So my wife's Inc2 has been rooted for a few weeks and I installed a 2.3 Sense ROM for her shortly thereafter.
All of the sudden, her phone keeps rebooting and then "freezes" on a screen that has the Exclamation Point inside a triangle with a little green droid character under it. (My wife put a fresh battery in, it boots up into the ROM for about 10 seconds, then says "Powering off: Shutting down..." and goes into the error screen.)
So far, I have tried the following:
Turned airplane mode on.
Booted into safe mode.
Booted into CW Recovery, backed up, then re-flashed the ROM.
Ran a restore from a backup from a couple of weeks ago, which was pre-custom ROM.
Flashed the 2.3 Radio
Flashed a new Kernel
No matter what, I always get it to boot for a split-second and then it boots into Exclamation Point error.
Anyone think of what is causing this to do this after running for two weeks + in the current condition with no issues? What does this mysterious screen mean that it boots into? Any fix I can run via HBoot, Fastboot or Recovery?
WorldOfJohnboy said:
So my wife's Inc2 has been rooted for a few weeks and I installed a 2.3 Sense ROM for her shortly thereafter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bumping, no one seems to be able to tell me a thing on what this means, what can be done to fix, etc. Any help is appreciated.
Wipe cache, dalvik, and system, then flash a different ROM.
If it continues after that then its likely the phone. And nothing to do with root.
WorldOfJohnboy said:
So my wife's Inc2 has been rooted for a few weeks and I installed a 2.3 Sense ROM for her shortly thereafter.
All of the sudden, her phone keeps rebooting and then "freezes" on a screen that has the Exclamation Point inside a triangle with a little green droid character under it. (My wife put a fresh battery in, it boots up into the ROM for about 10 seconds, then says "Powering off: Shutting down..." and goes into the error screen.)
So far, I have tried the following:
Turned airplane mode on.
Booted into safe mode.
Booted into CW Recovery, backed up, then re-flashed the ROM.
Ran a restore from a backup from a couple of weeks ago, which was pre-custom ROM.
Flashed the 2.3 Radio
Flashed a new Kernel
No matter what, I always get it to boot for a split-second and then it boots into Exclamation Point error.
Anyone think of what is causing this to do this after running for two weeks + in the current condition with no issues? What does this mysterious screen mean that it boots into? Any fix I can run via HBoot, Fastboot or Recovery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any chance you can take a picture of said screen?
What's weird, it sounds like you're describing the stock recovery screen. But you're still able to access CWM?
You probably want to update CWM on the phone and see if that helps out, one thing you want to do instead of changing kernels is re flash the rom again. Once it reflashes wipe data/cache (Do a factory reset basically) as well as the dalvik cache and boot into the ROM without restoring anything.
Just sign into google and see if it stays up and stable at this point, if it does something that's being restored is probably the culprit or a bad app that continuously tries to run.
By the way, the phone comes with stock sense 2.1, above that is sense 3.0
2.3 is the version of android that runs behind sense. Either 2.3.3/2.3.4/2.3.5 are all versions of gingerbread.
Try a different rom, if it continues, it's probably a hardware problem. My wife's first Incredible rebooted constantly, probably upwards of 2 dozen times a day. We had it replaced and the new one has been fine.
Update: I restored a backup of a previous CWR backup back in July. Shortly after I booted into the restored ROM (it was Stock rooted), it automatically tried to download the OTA software update.
Anyone think that perhaps the phone is automatically DLing the OTA and then rebooting and failing upon doing so? That is the only thing I can come up with at this point. (Though, back when this first started happening, I was on a GB ROM with Sense 3.0, so I wouldn't think the OTA would try to push over that ROM.)
I thought I read some where that other INC2 users were having similiar issues and it was due to the new android market OTA update.
Edit: Nevermind the other thread here in the forum suggests it could be some kind of HTC OTA update that is messing things up.
WorldOfJohnboy said:
Update: I restored a backup of a previous CWR backup back in July. Shortly after I booted into the restored ROM (it was Stock rooted), it automatically tried to download the OTA software update.
Anyone think that perhaps the phone is automatically DLing the OTA and then rebooting and failing upon doing so? That is the only thing I can come up with at this point. (Though, back when this first started happening, I was on a GB ROM with Sense 3.0, so I wouldn't think the OTA would try to push over that ROM.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Weird. OTAs are usually disabled. Did you wipe dalvik/cache and flash a new rom?
klarson said:
Weird. OTAs are usually disabled. Did you wipe dalvik/cache and flash a new rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am in the process now, but I have had a GB/Sense 3.0 ROM as well as stock GB Rooted, both have ended up doing the same thing. I think I am going to manually cancel the OTA after flashing a new ROM to see if that will stop it from automatically doing so (if that is the issue).
Pretty sure its the market new market push. I had the same issue, I set the phone to airplane, shut it down before the automated shutdown to retain the airplane mode, then cleared dalvik cache and system cache, and then rebooted. I got some BS message about a failed OTA because no network was detected, told it to cancel, dl'ed the new market APK installed it, not an issue since.
Conduitz said:
Pretty sure its the market new market push. I had the same issue, I set the phone to airplane, shut it down before the automated shutdown to retain the airplane mode, then cleared dalvik cache and system cache, and then rebooted. I got some BS message about a failed OTA because no network was detected, told it to cancel, dl'ed the new market APK installed it, not an issue since.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not the new market. It has something to do with the OTA's on your phone. Regardless if the OTA was actually downloaded onto your phone or not it's going to fail because the stock recovery is no longer the default recovery which is one of the prerequisites it needs to install.
A wipe is needed to keep this from happening, at least load up the gingersense ROM and that should get rid of the temp OTA file that was downloaded to your phone.
jrizk07: I would agree with you, but this will be the 3rd time I have wiped the phone, the 2nd time loading a Gingerbread based ROM.
I wiped all items twice, and flashed this ROM: [ROM] RMK Gingerbread Sense r1 :: 2.18.605.3 (Rooted/Deodexed/Debloated)
Will let you know the results.
WorldOfJohnboy said:
jrizk07: I would agree with you, but this will be the 3rd time I have wiped the phone, the 2nd time loading a Gingerbread based ROM.
I wiped all items twice, and flashed this ROM: [ROM] RMK Gingerbread Sense r1 :: 2.18.605.3 (Rooted/Deodexed/Debloated)
Will let you know the results.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What i'm hoping is that the OTA files are on the phone and will get wiped with a new ROM. However if they're stored on the SD card all the wiping in the world won't help.
I'm not sure where the OTA files are stored and would like someone to verify for certain if that's the case. I'm just speculating right now on where it's stored but I know the market update is done just like the apps not an OTA.
I also know that the OTA will prompt you for the download. You know the whole download and install now or install later deal?
Well, did a wipe of all things (twice) and installed my fresh ROM. This time after installing all my Apps and doing my restores, etc, I went into the Settings under Software Update and did a check new, it says "No New Software Update Available." Also, under status, it just says the Source is Verizon Wireless, the rest are blank. (I believe at one time, all the fields were populated.)
I am holding out hope that this will work for us. Anyone know of a piece of software, etc. that will log all of the phone's operations? I am curious to see if it is trying to auto-update with OTA software updates.
I'm having the same problem. I can't even get it to wipe because when I start in recovery it goes straight to do you want to start update and if I try to start the phone it restarts and I get the exclamation point. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!
Update
I took the sd card out and was able to boot to recovery and do a wipe. Phone is working normally for now, how would I go about disabling the OTA's so it doesn't happen again?
I can confirm this is being caused by an ota update. Have 2 inc 2's and both locked up. Both running rmk gingersense. Fixed by clearing cache and davlik. Rebooted phone and saw failed ota update error. Renamed otacerts.zip until rom is fixed. Otacerts is located in /system/etc/security.
I did a restore of my One-X to stock rom according to this tutorial.
http://design-extreme.net/restore-ht...-to-stock-rom/
This all went well and without problems. The RUU I flashed is this one.
RUU_ENDEAVOR_U_JB_45_S_HTC_Europe_3.14.401.31_R_Ra dio_5.1204.162.29_release_302015_signed
When I now startup the phone it all works perfect. Then the phone says there is an OTA (to 3.20 I believe)
I download and install the OTA and the phone restarts, but after restarts the phone's touchscreen does not work anymore.
I solved this for now by installing the 3.14RUU again, then it works again. But of course I would like to be able to install the OTA's
To me it sounds like a driver problem in the new version that prevents the touchscreen from working. Anyone have idea how to solve this?
I tried different boot.img after the OTA update but none of them solved the problem. Somebody here who has a good idea?
Xanion said:
I did a restore of my One-X to stock rom according to this tutorial.
http://design-extreme.net/restore-ht...-to-stock-rom/
This all went well and without problems. The RUU I flashed is this one.
RUU_ENDEAVOR_U_JB_45_S_HTC_Europe_3.14.401.31_R_Ra dio_5.1204.162.29_release_302015_signed
When I now startup the phone it all works perfect. Then the phone says there is an OTA (to 3.20 I believe)
I download and install the OTA and the phone restarts, but after restarts the phone's touchscreen does not work anymore.
I solved this for now by installing the 3.14RUU again, then it works again. But of course I would like to be able to install the OTA's
To me it sounds like a driver problem in the new version that prevents the touchscreen from working. Anyone have idea how to solve this?
I tried different boot.img after the OTA update but none of them solved the problem. Somebody here who has a good idea?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kicking my own question. No-One who has an idea or thought? I've tried everything I could think off and would appreciate some fresh thoughts.
I have almost the same problem now. I was running CWM 10.2 with the TWRP recovery and reverted back to stock using a backup from this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1975140
The installation went fine, but touch isn't working anymore. What could be wrong? I would like to have my phone back to stock and use the OTA from HTC.
UPDATE: My SIM card was bad. I swapped it for a new one and the entire problem was solved.
I dreaded the thought of wiping my phone and starting over, but I hated losing 4G LTE so frequently that I gave in and wiped my phone in order to get LTE to stick... and it didn't work.
I'm going to give a very thorough account of everything I did so that hopefully someone can point out any particular problem and/or solution to my issues. This plan was largely based around user AznInertia's steps which he reported to have eliminated his mobile data issues.
1) Downloaded Viperone 4.1.0 full, 4.2.1 full, and 4.3.0 OTA. In addition, I downloaded Philz latest custom CWM recovery and the 3.11.605.1 firmware, primarily in order to have the latest radios.
2) Went into fastboot and flashed Philz recovery.
3) Went into recovery and did a Factory Reset wipe.
4) Back to fastboot to flash 3.11.605.1 using santod's instructions.
5) Back to recovery to wipe data again, and install Viperone 4.1.0 full (with option to wipe data again from within Aroma)
5a) proceed to reboot immediately after installation had finished, and ended up with boot loops. Realized I forgot to flash boot.img from 3.11.605.1, so I went back to fastboot and flashed it.
6) Boot loop goes away, Viperone logo appears, takes a really long time, reboots, Viperone logo reappears and finally I get the "Android is optimizing apps" screen. I let it go all the way through and start doing the first time setup. I fill in the Google account info, and Google Play syncs my contacts, and starts downloading apps. Meanwhile, I have absolutely no network service.
7) Reboot to recovery and flash 4.2.1 without wiping. Phone proceeds to Viperone logo and this time gets fully stuck (waited approx. 15 minutes). Help power down to reboot the phone, and this time it kicks over to "Android is optimizing apps," etc.
8) OS fully loads up, and this time I have Verizon Network service, but it's very apparent that 4G LTE isn't sticking, and it keeps dropping down to 3G.
9) Reboot to recovery and flash 4.3.0 OTA (no wipe). Back in the OS, I click Venom Tweaks->Misc->Phone info, drop down to "Set preferred network type:" and I switch it from "CDMA/EvDo/GSM/WCDMA/LTE auto" to "LTE, CDMA." Phone goes back to 4G for a moment, and then drops down to 1X.
9a) Back to phone info, switch from "LTE, CDMA" to "CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto," phone goes back to 4G briefly and then down to 3G.
I am DESPERATE here, I really want to stick with this ROM, but having been forced by Verizon to increase my monthly payment for 4G and not being able to use it feels like a punch in the nuts. Does ANYONE have ANY ideas on what I could do? Some different order and/or application of the steps I mentioned? I would be so grateful for any kind of help at all. Thanks very much in advance to this amazing and knowledgeable community.
Flash full odex stock ROM and stock recovery.
Perform a factory reset from settings with stock recovery installed.
Then reboot.
Now you can flash a custom recovery and ROM and data should be fine...
The stock recovery factory reset restores the Verizon NV partition responsible for your data issues.
Good luck!
Sent from my One using Tapatalk
santod040 said:
Flash full odex stock ROM and stock recovery.
Perform a factory reset from settings with stock recovery installed.
Then reboot.
Now you can flash a custom recovery and ROM and data should be fine...
The stock recovery factory reset restores the Verizon NV partition responsible for your data issues.
Good luck!
Sent from my One using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Santod, I appreciate the help, I read this post and thought, "oh simple, this will be a breeze," and naturally (for me), nothing is working properly.
I tried downloading 3.11.605.1_M7_WL_KK_55_VZW_442_Odex_Full.zip and installing it through Philz recovery. I selected the zip, I get what looks like an ASCII art face, followed by "M7vzw-KitKat, Stock Rooted ROM, Android 4.4.2, Verizon HTC One 3.11.605.1, Packaged by santod." So far so good. Then it's immediately followed by: "format() expected 5 args, got 4. E:Error in /data/media/0/3.11.605.1+M7_WL_KK_55_VZW_442_Odex_Full.zip (Status 7). Installation aborted."
So I thought perhaps I was meant to flash the recovery first? I tried flashing 3.11.605.1_recovery.img, and all I got was the red triangle exclamation point. So I tried 1.10.605.10 instead, and that seemed to do something ("Installing Verizon Wireless" something or other) but no option to install and/or wipe. So I went back to Philz, tried your odex full ROM again, and same thing.
I'm back on ViperOne 4.2.1 for now just to have a workable phone. Please help :crying:
Use CWM recovery .4.5 version to install stock Rom.
Do Rom first then recovery.
Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Tapatalk
ProcyonSJJ said:
I dreaded the thought of wiping my phone and starting over, but I hated losing 4G LTE so frequently that I gave in and wiped my phone in order to get LTE to stick... and it didn't work.
I'm going to give a very thorough account of everything I did so that hopefully someone can point out any particular problem and/or solution to my issues. This plan was largely based around user AznInertia's steps which he reported to have eliminated his mobile data issues.
1) Downloaded Viperone 4.1.0 full, 4.2.1 full, and 4.3.0 OTA. In addition, I downloaded Philz latest custom CWM recovery and the 3.11.605.1 firmware, primarily in order to have the latest radios.
2) Went into fastboot and flashed Philz recovery.
3) Went into recovery and did a Factory Reset wipe.
4) Back to fastboot to flash 3.11.605.1 using santod's instructions.
5) Back to recovery to wipe data again, and install Viperone 4.1.0 full (with option to wipe data again from within Aroma)
5a) proceed to reboot immediately after installation had finished, and ended up with boot loops. Realized I forgot to flash boot.img from 3.11.605.1, so I went back to fastboot and flashed it.
6) Boot loop goes away, Viperone logo appears, takes a really long time, reboots, Viperone logo reappears and finally I get the "Android is optimizing apps" screen. I let it go all the way through and start doing the first time setup. I fill in the Google account info, and Google Play syncs my contacts, and starts downloading apps. Meanwhile, I have absolutely no network service.
7) Reboot to recovery and flash 4.2.1 without wiping. Phone proceeds to Viperone logo and this time gets fully stuck (waited approx. 15 minutes). Help power down to reboot the phone, and this time it kicks over to "Android is optimizing apps," etc.
8) OS fully loads up, and this time I have Verizon Network service, but it's very apparent that 4G LTE isn't sticking, and it keeps dropping down to 3G.
9) Reboot to recovery and flash 4.3.0 OTA (no wipe). Back in the OS, I click Venom Tweaks->Misc->Phone info, drop down to "Set preferred network type:" and I switch it from "CDMA/EvDo/GSM/WCDMA/LTE auto" to "LTE, CDMA." Phone goes back to 4G for a moment, and then drops down to 1X.
9a) Back to phone info, switch from "LTE, CDMA" to "CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto," phone goes back to 4G briefly and then down to 3G.
I am DESPERATE here, I really want to stick with this ROM, but having been forced by Verizon to increase my monthly payment for 4G and not being able to use it feels like a punch in the nuts. Does ANYONE have ANY ideas on what I could do? Some different order and/or application of the steps I mentioned? I would be so grateful for any kind of help at all. Thanks very much in advance to this amazing and knowledgeable community.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure if it makes a difference but try TWRP (I think 2.6.3.4?), I see people having issue with Philz all the time. Use the newest TWRP, you have the sequence of ROMs correct
1.) Clean flash ViperOne 4.1 FULL
2.) Dirty ViperOne 4.2.1 Full
3.) Dirty ViperOne 4.3 OTA
Also, don't install the Full 3.11.605.1 Firmware unless you download the ZIP and remove the boot.img file. If you don't do that that screws up your kernel. To be safe you can just download the flashable radios only once you got through the instructions I included.
- FYI, I never got stuck at #7, so that's odd
I added a firmware zip without the Boot.img yesterday.
But if having the data issues like described above, the factory reset in stock recovery is really what is needed to fix things up...
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...
I didn't remove the boot.img file first Now I'm stuck at verizon logo. Not sure what the correct approach to fixing this is. Do I try to reinstall a custom kernel? Do I reflash CWM and do a full wipe and try again? *banging head on desk*
Wait, you said to remove it from the firmware. But this time I didn't flash the firmware, I didn't think I had to. I left boot.img in the 3.11.605.1 ROM though, is that safe? Very confused...
Thanks so much for your support and sticking with me through this.
Update:
1) Went back to CWM 6.0.4.5
2) Flashed Full Odex (with boot.img left in)
3) Back to fastboot, flashed 3.11.605.1 recovery,
4) Entered recovery, red triangle exclamation point. Not sure why my phone doesn't like 3.11.605.1 recovery.
ProcyonSJJ said:
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...
I didn't remove the boot.img file first Now I'm stuck at verizon logo. Not sure what the correct approach to fixing this is. Do I try to reinstall a custom kernel? Do I reflash CWM and do a full wipe and try again? *banging head on desk*
Wait, you said to remove it from the firmware. But this time I didn't flash the firmware, I didn't think I had to. I left boot.img in the 3.11.605.1 ROM though, is that safe? Very confused...
Thanks so much for your support and sticking with me through this.
Update:
1) Went back to CWM 6.0.4.5
2) Flashed Full Odex (with boot.img left in)
3) Back to fastboot, flashed 3.11.605.1 recovery,
4) Entered recovery, red triangle exclamation point. Not sure why my phone doesn't like 3.11.605.1 recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You leave the boot.img in if you want to use a stock kernel with a 4.4.2 ROM (like the odex stock rom that you flashed). The problem is that the 3.11.605.1 recovery (with boot.img) is made for 4.4.2 which is the OTA, whereas ViperOne runs on 4.4. I had issues before running stock kernel with the ViperOne rom which runs a slightly different version. I'm hoping it will get fixed later on.
I would redownload 3.11.605.1 recovery and make sure md5 match before flashing
ProcyonSJJ said:
Update:
1) Went back to CWM 6.0.4.5
2) Flashed Full Odex (with boot.img left in)
3) Back to fastboot, flashed 3.11.605.1 recovery,
4) Entered recovery, red triangle exclamation point. Not sure why my phone doesn't like 3.11.605.1 recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is standard stock recovery behavior.
Volume up and power will get you a stock recovery menu.
From here you can do a factory reset.
Or just boot into the system and go to settings > storage I believe, and do a factory reset from there with stock recovery still installed.
It will take care of the rest itself from there.
OK, here's where I'm at.
1) I successfully installed both the 3.11.605.1 ROM and recovery. Booted up the OS, requested a factory restore, the phone rebooted and did that green icon screen indicating that the recovery was doing its thing. (BTW Santos, could never get power + volume up to do anything, not that I tried too hard once I got the factory restore to work through the OS.)
2) Based on Santos's confidence, I didn't bother flashing ViperOne 4.1.0, and went straight to clean flashing 4.2.1. I let it boot up, did the setup, went back to recovery and dirty flashed 4.3.0.
The results: 4G LTE still drops. It seems to hang on better, but it definitely drops back to 3G regardless of what settings I choose. Interestingly, when I changed the preferred network from Global to CDMA/LTE, sometimes it would tell me that there's no network, would I like to switch to Global. When I went back to the preferred network setting, somehow thge setting was changed to GSM. I also noticed something similar if I went into the Misc Phone info setting under Venom Tweaks and tried to force CDMA/LTE only without EvDo.
SO... Now I'm back to square one, determined to figure out the root cause. I'm back to 3.11.605.1, and I'm going to stick with it for around 24 hours to see if it drops to 3G before I proceed to follow AznInertia's instructions and clean flash 4.1.0. At least then I'll know if it drops, it's not the ROM, but its been about an hour and no drop so far. *sigh* Thanks again for your patience and assistance.
Update: An hour and a half later, still connected to 4G. Although, I've been at my home the entire night. The true test will be when I drive to and from work tomorrow.
Update 2: I don't know when it happened exactly, but I dropped to 3G on stock! I'm actually excited because maybe it's just my sim card after all! Hopefully I can just replace it, reinstall ViperOne and put this whole issue to bed!
It could be the SIM card or just your area having 4g issues. I have been on the Rom for awhile and never had an issue with 4g dropping. I do drop to 3g when at work but that's more due to coverage. Hope it's just your SIM card but it's definitely not the Rom.
Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Tapatalk
ProcyonSJJ said:
OK, here's where I'm at.
1) I successfully installed both the 3.11.605.1 ROM and recovery. Booted up the OS, requested a factory restore, the phone rebooted and did that green icon screen indicating that the recovery was doing its thing. (BTW Santos, could never get power + volume up to do anything, not that I tried too hard once I got the factory restore to work through the OS.)
2) Based on Santos's confidence, I didn't bother flashing ViperOne 4.1.0, and went straight to clean flashing 4.2.1. I let it boot up, did the setup, went back to recovery and dirty flashed 4.3.0.
The results: 4G LTE still drops. It seems to hang on better, but it definitely drops back to 3G regardless of what settings I choose. Interestingly, when I changed the preferred network from Global to CDMA/LTE, sometimes it would tell me that there's no network, would I like to switch to Global. When I went back to the preferred network setting, somehow thge setting was changed to GSM. I also noticed something similar if I went into the Misc Phone info setting under Venom Tweaks and tried to force CDMA/LTE only without EvDo.
SO... Now I'm back to square one, determined to figure out the root cause. I'm back to 3.11.605.1, and I'm going to stick with it for around 24 hours to see if it drops to 3G before I proceed to follow AznInertia's instructions and clean flash 4.1.0. At least then I'll know if it drops, it's not the ROM, but its been about an hour and no drop so far. *sigh* Thanks again for your patience and assistance.
Update: An hour and a half later, still connected to 4G. Although, I've been at my home the entire night. The true test will be when I drive to and from work tomorrow.
Update 2: I don't know when it happened exactly, but I dropped to 3G on stock! I'm actually excited because maybe it's just my sim card after all! Hopefully I can just replace it, reinstall ViperOne and put this whole issue to bed!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm glad you were able to get 3.11.605.1 going and got it restored, I went through the same frustration with you and I tried multiple combinations for the 4G drop but the one I suggested was the only way to do it (clean of 4.2.1 and 4.3 full ROM had dropped connections).
If you get dropped connections to 3G its probably: coverage drops or perhaps you need to change SIM card. If you go to the corporate stores (not 3rd party), you can swam SIM for free. If you go to those 3rd party Verizon dealers they charge for SIMs. FYI
So it was the SIM card afterall... *facepalm*
Couldn't find a corporate VZW store, so I had to go to a retailer, and like you said, they charged me. $10, so it wasn't too bad.
But I switched on Wednesday, and I have dropped down to 3G exactly one time, when I was in a particularly bad area. Flashed 4.2.1 clean and 4.3.0 dirty, and have been running fine ever since. Don't know why I waited so long to address the SIM card. I really wish there was some kind of useful diagnostic tool that could identify SIM cards that have gone bad.
Although this thread is Note centric, the second post describes the problem I was having perfectly (understanding after the fact...): http://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-galaxy-nexus/185483-sim-card-ever-go-bad.html
Thanks again for everyone's help. I'm going to modify the original post.