Develop Bugs

[Q] VZW Extremely poor CDMA/LTE performance (Vicious JB 4.1 v5)

I'm at a loss here, but I know something is wrong for sure. I'm familiar with the low signal strength 'problem' on LTE networks as described at rootzwiki's thread entitled "This is why your Verizon Nexus signal "sucks" " I do not understand it inside and out, but I know enough to be at least 80% sure that this is not my issue. That thread describes a low signal strength, as in the dBm, but my problem is actual performance. I'm not comparing numbers (at least not on LTE networks), but results.
The problem is pretty bad, and pretty consistent. Without fail, my signal strength will be butchered, and with it data and even voice/text service will be unreliable or non existent inside any building. Not just some buildings, but any building. If I'm in a 4G area, I almost always lose the 4G, and it's switched to 3G with very poor performance (even for 3G standards). If I don't loose the 4G, the speed test results are horrid. I've had several cases where inside a building I still have 4G but the speeds might be 500-700 Kbps down/up or even worse, but when I step outside into the parking lot, 10-15 Mbps down 5-15 Mbps up. I realize structures absorb wireless signals and sometimes it can be pretty bad, but this is too much and too frequent to just be normal wireless signal degradation. It also doesn't seem to be the area because I've traveled through these areas before with my droid charge and I've never experienced issues anywhere close to this bad with my charge.
Some examples; the first time I noticed it was in the Greensboro, NC 4G area. Specifically at the Travel Centers of America about 10 miles east of the greensboro's border. When I first pulled into the truck stop (I drive a strait truck with a sleeper) I was pissed because my phone was on 3G, and I looked this area up before I came here on verizon's detailed 4G coverage map. This very truck stop was sitting in a dark maroon 4G area, NOT an extended 4G area. So I was angry, but I figured that there was an issue with the network, or the storm coming through was causing problems. Later the storm passed and I noticed (while walking back to my truck) that I was getting a strong 4G signal and good speeds, 5-10 Mbps down and 5 ish up. But as I sat back in even just the driver seat the signal strength dropped, and so did the speeds. I did a lot of tests later outside. I was performing speed tests at different locations all over the parking lot and I noticed the closer I got to the trucks, the poorer the performance. When I was inside my truck, and back in the sleeper, 4G was gone completely, taken over by a very poor 3G signal with slow speeds. I found that if I had my phone mounted on the windshield I was able to get reasonable 4G speeds, but still only a fraction of what I was able to get outside in the parking lot.
Another similar case happened in the Washington DC area at a walmart (Landover, MD). This time the 4G stuck even in the sleeper, but speeds were 2-3 Mbps down and about 700 Kbps up. While outside, however, 15 Mbps down and up.
Here I sit at another truck stop. This time, however, I'm in an extended 4G area (which of course means I have 3G) and I'm comparing my 3G signal strength to my Charge's signal strength. I know what I said earlier, but from what I understand about that "issue", gingerbread phones and earlier would give the CDMA signal strength because they couldn't read the 4G signal strength, but ICS and later can and so it displays the LTE signal strength. So wouldn't that mean that if you are in a 3G area, you can, in fact, accurately compare signal strength since they should both be displaying the CDMA signal strength? If that's the case, then what I'm getting is -100 dBm on my Galaxy Nexus and -87 dBm on my charge.
Something is most definitely wrong with my phone, but I don't know if it has anything to do with the Vicious JB stock rom I installed or not.
Vicious JellyBean 4.1 V5 is the version I installed, and I realize now that I did not install the latest (4.1.1 V1) but nonetheless I could not see it reported anywhere in the changelog, or any of the replies to the thread that there were very noticeable problems with the radio performance. I'm just at a loss and I really hope someone's reading this going "ah, I know exactly what that problem is". Although I'm never lucky enough to have a well known problem happen that there are fixes readily available for
Thanks very much for your time and help!

Bippity, boppity, bump!!
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

I suggest you upgrade to the AOSP version that was released a couple of days ago. I have been running it for about 20 hours with very good results.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1797996

JB issues?
Soundfx,
I've noticed some strange data problems as well. I've only had my nexus for 3 days. The first thing I did was throw a JB ROM (actually, about 9 of them to try them all out) on the device. (Vicious was one of them) What I noticed was that pretty consistently, about 5-10 minutes after the flash, my phone would go from having 4 bars of LTE to no signal at all. My connection would drop completely. Although I didn't figure this out until the latter flashes, I did remember having connection issues when I tried going to the play store or the internet on all the ROMs. I'd have to switch of LTE, and then I'd start working again. At first I just figured that I'm in some sort of LTE dead zone or something. But it seemed strange that my connection would drop completely and I couldn't get it back for 30-60 seconds.
SO, this morning I took my device back to stock. Unrooted ICS from Verizon. And although I wasn't at home for more than a minute to do testing, it appears that my connection problems have gone away. So I'm wondering if it is a radio issue for JB roms. All that to say that I don't think your problem is just the vicious rom. If you wouldn't mind, I'd suggest you trying another ROM and seeing if you have the same issues.
I figure it could be a few things for my own issues, which could be similar to yours:
1. Toro JB roms just have radio issues. (Seems like more people would be clamoring on this forum though if that were true, and I haven't seen any other than you)
2. I have a bad piece of hardware. (Running my stock ICS rom should shake that out.)
3. I live in a verizon dead zone and will experience drops no matter what ROM I use. (Again, stock ICS should shake that out for me.)
4. Gnex has inferior radio hardware, and there is nothing to be done about it. (Doesn't seem likely.)
ALL that to say that, while I don't have an answer for you, I seem to be experiencing similar problems, and I'm trying to figure it out too.
I'll keep you updated as I hone in on a culprit of my problems. (IF I can)
JR

stickerbob said:
I suggest you upgrade to the AOSP version that was released a couple of days ago. I have been running it for about 20 hours with very good results.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1797996
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You say "the AOSP" version that was released, but what exactly does AOSP mean? I know what it stands for, Android Open Source Project, but every jelly bean rom I've seen (or most) has AOSP in it and I guess I don't grasp it's actual meaning.
The only thing I know for sure is that I want stock stock stockity stock stock! When devs build roms they tend to always have some sort of a bug or two, and I just never feel like they are stable enough. So I want as stock as I can get! Which is why I installed Vicious Stock JB.
I just really don't know though...I know the nexus apparently has radio problems anyway, but...I guess I can just try the latest roms and see what happens. Are there any radios that I can install maybe that would fix this? :\

whozamazinka said:
Soundfx,
I've noticed some strange data problems as well. I've only had my nexus for 3 days. The first thing I did was throw a JB ROM (actually, about 9 of them to try them all out) on the device. (Vicious was one of them) What I noticed was that pretty consistently, about 5-10 minutes after the flash, my phone would go from having 4 bars of LTE to no signal at all. My connection would drop completely. Although I didn't figure this out until the latter flashes, I did remember having connection issues when I tried going to the play store or the internet on all the ROMs. I'd have to switch of LTE, and then I'd start working again. At first I just figured that I'm in some sort of LTE dead zone or something. But it seemed strange that my connection would drop completely and I couldn't get it back for 30-60 seconds.
SO, this morning I took my device back to stock. Unrooted ICS from Verizon. And although I wasn't at home for more than a minute to do testing, it appears that my connection problems have gone away. So I'm wondering if it is a radio issue for JB roms. All that to say that I don't think your problem is just the vicious rom. If you wouldn't mind, I'd suggest you trying another ROM and seeing if you have the same issues.
I figure it could be a few things for my own issues, which could be similar to yours:
1. Toro JB roms just have radio issues. (Seems like more people would be clamoring on this forum though if that were true, and I haven't seen any other than you)
2. I have a bad piece of hardware. (Running my stock ICS rom should shake that out.)
3. I live in a verizon dead zone and will experience drops no matter what ROM I use. (Again, stock ICS should shake that out for me.)
4. Gnex has inferior radio hardware, and there is nothing to be done about it. (Doesn't seem likely.)
ALL that to say that, while I don't have an answer for you, I seem to be experiencing similar problems, and I'm trying to figure it out too.
I'll keep you updated as I hone in on a culprit of my problems. (IF I can)
JR
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you kindly sir, and I will give a few other roms a shot just to see what I can find out and report back!

I tried flashing a few different roms; Liquid TORO Alpha 6, Vicious CM10 Toro, and Vicious JB 4.1.1 v1. All three of them as soon as the phone booted up showed the exact same poor 3G signal quality in the back sleeper while I'm in a dark maroon 4G area. Although I don't think I did a proper rom installation. They roms definitely installed, but it upgraded and installed over what I had...which I didn't realize it would do at all. I'll try doing it properly rom installation with a JB toro rom and then I'm going back to stock ICS to see what it looks like. I'm actually, right now, back at the truck stop that I originally noticed this problem. I'll post back.

I tried flashing back to stock 4.0.4 ICS build with the most recent radios, then I tried EK06 EK05 radios. It was the same across the board. No matter what rom/radios i use, the signal quality was the same. I lost service completely inside the building and in the sleeper it drops to 3G with incredibly poor signal quality :\ -100 dBm -120 dBm I'm going to try and get a new SIM card. if that doesn't solve it...then I guess it's time to look for a new phone :\

It seems like the developers are in a holding pattern until new radios are leaked. If it's that bad, there's no real harm in sticking w/ ICS until we get radios. Some really sweet things have been done by the community in the meantime.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium

well I already had vicious 4.1 installed with my apps and all that stuff and it's the same across the board. So I'll be sticking with this until something pops up I guess :\ I'm still definitely going to check about getting a new SIM card; it's the only option, short of another phone, that I can try at this poing. -shrugs- :\

WiFi Signal level

If I don't miss remember upon upgrade to JB on my yakyu device, my GN experiences a very low signal from any wifi APs, testing with different android devices from friends, my GN measures the weakest wifi signal of them all, is this a problem with the device itself, had anyone experience anything similar?
Thanks in advance

For me, the measured signal _seems_ to be worse then on ICS (it shows less bars). Would need to check with WiFi Analyzer or similiar but TBH, I didn't notice connectivity problems compared to ICS.

I do here, and the problem as I see it is not the wifi signal/power itself is the quality/sensitivity on the GN receiver, since other devices measures at least one or two bars where mine don't.
And to this date, I keep noticing more and more problems in the JB GN, shouldn't the so-called Google flagship device have more updates/corrections/support from google itself? I'm starting to regret having bought this device.
ironhalik said:
For me, the measured signal _seems_ to be worse then on ICS (it shows less bars). Would need to check with WiFi Analyzer or similiar but TBH, I didn't notice connectivity problems compared to ICS.
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Click to collapse

SpecRek9 said:
I do here, and the problem as I see it is not the wifi signal/power itself is the quality/sensitivity on the GN receiver, since other devices measures at least one or two bars where mine don't.
And to this date, I keep noticing more and more problems in the JB GN, shouldn't the so-called Google flagship device have more updates/corrections/support from google itself? I'm starting to regret having bought this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not everyone has this issue. My WiFi signal strength, connection quality, connection stability, and speeds all remained the same on 4.1.1.
Sent from my AOSP Android 4.1.1 Galaxy Nexus

Horrendous WiFi signal strength

Even since JB, my WiFi signal is terrible. In my bedroom, my laptop gets 4 bars, my nexus gets 1. 10 feet from the router I get 3 bars. Is there s fix for this? I've searched and I can't find one.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

I too get crappy wifi reception but I can't totally blame Jellybean for it. When I got my Gnex JB just came out so i did not have a lot of time to do a before and after comparison.
I just put a second router in my livingroom to help and sitting less than 10 feet I only get 3 bars on the phone. I hope we are not the only ones with this problem.

Even my GNEX has a bad reception ... I have the impression that it was better with ICS. But I would never go back. I subscribe maybe jumping out of a solution ...

I got the same problem with my GNex. No way to solve it and just let it to be what it is.

Which ROM's are you on? I'm using CM10 and have no problems with Wi-Fi signal in my apartment. Are you using 2.5 GHz or 5 GHz?
Swype'ed on my CM10 Galaxy Nexus

I am using Maddoggin's Jelly Bean Rom which was built from stock and not CM10, some people are saying that the kernel is responsible for the wifi and that the radios only handle the cellular and LTE signals hmmmm. His ROM is using the stock kernel so I may try flashing a different one to see if this helps or try different ROM altogether.
Sometimes when the phone is on the table in sleep mode, if I turn it on it will have like three or maybe four bars of wifi for a second then it drops down to two or one. Holding the phone in landscape seems to help with reception too. Maybe this is due to placement of the wifi antenna?
I have two Netgear routers in my house and I belive they are 2.4 Ghz, I have them on different channels so the signals do not overlap.
There maybe an off chance that the phone could be defective but before I head over to the Sprint store I need to do a little more investigating.

WiFi ridiculous slow now

Suddenly in the last 4 days or so my WiFi on the 5X is incredibly slow. Say if you're downloading an update on the play store or loading a Web page, it will just sit there and try to load. If you give it long enough it will eventually load. It doesn't do this all of the time but seems to be getting worse. I can cut WiFi off and it loads great on lte. My Nexus 6 does fine on WiFi. Anyone else having this problem?

Same here sometimes it works fine and other times it hangs up nexus 5 works fine
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Reboot router or try forcing 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz in the device's settings.

bblzd said:
Reboot router or try forcing 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz in the device's settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info but should I really have to do that just to get it to work properly? Everything else from my computer to my other phone's work great.

alnova1 said:
Thanks for the info but should I really have to do that just to get it to work properly? Everything else from my computer to my other phone's work great.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WiFi issues are common with any device, you could find similar threads in every device forum on XDA. Each home network is different with unique routers, different settings, etc. Basic WiFi troubleshooting steps are the best place to start.
Knowing your WiFi is working is a good start but there's probably a setting or incompatibility somewhere causing the slow downs.

Just an FYI for anyone else that might have this problem. I tried everything and no luck. Google is sending me a replacement.

Hi,
I just recently ditched my galaxy s3 bcoz of the lag, seems like it's better than my new nexus 5x in terms of wifi.
An app from the play store downloaded faster on my s3 than it did on my N 5x.

Out of the box, my 5X was painfully slow on WiFi. Called Google. Tried the usual cast of 'fixes' with no improvement. Google is sending a replacement, but based on my experience with the Nexus 4 (they still haven't fixed the 4's WiFi issues) I am not hopeful. My Nexus 5 works extremely well, so may just keep it for another year or two.

dxreed said:
Out of the box, my 5X was painfully slow on WiFi. Called Google. Tried the usual cast of 'fixes' with no improvement. Google is sending a replacement, but based on my experience with the Nexus 4 (they still haven't fixed the 4's WiFi issues) I am not hopeful. My Nexus 5 works extremely well, so may just keep it for another year or two.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm kinda feeling the same way.

Tried forcing the device to 2.4ghz or 5ghz in its WiFi settings?

In the WiFi's advanced menu you can force either 2.4 or 5 ghz. Just tested on mine. 5 ghz got the expected ~20 ms ping with 60 mb download speed. And 2.4 ghz got 600 ms ping with 0.1 mb download. Might be interference here at work because there are 15 Bluetooth devices here. Will have to confirm when I get home.

I tried forcing the various ghz, just made wifi not work at all. My download speeds seem fine but I'm getting virtually no upload speeds. Had a 6P I was trying out and it worked fine.

alnova1 said:
I'm kinda feeling the same way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got the replacement 5X today. WiFi speeds are slightly better, but still grossly unacceptable, as compared to the Nexus 5. Got another RMA and decided there's no 5X in my future. Sticking with the 5.

jackdubl said:
I tried forcing the various ghz, just made wifi not work at all. My download speeds seem fine but I'm getting virtually no upload speeds. Had a 6P I was trying out and it worked fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One of them (2.4Ghz or 5Ghz) may not work if the WiFi network doesn't support that frequency. For instance my aging Wireless G network only supports 2.4Ghz and if I set it to auto I may experience strange WiFi issues, if I set it to 5Ghz it won't work at all.
One of them has to work though or you'd never get any WiFi signal.
dxreed said:
Got the replacement 5X today. WiFi speeds are slightly better, but still grossly unacceptable, as compared to the Nexus 5. Got another RMA and decided there's no 5X in my future. Sticking with the 5.
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Click to collapse
That's too bad, WiFi on this phone is twice as fast as the N5. Dual MIMO antennas and double the maximum theoretical bandwidth compared to the N5.

bblzd said:
That's too bad, WiFi on this phone is twice as fast as the N5. Dual MIMO antennas and double the maximum theoretical bandwidth compared to the N5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perhaps I should try another router before giving up on the 5X. I haven't had any issues with the Linksys E4200v2 but one never knows. I'll enable WiFi on the brand-new cable modem and see if it's any better.

Just reviving this thread to see if anyone reached resolution.
I'm seeing consistent 4-6 Mbps downloads on an older 2.5 mixed router. On uploads I see in the 15 Mbps range. Every now and then I'll see downloads in the 20-30 Mbps range.
My laptop on the same router at the same time consistently maxes out at 30 Mbps downloads.

I had identical problems with two 5X's, intermittent & slow wifi, on 2.4G (I don't have a 5G router yet.) My previous Nexus 4's and all other devices worked fine.
BUT, when I upgraded my wireless AP's firmware (it was fairly old) and changed from 40Mhz to 20Mhz band (there is a lot of 2.4G interference in my area) the problems went away completely and it's been solid. I've heard similar stories in other threads about 5X wifi being fixed by router updates.
So try changing to 20Mhz band if you're on 40 now (on 2.4Ghz). Also upgrade your router firmware if it's older.
I'm not making excuses for the phone not working well in this scenario, just saying it made a tremendous difference for me. I wish I had any idea what 'fix' might have been in the firmware updates, but it was like 2+ years worth I skipped over, and it's not documented well. My AP is a Ubiquiti UAP, if anyone has similar.
So I would say to anyone having issues, it's very unlikely your actual phone is bad, but there may be some incompatibility especially with older wifi routers/AP.

Thanks. Tried setting the channel width to 20 mhz w/ no impact. Tried shifting the channel to a less used on and still seeing the same ~4 Mbps download and 11 Mbps upload. I don't get why the download is less than the upload. I had similar issues with a newer router so not sure that's it either...

I saw the exact same, where upload was erratic but generally much faster than download. Unfortunately it's probably not 'new' vs 'old' routers, just some certain feature/algorithm/behavior. Even though it works now for me at home, I have no doubt I'll run into lots of places where I'm on some other wifi and it will degrade horribly again. So although it may be 'solvable', I still consider this a pretty significant issue with the 5X, since most places you have no control over the router.
.... and after about 2 days of good behavior, my 5X is stuck at ~2.75 down, 22 up. So flashing the router only worked temporarily.

It definitely looks like something with backward compatibility with older routers. Nice new 5 ghz router at work and hitting 55 Mbps download speeds. Similar uploads as with my home router. Waiting on a new wireless mesh system for home, so guess I have to deal with it until they ship in Feb.....

5ghz wifi issue

I've been running resurrection rom for the last month and change. Flawless performance except the wifi issue. It'd the only rom I've used that has it. I'm forced to use my 2.4 wifi signal. My 5ghz shows up but it's stupid slow and has less signal strength? Even though it's coming from the same router. I've changed channels. Idk what to do. This is the only rom it happens on. As you can see in the picture it's weaker yet coming from the same router.

5ghz by nature of it being a higher energy wavelength doesn't penetrate through walls nearly as well as 2.4ghz so to have a lower signal strength with an equal amplifier power is to be expected. Diagnosing a slower speed is basically impossible to do based on the info you provided though.

StykerB said:
5ghz by nature of it being a higher energy wavelength doesn't penetrate through walls nearly as well as 2.4ghz so to have a lower signal strength with an equal amplifier power is to be expected. Diagnosing a slower speed is basically impossible to do based on the info you provided though.
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Click to collapse
Sorry should have also posted a speed test. I'm getting my full speeds. Actually a bit better. I'm getting from 25-30 mbps. Same with 5 and 2.4...its just when I actually go to use the internet for anything it's slow on the 5. YouTube videos barely play in 480.and the router is in a room 15 feet from me. It's no slouch either it's an ac1600. I know it's something with the rom just not sure what.

cameron1292 said:
Sorry should have also posted a speed test. I'm getting my full speeds. Actually a bit better. I'm getting from 25-30 mbps. Same with 5 and 2.4...its just when I actually go to use the internet for anything it's slow on the 5. YouTube videos barely play in 480.and the router is in a room 15 feet from me. It's no slouch either it's an ac1600. I know it's something with the rom just not sure what.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do some searching around for how to disable IPV6 on wifi. IPV6 has historically made response times bad for android for various reasons.

StykerB said:
do some searching around for how to disable IPV6 on wifi. IPV6 has historically made response times bad for android for various reasons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Disable it from the router or phone? I'm familiar with ipv6 but not with Android. I'm guessing it's rom based because of the drivers because 5ghz worked flawless on OSS before I rooted

cameron1292 said:
Disable it from the router or phone? I'm familiar with ipv6 but not with Android. I'm guessing it's rom based because of the drivers because 5ghz worked flawless on OSS before I rooted
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea android's default behavior with ipv6 is bad most manufacturers make tweaks with their official software to fix it but some roms don't incorporate those changes because they may or may not be open source.

StykerB said:
yea android's default behavior with ipv6 is bad most manufacturers make tweaks with their official software to fix it but some roms don't incorporate those changes because they may or may not be open source.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually just ran a test and it said I don't have ipv6 enabled.

Even I was facing this issue. Here you go, try this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=68230166
Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

niraj30518 said:
Even I was facing this issue. Here you go, try this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=68230166
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't work, wifi signal strength still weak ????

8monochrome said:
Doesn't work, wifi signal strength still weak ????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It worked for me. Make sure you are giving right permission.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

niraj30518 said:
It worked for me. Make sure you are giving right permission.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep I did.. Only 5ghz has weak strength, 2.4ghz is OK. 5ghz I'd strong on my other phone..

niraj30518 said:
Even I was facing this issue. Here you go, try this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=68230166
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try this tonight.. what is it a flashable zip?.an odd thing ive noticed as well is Google play downloads take forever.again this never happened.and this happens I believe on 2.4 as well.like a 7mb app takes a full minute lol in reality it should be done in 15 seconds .one time it even took a 70mb app 15 minutes.yet at the same time my speed test is reading 25mbps lol