Defective Vibrant

[Machinehead31b]

I got my Vibrant on Friday morning after upgrading from my old G1 that I've had since release. All was well up until last night when my Vibrant all of a sudden locked up on me. The screen went full blazing brightness ( I had it set to the lowest brightness setting to conserve battery power.) and everything came to a sudden screeching halt. Nothing worked, the screen was unresponsive the touch keys as well. Trying to turn it off by the normal means of holding the power button for a second to bring up the corresponding action selection menu didn't work. I had to hold the button down and do a hard reset I suppose it is. But after the start up screen popped up it went and locked up AGAIN. So I took the battery out and popped my sim card out as well put them back in after 5 minutes and tried again. NOPE nothing, it immediately froze up once the start up screen came on.

I was baffled and crushed that my brand new Vibrant was apparently a dud. I tried all the possible trouble shooting I myself could attempt. Removing the battery, sd card, sim card etc but nothing worked. I did notice however that the back of the phone would get rather warm to the touch immediately after I would turn it on. So I tried letting it cool off for about an hour and the next time I turned it on it finally worked. I was already set on returning it however since a problem like this is obviously not some simple software glitch or whatnot. It repeatedly locked up again after being on for about 10 minutes or less anyways.

I called T-mobile and talked to tech support about it and the representative I spoke with was shocked to hear of such an issue. He said that he hadn't heard of any calls coming in of any kind of such issue. He set me up with a replacement Vibrant via next day shipping which should arrive no later than Tuesday. Hopefully my replacement will suffer no serious issues like my first.

I figured I'd post up on here and see if anyone else that owns a Vibrant or Captivate has experienced anything like what was plaguing my handset. Or if anyone could shed some light on what could be the actual problem. It's obviously some kind of overheating issue with what I'm assuming is the processor. Also sorry for the long post I'm a bit long winded and dramatic.

[djunio]

That's the first I've heard of this also.

[extorian]

First here too.

[eminembdg]

also first. Had it since Sunday and no issues as of yet.

[adrianchilds1]

Not that problem but issues with it freezing black, and when I hit the back key, it may take about 30 seconds to kick in. did a factory reset and I hope that fixed it. No problems since then.

Sent from my SGH-T959 using Android Community App

[jmercil]

these little bugs I think shouldvbe expected. The Galaxy was released fairly quickly after announced. It's been a short time but expect patches and other little fixes to come out as all models of the galaxy s family hit all carriers. Its something that almost all hardware/software companies experience...nothing is 100% bug free.

I hope there's fixes coming should I say.

sent from SVGS using the Almighty "Android" app

[Machinehead31b]

these little bugs I think shouldvbe expected. The Galaxy was released fairly quickly after announced. It's been a short time but expect patches and other little fixes to come out as all models of the galaxy s family hit all carriers. Its something that almost all hardware/software companies experience...nothing is 100% bug free.

I hope there's fixes coming should I say.

sent from SVGS using the Almighty "Android" app

Well what I experienced wasn't a "little bug". It was a full on hardware failure. When the back of your handset gets very hot to the touch and the phone becomes completely unusable then it's not a simple software glitch. On the other hand what the other user who posted about his screen going black and such, I would classify as a software bug. Along with the known gps issues and the market slowness that has been reported. Those can be resolved with a simple patch.

[extorian]

I'm not very convinced about the GPS issues or Market slowness.

The Market can be very slow, yes. It can take minutes to display your Downloads or populate the main screen with apps. It can also have apps stuck in "Starting Download..." forever. But these problems have been reported on Android since the first Android phone was released. I know, because I had one and experienced these same problems. I also had these problems on my new Samsung Galaxy S, but only once so far. The Market has been pretty fast overall. Certainly faster than my G1.

The GPS issues... I researched this a lot before buying a SGS. I rely on the GPS a lot.

Nearly all the videos I've seen on it are highly unfair. Many show the phone having a poor GPS signal INDOORS - that's expected. Many show the phone taking a long time to get a lock... but it's BRAND NEW, and hence hasn't downloaded the almanac data from the satellites yet (which takes about 15 minutes with a good lock, and needs to be done every 2 weeks). Many show the SGS next to another Android phone, and show how it's not using as many satellites. Same as above - the other phone has obviously been used recently and has good almanac data.

I went outside so the sky wasn't being blocked by my house, and got a solid lock on 9 out of 11 satellites (you only need 4), in about 20-30 seconds, from first ever use. That, if anything, is extremely good. After that I was getting locks in a couple of seconds. That's normal/good.

One of the fixes involves changing the type of assisted-GPS that's being used, and the A-GPS server. Maybe the server was busy with the unprecedented number of new Samsung handsets appearing in the last few days, and so the phones couldn't download the almanac data directly from the server.

I don't know... I just get the feeling people these days expect everything done yesterday, or to happen instantly. As a rule of thumb if your GPS gets a lock in under 15 minutes it's working fine - but people don't understand that. It could get a lock faster with help (A-GPS) or up to date almanac data (used for 15 minutes with a solid lock in the past 2 weeks), but it's never guaranteed. If satellite fails or goes offline then almanac data can become invalid immediately. If there's interference around or you're inside, or the satellite geometry isn't favourable, then you won't get a good lock. If there's stuff blocking your view of the sky then it'll use less satellites.

Anyway, rant over.

[spacecasespiff]

You just made me feel better about my phone. Slow app store and my gps is wacky. My phone just doesnt feel ad fast as i think it should be, but it is new so i expect some updstes soon.

not an iphone

[extorian]

If you want to give the GPS a slap in the right direction... Go outside, somewhere with a clear view of the sky in all directions (clouds are OK, but building and trees are not). You want to see as much area of the sky as possible.

Use the app called GPS Status, it's free and really good. It shows which satellites your phone may be able to see, and which of those it's using. Turn your GPS on if it's not already on, and run that app. Make sure the GPS icon appears or flashes on your notification bar.

Keep an eye on the GPS Status app (hold the phone normally, not landscape). There should be a bar graph running along the centre of the screen between the compass and text/data on the bottom half. This graph shows the signal strength of each satellite it should be able to see (that's any satellite that is above the horizon). It may take a while for bars to appear, so be patient. It may take a few seconds, or a several minutes the first time. It just depends which satellites it thinks it should be able to see (that's what the almanac information is - a list of satellites and their precise positions at a given time). If the almanac data is out of date it may be trying to look for satellites that are on the other side of the planet. Eventually it should start receiving some. Once it finds one or more it may realise it was looking in the wrong place and look for satellites near to the one it knows it can see.

If the bars on the graph are grey, it means it's not using the data from that satellite, but is getting a signal from it. Don't worry about this - it's totally normal. If a bar is green it means it is using that satellite. Great.

You need 4 green bars to get a position fix. The more green bars you have the more accurate that fix, but they're not needed.

On the centre left you have the error. Anything under 50m is OK. 15m is very good. You'd be extremely lucky if you saw single figures in the error there.

On the centre right, you have the number of Fix/Sats. This indicates how many satellites it's using versus how many are above the horizon. If you were on a boat in the middle of the ocean, you'd expect those numbers to be very close to each other as there should be nothing blocking the signals or interfering with them. In a city, of course, there are houses and buildings blocking the view. In the countryside, there are hills/mountains. But... all you need is 4 being used.

You can also see where all the satellites are on the circular graph on the top half of the screen. Again, green dots are satellites that are being used, grey aren't being used. The outer circle represents the horizon. The next circle in 60 degrees up, the next circle 120 degrees up, and the centre is straight up (180 degrees).

The satellites move around very fast, as they have quite a low Earth orbit. So in half an hour you'll see a totally different picture there.

Anyway, the point of this exercise... Once you have 4 or more green bars, hit menu, and settings, and turn "Keep the screen on" on. This will stop the phone going to sleep. Now just sit there and read a book for 15 minutes.

15 minutes later your phone should have the full almanac information about every satellite. It will download this data, slowly, from one of the satellites while it has a lock.

Now... test how quickly you get a lock now...

Go back to your Home screen... the GPS icon should disappear from your notification bar. It's now switched off. Now run the Maps app. Watch the GPS icon on the notification bar. When it stops flashing you have a lock. How long did that take? 3 seconds maybe?

It's also worth noting that the GPS system is screwed right now in general due to lack of money. You need a "constellation" of 24 satellites to be certain of a fix anywhere on Earth if you have a completely unobstructed view of the sky to the horizon. There are currently only 29 of the 59 launched since 1978 still working, and no more planned to be launched until 2014. This means that if there's any hills around you, any mountains, buildings, trees, etc, that stop you seeing the entire sky, then there simply may not be enough unobstructed satellites in view to get a lock.