[Q] Finding a solution to a Sprint problem - EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Okay, I live in Louisville, KY. Lo and Behold, a month after I get Sprint service, it all goes to hell. We've had an outage that effects what totals up to be half the city.
Pretty much, if you happen to be in any of the areas affected you are left without reliable CDMA/EVDO coverage. Either you'll only get 2 bars that will go up to 4, even flash all 6 before crashing down to roaming, or you'll just stay in roaming, 0-1 bar of rare reception even while roaming. Irony? Cricket (which uses Sprint) works PERFECTLY. 5 bars in the same building and on the same curb. AT&T and Verizon too, both working just fine.
Sprint refuses to exchange the phone because when I'm near an Airwave (they sent me one which only works in my room, go to the kitchen and lose reception) I get all 6 bars. They claim that since I get full bars at the store, it's just part of the outage so they won't even think that I Might have a reception issue on top of the outage.
Anyway, to try and cut this long story short (too late)
I think I've tried just about everything. I've tried the EVDO hack with the PRLs and in the end I just kept getting good signal, and then 3G would die completely and never come back. 01337, 31337, 00001, none worked.
I've tried stock and MikG 2.2, fully updated radios and everything.
I've tried testing this in areas not effected and it seemed to work okay. Couldn't really stress test it on the network, but it seemed fine. I'm at a loss. Any suggestions?

If there's a known outage, I don't blame them for not exchanging the device. That would just needlessly generate exchanges for perfectly working devices.

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[Q] 3g everythere but at home????

I have a problem with my Tmobile g2 running 2.2, it is all stock no modifications whatsoever other than handcent and fancy widget.
The problem is I can not connect to 3g or hsdpa network when I am at home. By this I mean the cell tower that provides service when I am at home. I have txt and calling capabilites but I have no data whatsoever. I have to manually switch to 2g or edge to check email or use the browser. I have called tmobile and they keep telling me that the problem is with my phone, however when I am 2 or 3 miles from my house and it goes to any other tower on the planet everything works fine.
I have searched the g2 forum here but could find no answers. I apologize in advance if this has been indeed covered or discussed to death and I have just failed to find it.
I did find the *#*#4636#*#* option and when it is on 2g I can run a ping test and it finds the server just fine, but on 3g it always fails to connect. Again this only occurs of course when I am sitting at home!
Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this or point me in the right direction because leaving it up to tmobile has proven to be fruitless.
It might also be worth mentioning that i replaced the sim card today as well, this too had no effect on this phenomenon.....
My mom's nexus s has the same problem. Only difference is that when i walk out the door i get 3g. Once i walk back in, I get edge...... I think its might be just tmobile frequencies poor ability to pentrate walls.
Sounds like a problem with the 3G network in your area, or just a weak signal there.
I know its not the signal strength, I always have full bars at home Its something to do with the network....
DefiantMenace said:
I know its not the signal strength, I always have full bars at home Its something to do with the network....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Full bars on 3G or 2G ? If you have full bars on 3G then it sounds like a network problem.
I have the exact same problem, but my building is probably over 100 years old with 300 coats of lead paint on it. It depends on your building. Signals can bounce off of mirrors for example and other materials. The more material the signal has to go through, the more attenuation happens.
I have a similar problem, my G2 can't maintain a consistent connection, I will go from 4 bars of HSPA+ to 4 bars of Edge to nothing (lost connection to network) and it will jump around wildly between these three states (every few minutes). My wife's MyTouch 4G doesn't do this, my G1 did not do this, our kids (dumb) phones have consistent connections.
I know it's some interaction between my phone and the TMO network, I'd say it was a defective phone except the only place it happens is inside my house.
I wish that TMO offered a microcell.
There is no reception problem, I have had the phone working here for awhile and it always has full bars, like I said I can hop in the car and drive a couple miles and it works just fine. Tmobile finally got back to me today and said they are having their Engineers troubleshoot the tower that provides service when I am home. I hope they get this fixed soon, they said 72 hours.......
It's that anti-cellphonereception chemical they put into paint!!

[Q] Poor cell signal- often roaming

I've had the E4GT for less than 24hrs, and biggest issue is the less than splendid cell reception. Sitting in my living room i used to get 2-3 bars- this thing constantly throws into roaming. I updated my PRL, Profile, and Firmware. Didn't know what the latest PRL was that was out.
I know this thing has only been out a few days, so i understand some bugs. Is anyone else having signal issues where they didn't before?
I'm really trying rock this for a couple days stock before i root the hell out of it, lol.
Thanks for any input. Link me to resources if you like, i have no issues reading up on my own if this is a common issue.
fattmann said:
I've had the E4GT for less than 24hrs, and biggest issue is the less than splendid cell reception. Sitting in my living room i used to get 2-3 bars- this thing constantly throws into roaming. I updated my PRL, Profile, and Firmware. .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ditto! I even have an Air Rave and reception is poor.
I am running into the same situation. It keeps on switching between roaming and normal for no reason. I usually get pretty good reception in my room. It will sit there at about 2-3 bars reception, few minutes later its roaming. The phone hasn't been moved at all.
This happened to me 20 minutes after I got it on Friday but after a reboot it was fine. No problem since then. I assumed it was a network issue.
Same issue here, even with Airave (evo next to SG2 has better signal)
Huh, I'm getting better reception than my Evo 4G. The Epic Touch now works in my condo elevator at basement garage level where the Evo would consistently drop a call.
has anyone did a signal strength comparison instead of bars. they may have different values per bar on different phones.
Returns are warranted?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
I wonder if there is a difference in radios or something. My experience tells me that this radio is finicky as heck, and I don't know why.
Is there a way to find out if Samsung used different parts or suppliers to make the Epic Touch?
I remember HTC doing this with their phones, and some would be fine, and some would not (different issue each phone, lol)
Mine was doing the same i switched the phone to only go on sprints network and has been fine. I rarely need true roaming but it would go into roaming even when sprint service was available.
I think Sprint may be doing network upgrades/maintenance. The same phenomenon occurs on my Epic 4G Touch and multiple Nexus S 4G's. I'll see signal jump from -106 dBm to -76 dBm and in some places go into roaming. Nothing to worry about as long as it works. They may be upgrading equipment to support EVDO rev B hopefully.
I get much better 4G reception on the E4GT than the NS4G, FWIW.
My signal isn't as good as my photon was better then my evo 3d. I usually don't roam much. Trust me when I say this, reception could be worse lol ill deal with it!!
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk
I hope the poor signal has to do with upgrading to EvDo RevB on Oct7
Thank God I am not alone. My cell reception too is finicky. In places my old evo (which my girl use now)have weak signal my epic touch would roam in and out. Sometimes it won't leave roaming even after I get to a known good reception area. Only a reboot would kick it back to sprint network. I read somewhere that calling sprint and having them reset my phone on their end might help. I am going to try this out as soon as I get home.

Virtually no service after root

I got my phone the day after launch (delay on pre-orders) and enjoy it so far. I'm coming from an HTC Evo 4g, which I loved, but it's 2 years old, so it was time to move on. The first few days, the GS3 was great. Good service, even in hard to find service areas. I recently rooted it with CWM and the super user thing. I wanted wifi tether while at work, like I did with my Evo for the last year. After root, everything seemed fine at my house. I noticed when I got to work though, there was no service. Not uncommon for my building, but usually it's spotty throughout. I then noticed the time and date were 3 days off on my phones display. I found it odd that it hadn't updated this all day at work. I drove home thinking the root messed something up, as I'd seen other posts about no service after rooting the phone. When I got to my home town, my service came back. I thought I was in the clear. Today on the way to work, same spot, I lose service, and it didn't come back until I made it back to my home town at the end of the day. I understand service may not be great in some areas, even though I had fine service with my evo, but to lose service in all but like 3 towns, virtually makes my cell phone useless to me. What is going on? Was it a bad root? Can I undo this? I didn't backup my rom, because I actually rooted it during a recovery process with a bad firmware upload. I can understand if I lost service all together, that it may have been a bad root, but this seems to be a different case.
How can I remedy this?
Thanks!
Simply rooting shouldn't have any effect on your signal. I have the Sprint version, and rooted less than 48 hours after I got it. I didn't notice a change in signal strength at all. It's still been about as good (maybe slightly better, especially for actual data performance) as my SGS II on Sprint.
Sprint is doing a lot of network upgrades at the moment, so that could possibly be the cause. What city are you in?
Rooting should have no adverse effects on signal.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
I live in Salem (about 20 minutes north of Boston), and drive through Beverly on the way to work. By the time I leave Beverly into Hamilton, signal is gone. All through Topsfield, and Ipswich. My girlfriend, and other people I know on the sprint network, do not have this issue. I thought it might be the network upgrades, but wouldn't it affect all sprint users? Even my father, in the same area, on the same plan, has signal.
Sorry for the double post. Is there any apps or settings I can use to enhance the tx/rx power of the phone? Or maybe change the frequentcy the phone updates the signal status?

Phone not picking up any cell service

My Verizon Galaxy Nexus isn't picking up any cell service. I updated to CM10.1 (Android 4.2.2) mid-February and noticed my phone was showing no bars of service more often then with CM10. Even with no bars I still had "some" service and was able to make calls usually. Last week I updated the radios on both my Dad's and I's GNs to the 4.2.2 radios. For my phone I used the radio files from MWalt's thread, for my Dad's I used the ones directly from Mark Manning's radio thread. I didn't realize they were different versions and that MWalt's may have been patched.
I came back to my parents house this weekend, they have a network extender. My phone again was showing no bars but did have the little "R" indicating a Network Extender. Having little (to no) service even with the network extender was causing my phone to die very quickly. Today I was doing some errands (to places where I should have service), for the first 10 minutes of driving I had no bars but did have the 3G indicator and was able to make calls. Once I got to a certain point my service cutout completely. For the the next 4 hours I had zero service and couldn't make any calls (again in areas where I should have had varying amounts of service). Driving back once I got to the same spot where I lost service, no bars of 3G service returned and I was able to make calls. When I reached home, I again had no bars but was able to make calls.
I just backup my entire SD card and did a complete factory install using Google's 4.2.2 factory images (with the flash-all.bat). Still no improvement, I'm getting 0 bars of service standing next to the network extender. My Dad's GN (as well as the rest of my family's phones) are getting 2-4 bars of service depending on where they are in the house.
Any ideas?
Thanks
TL;DR: I wiped my phone by installing Google's factory images (4.2.2) and my phone is getting no bars of service (although I can *sometimes* make calls standing next to a network extender ("cell tower") or in areas where I should have good service). Any ideas? Thank you...
You might have flashed a Toroplus or Maguro ROM. Im not sure what to tell you other then to call Verizon and check if its a location problem and if its not try manually flashing the stock cdma radio from the google images. (Extract and install both "radio-cdma-toro-i515.fk01.img" and "radio-toro-i515.fk02.img" just in case).
If that doesnt work then try flashing the 2 radios from the 4.1.1 stock image.
I'm sure I flashed the correct toro images, and after posting this I also tried flashing the entire 4.1.1 factory images. Still no improvement. Tomorrow I'll be going back to NJ (from VT), I'm hoping to see some improvement down there.
Thanks for the reply. Any other suggestions would still be appreciated.
I just went down to the Verizon store (back in NJ) after seeing no improvement when I got back to my house. Of course on the 5 minute drive between here and there I get full (4 or 5?) bars of 4G service. And by the time I got to the store I still had 2-3 bars of 4G service. Anyway, the guy at least believed me enough to give me a new sim card. But once I drove back up the hill from the store I lost 4G service in the exact same spot again.
Keeping in mind this is in the Cliffside Park/Edgewater area of NJ (literally right across the Hudson river from NYC). I *should* have great service in this entire area. I don't know what to do, except pay the $100 for a POS refurbished phone form Asurion or maybe pay full price for a S4.
I called Verizon CS and they were able to confirm not being able to see my phone connected to their network. After 40 minutes they actually (read:finally) offered to replace the phone. Should be here in a couple days. Now this phone has to be a refurbished one correct? Any chance they are sending out new ones? I read some stories earlier about people being on their 3rd or 4th replaced GNs because of constant problems with the replacements.
Edit: Just got the confirmation email for my "certified like-new replacement" phone. Oh well, we'll see how this turns out... Until then I'm back on my Droid Incredible. Damn this phone is tiny and slow as s***.

Getting Verizon to address signal issues?

Has anyone had luck getting signal issues addressed with Verizon?
My signal has gone to crap - I thought it was my new One M7, but my wife's S4 is exhibiting the same behavior...can't help but think something is wrong, as I used to get a solid 4G signal at home a few months ago on my ReZound.
I live just off a major state highway, I am in town, and right in the middle of the 4G coverage for Verizon (there's 6 towers within 4 miles of my house, and 17 antennas - according to antennasearch.com). The local Verizon tech pulled their map and said I should be getting full signal at my house.
Despite all this, when I get within a mile from my house coming in fr the East on the state hwy, I drop to 1 bar of 3G and lose all data. At home, I switch between these signals:
(rare) 4G RSRP -120 to -123 dBm
3G (eHRPD) -110 to -118 dBm
1 1xRTT -97 dBm
If I go another half mile west in town (which is flat land), I am back to sub -100 signal on 4G. Any way to get someone to actually investigate and do something about it?
Thanks...
Call tech support and demand that they send a tech to investigate. I have to do it constantly. They tell me every time I call everything is fine on their end and a few days later it gets better all of a sudden. It's like they don't want you to know they have an issue.
You on the latest radios? I noticed when I updated to the latest radios my signal improved. Still would call tech support and have them check what's going on. Don't take we have no issues as you live in the area and they don't. So they should take your word for it. If you know others in your area have them call to so they have to take it seriously.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
Man, I have tried newest radios, older radios, combinations of different setups with different ROMs (Sense and AOSP based), flashed RUU and did factory resets, back to stock rooted with new and old radios, and even a new SIM card...now back to 100% stock and fully updated - getting ready to see if they will trade out my hardware in case mine is bad.
One odd thing - when I first got the phone, the Best Buy tech couldn't get the SIM to activate, and had to call Verizon. When I swapped my SIM out two weeks ago at the local Verizon corporate store, they couldn't get the new SIM to activate and had to go to the back and do it from the computer...which is what makes me wonder if my hardware is bad.
Have had Verizon here (same house) for 8 years...very rarely had a dropped call in that time up until about 2 months ago (when I got my One M7). I drop about 1 out of every 3 calls now, and the other two get garbled sometime during the call - I hear "you're breaking up" at least once per call.
Your wife has a totally different phone and she is having issues as well so she has hardware issues too?
Her Samsungs always had worse reception than my ReZound (why she likes them, I have no idea) - but I chalked it up to bad reception on the device line.
I never looked into her signal strength until I was comparing my One to hers, which is when I noticed her signal is also bad (mine is worse at times). That's what made me wonder if it was something Verizon should look into in the area.
The hardware thought on my end is due to the fact that I can't find a combination of radio/ROM/RUU that will improve my signal at home and the fact that both SIMs had an issue activating in the phone. Grasping at straws on the hardware thing really.
May reactivate my ReZound tomorrow to see if the signal has just gone to crap here or if it's my phone.
I had signal issues at one point and the problem was because the SIM couldn't seat all the way because of a tiny piece of plastic still attached to the back side of the SIM. It made just a tiny little bump that made it so the tray wouldn't slide all the way in. Since then though the problem in my area has been Verizon. Every time I've called to tell them the coverage here has been crap they tell me the same old it isn't their fault junk. Keep hounding them and they will send a tech even if they tell you otherwise. Like I mentioned before. They almost never admit to an issue with a tower. The only time I have heard of them admitting it was when it was bad enough that they received several reports.
Update:
I reactivated my ReZound yesterday morning to see if my recollection of signal was off or if things are worse on the network near my house.
I monitored it heavily yesterday, last night, and again this morning, and at home the ReZound keeps a 4G signal ranging from -110 to -120.
I did a side-by-side comparison with the wife's Samsung, and while the One mirrors the Samsung (when one drops to 3G or 1X, the other is doing the same), the ReZound held the 4G signal. I watched the Samsung go from poor 3G to 1X - ReZound held 4G.
Also, the dreaded 1 mile dead zone around my house - on my One, Slacker quits playing about a mile from home, says it has lost connection to the server, even though I am on a decent 3G signal. Twice yesterday (coming and going), the ReZound held 4G through the zone and Slacker never skipped a beat.
Conclusion - either something is wrong with the One (and possibly the Samsung?), or the One simply can't contend with a weak signal as well as the ReZound.
If a rep said you should have full bars they might not have the antenna aligned right. I remember years ago someone on one of the sites talked about the same problem he was suppose to have full signal but want and Verizon sent someone out to check alignment and found the person who installed it didn't have it aligned right. After he rest the antenna the guy had full bars. I'd bet this happens quite often and maybe have the two that told you to have someone sent out to see if the antennas are setup right
the_Damaged_one said:
Update:
I reactivated my ReZound yesterday morning to see if my recollection of signal was off or if things are worse on the network near my house.
I monitored it heavily yesterday, last night, and again this morning, and at home the ReZound keeps a 4G signal ranging from -110 to -120.
I did a side-by-side comparison with the wife's Samsung, and while the One mirrors the Samsung (when one drops to 3G or 1X, the other is doing the same), the ReZound held the 4G signal. I watched the Samsung go from poor 3G to 1X - ReZound held 4G.
Also, the dreaded 1 mile dead zone around my house - on my One, Slacker quits playing about a mile from home, says it has lost connection to the server, even though I am on a decent 3G signal. Twice yesterday (coming and going), the ReZound held 4G through the zone and Slacker never skipped a beat.
Conclusion - either something is wrong with the One (and possibly the Samsung?), or the One simply can't contend with a weak signal as well as the ReZound.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With newer phones, they may be dropping the 4G and 3G signal because it is below the preset threshold in the firmware. -110 to -120 is horrible. You should be getting higher than that, like -90 and up.
Edit: if Verizon is saying you should be getting full bars, your signal should be above -78dBm. (Signal is measured in negatives, so "above" -78 is 77, 76, etc). If you read any documentation on signal strengths, you will see anything below -105 is so horrible of a signal, most data, sms, and calls are frequently dropped. With you claiming with the Rezound having not experiencing this, it is highly likely what the above poster is saying is true: antenna alignment is messed up. Even a fraction of a degree will mess with signal quality.
Sent from my HTC6500LVW using XDA Free mobile app

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