[AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note II] work4crown:
GroupCast Missing THEORY

My wife and I own Verizon S3s and we have been using Groupcast since we got the phones. We noticed last night when launching Allshare it wanted to be updated and after that no more GroupCast. I have a theory about what happened as far as it pertains to our Verizon S3s. You can extrapolate from this to figure out what happened to your AT&T Note devices.

1.) Samsung released Jelly Bean 4.1.1 which used the old Allshare which had Groupcast inside it.

2.) Samsung released Jellybean 4.1.2 with Premium Suite. They decided to remove Groupcast from Allshare because it was confusing too many people to have an app within an app. So they made Groupcast its own app. (If you read any of the stories online about the Premium Suite you will notice one of the new features is a GroupCast app.) See the story below as an example of a mention of Groupcast app coming in 4.1.2:

Well, I had a link to the page here but since I haven't posted 10 times this site is making me remove it. Lets just say it was at the Sammobile website under a story about the korean galaxy sIII getting 4.1.2

3.) They released the Updated Allshare app (which doesn't have GroupCast in it) to the Google Play Store.

4.) You have either Ice Cream 4.0.0 or Jellybean 4.1.1 on your Verizon S3 phone since 4.1.2 is not yet available and won't be for probably 6 months.

5.) You launch the old Allshare app on your phone. The Allshare app checks for updates upon launch and sees the 4.1.2 version of Allshare is available in the Google Play store even though it is not compatible with your phone. You are asked if you want to update and of course you say yes because you don't realize you are accidentally deleting GroupCast. You are brought to the Google Play store to the Allshare app page and told Groupcast features will be removed from the app and Groupcast will be added as its own app. You go through with the update.

6.) Allshare is updated to remove Groupcast features. Share to Groupcast is removed from Gallery menu, etc.

7.) Groupcast app is NOT added to your phone because you don't have Android 4.1.2 with Premium Suite. After you update Allshare you will notice that something downloads in the notification tray and you get a second message that Allshare is again updated. I wonder if that second download is the GroupCast app that tries to install but doesn't show up in the app tray.

So you just lost Groupcast because you let Samsung update your phone! :crying:

Fortunately you can uninstall the update from the manage apps section and all the groupcast stuff gets put back to the way it was and it works again. :laugh:

I talked with a Samsung rep about this last night for 30 minutes and of course they had no idea what I was talking about and didn't even seem to comprehend my story. It was recommended that I clear the data and cache from Allshare, reboot the phone. I tried that but it didn't add Groupcast features anywhere I can detect. They then recommended that I do a hard reset on my phone. Well, today I got the Jelly Bean update and to me that should be akin to a hard reset. I re-ran the update to Allshare with the same results; still no Groupcast. :crying:

Unfortunately everytime you launch Allshare you will be prompted to update the app and you'll need to say 'No' if you want to keep Groupcast. :crying:

Looks like Samsung messed up somehow; at least that's my theory. I hope this helps people to get a better understanding of what happened and perhaps Samsung will realize that they should not have allowed people to update Allshare until 4.1.2 is available and we are allowed to download the Groupcast stand alone app. Maybe they will realize their mistake and send us a message with a link so we can download it before the 4.1.2 update is available.

Anyway, if anyone has a better idea or better facts than me let me know.

Todd :laugh:

Numbers 6:24-26 "The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his face shine upon thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."