
Will try to repost if that's repeatable. I hope they fix it because it burns quite a bit of battery when it happens. It gets warm so it's running the CPU a lot whatever it is.
allow to power down
BOZG said:
Hey everyone!
I picked up a Gear S about a week ago and until today, I've had no problems. I took the watch off charge this morning and everything was working as fine, used some apps etc, no issues. Then I checked my phone for updates and saw that the Gear Manager app had an update and I installed it. Since then, the screen on my Gear S has been constantly turning on and off. It will turn for about 9 seconds, then switch off and back on 2 seconds later. Turning the screen on manually works but everything is pretty much frozen. I can periodically get as far as the pedometer (because there's an icon for it on the home screen) or to the Apps menu but no further and then the screen will switch itself off.
I'm not sure whether an update to the Gear Manager app should affect the watch itself but I know that when I wiped my phone a few days ago and went to set up the Manager again, it factory reset the watch so I assume there is a direct connection between the software. I've tried disabling both Bluetooth and the remote connection to check if Gear Manager is causing the screen to behave strangely but it's still turning on and off. It's impossible to do a soft reset through the Gear S itself as the screen switches off before I can get to settings and I've tried doing a hard reset but nothing works.
I tried searching on Google for anyone having similar issues and the only thread I can find was posted on Android Central (yesterday I think) with a few people saying that they're having the same problem which makes me thing that the update to Gear Manager is the issue.
Edit: The only screen that doesn't seem to be affected is the PIN lock screen. Screen switches off there as normal and does not come back on.
Edit 2: I've never reset the Gear S before (and I only noticed the factory reset mentioned above after it was finished) but when I attempt to do a hard reset, the watch just reboots as normal without anything happening and all info / data is still there. I presume this really shouldn't be the case?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I left mine to use up all the battery,then when it switched off, i left for 2 days and when i switched back on... all fine again.
theroblog.com said:
@BOZG can you post a link to that thread?
I have the Same problem. Sometimes changing a clock face or installing/uninstalling a program seems to make it stop. I have yet to find a good consistent solution. Restarts etc. don't help. Hard reset will fix it but last time I just changed settings on and off and powered the phone on and off and eventually it stopped.
It seems related to when the phone is connected remotely over a cell network. I have the AT&T unlocked with a T-Mobile regular line, not the wearable line since I have a 5 for $100 business plan and the 5th line was not being used. Doubt that makes a difference though.
Followup:
Just now I had the watch off and charged to 100%. Powered up with phone off. Same issue. Watch face loads, the hands change to the current time, then it slides down the screen and looks like a reload because when it comes back up the time isn't correct. The hands reset to the right time. This happens a few times. I power the phone up. Bluetooth connects. I open the gear manager on the phone and it stops.
Will try to repost if that's repeatable. I hope they fix it because it burns quite a bit of battery when it happens. It gets warm so it's running the CPU a lot whatever it is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
samsung gear s screen on and off..looping
There you go. Not much to read there though as it's just me and OP. The problem re-emerged for me after a few days again so I was forced to do another hard reset to actually use the watch. I noticed it when I woke up in the morning and noticed that another update had been pushed to the Gear app. That's twice now that this has happened shortly or immediately after the Gear app was updated.
I haven't been able to uninstall an app / change clock face to see if it works as the watch is completely unusable when it happens to me. The Gear app registers that it's connected but it's impossible to change anything from there either and if I turn the watch off and back on again, the Gear app will no longer connect.
petethepete2000 said:
I left mine to use up all the battery,then when it switched off, i left for 2 days and when i switched back on... all fine again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure if I've actually tried letting the battery drain. I'll try that the next time it happens (if it happens).
I had the same problem after the update, a reboot didn't solve the problem. Eventually the battery drained. After a recharge most is fine but I never know which watch face will suddenly appear.
Same issue again. Didn't see the Gear app updating but there was an update released the day before. Going to switch off auto-updates and see if it definitely the problem. Just seems too coincidental that this problem starts right after an update is released for the Gear App.
petethepete2000 said:
I left mine to use up all the battery,then when it switched off, i left for 2 days and when i switched back on... all fine again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Started doing it again yesterday so let the battery die and charged it fully and it didn't help. Left it on the box overnight and brought it to a Samsung Service Centre this morning and of course it was working again when I took it out of the box! Left it with them anyway so I'll see what happens.
I've had my Gear S a few weeks and it has also started doing this, I will give some of the suggestions here a go.....
EDIT: So opening the Gear Manager App once Bluetooth was connected brought my Gear S back to life. Phew!
It's only entered this state after I turned it off at night and then turned it back on in the morning - so it had been off roughly 8 hours. Upon turning it on the screen would cycle from the right time and notification numbers and the wrong time and wrong notification numbers too off again.
@ BOZG - Just wondering if you got your S back yet and if so, were they able to tell you what was causing this on/off problem. Mine just started doing it yesterday.
Also, how did you find the "Samsung Service Centre"?
holding the screen seems to cause it...
Had to send mine to Samsung for a new charging cradle and they updated the software to latest, when i got it back it seemed fine. Then i was messing about with it and was holding the screen to my chest for a while and that seemed to cause it to happen. It seems to be the screens gets too much activation and it flips out. I think this is what started the problem last time it happened.1
Switching to power saving mode seems to fix it for me... have to wait until it gets low on battery and when the low bat warning comes on, switch then... leave for a bit then switch back to normal.
I called Samsung Thursday and they sent me a UPS label and told me to send the watch, charging cradle and AC charging cord back in for service. She told me it takes about 7-14 days. We shall see.
Happy to have found this. </rant>I'm starting to get enough of this Samsung stuff. I had the note 2 and now I have the note 4 and gear S. That is mote then 1000 euro of equipment. And today when I tried the restore to fix this, both the phone and the watch rebooted. Crazy that they can not build good software and hardware for this price. </rant>
To me it seems that is freezes somehow when this happens. It kept jumping back to 22:10 time and changed to the watch-face and settings keep rolling back. It seems to happen to me, when the watch is off for some hours. The samsung way... no update to fix this.
solved for me
hi first of all sorry if i do any mistakes because English is not my language
i had similar problem and i found the solution at least in my case . THE PROBLEM IS NOT WITH THE GEAR S
all was ok using 4.4.2 kitkat on my note 3 before few months i upgrade with lollipop 5 official from sammobile via odin
from that moment the problems begin with the reconnection of the gear with the note
long time to connect and no auto reconnection only manual by turning off-on the bluetooth
i was boring to do format to the note3 so i left it as it
few weeks ago probably of gear manager update the gear start freezing and the screen turning on and off
first i do a factory reset and the gear was ok for a while but after it do the same but the next time the screen was not ok the colors was different so i send to service in Athens
the service in Athens is very fast and very helpful , is one of the reasons that i will difficult go with other manufacture , so they return me the gear saying that they change the motherboard and now there is new imei
but the gear that they send me was brand new except the band and the box. BUT after some time the same problem ..... i call them and they tell me to send it back so i send it and i receive it again but this time the say that the watch is ok
GUESS NOW .... i turn it on and after a while of the connection with my note AGAIN the same problem the screen on and off and freezing plus was overheat underneath
i was ready to call them and to say few words but they was closed ..... then i search the net and i found this post and i thing probably is not the gear the problem ,no hardware problem, i decide to do a test
i download the last working rom to my phone 4.4.2 and magically the problem disappears .... but now there is a software update on my phone lollipop 5 so i do the update and i was ready if the phone cause again the same problem
to return and stay with 4.4.2 But now all is ok the problem solved .... now is more of 24h and all are ok
i hope this will work for you also
Same problem
I have the same issue exactly - Note 4 with latest lollipop upgrade - it is very frustrating......I don't particularly want to have to move back an OS just to use the watch !
JALUK said:
I have the same issue exactly - Note 4 with latest lollipop upgrade - it is very frustrating......I don't particularly want to have to move back an OS just to use the watch !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok but doing a downgrade and all working ok you can do update again.... i am not with 4.4.2 i went to the latest 5.0 for me now and all are ok.
Maybe something was wrong with the update procedure.
UPDATE
the touch function of the 2nd gear stop working so i send it back and they send me new device
for a few days all was ok . But today when i restart the phone while the gear was disconnected the problem with screen turning on repeatedly appears again .
for sure is not problem of the gear , this is the 3rd device in my hands, something is wrong with the gear manager software .
i have also reconnection problems .... if the phone is far away and they lost Bluetooth connection the most of the times i must reconnect manually , the gear say disconnected but the note think is still connected
I wonder has anyone tried to reset the watch as a stand alone device and see if the problem happens? I know you might lose a lot of the blue tooth functionality but I think I will test it and see if the problem still happens.

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