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I got the oddest bill from AT&T the other day with usage totals that were impossible. Has anyone experienced this and/or is there a possibility that it might have something to do with frequent flashing of different ROM's and Radios??
Data usage I assume? Wouldn't think any more than normal, except maybe some initial setup stuff like downloading email. Can use this to monitor what's using data if you're concerned.
Toleraen said:
Data usage I assume? Wouldn't think any more than normal, except maybe some initial setup stuff like downloading email. Can use this to monitor what's using data if you're concerned.
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No I mean like does messaging and the like which can be stored on the SIM, get reported a second time. AT&T forces you to have an unlimited data plan with the Tilt2 so no worries there. I just got a bill with something like 700 texts used in 2 days. Something I assure you I would have remembered doing. Hell, I wouldn't have been able to do much else.
nerv666999 said:
No I mean like does messaging and the like which can be stored on the SIM, get reported a second time. AT&T forces you to have an unlimited data plan with the Tilt2 so no worries there. I just got a bill with something like 700 texts used in 2 days. Something I assure you I would have remembered doing. Hell, I wouldn't have been able to do much else.
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Wow...I've been with AT&T for years, and do my fair share of texting and flashing. Can't say I remember getting a bill with that many messages reported. I don't even think any roms I've used default to save to the SIM, even though the capability exists.
The only time I've seen this is when I've been in very poor coverage areas (ie, my basement heh). I'll send a text from the basement, then go upstairs and get 8 or 9 responses (if it's an automated system). If you've got poor reception I'd recommend trying a different radio...but I doubt poor reception would cause that many repeats. Not sure man.
Toleraen said:
Wow...I've been with AT&T for years, and do my fair share of texting and flashing. Can't say I remember getting a bill with that many messages reported. I don't even think any roms I've used default to save to the SIM, even though the capability exists.
The only time I've seen this is when I've been in very poor coverage areas (ie, my basement heh). I'll send a text from the basement, then go upstairs and get 8 or 9 responses (if it's an automated system). If you've got poor reception I'd recommend trying a different radio...but I doubt poor reception would cause that many repeats. Not sure man.
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my guess would be just something screwed up in the ATT system. Check the rest of your bill and make sure everything else is in order and check your bills for the next few months.. ALSO check your last bill as they have a rule that after 1 month they wont fix it [although they will if you really push like I've had to ]
Thanks for all of the sage advice. AT&T sucks in so many ways but the one thing you can say is that if you *****, whine, cry etc. at them enough they will wipe some errant charges. I think alot of these are as Toleraen suggests, nothing more than duplicates. We shall see and I will post any and all results of my efforts to get to the bottom of this.
Thanks again
My brother (a fellow Epic owner) is taking a trip to London next month. Wondering what tips or tricks anyone may have for staying connected. He's shooting a film over three weeks and will need to text and email. He'll have access to wifi intermittently.
What apps or services can you suggest? Also, he's not rooted yet and was wondering how he could benefit from it (other than the general awesomeness of some of these roms).
Any help is much appreciated.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
If your brother would like to still use his Epic to communicate while overseas, my first tip, without even rooting, would be sign up for Google Voice and get GrooVe IP from the market.
This combo will allow for calling over WiFi...I haven't used it in a couple of months, bit I used it quite frequently prior to that...It worked fairly well.
Google Voice will also allow for sending and receiving texts.
xanthinealkaloid said:
If your brother would like to still use his Epic to communicate while overseas, my first tip, without even rooting, would be sign up for Google Voice and get GrooVe IP from the market.
This combo will allow for calling over WiFi...I haven't used it in a couple of months, bit I used it quite frequently prior to that...It worked fairly well.
Google Voice will also allow for sending and receiving texts.
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This exactly.
Just note, that if he wants to be able to receive phone calls, GrooVe IP needs to be left on, which may be detrimental to battery life.
RandomKing said:
This exactly.
Just note, that if he wants to be able to receive phone calls, GrooVe IP needs to be left on, which may be detrimental to battery life.
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Also just to sure, the calls/texts are only received when there's an active WiFi connection.
As for the battery impact, GrooVe IP seemed fairly good as a background service not sucking up the battery too much...I may not be a the best judge of that one though because I'm a person who uses 2 batteries with little care about what how much is being used. However, it certainly seems the WiFi calls themselves use slightly more juice then a standard call.
In the long run, it may not really matter though because in this situation you're probably going to want to make sure the phone radio is turned off, since it serves no purpose.
This is funny I see this post...something interesting on this. I am getting ready to travel to the Dominican Republic and I am researching this very thing, a free way to stay in contact with my business and the kids that were left far far behind... I did a google search (cuz he's the smartest guy I know) for "calling voip from my smartphone from the dominican republic" and I was on a website reading travelers inputs (don't know which one as I looked at 50 of them). A guy mentioned he was on sprint and did the google voice thing and incurred data roaming charges on his bill the next month after he got back off the trip. Whats the scoop...anyone with first hand knowledge? This would be nice. I downloaded skype and mobilevoip and both need lowcost minutes but I was hoping for free and easier than setting up accounts with a voip servicer.
Edit: Question, does Google Voice/GrooVeIP do video chat like skype? computer to computer or should I say Epic 4g to laptop/pc?
Background
This is by no means definitive, so don't everyone go get your panties in a wad and pitch fits like 12 year olds.
So several days ago I noticed that my GNex was starting to have issues with dropping calls and data connections. Basically, I was dropping data and voice despite having a connection to the network about every 2-5 hours, requiring a reboot. This happened over a 3 day period in a stationary position, in radically different places (like 80-150 miles apart). It was happening on 3G and on 4G so I was pretty confident that it wasn't just a localized outage or the local tower acting up. I'm no expert and certainly no /dev, but I've been around some Android devices a time or two.
I'm a big proponent that 95% of problems with an Android device are user error. That doesn't mean you're holding it wrong or that you're stupid, merely that something the user has installed or set is affecting something else, that affected something else. As an example, shortly after getting my GNex I installed TweetDeck. I had used Navigation several times to test GPS (first thing I did being a SGS owner) so I knew it worked and worked well. Anyway, immediately after installing and setting up TweetDeck, my GPS crapped. It would see satellites but not connect... even after 30 minutes....even after rebooting, clearing AGPS data, blah blah. Being objective, I decided to freeze TweetDeck with TB. As soon as I did, GPS returned. As soon as I unfroze it, GPS failed. I uninstalled TweetDeck and reinstalled from the Market, and had no more issues.
Solution (For me at least)
With that event in mind, and a crapped out radio, I went looking through my app drawer for apps that access the radio. I picked out Network Info II 0.6.0, Real Signal 3.5 and Network Signal Info 1.51. I rebooted and waited. Here it is three days later, and I have yet to have a single voice or data drop. If I've had one on the data side, I haven't noticed and it certainly wasn't for long.
I don't know how or why. All I know is that I've never had any form of radio trouble and those apps were recently installed, and that without them, the radio issues are gone. Take it for what it's worth, which probably isn't much. But if you're on 4.0.4, with 4.0.4 radios and you're suffering from radio problems, flip through your app drawer and remove or freeze applications that have the sole purpose of polling data from your radios. Who knows, maybe having 3 was 1 or 2 to many.
Thanks for the write up. And I really think the issue with certain apps interfering with OS-level stuff is a big issue, and one that nobody seems to want to notice.
There are a ton of posts, not only on this forum but on others, where people are saying they have so many issues with the Nexus and this and that. What a lot of people don't realize is that, yes, certain apps that are either poorly coded in general or not coded for ICS can potentially interfere with the normal operations of your phone.
A lot of people tend to use/stick with apps that they are used to, right? I came from the G1, the very first Android phone, so I've been using Android for awhile, and I bet that other people are too. Some apps are a staple of people's usage, meaning as soon as they get a new device, those same apps are the first to be downloaded and installed. However a lot of times those apps are abandoned by their developers, never to be touched again.
So of course an app that was coded on Froyo or even Eclair that calls the GPS or the radio or bluetooth stack or something else hardware related can potentially cause issues, especially with ICS being such a radical change from Gingerbread.
Question for OP. When you lost your data after 5 hours or so, was your 4G or 3G signal still showing as well as the data bars still moving like they are active but technically your data is not connected at all?
Was it apps you added that you froze or system stype apps? How did you see what accesed the radio?
[email protected] said:
Question for OP. When you lost your data after 5 hours or so, was your 4G or 3G signal still showing as well as the data bars still moving like they are active but technically your data is not connected at all?
Was it apps you added that you froze or system stype apps? How did you see what accesed the radio?
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Yes. It was doing the typical thing you read about where people will have gray bars, 4G/3G showing, "Verizon Wireless" on the lock screen but no connection to anything at all.
The applications I froze are all 3rd party market apps. Check out the permissions for Network Info II as an example. My not so scientific hypothesis wonders if too many apps that can read "Network State" and "Phone State" going at once is too many. Again, not really based on anything at all, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that multiple apps or a poorly coded app constantly requesting Network/Phone State could throw radios into a tailspin and cause those radio crashes that we see from logcats.
And as a disclaimer, I'm not knocking those applications or saying that there's anything wrong with them. I make this post primarily to encourage people with the issue to think logically about the apps they have installed and experiment with removing some out of the equation. Going back to what I said eariler, 99% of people that install TweetDeck on their GNex probably don't have GPS issues because of it, ever. I did until uninstalling and reinstalling and haven't had issues since.
I see this as possibly being no different, at least in regards to a 4.0.4 Bootloader, OS and Radio Package.
Food for thought: Apps have not been updated to work 100% with ICS?
KWKSLVR said:
Yes. It was doing the typical thing you read about where people will have gray bars, 4G/3G showing, "Verizon Wireless" on the lock screen but no connection to anything at all.
The applications I froze are all 3rd party market apps. Check out the permissions for Network Info II as an example. My not so scientific hypothesis wonders if too many apps that can read "Network State" and "Phone State" going at once is too many. Again, not really based on anything at all, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that multiple apps or a poorly coded app constantly requesting Network/Phone State could throw radios into a tailspin and cause those radio crashes that we see from logcats.
And as a disclaimer, I'm not knocking those applications or saying that there's anything wrong with them. I make this post primarily to encourage people with the issue to think logically about the apps they have installed and experiment with removing some out of the equation. Going back to what I said eariler, 99% of people that install TweetDeck on their GNex probably don't have GPS issues because of it, ever. I did until uninstalling and reinstalling and haven't had issues since.
I see this as possibly being no different, at least in regards to a 4.0.4 Bootloader, OS and Radio Package.
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Alright, so will that app tell me what is accessing that feature or do I need to go through every app to find out and what exactly shoould t say in the access?
Help me out here please because this is starting to annoy me!
The fastest way to see what apps have what permissions is Menu > Settings > Apps then go through each app and scroll down to permissions. Or you could back up your apps with TB, do a Nandroid then completely wipe the phone and live with it totally untouched (minus your gmail account of course) long enough to see if the problem goes away.
Don't get me wrong, I've never seen an LTE phone that didn't occasionally disconnect for a few seconds. People that say, "OMG my Rezound never did" are either full of it or didn't pay attention. There are plenty of cases of Rezounds, Maxx's and Thunderbolts having brief and random disconnects. But there's a huge difference between that, and losing signal as often as I was and as often as many people here say they do. There's nothing you can do about the former, but hopefully this is something that can be done about the latter. I'm crossing my fingers that it may help and that it's a relatively simple fix because frankly, until I saw it for myself I thought a lot of people were being drama queens. I'm not a whiner, I'm a doer, so I encourage everyone to go do.
bk201doesntexist said:
Food for thought: Apps have not been updated to work 100% with ICS?
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There are a TON of apps that haven't been updated. I have a paid app that hasn't been updated that is abandoned and still on the market. Works fantastic except on ICS.
I've thankfully been free of radio issues thus far on my GNex, but I want to thank you for this thread.
KWKSLVR said:
I'm a big proponent that 95% of problems with an Android device are user error. That doesn't mean you're holding it wrong or that you're stupid, merely that something the user has installed or set is affecting something else, that affected something else.
...
Being objective, I decided to freeze TweetDeck with TB. As soon as I did, GPS returned. As soon as I unfroze it, GPS failed. I uninstalled TweetDeck and reinstalled from the Market, and had no more issues.
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KWKSLVR said:
I make this post primarily to encourage people with the issue to think logically about the apps they have installed and experiment with removing some out of the equation.
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Not to jump up on too high of a soapbox, but I couldn't agree with you more.
It's very satisfying to read about people methodically, empirically testing. It's something that seems rare these days.
So thank you!
KWKSLVR said:
The fastest way to see what apps have what permissions is Menu > Settings > Apps then go through each app and scroll down to permissions. Or you could back up your apps with TB, do a Nandroid then completely wipe the phone and live with it totally untouched (minus your gmail account of course) long enough to see if the problem goes away.
Don't get me wrong, I've never seen an LTE phone that didn't occasionally disconnect for a few seconds. People that say, "OMG my Rezound never did" are either full of it or didn't pay attention. There are plenty of cases of Rezounds, Maxx's and Thunderbolts having brief and random disconnects. But there's a huge difference between that, and losing signal as often as I was and as often as many people here say they do. There's nothing you can do about the former, but hopefully this is something that can be done about the latter. I'm crossing my fingers that it may help and that it's a relatively simple fix because frankly, until I saw it for myself I thought a lot of people were being drama queens. I'm not a whiner, I'm a doer, so I encourage everyone to go do.
There are a TON of apps that haven't been updated. I have a paid app that hasn't been updated that is abandoned and still on the market. Works fantastic except on ICS.
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My signal does not go in and out but randomly after hours it might lose data. By looking at it you would never know because everything looks fine but behind the scenes data is not working.
So what we are looking for in permissions is what you listed in the 1st post and that is what will be listed?
I thought it might have been me running in tablet mode so I just switched back to phone mode. Would like to see if it is actually caused by what you say.
[email protected] said:
My signal does not go in and out but randomly after hours it might lose data. By looking at it you would never know because everything looks fine but behind the scenes data is not working.
So what we are looking for in permissions is what you listed in the 1st post and that is what will be listed?
I thought it might have been me running in tablet mode so I just switched back to phone mode. Would like to see if it is actually caused by what you say.
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When I froze those apps, I picked them because I knew they had access to:
Network communication > view network state > Allows an application to view the state of all networks. The part in bold is the description of what the permission "View Network State" means. That permission is under the "Network Communication" Category. Some apps will have more than that single permission under Network communication, some with have none at all. "Real Signal" has the fewest permissions out of the three I froze, and maybe all three don't HAVE to be frozen, but I haven't tested that yet.
Another random thought. During that time period, I also had a BUNCH of random reboots.
Maybe on other devices 95% user error might be closer.
But, not on my Gnex! What if you bought a completely new phone and have not installed any apps. The first time you open up the stock browser and use it for 5 mins or so on 4G LTE next to the cell tower -75 db stationary and still lose connection of both data and voice with "the triangle of death" on 2 separate GNex with 2 new SIM cards? Is this a bad batch? To me, "bad batch" is when we say 1/100 is a faulty device but this is almost reversed with GNex. We should exchange devices until we find a "good batch"
All I am saying is we all should be a little more compassionate for people like me. A lot of problems are made by users, sure. But it sure isn't 95%....It's more like samsung/google/vzw 60% in this case..
I hope I shed a little light on all the users that did not create user errors yet still have radio problems and VZW keep telling us to wait because issues are going to be addressed with the supposed firmware update that should have come in Feb, now March. Now...I don't know when.
Thank you for your post though, you rock
With anything, even product reviews, the people that have issues always make up the vocal majority. No one talks about how things work the way they should.
If my phone truly dropped 4G as often as it did when I had this application conflict, I'd be in the Verizon store every day until I either had a replacement or got banished from the store. If Verizon told me that it was "normal" and to live with it, I'd pay a visit to management at a different Verizon store and pay an online visit to the BBB. If that didn't do any good and I was really REALLY bored and had nothing better to do, I'd probably draw up a letter to Verizon's legal department about the liability Verizon could have when a consumer can't call 911 in the middle of the night because the radio crashed.
I still think it's an incompatibility hiccup with ICS more than necessarily an issue with Verizon's LTE network. I see GSM owners complaining too. And, as I said in the OP, I can only speak for a "stock" 4.0.4 bootloader/modem/radio experience. I've seen posts from people talking about how their problems have disappeared since making the move from 4.0.2 to 4.0.4. All I can speak of from my own experiences is that I've never had a problem from any version of ICS other than what I experience.
Come to think of it, I think I'll defrost all three of those apps and see what happens, especially since the phone in my hotel seems to be in working order.
OK, in the couple of hours since I've defrosted my cocktail of apps I've:
Opened the Facebook app, watched it poll for GPS and lock, then closed the Facebook app only to have GPS stuck on. Once I went into Settings > Apps > Location Services and tried to uncheck "GPS satellites" it rebooted. After rebooting, the phone showed 4G and a connection to Google's servers but I couldn't browse or use any app that is web based (like speed test, gmail, etc). After about 30 minutes of trying, I rebooted again and everything was fine. I have a feeling it's related to Real Signal looking at the plethora of stuff it monitors and that it's starting up on boot.
That's all I personally care to see. Needless to say, they're all frozen again.
I don't think there is a problem with real signal, I only installed it after having these problems to start with.
Since I got my nexus it works randomly drop voice and data. People would call me and get a fast busy signal. I tried many different radios and they all behaved the same. I switch my network to CDMA only and haven't dropped data or voice in two days.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
On 4.0.4?
I don't think it's necessarily just Real Signal. I think it's multiple apps polling data from your radios. After a few more days, I'll go through them one by one. So far in my experiences on my setup, there is something up with the combination of those apps.
Again, there's a solid chance that a combination of other apps could give other people similar issues.
I will say this, even if I had problems before installing those apps, this particular cocktail would only make them worse.
It's not ICM
Hi all - First post here, but have been having nightmares with my wifes Nexus - mine is fine and drops NOTHING - EVER.
Hers on the other hand - we are on our 2nd one and I was informed by Verizon today, that it's been 14 days since they replaced it and I"m stuck with it. I rooted her phone and installed 4.04, which fixed the random reboots she was having, and her signal LOOKED stronger, but she is dropping calls like mad and getting kicked off the network randomly.
Anyway, it does not appear to be a ICM thing - I was reading a review on IT World (I'm not allowed to post links till I've posted 8 times? ) - They are describing THE EXACT SAME THING the Galaxy Nexus is having. So there is a switching problem WITH VERIZON. The Maxx isn't ICM and the phone is a totally different manufacturer (Motorola)
I'm smelling class action lawsuit.
Woodk1 said:
Hi all - First post here, but have been having nightmares with my wifes Nexus - mine is fine and drops NOTHING - EVER.
Hers on the other hand - we are on our 2nd one and I was informed by Verizon today, that it's been 14 days since they replaced it and I"m stuck with it. I rooted her phone and installed 4.04, which fixed the random reboots she was having, and her signal LOOKED stronger, but she is dropping calls like mad and getting kicked off the network randomly.
Anyway, it does not appear to be a ICM thing - I was reading a review on IT World (I'm not allowed to post links till I've posted 8 times? ) - They are describing THE EXACT SAME THING the Galaxy Nexus is having. So there is a switching problem WITH VERIZON. The Maxx isn't ICM and the phone is a totally different manufacturer (Motorola)
I'm smelling class action lawsuit.
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Yes, indeed.
I am very surprised to not see one yet!
It means all of us with this issue is actually being very patient at the moment.
Again, for anyone who does not have this issue at all, and curious to find out what issue we all are actually describing here by LTE Connection Drop + Voice Drop is:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=24345
Man, why does everyone always pull the "class action lawsuit" line?
Firstly, you're not going to do diddly squat legally about it, so stop kidding yourselves (and us) when you say that you are.
Secondly, no service you pay for is "guaranteed" to have 100 percent uptime. My Comcast internet connection goes out every 3 months or so anywhere from 5 hours to one day. Do you think I have legal grounds to sue them? Nope. When a thunderstorm rolls in and you lose power for 12 hours, can you sue your electric company? Nope. In fact, I'm pretty sure in most ToS contracts or forms that you sign, it states that they do not guarantee you anything.
LTE is a relatively new technology, and Verizon is the first one to offer it. There's going to be hiccups and growing pains. It's been a year and it's A LOT better now than it was back when it started. 4 years ago we were all happy to get something faster than EDGE speeds, and now we get connections capable of 40/50 Mbps down at times and people are still unhappy.
I understand people's frustrations with the network/switching issues that are occurring between CDMA and LTE. But we live in an age where everyone feels entitled and important enough to immediately sue another company at the drop of a hat.
Here's an idea: If you are faced with severe LTE switching issues and it's a continuing problem, call up customer support. Tell them what is going on and let them help you. Yes, you are past your 14 day return policy, but you have one year of a device warranty, they will ship you out a replacement device. Since your Nexus works fine and your wife's does not, it leads me to believe that it's not a network issue in your area, and either: A. Your wife got two dud Nexus' in a row, which sucks but is not unheard of. or B. Your wife is using some sort of app or service that interferes with the radios. If you still have the issue after the 3rd replacement, call them up again and explain, and they just might be able to give her a different device altogether if the Nexus isn't working out for her.
Dear MMcCraryNJ,
hear my long plea if you have the time. If you don't that is okay.
Firstly, I am so glad you seem to be not affected by this issue on your GNex.
Every single day, I wish I was in your shoes.
On the brighter side though, with LTE Data/voice drop & severe vertical banded screen & one-way-microphone outbound issues, I have come to join in XDA forum. I've also gotten to know countless VZW / Samsung customer service representatives at all levels as well as local store customer service agents.
Secondly, I, and I am sure most of all the other GNex users with above issues, know that no product & service is guaranteed to work perfectly with 100% uptime. Personally, it takes a significant defect of any product for me to call customer service at all. I am one of those, who actually try to live with products that have minor flaws everyday. If GNex did drop my LTE 3-4 times daily, I'll live with out much complaint let alone 3 months that you've mentioned. 3 months of uptime would be heavenly, but I'll actually be perfectly fine with 3 hours uptime. Sadly, my uptime has been 5-10 minutes with LTE. If my one-way-outbound microphone cut off issue happened 1 out of 10 calls, I'll live happily. Sadly, nearly every other call makes my voice into a robot and I have to call back again.
I am personally coming from Droid Eris long long time ago when Android first came out with newest 3G technology back then. Eris wasn't issue free but my satisfaction with what I got was pretty much 95%. You see, as long as a product performs what it claimed to perform 60-80% of the time, I am happy. Claim and advertisement that Verizon made with CDMA Galaxy Nexus in the US as "The latest 4G LTE Pure Google ICS Smartphone meeting the most reliable 4G LTE network in the world" caught my attention, as many others, to actually decide to choose this new phone with my 2 year contract over countless androids that came out in the past 3 years.
Again, our frustration that is described on these post is described in detail here (http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=24345) it is not a LTE / 3G switch issue only. Switching issue is very small part of this problem. I will not go into any detail of one-way-microphone cut off issue at all, due to its unrelated nature on this particular post.
Just as you've suggested naively, your suggestions in order that you wrote them in were exactly the steps I thought and took from very first day I purchased GNex back 4 months ago from a local verizon store. I have stopped in at the verizon store to get exchanges of the actual device, SIM card. None of these replacements solved the data/voice drop issue. I am all talking about stock 4.0.2 without any apps installed on any of these GNex. It can't possibly be the bad batch as I received batches that were produced in completely different months. I loved whatever was promised with GNex so much that I was determined to find the one for me as no other devices Verizon offer at the time appeal to me at all. As 14 days has passed, the local verizon literally told me to 1) wait for the update 2) root your device to all different kind of ROMs and Radios 3) call VZW customer service. Which all of the advice I followed, I am still waiting, none of the ROMs and radios solved the issue.
Ever since then, I've been calling VZW and Samsung (when VZW transferred me), and talked to numerous customer service representatives at all different levels. (Level 2 & 3 and at some points I've been transferred and escalated twice to a person really higher up) With my efforts, I was actually able to tag all my calls, and send them screenshots (via e-mail), and follow through to actually make above mentioned issues officially put on VZW technical bulletin. It is a huge improvement, because when I first called about these issues, they told me "They've never heard of these issues.". Now, after all of our efforts, they admit there's over "120 technical bulletin reportings on these issues."
You do think that it is so easy to get a refurbished factory replacement phones with all my history right?
The answer is sadly No. They've been literally telling me to wait a little longer no matter how much I requested them to get me a replacement device. They are indeed very hesitant to keep replacing devices for all of us especially now days where the supposed update is going to resolve these issues. And on my end, I want to see first if the software fixes it, because I am literally burned out to get another screen protector install everything again, etc. Now the official answer is wait....for the update. If they don't keep their last promise of March update to resolve this issue, that is when my patience will run out and I'll jump to a different device. Although, I love this phone....
This is the longest online posting of any sort in my life ever. I hope this somewhat gives you a new perspective on what unlucky GNex user like myself had to go through in the past 4 months due to getting "bad batches"
Trust me, I hate to live in a society where anybody can talk about law suits against anybody. But, this was one of my first moments that I literally felt like I was hopeless & got betrayed by VZW / Samsung / Google. I started to fantasy about way to make them responsible for this poor product and service. All I wanted was at least 60 percent working "4G LTE Smartphone". (4G LTE is turned off due to connection drop, Phone is unusable as business purposes due to frequent one-way-cut off). After $299 and 2 year contract with $75 monthly service bill of 4 months with all the time I spent to help VZW/Samsung with this issue as a customer, my wildest dreams of thinking of participating in a class law suit, which will never happen, actually make me feel a little bit less helpless towards these major corporations as a customer.
Thank you for hearing my plea. I sincerely apologize for the length of this post.
Hope more of us can enjoy this great GNex in the near future.
After all, I love this device, I love this XDA forum and GNex community. I wouldn't want to switch to a different device just yet
So within 1st 3 days of upgrading to my awesome SGS3 on T-MO, I noticed that anything data related was down to an absolute crawl. Turns out I was streaming all my Amazon music ONLINE and that sucked up my entire month's allowed bandwidth and so was stuck on <56k speeds until my cycle renewed TWO WEEKS later. So I somehow made do without any data until then.
So fast forward 2 weeks later, and I'm throttled ALREADY!! Anyone have any tips/advice on how to keep my data usage lower? I know I can use wifi whenever possible, but even doing so I'm already capped at my data limit before I'm throttled by like 99%. Alternatively, is there any way to increase the "unlimited" cap before I get throttled? I just upgraded my contract and don't want to deal with the ETF/changing carriers.
Any help would be much appreciated... thank you!!
grubbslubbs said:
So within 1st 3 days of upgrading to my awesome SGS3 on T-MO, I noticed that anything data related was down to an absolute crawl. Turns out I was streaming all my Amazon music ONLINE and that sucked up my entire month's allowed bandwidth and so was stuck on <56k speeds until my cycle renewed TWO WEEKS later. So I somehow made do without any data until then.
So fast forward 2 weeks later, and I'm throttled ALREADY!! Anyone have any tips/advice on how to keep my data usage lower? I know I can use wifi whenever possible, but even doing so I'm already capped at my data limit before I'm throttled by like 99%. Alternatively, is there any way to increase the "unlimited" cap before I get throttled? I just upgraded my contract and don't want to deal with the ETF/changing carriers.
Any help would be much appreciated... thank you!!
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Well on ICS you can monitor and set your own data limits. Another thing you might want to look into is not using amazon music. I know this sounds dumb but if it's causing you to use up so much data use something else. I stream Pandora all month long and never get throttled. I have the 5GB data plan. Oh and since I work for tmobile you should probably call in about this issue so they can compare your actual usage to the networks to make sure it isn't something they might have to fix. Rarely happens but I have seen this at least a few times. All you can do is increase your data plan. and set your limits through ics. or dial #web# and it will display your usage. or go to tmobile.com under usage you can see it here as well.
How much data are you allowed before you are throttled? You might try downloading your audio directly to your device with a wifi connection. You might also try Google Music, which caches lots of what it streams.
There are many data usage tracking apps, but I prefer LBE security in the market. Give it a try.
Thanks for the responses!
To follow up - yes I have since moved all my Amazon mp3s directly onto my phone, so that's no longer a problem. And prior to the S3, I had the MyTouch 4G, which, while not a spectacular phone, did everything I needed. My amazement with the S3 is that, beyond the first few days of accidentally streaming all my usage away with the Amazon mp3s (which was decidedly dumb of me), my data usage habits haven't changed all that much since my older phone. So I was completely blindsided this month when I already hit my data limit.
I'll need to dig into this a bit more with T-MO, but I was asking in the forum to see if anyone knew of any background app or program, or anything specific to the GS3 that would be using a steady stream of data without my knowledge? Again, thanks in advance for your help!
grubbslubbs said:
Thanks for the responses!
To follow up - yes I have since moved all my Amazon mp3s directly onto my phone, so that's no longer a problem. And prior to the S3, I had the MyTouch 4G, which, while not a spectacular phone, did everything I needed. My amazement with the S3 is that, beyond the first few days of accidentally streaming all my usage away with the Amazon mp3s (which was decidedly dumb of me), my data usage habits haven't changed all that much since my older phone. So I was completely blindsided this month when I already hit my data limit.
I'll need to dig into this a bit more with T-MO, but I was asking in the forum to see if anyone knew of any background app or program, or anything specific to the GS3 that would be using a steady stream of data without my knowledge? Again, thanks in advance for your help!
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What is your data monthly limit ?
Internet is all good here
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Crisisx1 said:
What is your data monthly limit ?
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It's 2GB.
So after crying to TMO for a while, they told me they could up my limit but I would have to renew again and (of course!) increase my monthly bill which is already ghastly! I guess from the lack of many responses or even any other threads with similar experiences, it probably isn't some hidden data sucker upper program that's the problem here... just me being careless with my data usage... =(
Did you by chance use an upgrade for this phone? If your answer is yes, I might have some insight on this.
You should take a look under Data Usage in your settings to see what apps are using the most data. YouTube tends to be one of the bigger ones if you're on it more than once in a while. Or maybe you have an app that's constantly backing up apps.. That takes a lot of data too. Look around and check their usage.
Turn of syncing, Contacts, Picasa, Mail etc, Check them Manually
Install Opera Mini, uses up to 90% Less data than normal browser BUT loads websites slower
Using Youtube? Turn HQ off, but on this screen the quality will kill you.
grubbslubbs said:
Thanks for the responses!
To follow up - yes I have since moved all my Amazon mp3s directly onto my phone, so that's no longer a problem. And prior to the S3, I had the MyTouch 4G, which, while not a spectacular phone, did everything I needed. My amazement with the S3 is that, beyond the first few days of accidentally streaming all my usage away with the Amazon mp3s (which was decidedly dumb of me), my data usage habits haven't changed all that much since my older phone. So I was completely blindsided this month when I already hit my data limit.
I'll need to dig into this a bit more with T-MO, but I was asking in the forum to see if anyone knew of any background app or program, or anything specific to the GS3 that would be using a steady stream of data without my knowledge? Again, thanks in advance for your help!
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Tmo has been very understanding when my family or I have made similar mistakes. My son went wild downloading games with monthly subscriptions and Tmo made it all go away. Be nice/professional and ask for a manager or the next in command if you are not able to rectify the issue. Being a 10+ year Tmo guy they treat me well. Learn to work the system and stay cool. Sometimes it takes multiple calls to find the right person that is willing to help.
Watch out for Google+ and instant upload along with dropbox too. All 3 will instant upload unless you change the settings
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Also see what apps or accounts are set to auto sync and you could limit background processes as I on my s3 staying logged on eBay for instant notifications,having gmail and other apps set to auto sync and too many background processes was costing me 10 to 12 Mega bytes a day times that by 30 days and that's like 300 to360 megabytes a months wasted you can always check your e-mail and stuff manually unless your a business man and relied on heavy notifications this will help you save a lot of data it keeps me safe because I have the five GB plan too and I've went over a lot until I dug into my settings, hope this helps.
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Awesome, thanks everyone for your suggestions! I totally forgot about all the background apps/processes that auto-sync... definitely has helped some. Still isn't 100% better, but like someone else suggested earlier, I was able to talk my way through with a helpful rep. I am also a longtime customer, and they seemed to want to work with me, as opposed to giving me the shaft.
Don_Perrignon said:
Did you by chance use an upgrade for this phone? If your answer is yes, I might have some insight on this.
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Yes, I did an upgrade through Wal-Mart the week it was launched in the US.
Same thing happened to me. I just restarted a cycle.... But the cycle before this one... Some app used nearly a GB of data around 5 in the morning 3 days into the cycle. By the time I realized this and called TMobile... I was up into the 3.6 range... Couldn't track down the app because I was rom jumping. Anyway, TMobile wasn't much help... I thought for sure they would reset my data since they can see my usage history, but no dice. Bastards! :cyclops:
SiNJiN76 said:
Same thing happened to me. I just restarted a cycle.... But the cycle before this one... Some app used nearly a GB of data around 5 in the morning 3 days into the cycle. By the time I realized this and called TMobile... I was up into the 3.6 range... Couldn't track down the app because I was rom jumping. Anyway, TMobile wasn't much help... I thought for sure they would reset my data since they can see my usage history, but no dice. Bastards! :cyclops:
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Ouch!! Yeah, I was hoping to have some sort of definitive answer like you did (1 unknown app hogging all the data at some random time) but I really didn't have anything to pin-point the problem. Were you able to remove/disable that app from doing that?
How about you post what apps you have installed and we can all compare and see if anyone else has the same problem with some of the same apps. Just a thought to maybe help you out. Im just bored shopping with the gf lol.
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If you're still hitting your cap in the next few months you might consider a 5GB plan. It'll give you quite a bit more data to work with and you can tether with T-Mobile's blessing.
Assuming it even hits our device in an official capacity at some point, I will not be taking the Lollipop update. Why not? Because Google has decided to add a kill switch...
http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/15/...includes-kill-switch-factory-reset-protection
Sure, it sounds like a smart idea and a nice feature on the surface, but having spent more than my fair share of time mucking about with various means of remotely (and stealthily) accessing Android devices, the potential for abuse is too great....Not to mention the fact that the NSA and other alphabets must be absolutely thrilled about such a 'feature'. No thanks....
I see your point. There are ups and downs to.. Pretty much everything. I, myself, would be more than thrilled for a 5.0 update. Not like any of my bank info or other personal info has been stolen or used without my consent, nor have I done any really big illegal activities through my device which would give the NSA a reason to look my way.
Interesting. I think it's worth noting, the article claims that Google implemented the ability to remotely lock phones "last year." So that should automatically dispel any notion of anonymity. Besides that, i think the NSA and other "outfits" have had access to personal devices long before the announcement of lollipop. If you really desire to stay off the grid, he prepared to make substantial efforts.
Not that the NSA needs such a feature. They're already capable of going through your phone it's nothing new.
A big issue would be someone maliciously taking over the kill switch and locking you out with no way in.
Yeah that would definitely suck.
The thing that concerns me most isn't privacy or nefarious doings by the NSA. Everyone knows by now (or should) that privacy and anonymity don't exist in the digital world, and the NSA already has their grubby mitts into everything. I'm more concerned about the possibility of other random people being able to lock me out of my phone.
I'm not going to go into detail, as XDA is not the place for such things and the information can easily be gleaned elsewhere, but as I mentioned, there are already fairly simple ways to get full, remote access of somebody's phone. All it takes is 20 seconds or so of physical access to a device, or a little bit of social engineering to get somebody to install a seemingly benign apk (infected Play Store updates were my favorite), and you can do whatever you want, undetected.
Now imagine you install something, and unbeknownst to you it gives someone complete remote access to your device, starts sniffing passwords, and running keyloggers. Before long, they've got your complete Google account (for example). Next, they change your password, associated phone number, and recovery email addresses to their own, and activate your device's 'kill switch'. You would be left holding a paper weight, without ever knowing what happened, and there would be nothing you could do about it...
I tend to be very careful about what I install, but even I have installed the odd apk I've gotten here at XDA, or compiled and installed something from Github without checking through the source. It's almost impossible to be 100% certain everything you install is clean.
Fortunately, such malicious 'attacks' (for lack of a better word) aren't all that common, relatively speaking. The odds of you randomly becoming a victim of such a thing are marginal. Also, I'm sure once Lollipop is out in the wild, people will start finding flaws with the 'kill switch' implementation, and ultimately, ways of circumventing it. Maybe then I'll consider updating. Until then, however, knowing what nefarious things are possible with it, however unlikely, far outweighs any potential reasons to want to update.
Maybe I'm a little over-paranoid, but that's my take on it, for what it's worth....
Morningstar said:
The thing that concerns me most isn't privacy or nefarious doings by the NSA. Everyone knows by now (or should) that privacy and anonymity don't exist in the digital world, and the NSA already has their grubby mitts into everything. I'm more concerned about the possibility of other random people being able to lock me out of my phone.
I'm not going to go into detail, as XDA is not the place for such things and the information can easily be gleaned elsewhere, but as I mentioned, there are already fairly simple ways to get full, remote access of somebody's phone. All it takes is 20 seconds or so of physical access to a device, or a little bit of social engineering to get somebody to install a seemingly benign apk (infected Play Store updates were my favorite), and you can do whatever you want, undetected.
Now imagine you install something, and unbeknownst to you it gives someone complete remote access to your device, starts sniffing passwords, and running keyloggers. Before long, they've got your complete Google account (for example). Next, they change your password, associated phone number, and recovery email addresses to their own, and activate your device's 'kill switch'. You would be left holding a paper weight, without ever knowing what happened, and there would be nothing you could do about it...
I tend to be very careful about what I install, but even I have installed the odd apk I've gotten here at XDA, or compiled and installed something from Github without checking through the source. It's almost impossible to be 100% certain everything you install is clean.
Fortunately, such malicious 'attacks' (for lack of a better word) aren't all that common, relatively speaking. The odds of you randomly becoming a victim of such a thing are marginal. Also, I'm sure once Lollipop is out in the wild, people will start finding flaws with the 'kill switch' implementation, and ultimately, ways of circumventing it. Maybe then I'll consider updating. Until then, however, knowing what nefarious things are possible with it, however unlikely, far outweighs any potential reasons to want to update.
Maybe I'm a little over-paranoid, but that's my take on it, for what it's worth....
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I wouldn't doubt it if people are already considering to do that to a greater extent.
First of all the name itself "kill switch" is totally misleading. "Killing" something or somebody in full meaning of the word means ending it's life permanently. The way I read the article, this thing simply disables the phone remotely until proper password is entered? How is this different from SIM card lock password protection, or log on password most phones have for ages, that now it will be mandated by another useless law? Or maybe that this new method can not be bypassed? It's still not a kill switch, if it can be reversed and it should be called disable switch or something, but it doesn't have the same ring to it.
There has to be way to unlock the phone without password, otherwise there will be a lot of angry people who forgot/lost password especially if set once and forgotten until let's say 6 months later the switch is activated.
For example couple years ago I think I set password for program purchases on my cable box, so kids can't purchase something by accident, I have no idea what that password is. At least I have no intentions of buying anything.
Also what stops the thief from breaking phone apart and selling parts? My wife broke the screen on her GS3, replacement screen is more expensive than brand new GS3.
And who activates the switch? if user, a lot of people won't have a clue, if company, imagine some prankster breaks into Apple servers, steals the codes and kills 3,000,000 iphones, actually come to think of it, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
I may not update to L either, but for more practical reasons, like are there any benefits for me, is there root method without tripping knox, or will it kill my battery, like update to KK did.
pete4k said:
First of all the name itself "kill switch" is totally misleading. "Killing" something or somebody in full meaning of the word means ending it's life permanently. The way I read the article, this thing simply disables the phone remotely until proper password is entered? How is this different from SIM card lock password protection, or log on password most phones have for ages, that now it will be mandated by another useless law? Or maybe that this new method can not be bypassed?
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I agree that 'kill switch' probably isn't the best term for it. My understanding, from the few articles I've read about it, is that it will lock the phone down until the Google account is verified. I'm not sure if that verification will be done via password entry, email verification, two-factor authentication, or some other means.
For an attacker using the methods I've previously mentioned, a SIM lock would pose a problem, but lockscreen passwords, patterns and pins are trivial to get around.
Like I said, it's not clear yet (from what I've found) how verification will be done to deactivate the 'kill switch', but if it does in fact require verifying the associated Google account in some way, a phone's legitimate owner would be out of luck, as somebody with the means and desire to activate the 'kill switch' in the first place would have no problem in also gaining complete and total control of the associated Google account.
I want to be clear that this is speculation based on my current understanding of a 'feature' that has not yet been released to the public. There may well be safeguards in place to prevent such things, and Google may still make changes before Lollipop is available to the public. I am not suggesting that people refrain from updating to Lollipop when and if an update becomes available. I also want to emphasize that even if the 'feature' is released with such inherent vulnerabilities, that it is not something the average user should every worry about. The odds of anyone randomly being a victim of such an attack are practically non-existant.
That being said, this is XDA. Most members here are fairly technical-minded (at least compared to the general public), and are interested in knowing and realizing the full potential of their devices. As such, I think it should at least be known that such vulnerabilities as I've mentioned do exist, and attacks may be made that much worse, depending on how Google implements the 'kill switch' feature. However remote it may be, it's a possibility, and something that people may or may not want to take into consideration.
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. G.I. Joe....
Not really a sound reason to avoid lollipop in my opinion. If you're concerned about the remote tracking (that already exists) and the upcoming kill switch; after root, find the associated files and freeze or delete them. The mobile tracker came off my phone right after Knox, not for any reason other than the fact it eats battery like crazy. There's always work arounds to their technology, but as far as the nsa, or any other group or morons listening to you; the chances of you as an individual being targeted are 1 in 136,149,000 (in the US). I don't care if you have 50,000 stolen mp3's on your device and like to try and steal old ladies bank account numbers with your tablet, it's chump change to them and having the mindset that they're listening is as bad as these people who prepare for dooms day, zombie apocalypse, and everything else... it's just crazy. If your concerns are a kill switch, then you might as well stay in your house because there's cameras everywhere out there, your ps3 and Xbox cameras can be accessed if you're on the Web, there's hundreds of satellites circling the globe gathering information, and every thought, search or anything you've done on the Web is accessible whether you delete your history or not. If your computer has been there, there's a footprint, if you used a vpn or tried playing shadow games to hide your identity, it can be traced if they want to. Life is too short top worry about such silly things. Live it up and have fun!
Just my 2 cents for the night.
Do you wear a tin foil hat too?? Whether you like it or not, you're on the grid already. There is no getting off. The NSA wants you, they're gonna get you. Good luck running
That is very true. But as more people protest, the companies are actually fighting back against the government. Like Yahoo against the NSA and Facebook against the DEA, people just need to keep letting know that we won't tolerate getting stripped buttass naked of our personal privacy.
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nighthawk626 said:
That is very true. But as more people protest, the companies are actually fighting back against the government. Like Yahoo against the NSA and Facebook against the DEA, people just need to keep letting know that we won't tolerate getting stripped buttass naked of our personal privacy.
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Just look at Apple. They're getting a lot of heat for the filevault encryption software.
Apple has had their legs spread open and panties dropped for the government since day one.
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nighthawk626 said:
Apple has had their legs spread open and panties dropped for the government since day one.
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The same and to a greater extent can be said about facebook.
here, http://www.xda-developers.com/android/android-l-lockdown/, right on topic of this thread.
nighthawk626 said:
That is very true. But as more people protest, the companies are actually fighting back against the government. Like Yahoo against the NSA and Facebook against the DEA, people just need to keep letting know that we won't tolerate getting stripped buttass naked of our personal privacy.
Sent from my hlte using XDA Free mobile app
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Dog and pony show to give a false sense of privacy from these companies to their customers... See the yahoo gag order and the by-the-day increasing fines that the government was imposing to them unless they allowed them to access their data. If the government wants it, they will get it, no matter how 'safe' these clowns make you believe otherwise
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I think a lot of you are missing my point. I'm not worried about the NSA, big brother, or anonymity (or rather the lack thereof). Those are concerns, of course, but I think everyone here knows that if you have any sort of cell phone, they can track and monitor you, and probably are.
What I'm worried about is the potential for random people gaining access to your phone and its' associated accounts and activating this 'kill switch', essentially leaving you with a paper weight. As I've already stated, I am not entirely sure that such a thing will be possible, as I have not seen the source code or all the minute details about how Google is implementing this. However, if it is implemented as described in the articles I've found about it, without any further security measures, there could be a problem.
If it is as described, I would have no problem remotely accessing a device, seizing control of the associated Google account, and activating the 'kill switch', without the device's owner ever having a clue it was happening. Of course I wouldn't do such a thing, especially to random people just for the 'lulz', but we all know there are people that would.
Hopefully that made some sense....I've been awake for too long lol
Not like hackers can't do that already...
Come on man.
Welcome to the 21st century.
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I don't know about you guys but I did have an LG L9 that I completely bricked. Now the thing would not turn on, no lights, nothing. But with some research, .exe file on my computer, and directions from some very savvy people I was able to plug in my phone to the computer while pressing three buttons that got me onto fast boot mode. This is where I was able to delete the system and install each partition bit by bit. Took helluva long time with multiple tries to finally get it working but it did. My two cents.
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