Develop Bugs

xda-wifi-sharing & bittorrent...

Hey there. This is my first post but rest assured I'm not really a noob (been editing wm reg for at least 5 years...)
I am grandfathered in to an unlimited data plan with at&t (although I did have to go from $20 to $30 a month when I upgraded to the tilt2/rohdium) and I have a minor but seriously annoying problem with using xda-wifi-sharing & bittorrent under some pretty specific circumstances.
I have been using my service to download video for several years as I don't have a tv or internet any other way. I get much of my tv video from tvtorrents.com as you can download entire seasons of just about any tv worth watching.
When I am downloading a season torrent (multiple episodes, many peers etc...) my 3G/HSDPA connection times out or gets "stuck" and requires me to restart the data service on the phone. While this has happened before, rarely, it is happening very frequently now.
Using tvtorrents for these type of downloads affords many high speed seeds and I think that the number of seed/peer connections is somehow overwhelming the 3G/HSDPA data connection, causing it to time out. This never used to happen with this frequency and I'm not sure what to do.
Thanks for your help and thank Jebus for this site (and I don't even believe in Jebus...) as I would never have gotten this far without you all.
tilt2, wm 6.5 stock rom, bloat and crippleware removed

Have you tried a torrent software on the phone itself and downloaded to your Storage Card? My thought it to eliminate the tethering part to see if that has something to do with the lock out.

Thresher said:
Have you tried a torrent software on the phone itself and downloaded to your Storage Card? My thought it to eliminate the tethering part to see if that has something to do with the lock out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmmm... wasn't aware of a bittorrent client for WM. I've been using uTorrent on my laptop for a few years now without any problems until recently. Right now my girlfriend also connects through the xda-wifi-router and this doesn't happen (at least nowhere near the frequency it happens to me). Physical tethering is a bit of a pain as I find that the orientation of the phone (in relation to laptop) and distance from my laptop significantly affects bandwidth.
I'm thinking about un/reinstalling utorrent, and maybe changing where the tilt2 is in the room... it's been working so well for so long, I'm sure I can get it to work again.
I've also had intermittent crash problems with device.exe on the tilt2, maybe this is related?
Thanks for your help

Ok, I guess that my problem was with at&t's network (damn iPhone users.. ..). Anywho, I have not made any substantial changes, yet all of the sudden, everything works fine.
I am reluctant to call at&t as they want to verify my network settings ( that have been working fine forever but might concern them as I am the network hog, not the iPhone users.. hehe). Every time I call I call from my phone and they have a hard time understanding that it is the only phone I have available.
Strangely, the very act of having one of their techs look at my account seems to fix my problem (most of the time it is that I am traveling).
Regardless, thanks for your help!

[Q] about verizon roaming message

Quick question,
I have had my phone rooted for several months now. Ever since I rooted though, I always got the "Verizon wireless can not authenticate your phone" message when roaming. This has not been a big deal until now.
I have already spent a lot of time with sprint support on the phone and at the store, and they actually are just giving me a new phone, so the problem is solved.
MY actual question is, are people still having this issue happen when they root their newer phones? I ask because I would like to root my new phone, but not sure if I want to chance it messing up my roaming again.

Yea, it happens, but you don't need a new phone as the fix is really easy.
Call Sprint support and have them reset your profile on their server. They will put you on hold for a minute while they do that. Then they will have you remove your battery for one minute (the tech gal I had actually timed it and told me when to put the battery back in). Then you will be good to go.
Note-I don't know why this is, but it took me about 15 minutes talking to convince the tech support gal to do it, but once she did it roaming works fine again.
You can download the "Roam Control" app from the market, which allows you to force roaming to check if it works, paid app, but it is cheap. I just told the tech support girl that their was a spot in my house behind a metal shed that I get roaming when I checked it (important because she wasn't willing to do anything unless I was currently in a roaming area, and I didn't think it was prudent to tell here I was using Roam control).

Well, they gave me a new MSID witch did not fix the issue. After about another 45 minutes of trying things, she transfered me to account services and they said that they would just replace the phone.
I do not roam very often at all, so I said okay.
I saved my nandroid backups and everything for if I re-root. I just wasnt sure if this was an issue people were still getting with their new phones or not.

What would you do?

Ok guys, been a long battle. I spent a combined four and a half hours on the phone with sprint yesterday morning. We did soft resets, hard resets. We checked ESN and other numbers I didn't know existed. We checked towers as well.
And after all this, I still have issues making calls. When I go to make a call at home, it automatically disconnects even though I have full bars and my data is working. I also cannot receive calls, as everyone texts me saying that it is going straight to voice mail. I only really go three places.(work, home, gf's place) The problem occurs at both my place and work. However, it doesn't seem to happen when I am on the road, and it only happens sometimes at my gf's.
I took the phone to Sprint with a ticket number given to me by a second tier manager? The sprint store rebooted my phone a few times, tried to make a few calls. Of course it works. So their rule is, if they cannot replicate the problem, they cannot help.
So I guess I am asking what you guys would do. The only two option I see are:
1. Buy a used EVO and finish out my contract(14months) hoping nothing goes wrong with it.
2. Take the early penalty, close my account and go to Verizon like the rest of my friends whose GPS's and calling "just work".
I would hate to leave sprint cause they have the best unlimited deal out there. But this is the second "top of the line" phone I have bought with them that has been a disaster. And both of them seemed to work flawlessly for the first couple months I had them.
By the way, I am on stock EC05, and I have been ever since it EC05 came out. I am not rooted or anything. It was working fine till about Friday.

Do you have TEP?

Wow, try taking out the sd card and use the phone to make a call. SD cards can make the phone do some funky things. If that works; then put it back in, connect the phone to your computer, copy all the contents to your computer; format the sd card and copy the contents back to the sd card.
change to sprint only network (settings - wireless networks - mobile networks - system select .. choose sprint only)
uninstall app 3rd party applications; perhaps something running is the culprit
If still no joy; I would root it and try a custom ROM. Maybe a file got corrupted at some point and that is causing the disconnections.
I really like the one I am on, its worked beautifully.
I'd be happy to help you through the root process if it gets to that point.
Good luck

It doesn't matter whether I have it or not, they rebooted the phone, brought up the dialer, made one call(he might have made two, one of the other people was talking to me) and sent me on my way. If they can't replicate the problem, then their policy is to not do anything. I even asked them if I could make a video of it first hand when I get home, and they basically said that won't change anything cause they have to be able to replicate the problem first hand.

jdelano said:
Wow, try taking out the sd card and use the phone to make a call. SD cards can make the phone do some funky things. If that works; then put it back in, connect the phone to your computer, copy all the contents to your computer; format the sd card and copy the contents back to the sd card.
change to sprint only network (settings - wireless networks - mobile networks - system select .. choose sprint only)
uninstall app 3rd party applications; perhaps something running is the culprit
If still no joy; I would root it and try a custom ROM. Maybe a file got corrupted at some point and that is causing the disconnections.
I really like the one I am on, its worked beautifully.
I'd be happy to help you through the root process if it gets to that point.
Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will try SD card when I get home. I don't have any third party apps, as the technician on the phone hard reset my phone like 3 times. I tried every custom rom, and I even tried to go back to DI18. All of them had the same problem, so I am guessing it is hardware related. Again, data is working correctly, just seems to be something with the calling hardware.

swanysto said:
It doesn't matter whether I have it or not, they rebooted the phone, brought up the dialer, made one call(he might have made two, one of the other people was talking to me) and sent me on my way. If they can't replicate the problem, then their policy is to not do anything. I even asked them if I could make a video of it first hand when I get home, and they basically said that won't change anything cause they have to be able to replicate the problem first hand.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have TEP - don't even bother with taking to the store any longer. Just complain enough over the phone and you should be able to get someone to send you a new one.

bjhill2112 said:
If you have TEP - don't even bother with taking to the store any longer. Just complain enough over the phone and you should be able to get someone to send you a new one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately I cannot really wait for them to send me a phone. I need to get something today, as this phone is also my work phone. Customers do not like going straight to my voicemail :/

After a tech on the phone with Sprint screwed my phone up even worse, had me stuck in an activation loop. He told me to bring it to a Sprint store. Well this was at night so I Odin'd to stock DI18 and let it do the OTA and that cleared up the loop. It may work for you and save you grief.
Do you BONSAI?

DDTM is not on is it??
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

I've heard of similar things. I helped someone troubleshoot the problem and came up with it had to be the tower. They called again to customer service and of course they said that nothing is wrong with the tower. I think that they called again to make a report to check out the tower near their house. They did that a few times. I don't know how long it took to fix the situation. I do notice lately that, even though signal strength was okay before, it's better now.
If you have another sprint phone, if you activate it, does it do the same thing? This might be one of those instances that if you complain enough, maybe they might give you one of those devices they have (I forgot what it's called) that you hook up to your home internet and it acts like a mini tower at home. I've heard of stories that after enough complaining enough, they'll just give you one. If the phone still does it then it's the phone that's flaky.
When you talk to someone, make it clear you use this phone for work and if people can't reach you, you will lose clients. If you start losing clients because of this then you will be forced to go to another carrier. If they say you'll have to pay etf then tell them you won't because it isn't your fault that you can't make or receive calls at work and home.
This phone or their equipment or service isn't working properly and you're losing customers because of this.
Here's another idea. Find someone else that has sprint. Have them go by your work and home and see if they can send or receive calls. If they can then its your phone, if they can't then it's the towers.

swanysto said:
I will try SD card when I get home. I don't have any third party apps, as the technician on the phone hard reset my phone like 3 times. I tried every custom rom, and I even tried to go back to DI18. All of them had the same problem, so I am guessing it is hardware related. Again, data is working correctly, just seems to be something with the calling hardware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Man, I'd be flippin out if it were me. That has got to SUCK!!

[Q] Is our information really secure from theft?

If you are like me, you should have all your favorite apps, documents, pictures etc. stored right on your phone that basically gives a full picture of who you are as an individual. You also have been pretty satisfied with the pattern, pin number, password or face unlock or all of these together as a security you have in place to prevent unauthorized access. But here is something that happened by accident that led me down this thought process. While trying to yank out the phone from my pocket while driving (which when you are getting a phone call especially becomes the most impossible task), I noticed that the phone "Power Down", "Restart", "Airplane Mode" pop up was on. This is on top of my regular swipe to unlock with pin number lock screen. This made me curious and noticed that the back button will work to close this pop up and also the power button works to reactivate this pop up. I hope everyone is with me till here. What surprised me was that the phone will actually turn off or restart from this point without the need for an unlock code. This means anyone with rooting and backup knowledge can steal my phone, restart my phone into recovery and wipe it to make the phone their own or just create a backup (CWM) and through that access my personal information. I know that photos and documents stored on the external card is open unless encrypted. But I hoped the internal data would be secure.
What do you guys think about this? Is there any app that would prevent access to the phone while locked via hard keys? What do you do to keep your information safe?

TL;DR version
If phone is stolen and person has knowledge of android they can factory reset your phone, even if you have a password setup. If they enter recovery they can wipe data and factory reset your phone and now it is usable for them.
My theory if you have your phone rooted I wish there was a way to lock the recovery with a password. Unfortunately ODIN will always be available able to get back to stock. Cerberus is a great app to have full control of phone if stolen FYI

DesperateScorpion151 said:
What do you guys think about this? Is there any app that would prevent access to the phone while locked via hard keys? What do you do to keep your information safe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As soon as I realize it is missing I would activate the wipe feature in this software.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lookout&hl=en
If I have your phone in my possession I guarantee I can hack it regardless of any security measure you make take, so the best solution is to be able to wipe it remotely.

technically even a remote wipe is not enough if the thief is knowledgeable. I accidentally wiped flashing in Odin with nand erase checkd and recovered everything that was on it using this
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1994705 so your never completely safe

Exactly my point like everyone else confirms it here. We have advanced so much to a point that even a 9 year old (not that 9 is too young to know computer basics) who is familiar with basics on rooting after reading through forums after forums can get away with stealing a smart phone now a days. At this point the only way I could think of protecting my data (first priority) and then track my phone is if the tracker is incorporated into the boot loader or recovery itself on top of what ever software you have installed in the OS. So if the thief tries to unlock my phone after a restart, the installed software should take care of the rest but If he/she is smart enough to go via boot loader or recovery then the incorporated tracker can do its thing. Anything of that sort exists?

Did you forget you could just pull the battery to get into recovery?

Why do you need to pull the battery?

Aerowinder said:
Why do you need to pull the battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't, but its easier than going through all of the steps OP posted.

I really doubt my data is worth anything. Pictures of my cats aren't exactly hot commodities and I don't store anything on my phone that I wouldn't publicly reveal, anyway.
I wouldn't be worried about my worthless information, just annoyed I was dumb enough to let it get stolen. Yeah, I know that basically anyone with half a brain can wipe a phone and re-sell it - it always amazes me when people think that thieves aren't smart enough to do that.
I'm cynical. Saves a lot of worry since I just expect the worst, I guess.

They get into your email where it may be more info to compromise.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app

I would be less worried about the minute possibility of a phone thief targeting your personal information than I would be about your personal data being mined from your phone by numerous applications.
Bottom line is, if you use Google or Facebook, you personal information is already in the hands of giant corporations who will never be held accountable for the theft of your personal info.
Take Facebook for example - within the app, the only time it should ever ping your location is if you are using FB chat and have the location setting enabled. However, even when you disable location within FB chat, every single time you open Facebook it uses your GPS to get your location. Every time.
In addition, although you are unable to see it in action because there is no notification icon for it, I would bet a million bucks it's also pulling your network location if your GPS is off.
Facebook is constantly working in the background - even if you never opened it.
Google? I won't even begin to try and explain the amount of data they are collecting from you. As is T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, ATT, etc. every single second that your phone is on with data enabled.
Should we be concerned with some random thief who knows the ins and outs of Android pulling your data? Sure, we should think about it. But the reality is, if you own a smart phone your information is already out there in the hands of companies who will use it to any end they can in order to turn a profit. Period.

ButWhile I see the pros and cons of different parts involved in using social networks and so forth, one thing we can (at least for now) be certain of is that they won't use your credit card information etc. to make illegal purchases and so forth. I know of a person who routinely used the credit card app to check balance, pay bill etc. and next thing he was getting phone calls to see if the purchases made at a casino in Spain are OK?! This is without ever losing the phone!!. So, it could be worse in the case of phone loss. Sure, personal data, pictures and even email to some extent is not as bothersome to me as identity theft. Thank to some anti-fraud features of the banks etc. one can deny and simply not be associated with that activity (of course in legitamate cases). My friend ended up getting another card with different number and they closed the online banking account. He had to re-register all over with another id. So, it can be a big hassle. I heard of cases where people had to hire lawyers and run around courts to prove their innocence due to identity theft. Of course if you keep a picture of your driving licence on the phone, you are really asking for it so... (trust me, one girl was doing this because she didn't want to carry her purse/wallet on night outs)
Having said that, I am always worried if the roms we download here in XDA have trojans or backdoors built into kernels and system files... I know that it is like doubting even the good devs but how do we know for sure? Unless you are really an in-depth expert and figure out all the details such as processes and ports that are open and so forth, how do you really know? The phone's data icons keep pinging back and forth every now and then and at times I wonder what's being sent and what is it receiving... just sync'ing contacts...or...??
Call me paranoid but, after what happened to my friend, and similar stories, I am a bit skeptical about the security and integrity of the ROMs in the first place... Now, mostly I download and try different roms and settle on one that suits my preferences. I use the phone for calls as well as to make general tasks easier in many aspects except financial transactions. In short, I don't trust my smart phones.
For those of you wondering what Google is tracking, (not by any means the only place to look) login to your gmail account and look around different settings. You'll see web history, phone data to name a few..

Note 4 Verizon no 4g and now lost 3g - in a strong 4g / 3g area

SOLVED! - see post #7
This SM-N910V is rooted and had 3g but apparently I lost that when mucking around with things trying to get 4g. I've got other phones like a Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 5 both Verizon models that get 4g or 3g fine in this same location.
First odd thing I noticed on the Note 4 was a setting that popped up seemingly by itself while in 'More Networks' and 'Mobile Networks' that showed VZWInternet with a circle by that which was not yet checked so I tapped that and it turned green in the circle. I have never been able to see that option again. I don't think this caused the problem though. I've looked at apns-conf.xml in the /system/etc folder and can't see a problem there. I also tried replacing that with another one that is supposed to fix LTE mode. No luck so I put back the original. I wiped cache and reflashed a backup with TWRP which had been working on 3G but that didn't help - no 3g even. I did not wipe Dalvik/ART cache. I had been messing around in the 'Service Mode' menu with a bunch of different settings in an attempt to get 4g working but I'm fairly certain I got everything set back the way it was before I started. I noticed that one setting I had left different in the Service menu did not change back after flashing a restore with TWRP (full restore - all boxes checked). The one setting I left changed was the under the 'AS' protocol menu where I changed the Release version control to "LTE 3GPP REL 9" from LTE 3GPP REL 10". I know enough to be dangerous
Open to any suggestions - am wondering at the moment if I should have wiped the Dalvik/ART cache before the whole TWRP restore? At this point I'd be happy just to get 3g working again.

I also tried Dr. Ketan's LTE Enable. That didn't fix anything. Although I see MNC and MCC numbers in the apns-conf.xml file when I look at the SIM with a SIM info App I just see blanks in those spots on the SIM. Not sure if that's relevant - just giving as much info as I can here.

Did another restore with TWRP after wiping Dalvik/ART cache but that didn't fix it either. Strong cell signal but no 3G or 4G.

More info - I put the SIM card in another phone and it sees 3G at least.

It seems the "lost 3g or 4g" problem is very common and it seems I've looked through dozens of message threads here but I'm not finding any solutions. I'm looking at flashing the 'ltefix.zip' from this thread but it seemed to be for a custom ROM and I've just got the stock - more or less - 5.1.1.

Hmmm.... Been at this all day reading here, searching, trying everything but still no Mobile Data. Is this as elusive as rooting a Verizon Note 5? LOL - it was working at least on 3G. I'll take hints or even wild guesses at this point.

Okay - it finally flashed on me to do a restore of my EFS. Oddly I had done a full restore with TWRP which include EFS but that didn't fix the problem. That TWRP backup was done the same day I did an EFS backup using Dr. Ketan's IMEI tool for the Note 4. When I used the IMEI tool to restore the EFS backup I then had the 3G come back on. This is a 4G SIM so I still don't know why I'm not getting 4G but at least I got 3G back. I did have a hiccup using this IMEI tool which initially caused the phone to repeatedly shutdown after a minute or so and could not be restarted without pulling the battery. I believe it had to do with the 'Restore' button needing to be held down a certain amount of time instead of just a tap. I probably held, released too soon then held longer which I suspect caused a partial or damaged EFS restore. Be careful in how you use this tool or you may end up in that situation. I had to work very fast after a bootup to get it properly restored. After that it was stable again and had 3G.
Now if only I could figure out what it takes to get 4G.

..

I wasn't getting 4G for the longest time, checked the PRL in settings on my GFs phone and noticed my PRL ver was like 50 thousand something while hers was 15518. Got a new Sim card and all my issues went away, PSA do not use *228 programming...EVER.

..

..

acslam said:
Update/more info - I've continued to try and figure this out to no avail, although I got fed up with stock unrooted 5.1 and am now running modestrom v9 with a CQI2 base. And all of that install went fine, except for 4g of course.
I think this is worth mentioning as it might have something to do with the situation:
Way back in the beginning, I had gone through the entire unlock/root process, and everything actually worked fine the first time. This was right about the time the unlock became available, I bought the phone based specifically on that being possible, and got a brand new one at that time. Well, it was awesome for about 2 weeks, fully functional 4g and everything.
I had a very particular goal - I wanted this phone totally unlocked, but I was also very interested in the advanced/wifi calling that was supposedly coming out at that time - I was planning to move to a place with no vzw service and would be reliant on wifi for calls at home. Verizon wasn't clear about the fact that the wifi calling feature wasn't coming until MM, and this was before MM was released, so I was running a completely functional, 5.1.1 rom. I believe it was jasmine. So, under the impression that "advanced calling" would have given me wifi calling, I tried to enable it.
I cant recall if it was immediately, or a few hours after, but this is when the phone lost 4g for the first time. I immediately tried to deactivate the advanced calling feature on my line, but it didn't help. And nothing I could do would bring back 4g. I tried everything possible, and ultimately gave up and threw the phone in a drawer and went back to my note 3.
Fast forward several months, and my note 3 began to have issues with call audio, forcing me to use the 3g-only note 4 in order to actually handle day to day business. Again, I went through the processes of trying to fix 4g, with no success. Now by this time, MM had been released, I believe PD1 was the current firmware. I figured at this point it was time to just odin back to 5.1.1 and start everything over.
So I odin flashed the phone, and it booted into 5.1.1......with no 4g. Again I went through all the things I found here, no improvement. Finally, one day when the phone was bugging me about an OTA, I figured "what can it hurt at this point, its nearly useless without 4g anyhow."
And low and behold, the OTA update from verizon booted up and immediately jumped to 4g.
Now I felt I had a chance, a method that I'd finally proven could fix the problem. I left the phone in that state for a couple weeks, just to prove that it was holding. No problems during this time.
But I got sick of no root, and so I figured it was time to try and go through the steps again. And again, I lost the 4g connection. No big deal, just odin back to 5.1.1 and let it OTA like last time......
Except this time it didn't work. So I odin flashed back to 5.1 again, and let it try to OTA, again. I let the phone continually try to OTA all the way up to current, and flashed back to 5.1 at least 3 times to repeat the process in hopes it might fix something. No change at all. At this point I actually began to try and see if possibly Kies could help me here - maybe there was something related to the phones EFS? Which I don't understand very well btw - it was only through reading this thread that I began to research EFS and its significance. I also attempted to use some of the checkboxes in odin - the ones to erase all NAND and to clear EFS and rebuild it. Neither option made any difference. So I figured next logical step was to start playing around in service mode, which would require unlocking/rooting again......
And thats how I landed here. About an hour ago I got sick of the stock 5.1.1 and went through the whole root/unlock process and I'm currently running modestrom on CQI2 or whatever was just most recently posted. Every other part of the phone seems normal, but still no 4g. I can actually see the radio making an attempt to connect in the service mode - but I don't understand service mode menus well enough to interpret where the actual problem is. Upon boot the phone tries about 3 or 4 times to get an lte signal, during this time there is simply bars of signal, NO data indicator of any kind. Eventually, it gets frustrated and gives up, connecting to 3g and staying there. I realize now that when 3g drops, which is roughly every 10 minutes or so, its actually the phone attempting to establish LTE again. But still, I cannot make any sense of this.
Apologies for the giant post - I'm trying to put anything that could possibly be relevant info into one place here.
So........ anyone got any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PM sent. Just to share a little of that here I think the first thing I would do is tell VZ you suspect your SIM card is bad and have them put in another one. Tell them it fell out when changing a battery, the dog ate it and by the time it came out you suspect it wasn't quite right anymore - LOL. I do think SIM's flake out sometimes and I know a bad one can prevent 4G from working. If you ever had an EFS backup from anything try restoring ONLY the EFS (if you use TWRP). No guarantees that will fix it but my best guesses at this point. Good luck.

..

I supect Verizon's doing this ...
acslam said:
I got a used stock note 4 to try and compare and see what I could be missing here....
Tried new sim card at least twice, unfortunately no dice, and the same card pops right into the spare note 4 and it wakes up on 4g just fine.......
EFS is something I probably should have been quick enough to dig in deeper on before this, as I don't have any backup of it....... however, I'm not seeing any other symptoms, I can see my imei fine, and every other function works. Is it possible that corrupted EFS can cause the loss of just one type of connection like that?
For giggles I tried a friends att sim, and no lte on that either.
Playing with the app LTE discovery, I can tell that the phone sees 4 different LTE towers just fine, showing db numbers exactly in line with the stock note 4 sitting right next to it, theres just something there under the surface thats stopping them from hooking up...... it stops trying after a couple minutes, rejects them all and connects to 3g.
I'm convinced its some kind of software thing, but I can't tell exactly where the failure is happening.....
I also odin flashed it back to stock bpa1, and still no dice. Is there a means to make an EFS backup without root? I want to see what happens if I try unlocking the other note 4 as well, but this time I want to have the backups......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been running on Emotion 7.1.1 for months with NO issues (well, some minor stuff, you know....)
Suddenly, two weeks ago I got a notice from Google that I had to sign in on my phone. Verrrryyy odd. At first I suspected some hack attempt, but my Account checked out fine. Having changed my password recently, I had to wait until I got home to login.
After I logged in, all ~appeared~ to be OK. Then I opened my Calendar. B L A N K. All ten years of appointments gone. I freaked out. I have two calendars, one for personal stuff, birthdays and the like, and another with my business appointments, INCLUDING FINANCIAL STATUS of the account. Gone.
Went online on my PC, signed into Gmail and switched to my calendar. Empty. Looked in Trash. Nothing. Vanished. Nada. Niet. There's a long story here about recovery efforts, troubleshooting, Googling, etc, suffice to say that TWO separate, redundant, backups had quietly failed, without the notifications they were supposed to send. I did manage to get from the first week in April back 10 years, but lost the whole summer. Thank YOU-KNOW-WHO that I'm good friends with all my clients.
Fast forward to last week. Suddenly I get 3G only from my Verizon account. Like you, I spent days on the boards, downloading ROMS, wiping, re-wiping, trying everything short of smoke signals to get it back. No joy. I did NOT go back to stock, I must thank you greatly, as that was my next road. Now i see it's a dead end. I will NOT give up my Nougat root just to get 4G.
Perhaps this is a bit conspiracy theory sounding, but I've become convinced that Verizon is playing some game, perhaps to force us to upgrade to a new phone. I learned long ago that corporations have no soul, and will do anything they like to increase profits. They exist for two reasons; to make money for their officers and to make money for their stockholders. Any other semblance of a "Product" or "Service" exist ONLY and SOLELY for that reason. Anyone who is a Yahoo or AOL member knows the level of intrusive ads and attempts to trick people into putting spyware in their machines under the guise of "protection" or "cleanup" programs has jumped to a new level of absurdity since Verizon sucked them up. "Oath" indeed. It's what is coming out of existing customer's mouths! M O N E Y H U N G R Y.
When I chatted at length with a Verizon Tech, she made it clear that she knew the answer was to upgrade to the latest stock (I never admitted to rooting, but she knew, we spoke "between the lines" a lot). She sent me a SIM card, but it., of course, didn't fix the problem, in fact it would not even initialize properly! I had to go back to the original SIM.
Now that we've found a way (after YEARS of trying) around their stupid block on rooting, they change the game. What person who is so into their phone as to root it, will put up with 3G? This is something Verizon is playing at, Sprint too from what I gather.
My only consolation is that I've got so many WiFi's nearly everywhere I go, and when I'm not near one, my Wife's Note 4 (not rooted, on latest update) works fine. I'm glad I decided not to root hers too.
Frankly, this really ticks me off. I have better things to do than spend days copying files, flashing and reloading data. Verizon knows that, and let me tell you, it won't be THEM who sees my money when I finally do upgrade.
Thanks again for saving me from the Stock route, you saved me hours of grief.
Peace out!
PuterPro

I have run into 4g issues with this as well and almost came to conclusion is a modem issue. I want to say but can not confirm that modems that are flashed are relative to bootloader on the device. Just something I've been pondering on as I had a unlocked bootloader device and flashed for wife to use with no root and recently unlocked again.
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