yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] jeffnz:
@roadrunner so what are the actual numbers of people being turned down for warranty. What percentage of phones have failed, any idea??? if not then what are you actually basing your comments on, a couple of threads and how many of those that are effected are posting here ??

"Call to arms" metaphorically speaking.

---------- Post added at 07:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:08 AM ----------

@aalvico I haven't forgotten anything just trying to put things into perspective before people get too emotional and common sense disappears out the window.

The reality is that not all phones are effected so if you recall millions of phones it would be a logistical nightmare and people would be more frustrated than they are now.

Granted the whole thing is a mess but Lets not get too carried away, at least not until we even know what it is and how it can be/is fixed
[Galaxy S III General] dave4bren:
Mine had the sudden death... took it in to CarPhoneWarehouse and they sent it to there engineers, I didn't even buy it from their. It had the insane chip b4 it went... now it hasn't... They said they replaced the PBA (what ever that is)...

So the moral is try CarPhoneWarehouse, they fixed mine

The binary counter was on 6 as well but now its on 0 :laugh:
[Galaxy S III General] aalvico:
@jeffnz I think you are only considering a public recall, taking for cars examples you also should know that are problems they never tell you because they can fix on inspections or others are procedures to solve knowing issues . The point is there is no issue for non rooted devices for Samsung and that is not true. If in your country they need to fix even rooted is not exactly because they liked or admitted that there is a problem. The number of phones involved probably is not a crazy one . So the problem is the denial

Not emotional arguments... Facts, fix the phone is 350 USD here plus warranty cancelled.

Fact, since no official problem with the eMMC there are still 0xf1 for replaces here.

Fact, since no official problem with 4.1.1 (only unbranded phones have 4.1.2 here) they will flash 4.1.1 back

Fact, if break again during the limited service center warranty with the download mode access sorry limited warranty cancelled.

I don't see emotional arguments, anyway different points of view.
[Galaxy S III General] Roadrunner100:
Nope, I haven't the statistics, but neither do you. However, do a google search, don't limit the results to English, I'm satisfied that this is beyond statistical coincidence. Bottom line - Class Action Suits begin with a collection of individuals with a common complaint joining forces. That's when statistics become reality, as the complaints are aggregated.

You are viewing this through an "I'm alright Jack" perspective, - I get it, your local representatives are playing nice.
[Galaxy S III General] shethsa:
I guess one way to make resellers aware is to ask for an s3 32 gb and when they try to hard sell you 16gb tell them why you don't want to risk your hard earned money on it. They will probably have your sympathy at the least and understand that it is a widespread problem.
[Galaxy S III General] camil:
They do that?? hard sell 16 Gb model?? why??
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Because there are many more of those manufactured than the 32 GB variants.
[Galaxy S III General] ponepo:
Hi,

Do anyone have news that has changed something in the kernel since the recent UK XXEMB1 concerning to the fix?

In HTCMania.com spanish forum there are many people who are reporting that they no longer suffer freezes due to fix since they installed XXEMB1 but I do not know if it will be a placebo effect or something that has really changed.
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
We won't know anything until the sources are updated and released to us. We may be able to find the relevant code by deconstructing the kernel to see if anything immediately surrounding the string "VTU00M" has changed but it's unlikely that way to find anything.
[Galaxy S III General] scottcwhite:
Well I bought a Nexus 4 to use why my S3 is off to England to get repaired. This phone is awesome in every way. When I get my S3 back in who knows how long it will be difficult deciding which one to sell. The only negative I have is I think the the soft keys could be located much lower to in order to utilize more screen real estate. Would be nice to use my 64 gig sd card but I can live with 16 that is built in.
[Galaxy S III General] jeffnz:
This is going nowhere suffice I don't think this is a good situation for anyone.

As to ï'm alright Jack attitude" that is incorrect the water damage indicator is a purple colour as I use an app on the phone when cycling so it gets damp. However I also have insurance cover for things that valuable and whilst it is hard for people that don't have the consumer backup of some countries I have difficulty seeing why people don't insure items then get upset when it gets damaged or, as in this case, warranty doesn't cover it.
[Galaxy S III General] daanismyname:
Hi everyone!

I also have the Sudden Death Galaxy S III model. What are the real symptoms of this sudden death? I've been having many FC's lately.
[Galaxy S III General] Roadrunner100:
It'll certainly go somewhere once the momentum for a Class Action Suit matures. You'll note that this thread houses many first time posters coming here to report their own Sudden Death issues. This can be interpreted in many ways, I chose to believe that this is due to many owners who are not otherwise "technically" inclined, or "Pimp Your Device" enthusiasts, finding XDA S3 SDS threads.

Your water damage cannot typically be argued to be a manufacturing or component fault, unless you argue inadequate design considerations. However, these devices should most certainly be humidity and fog proof. Manufacturing or indeed design faults are not issues for aftermarket/personal insurance.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as though there were/are similar issues with the S2, and there are threads for the Note 2, all apparently using the same chip. While I haven't invested sufficient time in the other two device threads, it does appear that Samsung are being a "tad" belligerent with their customers by not publicly owning this issue, and treating instances haphazardly and inconsistently by what they can get away with.

Finally, I hope Samsung reconsiders their Global policy for this issue, and formally clarify and address this fault, if anything to remove further speculation and mounting distrust.
[Galaxy S III General] owl74:
I bought a Nexus 4 too... but what I miss on the S3/Note 2 is the Music player and the better sound of the speakers. Also APt-x support. And the most important to me is the micro SD slot.. I don't understand why google has handicapped the nexus devices by not including micro sd slot... the Nexus 4 could have been a S3 and iphone killer...
[Galaxy S III General] aalvico:
I also bought nexus 4, didn't arrive yet but considering was the same price I would pay to change s3 motherboard (and now Samsung changed the availability from 3 to 20 days... But I am not surprised) I thought this sacrifice (sd) is less than admit for Samsung I am an idiot.
[Galaxy S III General] Beatsleigher:
Luckily all I had to do is use Odin. For some reason nothing could access my eMMC except for Odin. :confused:
[Galaxy S III General] kaxuk:
New member. Just found this thread.

I've been a reasonably happy owner since August. Had the occasional lag which I did not like but nothing major. From last week things started going horribly wrong. Running 4.1.2 on T-Mobile (UK). Have been reading around and the symptoms are the same. Phone would freeze - sometimes it would wake up after 10-20mins - sometimes it would reboot. Sometimes it would hang at boot. The whole lot. Completely unusable. I emailed Samsung for a replacement. Luckily I never rooted the phone, although I did contemplate doing that sever times.

In answer to the query above, I also have VTU00M eMMC with FwRev 0xf1. eMMC check reports "YES insane chip"

I am running XXELLA and had no problems before with other builds (other than the occasional lag).

I still do not understand whether it is known how the new ROM affects this lot of phones. Anyway I won't mess it with it - will just send it back and expect a working one. Very disappointed.

I read somewhere about trying wake-lock. I did just now and the phone has been alive for 30mins which must be a record. I do not understand how keeping the cpu alive should avoid the problem with RAM access so I expect the phone to hang at any time.
[Galaxy S III General] Rob2222:
@Kaxuk:

Here is a way with a good chance how you can fix the freezes yourself:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=37976063#post37976063

BR

Rob
[Galaxy S III General] kaxuk:
Rob, many thanks for that. I had noted this earlier. But why should I live with a buggy memory handler which would still crash the system when I paid good money for it?

I'll give it a go to help the developer and improve our understanding of the issue, but, assuming I am understanding the issue, I do not see why I should not return the phone. More of a mystery to me is how wakelock can avoid the lockups.

Edit: DummyFG triggered the bug as you expected. Will now let it work through the night. I did not free the whole memory. Will leave feedback on this in the other thread. Thanks.
[Galaxy S III General] Kjc99:
It is very hard to get your phone replaced just for it freezing up look around in other threads people reporting your same issue sent there phones in just to get there device back.... Samsung most likely won't replace your phone until it actually dies...
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
Exactly, which is why I tell people to just kill it if it's on the edge already.
[Galaxy S III General] scottcwhite:
Well I might be stupid for not just using USPS but I just paid $123.00 to FedEx the phone to repair center in England. That puts me now at $640.00 spent on this damn phone so far. I really think once this thing gets fixed and I get it back I'm just going to sell it and sick with the GNex4 I bought
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
I spent $80 shipping it via Fedex from here in NYC to Germany. Took me like a month to get back though, although the people I bought it from (they were the ones who forwarded it to a repair center on my behalf) overnighted it back to me. USPS is a bad idea for international shipping. Slow, unreliable tracking, and they seem to get caught up at customs a lot. The seller even warned me about using them.
[Galaxy S III General] zeynl:
i bought my white 16gb on the 13.07.2012. on the 10.12.2012 had sds and sent my s3 to my local smart center. they told me they would replace the mainboard but did not aknowledge as an sds problem.they said the phone went dead as a problem due to electricity oscilation (that wasnt true obviously). the main board wasnt replaced and they always kept giving me escuses like "the parts are not available and we have to import them", anyways we went on with this until they said as a policy if the device stays over then 15 days at the smart centre they replace the device with a new one. that also didnt happen until today 25.01.2013 almost 4 months later, i finaly got a brand new s3, but this time the red one.i had to change my tone with them and tell them i would put a legal action against samsung fi they solve my situation.now im gona the new device on charge and later check if the chip is the "insane" one or not.anyways thats my story with samsung and sds.t
[Galaxy S III General] kaxuk:
This may have been answered before but I cannot find it. How do you actually kill it if it's got the bug?

If Samsung send the phone back to me, the first time it freezes I will directly make a claim against American Express jointly with the retailer giving them 2 weeks to send me a new phone; failing that I'll take them to small claims court for the full amount of the phone. I am not going to waste my time calling samsung or anything. Sadly it's the only language they understand.
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
There is no known way to force SDS.
[Galaxy S III General] kaxuk:
Thanks - I was just responding to http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=38436441&postcount=4517
[Galaxy S III General] Rob2222:
I would not say this for sure.

I know already 5 cases where a downgrade of a freezing 4.1.2 phone to 4.1.1 killed the phone within one week.

BR

Rob
[Galaxy S III General] rodrigoyasuda:
Actually, there is.

Just keep using your phone until it dies :P
[Galaxy S III General] Rob2222:
But thats not without risk, when you then did not get warranty for any strange reason.

And there are enought cases of that reported in the different forums, unfortunately.

BR

Rob
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
And I know of a hundred cases where the devices are still functional.

How lame :\
[Galaxy S III General] rodrigoyasuda:
Okay then. As it is an emmc problem maybe if you massively write and delete stuff it may make it die faster.
[Galaxy S III General] Rob2222:
You know hundred cases where people with freezing 4.1.2 downgraded to 4.1.1 without to having a dead phone short later?

Can you maybe pinpoint me to a hand full of posts?

As far I remember I have not read some long-time-success reports here about that. :confused:

From my point of observation, every phone that was freezing under 4.1.2 and was downgraded then died.

BR

Robert
[Galaxy S III General] woodwars:
That was my experience - freezing on 4.1.2, downgraded then died.
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
That was sarcasm. Point is: unless you can guarantee a method which will work at ALL times, on ALL affected devices, you can't say you know how to force SDS.

You only know how to increase likelihood of SDS. Big difference.
[Galaxy S III General] Jackos:
We do not use sarcasm here at xda. It's forbidden by the rules, because engineers do not understand this.
[Galaxy S III General] Rob2222:
Hmm, 5 reported tests I know of, 5 dead units. This is "all" imho. Unless you find more testers. ;)

BR

Rob
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
I'm an engineer :\

Next time I'll use <sarcasm /> tags.
[Galaxy S III General] Brooks316:
I must admit my phone freezing has become such a problem I've downgraded to XELL4 (this is pre fix isnt it?) . Been fine all day, but just waiting for it to die.
[Galaxy S III General] Rob2222:
XXELL4 already contains the fix and the phone should not die.

However, it could be that it starts to freeze again.

BR

Rob
[Galaxy S III General] dajumper:
I have my phone a blue and a white one from June 2012 now almost 9 months and everything works perfect I hope it stays so :thumbup:
[Galaxy S III General] Nachogy:
Sudden Death Issue

I had the sudden death issue on my Galaxy S3 back to November. I reside in US and purchased the international version. I believe mine was the first released S3 as I purchased them as soon as they released in UK back to earlier of June.

My S3 just won't be able to turn on after one day I woke up in the morning. I had contact Samsung in UK but they just ignore my service request. WTF.

Because I bought this thing through Amazon here, so I sent it over to the retailer for warranty claim. Luckily the retailer (Expansys) is very responsive and very helpful.

Until now, it has been 11 weeks after I sent my S3 for service. I am not sure if there is anyone so "lucky" like me that bought a S3 use it for 5 months and out for service for 3 months!

I still do not know when can I get my S3 back at the moment....
[Galaxy S III General] Brooks316:
Well that's just great, not had a single issue all day. May return to CM 10.1 and see if that works as well.
[Galaxy S III General] cameracartwright:
I'm really sorry if this isn't in he correct place to ask but I'm going mad.... I recently rooted my gs3 I9300 international via Odin and then installed CyanogenMod 10.1 nightly. I was previously on 4.1.2 jelly bean XXELLA with exynos/sudden death fix. But now I'm worried that CyanogenMod dosent have the the fix for exynos and sudden death in the CyanogenMod kernel/firmware??? Can anyone shed any light? I'm so new to this and panicking. I tried the emmc checker and said insane chip?

Thanks in advance
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2091045

CM10.1 (latest versions) have fix for SDS (see link above)

Not sure about Exynos.
[Galaxy S III General] cameracartwright:
Thanks but the bit that confused me was this. If I root via Odin does this change(flash my kernel) ? As I've never as far as I'm aware flashed a custom or different from stock kernel
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Odin is just a flasher program. Really what you're asking is "If I root via CF Root", then yes it changes the kernel. When you flash a ROM though, it comes with a Kernel. It's the kernel that contains the fix, so yes when you flashed CM, you also flashed the CM kernel.
[Galaxy S III General] cameracartwright:
Thanks for the info I've been panicking (I'm such a worry wart but really want to learn about rooting/hacking and tweaking Android) just didn't want to use my phone without a sudden death fix kernel installed
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
You also need to think about installing a different recovery if you still have CWM installed...
[Galaxy S III General] cameracartwright:
I did a nandroid backup in cwm before flashing is that what you mean? I've read about recovery but I'm not sure if what I've done is correct?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
No I mean cwm also has a kernel and that kernel is NOT safe, so you need to replace cwm recovery with Philz recovery or Team Win recovery, linked in that thread I gave you the link for.
[Galaxy S III General] cameracartwright:
Sorry to be so dumb but I'm really confused? If I flash cm10.1 I thought that replaces with a safe kernel?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Ok so Sudden Death is triggered when writing to the internal Memory. The work around or fix for this is embedded in the kernel

But not only does Android have a kernel, but also recovery has a kernel. So If you are writing data to internal memory in android, yes you have a safe kernel and writing data in Android is safe.... But, you also write data in recovery. For example, when you take a nandroid backup, you are writing data. When you Flash a ROM, you are writing data. CWM's kernel does NOT have the fix.

This means, you need to change CWM for a recovery that also has a fixed kernel, because using the one you have now could kill your phone! BOTH recovery and android need a fixed kernel, but they are 2 separate kernels, not 1 single kernel so both must be fixed.
[Galaxy S III General] cameracartwright:
Ahhh OK so I did use the cwm recovery not the team w so if I restore to my nandroid now I wouldn't be safe but if I then, once restored do another nandroid but select team w as the recovery this one would be safe?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
The nandroid backups have nothing to do with it. I am saying you need to install another recovery. When you rooted, you automatically installed ClockWorkMod recovery. This must go. You need to install either TeamWin Recovery or Philz recovery to replace the CWM recovery you have now because when you boot into recovery, you are not using the android kernel which is safe. You are using the cwm recovery kernel which is unsafe. This means anything you do in recovery (backups, restores, flashing roms) risks breaking your phone.

All 3 recoveries have the ability to backup and restore nandroids. Personally I recommend you install Philz.
[Galaxy S III General] f0xy:
Be sure to claim shopping expenses off Samsung Mobile.
[Galaxy S III General] cameracartwright:
Post deleted
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Yes thats the latest :)
[Galaxy S III General] cameracartwright:
Cannot thank you enough a lot of people I've found on CDA hate noobs :/ you've been really helpful
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
No probs!
[Galaxy S III General] f0xy:
If any of you are within a contract with a carrier and are struggling to get a replacement then argue with the carrier as well
[Galaxy S III General] cameracartwright:
One final question. Do I just boot into recovery and install/flash the zip?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
depends which file you downloaded. There is a cwm one (.zip) which can be flashed via recovery. there is also an odin one (.tar) which can be flashed via odin. They can only be flashed by the method of teh one you downloaded. But essentially, yes if you got the .zip one, flash in recovery same as you did CM.
[Galaxy S III General] cameracartwright:
OK great I was just a little confused by this bit from the guide for the zip recovery option

Download philz_touch_xxx.zip file

Put the previously downloaded< I don't have as previous download?

philz_touch_xxx.zip file on your sd card

Boot into recovery (volume up+home+power)

Select "Install zip" and browser to your downloaded zip file.

Now select the philz_touch_xxx.zip fileyou copied in previous step

You will have PhilZ Touch Recovery flashed

---------- Post added at 01:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:40 AM ----------

Can I do this on cm10.1?

---------- Post added at 02:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:50 AM ----------

OK I've installed Philz and tested it by booting into restore and works great love the touch screen ui. One think I am confused about is. Do I still need cwm installed? And my recoveries I made with cwm are they safe or can they be restored via philz?
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
CWM is a recovery. PhilZ is a recovery that's based on CWM. So it's capable of pretty much everything CWM is, and more. Hence your backups should be restored without any trouble, as long as the CWM version PhilZ is based on can do it. You have one /recovery partition. You either install CWM or PhilZ or TWRP or whatevertheeff else (this is in response to "Do I still need CWM?").

PS: Please clean up your posts, you're almost polluting the thread!
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
What I meant was roll back to 4.1.1 or before ELLA and let the phone die eventually so you can expedite the process and get it repaired.
[Galaxy S III General] aalvico:
Never forget to mention the risk of warranty. But if I lived in a country with no problems with that, I never would wait a miracle of a firmware fixing that memory.

Here I still have no luck to fix my phone...many cases in websites to defend customers and only 3 kind of answers from Samsung :

1- to look for a service center

2- Samsung doesnt contest service centers reports (like I said service centers here have a instruction to follow and report Samsung about void warranty and check download mode information is one of them without exceptions)

3- Samsung (Amazon) can only assist you about products made in this country

(that is when you try any connection with other places with the same problem)

If that answers don't fit (which is very hard for common customers) they don't answer.
[Galaxy S III General] ownjoouk:
The latest UK firmware luckily fixed my phone!

It was more than lucky because I updated my phone on the day that Samsung returned it having refused to fix it. They called it BER. Beyond Economical Repair because I had modified it despite reverting it to stock before sending the phone back.

It came back and was still freezing and then I noticed there was a new firmware released on the 19th Feb. Updated it and it worked fine since.

I've now rooted and put cm 10.1 on and its still 100% working 24 hrs later.

Before this it froze after 5 minutes use.

If its any use I was on xxela and freezing persisted. Did the update software option via phone to elm1 I had think it was. Was a 50mb download.Phone went to stock recovery and updated and has been working since.
[Galaxy S III General] resore:
Odp: **Ultimate GS3 sudden death thread**

@up

how did they know was modified if you made it stock again?
[Galaxy S III General] ownjoouk:
No idea but they did, I made sure it was how it should be. They wouldn't comment further just that it was BER which is rubbish because it is now fully working.
[Galaxy S III General] kaxuk:
XXEMB1 (still 4.1.2) came this morning with service update. No freezes yet. Device now appears faster