Develop Bugs

New Evo in Baltimore & a question

Got my Evo today - what fun! Its my very first smartphone and so far I think its great. With 4 bars on 3G I get 2.0-2.4 mbps down. With 1 bar on 4G I get about the same speed. I'll need to hunt around and see how 4G signal strength varies with position. My neighbor 1 block away gets at least 4 mbps. I guess this variability is the nature of Sprint's WiMax network?
I've seen lots of posts with people reporting statistics on time spent on/off, awake/asleep, amount of data downloaded, what apps are using what resources, etc. What tool does one use to collect this information?

You can get some information through the about phone; up time, awake time, battery use etc etc.
As far as the 4G, I think it's more of it being such a new network. Was just out back taking a breather and I can get 1 bar of 4G. 2-4 Mb pretty consistently ... sometimes it drops, pulled in 5 on a couple speedtests. The 3G though, it's weird because I'm lucky if I can even get 2 Mb. Dunno though, gotta assume the stability of the 4G will only get better. Figure I'm right on the brink even though the coverage map appears to have it bleeding out past me. In time I suppose.

Baltimore is the oldest (and I assume most built-out) 4G market area that Sprint has in the US. I was able to connect to 4G on the first day I had the Evo. Then did the OTA update. I've been unable to connect to 4G ever since. I switch the 4G radio on and wait, the icon at the top of the screen always says 3G. Am I doing something wrong? Is there somewhere else where I need to enable 4G? Anyone else having trouble accessing 4G since the OTA update?

I have also been having some problems with my 4g. I had no problems with 4g until the update.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Curious, 4G still works with my phone after the OTA.
I see B-More has been up since 2008 or something? First city! Whoa. But strange none the less. Your buddy, whom you referenced in the original post, still able to connect?

I've had my EVO in Baltimore since Launch Day - have not done the OTA yet (rooted) and my 4G was working fine until this morning. Wonder if there is some sort of outage today.
All I get is Scanning -> Connecting to Sprint -> Obtaining IP -> Scanning.
This has happened in Baltimore and Annapolis.
Also, I have hit 5mbps download near the Beltway and I-95.

Dude!? Where in Bmore? I'm over in Ellicott City and I get maybe 600kbps on 3g or 1200 in Samsclub Catonsville and at BWI...
4000-5000 on 4g
Oddly though I've been getting "network connection lost" and google maps just stops and refuses to download any tiles. Pandora freezes too...

You started having these problems today?
I've searched the web and this seems to be the only place that 4G problems have been reported in Baltimore.
Also, are you pre or post OTA?

willfck4beer said:
Dude!? Where in Bmore? I'm over in Ellicott City and I get maybe 600kbps on 3g or 1200 in Samsclub Catonsville and at BWI...
4000-5000 on 4g
Oddly though I've been getting "network connection lost" and google maps just stops and refuses to download any tiles. Pandora freezes too...
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I'm downtown. This morning (7/2) I checked (outdoors) near Camden Yards and at the Inner Harbor. No 4G. Maybe its just coincidence that there's a network problem just after the OTA? I'll keep checking....

So, I called Sprint. As expected, they claimed maintenance in my "neighborhood". As I mentioned above, I've been in Baltimore and Annapolis today with no 4g. I have a hard time believing that they took out the whole area for maintenance. However, he did claim that it should be back up by 7pm.

I'm in Ellicott City and get about 4.5 on 4G and 600-1.0 on 3G.
I work right on the edge of the 4G coverage (Clarks Ace Hardware) so I'm usually at 1-2 bars. If I go 1 block east I get full reception, but if I go 100ft. west it completely drops 4G (route 144 & 40).

Checked for 4G connectivity this morning (inside my brick rowhouse, near the baseball stadium in Baltimore). I've got a weak 4G signal again - and measured 4 mbps bandwidth down. Good enough for me. I'll take some more measurements around town and see if there's any place with a stronger signal.

I spent the whole day yesterday at the harbor, 4G never connected once. Fail :/

Went to Sprint at Inner Harbor. They were getting 2 bars of 4G in the store, and I was getting none. The tech there noticed that I had turned off the "Location" switch (which allows GPS to update applications of phone's location). I did that because I didn't want GPS radio on all the time (save battery), and because I thought it would give me a bit more privacy. Tech said for 4G to work at its best - need to turn Location -ON. Reluctantly I turned it on, and now I'm consistently getting 1 or 2 bars of 4G around the Baltimore downtown area, with 3.8 - 4.5 mbps bandwidth down.
SO - in order to use that battery hogging 4G radio, one needs to turn on yet another battery sucking radio? Wow - are others in 4G markets finding that 4G works better with GPS on and Location on? Or was that tech just grasping for straws...?

i've always had the gps on. no luck

interesting! Don't know if any of you have tried sensorly map... kinda sweet... it signal strength maps 4G and 3g and 1xrtt via crowdsourcing... and lets you compare coverage btw sprint/att/vzw/tmob...
But I'm worried how accurate it is due to several issues:
...
1) I contributed data and never saw the map update
2) data will be skewed as GPS needs to be ON for map to work - so it should report better 4g coverage than actually exists AND
3) Most people who contributed seemed to be wardriving (or just leaving it on while driving)... and from what I've read wimax isn't that good at mobile or handoffs...
If it is accurate... this is not going to be a fun 2 years... SPRINT coverage looks like ****! even compared to tmob...
Any input from anyone smarter?
btw - I'm moving to a boat down in inner harbor... anyone have any results from the water?

I'm wondering how accurate it is too. Wasn't there some kind of radio problem with 4g not connecting? Wouldn't that skew the results?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

so im in downtown baltimore (otterbein area, right off the inner harbor), and both my wife and i just got evo's on friday. neither of us can get a 4g signal anywhere, unless we're standing literally across the street from the sprint store in the inner harbor. is this usual? is there some kind of outage right now? sprint was entirely useless when i called tech support, and i got transferred around about 11 times before being told they'll look into it and call me back tomorrow.

pjh410 said:
so im in downtown baltimore (otterbein area, right off the inner harbor), and both my wife and i just got evo's on friday. neither of us can get a 4g signal anywhere, unless we're standing literally across the street from the sprint store in the inner harbor. is this usual? is there some kind of outage right now? sprint was entirely useless when i called tech support, and i got transferred around about 11 times before being told they'll look into it and call me back tomorrow.
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Make an appointment to speak with a tech at the Inner Harbor store - sounds like there's something wrong with your phone or settings. Coverage in downtown Baltimore can vary a lot with location. I'm in Ridgely's Delight (less than a mile from you) - and I've been getting between 3.5 and 5.0 mbps down.

[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....
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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. .
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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.

Connection/Speed Issue and Tower Question

I'm in the Los Angeles area where Sprint's 4G Network is just being built up. The service is terribly slow, even when on the 4G Network. My question/problem though is, I've noticed that when I go from one area to another, for instance if I'm at a shopping center and on tower that's 3G and then cross the street to another shopping center that has a tower that's 4G... my Data gets all screwed up. Somehow in the process of connecting to a new tower with a different speed, my Data always freezes up and you can't do anything for long periods of time. I'm talking anywhere from 5-10 minutes. I often have to put my phone into Airplane mode and reconnect to get anything moving.
Just wondering if this was a common occurrence? Or if this is just a result of Sprint's crappy network, or what.
On a related note, I've also noticed that even if I'm not going between towers, there are a lot of times when my phone says it has a strong Data Connection on either 3G or 4G, say 3 bars or so, and yet my Data hangs and I can't use the web. Any ideas what the cause might be?

captaingrey said:
I'm in the Los Angeles area where Sprint's 4G Network is just being built up. The service is terribly slow, even when on the 4G Network. My question/problem though is, I've noticed that when I go from one area to another, for instance if I'm at a shopping center and on tower that's 3G and then cross the street to another shopping center that has a tower that's 4G... my Data gets all screwed up. Somehow in the process of connecting to a new tower with a different speed, my Data always freezes up and you can't do anything for long periods of time. I'm talking anywhere from 5-10 minutes. I often have to put my phone into Airplane mode and reconnect to get anything moving.
Just wondering if this was a common occurrence? Or if this is just a result of Sprint's crappy network, or what.
On a related note, I've also noticed that even if I'm not going between towers, there are a lot of times when my phone says it has a strong Data Connection on either 3G or 4G, say 3 bars or so, and yet my Data hangs and I can't use the web. Any ideas what the cause might be?
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The bars do not determine your signal strength. There's cases where people have no bars but data is still being transferred and get fantastic speeds. I recommend installing Speedtest and depending on your results you should call your network provider on the data issue
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

LuigiBull23 said:
The bars do not determine your signal strength. There's cases where people have no bars but data is still being transferred and get fantastic speeds. I recommend installing Speedtest and depending on your results you should call your network provider on the data issue
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
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Yeah, I have Speedtest. The speeds in LA are awful. Usually range from 0.54 to 0.78 mbps DL on 3G. On 4G its about 8.7 - 9.13.
And thanks for the response, but I still don't understand what the connection issue is between Towers and I'm pretty sure calling Sprint to ask them what the deal is would be a waste of 3 hours.

captaingrey said:
I'm in the Los Angeles area where Sprint's 4G Network is just being built up. The service is terribly slow, even when on the 4G Network. My question/problem though is, I've noticed that when I go from one area to another, for instance if I'm at a shopping center and on tower that's 3G and then cross the street to another shopping center that has a tower that's 4G... my Data gets all screwed up. Somehow in the process of connecting to a new tower with a different speed, my Data always freezes up and you can't do anything for long periods of time. I'm talking anywhere from 5-10 minutes. I often have to put my phone into Airplane mode and reconnect to get anything moving.
Just wondering if this was a common occurrence? Or if this is just a result of Sprint's crappy network, or what.
On a related note, I've also noticed that even if I'm not going between towers, there are a lot of times when my phone says it has a strong Data Connection on either 3G or 4G, say 3 bars or so, and yet my Data hangs and I can't use the web. Any ideas what the cause might be?
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Click to collapse
I may not know what can cause this issue but I can try to help on making it a tad better. Check out my recent post on how to increase your data speed on the Note 2 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2253340 and if your data does hang, try going into Settings, More Settings, Mobile networks, and just uncheck and check Mobile data. Hope this helps out.

(Q) LTE

Is anyone experiencing LTE problems? I have great Spark signal in my area, but this phone seems to go to 3g all the time. My other phones are always on LTE, so obviously coverage is not the issue here. I will unroot thru Odin and see if it's a root problem.

ajr0312 said:
Is anyone experiencing LTE problems? I have great Spark signal in my area, but this phone seems to go to 3g all the time. My other phones are always on LTE, so obviously coverage is not the issue here. I will unroot thru Odin and see if it's a root problem.
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Not a root problem. Weird part is it only seems to happen to me in areas where there is really strong 4g, like in my house. At work, I am on a weaker 4g signal all day long without issues.

Try updating your profile and prl. Also make sure you have CDMA/LTE selected under mobile network.

ajr0312 said:
Is anyone experiencing LTE problems? I have great Spark signal in my area, but this phone seems to go to 3g all the time. My other phones are always on LTE, so obviously coverage is not the issue here. I will unroot thru Odin and see if it's a root problem.
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I have the same problem. It keeps dropping my signal to 3g..even when it's on 3g sometimes it loses the 3g signal and reconnects to 3g.. the areas I go always have band 41 ...my previous phone was the nexus 5 and the signal was great...never drops connection like this...I thought it was only my phone as I haven't seen someone with the same problem in the forums. I'm in nyc area

Hopefully there is fix soon, it's very annoying to have this data issues.

Its not just your phone mine does the same thing at my work. I switch between multiple different band 25 26 and 41 towers as well as 3G towers. It occurs while the phone just sits on my desk. Theres a couple other threads discussing this. To my knowledge no one has any usable suggestions to help with this.
Sent from my SM-N910P using XDA Free mobile app

dmisselh said:
Its not just your phone mine does the same thing at my work. I switch between multiple different band 25 26 and 41 towers as well as 3G towers. It occurs while the phone just sits on my desk. Theres a couple other threads discussing this. To my knowledge no one has any usable suggestions to help with this.
Sent from my SM-N910P using XDA Free mobile app
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My Note 4 does the exact same thing. I'm in a fully covered spark area, my old s4 always connected to lte with about 10 meg download. Awesome data offensive note 4 gets 3 to 5 meg download.. sometimes only getting 0.01 upload speed. That's the only thing that consistently bothers me about this phone. Oh yea it also constantly drops lte... to 3g. Feels like it's data is going through a dial up modem. I'm going to check the Sprint forums and see if I can find any good info.

Happened once in one place i was. Lower LTE signal and the phone kept dropping it and falling back to 3g, while my gf Lg G2 kept the LTE connection. I'm thinking they need to tweak the radio software in a future update.
Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

I've noticed that all the TriBand devices (Anything with Spark) switch to 3G for a bit then connect back to LTE/Spark. I haven't heard anything from work about this issue yet. I've also noticed its areas that have low Spark signal and high LTE signal.

My guess is it's a handoff problem. I will see all bars but LTE grayed out while riding the metro.

There is another thread touching on this too....I am having terrible LTE connection. My wife, who is an iPhone 6 user, gets 4 bars (or circles? lol) of LTE while I can sit next to her with 0-1 bars LTE or 3 bars 3G. I love this phone too much to complain alot about this but I am confident Sprint/Samsung will release an update to fix this.

The exact same problem occurred when the LG G2 got the spark update. It took 8 months for sprint to issues update that was specific to the LTE problem. I had to factory wipe before and after the update to get it to stick. The only difference is before the G2 was updated a toggle to airplane mode would bring the LTE back. That trick does not work on this phone. I will also add I drive alot at my job 6 hours plus a day. I go to the same spots to do paperwork in my truck. My Note 4 will not stay on LTE/Spark in locations where my G2 had a constant 10-15mbps connection.