[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] woodz93:
I have been searching forums the past few weeks or so for a fix or a workaround for this. One workaround exists but it does so by disabling the suspect menu button. There's lots of evidence that this is a hardware issue, but there are lingering variables that remain unanswered, the main one being why some phones develop this problem after a period of time (say a year or so) of good behavior. Some people have taken the phone apart and cleaned it and it went away, some suggested the wi-fi (really?). Try those things first if you'd like, but they didn't work for me. This is the result of my experimenting and some observations i made. Because of the relative ease of getting a used E4GT on ebay/craigslist (I scored one in very nice condition from ebay for 50) some people don't really have the option of walking into a store and getting their phones swapped and like me probably were getting annoyed at getting the menu popping up in low signal areas and don't want to resort to workarounds.

If your phone is within warranty, don't bother trying these suggestions. Easiest to get it swapped out. (unless you have already done that multiple times) :laugh:

OPTION 1:

Here is a hack that sounds like a solid fix, it makes a lot of sense though, you are essentially using a small magnet strip as a crude RF shield on the flex connector which inhibits RF interference apparently - ingenious if you ask me!!.

Since the fix I offered is firmware based (meaning it still may not work, although I haven't had mines fail yet. YMMV, these phones have their own personalities :p) it sounds logical that this one will address the bigger problem, which as jdsingle76 mentioned, is the hardware, so if you're feeling brave I'd do this fix.

This fix requires you take apart your phone

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=44639715&postcount=8

(This is for informational purposes, as the first fix pretty much negated this one - although it worked for me, it requires having to go back to a modem that could possibly have worse performance than your current one...)

OPTION 2:

If you want to stay with the stock TW 4.1.2 ROM, this won't help you.

Do this at your own risk! This fix assumes you know how to flash firmware to the phone!

1. Grab the stock ICS rom http://www.rwilco12.com/downloads.php?dir=Files/Devices/ here (the Boost/Sprint/Virgin ones)

2. Flash it to your phone using ODIN (This will erase everything, so back up your data!)

3. Now that you are back to ICS, what we are going to do now is flash different modem firmware. On rwilco's website, go to your respective carrier (come to think of it since it's the same hardware they're all the same?) and in the GB subfolder download the One Click EL26 firmware. Reason is that one user reported that the phantom menu problem incidents started after the EL29 firmware had been rolled out. I do agree that updates to firmware is supposed to 'enhance' the performance of hardware, but for my purposes I'd take stability over a menu button gone crazy :good:. So yes, this might hurt your phones performance a lot or a little...In case you are wondering why a GB modem for an ICS build? Thankfully, GB and ICS modems are interchangeable but not JB (you won't have data at all).

http://www.rwilco12.com/downloads.p...sung Galaxy S2 (Sprint) (SPH-D710)
/Modems/GB

4. Flash that modem. Reboot and check data still works. Update Proflie / PRL (don't really need to do this if there is data, but just to cover your bases) Done.

For a week now I have been running this, driving to fringe coverage areas and even the server room surrounded by walls and walls at work to get it to go mad. Hasn't..... yet. (observations still in progress - I'll try and run a network signal info app and document it)

UPDATE: Yesterday before my commute home I decided to give the EL29 modem a shot, so I flashed it and off I went. Driving through the fringe areas, what do you know - the pesky menu button problem that I had not missed came back! Reflashed EL26 and all was good again..

The cool thing is, you're not stuck with ICS going this route. You can further this and root the phone and go beyond 4.1.2 and install 4.2.2. But that is where it ends - 4.3 has no support for WiMax. XDA has some great 4.2.2 roms - I am running SlimBean, but Dirty Unicorns and Carbon are good IMHO. Keep in mind that data speeds won't be anywhere near TW speeds if you choose not to stay with the stock TW ICS rom. Additionally, make a nandroid backup of your system before installing a new ROM, if you need to go back for some reason.

I ran some tests on the ICS build / EL26 modem combination and quite honestly the performance was decent (If I have time to flash back to it I'll post some numbers)

I hope this helps some of you to not throw your phone across the room. Also spread the word as it seems like people search the forums but they never seem to find the fix because of varying key words they search on (I found the magnet hack just the other day).

Credit to michaelalanharlow & jc.m for their observations