yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kevnician:
5 phone experience

I work in an office (Downtown Vancouver) where 4 of us have the Bell Vibrant, 3 of use were early adopters who have had the phone since 2nd week of August. Two phone are started at jg9 and moved to jh2. I ran mine on JPM for a while before the memory card failed, but that is another issue. When we first received the phones in August they locked up regularly in the office the phone performed very well outside of the office where signal strength was better. Our solution at the time was to install APNdroid and turn off internet access while in the office. This stopped the coma's. At the beginning of September something changed with the network and the signal strength improved and the lock ups only happened occasionally (once every 3 days). On October 21st something changed again and everyones phone started locking up. While the phone have stopped locking up we can't get consistent internet in the building. During the Oct 21-26 time frame while everyone else's phone were having issues in the office, my co-worker brought his brother AT&T captivate in for me to SIM unlock. This phone did not freeze once while every other Bell phone was having an issue. The main difference I believe is the captivate does not have the HSPA driver installed on it and is 3G only. After this I watched the phone status in our office and noted that the phones are constantly switching from 3G to HSPA and perhaps it is this switch over that is hanging?

We are currently testing the 850mhz solution to see if we can get internet again.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
I am still curious about that. I had always gotten the impression it was just flicking between 3G & H as a sort of "Hey you are on 3G / HSUPA here" but more and more yes, it does seem VERY unusual since all my previous phones have shown H only, unless in another country where it was only 3G. Given the log entry above, this starts to make a lot more sense. Sorta.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Stiffler's Mom:
update: a couple days later, and all is still good. And my battery life seems to have improved. Wasn't this stable last wk.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] digi-geek:
The first phone would not work AT ALL when set to ONLY 850. Had to select both in order to connect to data network. Go figure.

Like I said before, this replacement (with new SIM) is much more stable and we have not had to lock yet.....but I'm not betting any big dollars it will last.

Glad to see the 850 lock is working for most people. The SGS is a sweet phone when its working. Makes my Hero look a little archaic :rolleyes:
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] yiannisthegreek:
Hi all.

Not sure if this has been mentioned her yet or not but I am also with Bell and my phone has JUST started to do this to me 60 days into owning it.

I called bell and was told tht this is a KNOWN issueand that they have a MASTER TICKET open for Samsung so that a fix can come for th issue.

The MASTER TICKET number for this is 3398601.

I dont know what to think for sur but atlast Bell has aknowledged this issue an SAYS they are working with Samsung on a fix for this.

Also... To those of you in the Edmonton area who are having isues RETURNING or SENDING in fo REPAIR cause you bought it at a Future Shop, Best Buy, Visions, etc and not from a Bell Store, I was informed that thre ar many Corporate Stores in Edmonton called "Product Assistance Centers" that WILL perform your exchanges an repair services (Im sure somone here already knew this).

The 2 closest to me are at Kingsway Mall an at Londondery Mall. Also at Southgate, Edmonton City Center, etc...

I hope this info helps someone!!! :D
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Hakkaboy:
if you go to Settings > About Phone > Status during the 3G and H switch, you will see that the "Mobile network type" will switch between HSPA and UMPTS(sp?)
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Very interesting, thanks. I will try this.

---EDIT

No one had pointed that out before (to see it properly) and yes, it really is confused. Interesting.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vawlk:
I have the Sprint Epic in Chicago and I recently started having the coma syndrome.

It happens mostly at home where I have terrible service and my phone frequently hops between Sprint, Verizon, and No Signal. So you may be on to something.

The coma happened tonight and I did have Wifi on so I will keep note of my settings before I set it down for the next few weeks.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dmulligan:
For those of you trying to see the log can the logs be retrieved by adb during a coma so you can get them before resetting?
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Well I use Mac OS unless I have to use some garbage like Kies ;)

So catching things in debug its not so simple for me.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bestbeancounter:
For those that did the 850 band lock process, after selecting 850, do I just back out? I just upgraded the firmware and wasn't sure if I need to re-do the 850 band lock again.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dmulligan:
No, adb is available for mac, linux and windows. Kies is irrelevant.

I use adb natively on my mac.

D
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Ah, not a developer so I might of misunderstood something. I am thinking adb is a development kit which can be used for debug? Where would I look? ADB could mean a lot of things to Google.

---EDIT

http://esausilva.com/2010/10/02/how-to-set-up-adb-android-debug-bridge-in-mac-osx/

For those who like me should of just made a good guess. I'm logging it to a text file for now.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
I should of seen this coming but after several hours of provoking my phone just will not crash or reboot while in debug mode. Just an update.

---EDIT

And there it went. Forced reboot while out the room, thing is, adb logging shows nothing (that I understand) suspect. Nothing obviously shown that was not happening throughout the log anyway. Did anyone else try?
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dmulligan:
I think that only the radio buffer shows interesting things.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] marty1976:
Tried it but doesn't work. I plugged the comatose patient into USB, PC recognized something, but adb didn't work as it was unable to find the device... Otherwise adb works as expected.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
I have a log of mine for an hour or so before it rebooted. Though there appears to be no clue in it. Thing is, the debug log of adb does not once mention the RILD error I write about a few posts ago that Androud System Info on the phone read from the Radio log just as it lost the radio completely.

And it happened just now again as I was writing that - signal went from (what we may as well say is) 100% to No Signal, I can still use the phone for a few seconds at that point but nothing I can do will prevent it locking up then rebooting. This RILD error is very obviously a key part for this sort of problem and only relates to HSDPA/UMTS. From there on, I am lost.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] marty1976:
2 thoughts:

AFAIK the vRIL (vendor RIL) sends an unsolicited command to rild to signal the handover to the system.

The TelephonyManager lib communicates with the rild via sockets.

==> Judging from the error message you observed this communication is no longer working and our devices freeze (or reboot). Maybe vRIL caused rild to die?

Either the socket disappears or Telephony somehow doesn't have permission to open it (not quite probable though).

ToDo

Can someone please try to ls -l /dev/socket/ before phone goes into coma?

If the rild socket is still there then try to check the permissions and report back.

Edit: Typo, info added
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Would that work with adb? I've no root or terminal on my phone, trying not to make my situation worse!
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] marty1976:
Yes, it would: "adb shell ls -l /dev/socket/"
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] handover:
got this problem, shuts off randomly. Notice battery a bit loose, can feel rattle when shaked. Try to shake phone forward and backward, side to side = phone goes off.

After some quick fix with paper piece under battery and it's side, rattle gone. Test by shaking vigorously, no shuts down anymore. maybe this is the solution. Think phone a bit sensitive to batter position OR movement.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Orillian:
/ $ ls -l /dev/socket/

srw-rw---- 1 bluetoot bluetoot 0 Nov 2 20:57 dbus

srw------- 1 system system 0 Nov 2 20:57 installd

srw-rw-rw- 1 root root 0 Nov 2 20:57 keystore

srw-rw-rw- 1 root root 0 Nov 2 20:57 property_service

srw-rw---- 1 root radio 0 Nov 2 20:57 rild

srw-rw---- 1 radio system 0 Nov 2 20:57 rild-debug

srw-rw---- 1 root mount 0 Nov 2 20:57 vold

srw-rw-rw- 1 root root 0 Nov 2 20:57 zygote

/ $

from my bell SGS i9000m.

Shuts off randomly while I'm at school mostly, happened once or twice at home but almost never while at home.

O.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Please read the thread, such problems are on the whole not related.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
The important part is to catch that info just prior to a problem - which is of course hard to do as it is usually quite random.

I have mine plugged in for adb now and turn the screen on at random every so often, I have found that eventually the signal strength will go from maximum to none (this is a high coverage area) seconds before a reboot loop. As for the coma situation, still no idea of any symptoms there.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dmulligan:
As I have reported before, my comas have been replaced with my phone losing signal and not getting it back. Sometimes being in an airplane like mode. I have the international version which does not support 850 mhz so setting 850 only is not an option.

I think I have discovered something. Last night I turned off open wifi network notification on a whim and I've had no signal loss since then. Perhaps that could also help coma people.

Perhaps soon all we will have left is a girlfriend in a coma. I know, I know, it's serious.

D
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Interesting observation, I usually turn that off on mine by default but since you mention it, apparently recently I left notification on. And initially I did not have the issue. Will try disabling it again now, though not entirely optimistic.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] marty1976:
Yeah - sorry, didn't explicitly mention that...

More methods for information gathering

It seems it's even possible to view all relevant RIL information (and copy them to sdcardd) via *#*#745#*#* but on my i9000, the menu item "RIL Log anzeigen" (display RIL log) is greyed out. Interesting though that this menu has been (partially) translated...

Something else that might be interesting: A rild socket test pogram. Didn't try it though, don't have time right now.

http://osdir.com/ml/AndroidDevelopers/2009-05/msg02467.html
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Interesting menu, mine is in english but no more useful. I have dumped the log and it tells me copied to SD card but I can not find it on either the Internal or External one.

Just to clarify, are you having the "coma" with the dead screen and not accepting calls or the reboot loops, or both? I have been wondering if my old t-mobile tariff is somehow the cause. I am limited to 0.33mbps because I paid for internet for a while before the iPhone popularised it.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] marty1976:
Only the coma every now and then.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] GingerEffect:
I found the problem would happen much more often if I ran Meebo IM (msn clent for android). When running Meebo IM I could reproduce the problem every 30 mins or so in a low signal zone. I thought it was simply because Meebo was simply using data, however I recently found out that Meebo auto reconnects after the phone loses network connection. I downloaded another MSN client called MSN Talk and it has an option that you can choose whether or not to auto-reconnect. Sure enough the freezes happen MUCH more frequently with this option turned ON, without auto reconnecting my phone only freezes ~2 times a day with auto-reconnect it freezes ~10 times a day. I am now trying having auto-reconnect on with the 850 band only to see what happens.

I am posting this because it seems like a much more reproducible way to cause the phone to crash. It's my opinion that with this option checked the software puts the hardware under more stress which causes the phone to fail faster. I DO NOT believe it is the fault of the software because the freezing happens no matter what.

My phone has only ever crashed like this at my office where I have spotty reception.

Right now with only the 850 band my phone seems like it gets a more consistent signal and my msn client which autoreconnects does not seem to be dropping and causing my phone to crash.

What is the point of the 1900 band; does it provide faster signal, are some towers just different and made to use with the 1900 band, does it have a shorter range?

This problem is still unacceptable and I will be exchanging my phone every 20 days until I get one that works, I'm on my 3rd right now.

EDIT: Made a typo in my first post at 6:22 pm, Corrected at 6:29 pm
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dmulligan:
Any more comas since you turned the open wifi network notification option off? I am now on my second day of no signal loss so this is looking very good for my problem. My better life has improved to boot.

D
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] contalyst:
I set my phone to only 850 mhz yesterday morning and since havent had a single coma :Knock on wood:

Havent noticed any decline in qualtiy of calls or anything else yet. Hoping this is still a decent quick fix.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] GingerEffect:
Does anyone have any guesses as to whether this is a hardware problem or a software program.

I'm still in the 30 days and wondering if I should exchange my phone for a new vibrant or just live with the 850 band until a software update, will exchanging for a new vibrant help?

Will I see decreased signal coverage and/or speeds with only the 850 band?
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bestbeancounter:
This is my 3rd Vibrant.. the only thing that's completely fixed my issues with the phone was to lock it to 850.. now the phone works flawlessly.. no decrease in call quality or signal coverage.. my office was a coma magnet and now it works just fine 24/7..
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Directly, no. Though it did hard lock while in use. Also I had it in debug mode still for the ADB log and I cannot say if this is the wifi, the debug or pure chance yet. The randomness of the problems makes patterns hard to spot.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] marty1976:
I'd say it's either low-level software or firmware. I don't think it's the HW that's at fault...

Just wait, it was already reported on this thread that even exchanged devices show the same effects...
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] arr0ww:
Steps on how to do this?

mine's me going into a coma every 1/2 hour at work since monday...driving me NUTS
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Speedum:
Just a report:

Bell Galaxy S Vibrant GT-i9000M

2.1 update 1

JH2, non-rooted, unlocked

I have this coma problem before probably once a day, and I am applying the frequency lock (to 1900MHz). It is now 268 hours and 21 minutes uptime and haven't got the coma yet (touch wood).

Choosing 1900MHz is because there is a dead spot in the center of my building which only 1900MHz is able to penetrate.

Oh.. 268 hours & 23 minutes uptime now
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dmulligan:
I've now had one signal loss. Not bad compared to before as I was getting them from 2 to 8 times per day. Since I turned off open wifi network notification it has only happened 1 time in the past 60-72 hours.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bestbeancounter:
1. on the key pad, type *#*#197328640#*#*

2. Select [1] Debug Screen

3. Select [8] Phone control

4. Select [7] Network control

5. Select [2] and selection

6. Select [2] WCDMA band []

7. Select [6] WCDMA 850

might not be the same [#] selection, and the wording is pretty much the same.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] heythatsmygoat:
But this won't stop your phone from switching constantly between hsdpa and umts right?

I'm in the vancouver area and have been constantly losing coverage for the last week or so. my phone has also started to reset itself randomly or turn off. extremely frustrating
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ek-spoz'd:
You'll still experience the problem if you exchange for a new phone.

But PLEASE DO EXCHANGE YOUR PHONES PEOPLE...simply to send a message to your carrier and to Samsung. Let's make it cost them $ so this gets fixed.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] greendot1:
I really don't think that's going to help. All it's going to do is make other people that want a new phone have a hard time finding them in stock.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ek-spoz'd:
Disagree. Not to be rude, but we're not too concerned about people in the market for a new phone anyways. We currently own one and we want it to work properly. Besides this phone is well stocked at this point. Wait is minimal if any.

Companies selling in the consumer market really do pay attention when returns start to pile in. Returns and complaint calls and emails cost huge money. It's all strictly overhead...no profits from those.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Well, I've got JPO 2.2 running now (after a bit of a bad start) and so far my earpiece has a lot less static which is a surprise. But so far no lockups or reboots. Early days yet but a good sign.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] border43:
I have done the 850 lock about 2 weeks ago, and have not had a single coma since in Edmonton. Finally something that works.

Now to wait in 2.2 while 2.3 is right around the corner.... lol
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Are you saying 2.2 has not alone solved your issues? I am still to see any sort of problem since JPO.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] testulous:
Hi! I found a possible solution - at least for my own SGS. It was locking up every half hour to an hour in bad service areas (which is my entire house BTW) when I thought to try something different. I was all set to replace my damned coma-phone too, before this epiphany.

In the end I found it was an app that caused the coma. Disabled = fixed.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Dekman:
And what app would that have been.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dmulligan:
For ****s and giggles would someone try setting Samsung Apps New application notification" to off.

Based on my wifi observations I looked at what is reacting to wifi events and that is one of the apps.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] border43:
I don't have 2.2 yet. I am waiting on it. I mean on it not in it in my last post.

I dont know when its being released to Canada via kies. I really hope its soon.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] contalyst:
http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=9098854&postcount=4

This thread says it should be out

starting

beginning of next week.

Believe it when I see it, but its the first I've heard rummor of it coming to Canada.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] testulous:
Also try using a stock live wallpaper. I was using a third-party live wallpaper called GALACTIC CORE, and my phone was comatose after less than an hour most times. After disabling that, I've been a full day without incident.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ek-spoz'd:
I've been on stock live wallpaper for 1.5 months...only fix to coma has been 850 band lock. My uptime with no problems is now 3 weeks after my exchange for a new phone and the band lock.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ek-spoz'd:
In calgary and heard the preview of a story on cbc radio today regarding problems with 3g networks. Didn't hear the actual story but the gist was canada's infrastructure is having trouble handling the larger data requests of the proliferating smart phone user group.

So could this problem not only include the hardware or software of the sgs but also problems with network infrastructure?
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] barf_fly:
I'm going through the same issue, how does one do the 850 band lock?
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] marty1976:
App was multiplying the issue

Since I disabled Timeriffic I only had a single come in the past 4 weeks. I believe it was due to the 3G handover issue as I was in an area where the phone switched between E and 3G...
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Just a note that on 2.2 3G is working without killing my phone. However the UMTS / WCDMA thing is still there so it is flicking from 3G to H quite randomly and rapidly.

A guy at work speculated this might come down to faulty load balancing on the cellular tower.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bestbeancounter:
So it's possibly a network issue and has nothing to do with the phone?
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
It's possible. I am dropping T-Mobile (DE) for o2 in the next weeks, I am curious to jam in a card from a new provider with a fresh tariff to see what happens next.

Something that has not been fixed for me with 2.2 though is the modem interference with the earpiece. Does not happen when on a WCDMA network but on GSM it is continual in every call.

I'm starting to wish I hated technology.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] border43:
Yeah I get that all the time (on 2.1) and it is extremely annoying. The call quality is terrible on GSM. And it switches back and forth a lot.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Ah, then perhaps it is hardware. I tested a friends at work but at the time did not realise it was GSM only. His phone was no doubt on WCDMA at the time and mine was on GSM only as it kept crashing on 3G (this thread).

Good to know others are in the same boat, sometimes.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bestbeancounter:
The Fascinate is out from Telus sharing the network with us Bell users. I'm really interested to see if the Fascinate will have the same problems as our SGS's.
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] BelvedereWRX:
So the 850MHz setting, would this be the same frequency for ATT customers in the US?

Using the debug menu as instructed a few pages back, I forced it to 850 and my phone still locked up. Once I turned it back on the frequencies were all back to their original settings.

Am I doing something wrong where the settings aren't being saved?
[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Chicken001:
Hey,

I'm guessing so it should apply to you too...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMTS_frequency_bands

Edit: Supposedly I can't post links because I'm a new user but wiki UMTS_frequency_bands.

AT&T is under that same Band.

As for myself, I've experienced this issue and locking the phone to 850 seems to have fixed it... Well, usually in the spot I'm sitting now I get 1 bar to no signal, now I'm up to 4 bars. It's very strange. It's running stock 2.1 with the update.

Over the last month I've noticed that when I walk from room to room at BCIT Burnaby, BC. My phone freezes in my pocket. Anywhere from 15-40 times a day. So far it's been behaving...

Anyways, cheers!