[Q] Weird Signal Issues - AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket SGH-I727

Ok ladies and gents. I swear I used search, and even searched a few other device threads.
Remember the big-todo over the iPhone 4 and how holding it wrong lead to a loss of service? I've got what seems to be the same thing, sort of, with my phone. Lemme explain the whole situation.
I had an iPhone 4, and it got pretty great service. I got at least three bars in my house. My brother made the switch to the skyrocket and initially loved it. all that changed when the signal issues attacked.
From near day-one, he couldn't get it to work. He had to have gone through 20 ROMs over three months. In a last ditch effort, he bought a used S3 and passed the skyrocket to me. I thought I could fix it. Here I am, 4 months later and it's gotten worse if anything.
I've tried 4 different ROMs (including stocks, superlites, CM10.1, and PAC) and have come to settle on CM10.1. I initially had UCLi3, and thought that was the signal problem, seeing as when I went to UCLL3 it got slightly better, and then UCLK4 was working better than my iPhone did for about three days. It tanked overnight and out of frustration I switched to the UXUMA7 and it worked even BETTER for about a week before it went south as well.
My APNs are correct, I know that much. I switch to AT&T Phone, and I will get a little phone service if I hold my phone up and squint just right when standing next to a signal tower. AT&T LTE will give me great service in a heavy service area by a tower, but zero phone service. I was able to make one phone call yesterday, but had to use bluetooth, as the running theme here as well is that it always loses service the minute my hand/body is within a foot of the phone.
Any ideas before I throw caution into the wind and shell out for a new phone? I'm about to live abroad in about three weeks, so I may have to anyway, but I'd rather not pass a lemon to someone else.

Im guessing its the LTE problem that 4.2.2 roms have they changed how it calculates how many bars shows with signal dbm. Its the same signal just shows up as less so just use whatever radio you have had the most success with leave apn at AT&T LTE. You could try going to settings, mobile networks, network operators then choose choose automatically it might give you a more steady connection but its not really required.
If you still have problems you could take out your sim card and use *#2263# and change band to WCDMA all insted of automatic and that should solve your problems.

I typed it in like you have it there to no avail, and tried it again using an astrisk at the end as well. Nothing. Is that the right code? Seems to me I've read somewhere that CM disabled using that...
*Edit: Found the code for "phone info" which worked, and within that was a radio preference setting. But no WCDMA All, so I put it on WCDMA Preferred. My next question is that if ATT is GSM, why will this help even if I can get to the RF selector?
*Edit 2: Confirmed. ROMs not running touchwiz will not run most of the codes. I'm flashing the stock 4.1.2 to see if I can get that code (and subsequently the right RF option) to work until I can figure out how to switch RF options on CM 10.1.
*Final Edit: Found the option, changed it, realized what was going on. I'm on AT&T, meaning GSM and LTE. When I changed it to CDMA All, it switched me over to a strictly HSPA network, which ignored any other available ones. I got to playing with the settings and found that not only are they not the answer to my problem, but they had the potential to make it worse. I really feel that the issue at hand may be hardware. I blew out the RF chip on my first smartphone years ago (a state-of-the-art Palm Treo 700w) and it acted this same way. I'm wondering if the owner before us wasn't screwing with it and messed it up. A little tin foil can answer that question.

Related

[Q] Great signal but terrible performance

I work in a midtown Manhattan hi-rise near Rockefeller Center and get full signal bars on any phone in and around the office.
The problem is I get terrible performance. Voice calls are garbled and drop, and sometimes callers go straight to voice mail. E-mail, data and web work sporadically and load slowly if at all. The phone will actually get hot just sitting on the desk as if its CPU or transmitter is locked at 100%, and the battery drains quickly.
It's the same whether it's an iPhone, Android or Symbian smart phone or just simple dumb phone, and other people in my office have the same issues. I even notice the same kinds of things happening out on the street up to maybe a block away, but it seems to be at its worst when I'm in the building. But two blocks away, walking through Times Square or other busy places, everything is OK.
Any idea what could be going on and if there's any way to get around it? This is on AT&T.
Change baseband?
I think it's the fault of AT & T
AT&T is a terrible company
+1 on the AT&T being crap
I tried changing baseband but it didn't help, plus like I said it happens on all different kinds of phones. I've also tried manually switching from 850MHz over to 1900MHz band but that didn't help.
Updating my kernel might have actually helped a bit. It's hard to tell though, because the problem comes and goes.
I'm wondering if the signals are too strong and overloading the phone. Or maybe I'm exactly halfway between two strong towers in this building and they're interfering with each other, is that plausible? This is in the heart of NYC after all, AT&T must have a lot of towers in a very concentrated area around here.
Samsung Captivate i897
Serendipity 6.4
Baseband I9000UGKC1
Speedmod Kernel i897-13E-500MHz
I had a similar problem in my area once, it was rectified by the Network Provider.
Its due the GSM inter cell inheritence. Are you located very near to a Mobile Antenna tower.
It would be worth checking your own office building terrace for same
watt9493 said:
+1 on the AT&T being crap
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i've had nothing but trouble with them in the past
Teampokerface
Heres how you fix the issue. I had a friend with the same issue. 1. open the window of your skyrise 2. take phone are throw it out the window 3. take elevator down to lower level. 4. Find nearest Verizon or Tmobile or sprint store and port your number. 5. take new phone from new network to your skyrise. 6. Congrats your problem has been solved. ANYONE WHO HAS AT&T NEEDS TO GIVE THEM THE FINGER AND MOVE TO ANOTHER CARRIER.
Thanks but if I wanted to hear people say AT&T sucks I would have posted this to Yahoo or something. I get a much better rate with AT&T through my company's FAN account, and I'd rather not pay double to another carrier if this is a technical issue that can be addressed.
For now I can use wifi around the office and put up with the spotty voice coverage, but I was hoping I might find some helpful technical advice here since this is supposed to be a developers forum with presumably mature users.
rathore4u - I'll see if I can find someone at my provider's tech support who understands the GSM inter cell inheritence issue you suggested. Thanks.

every other boot in exact same spot, PRL changes

So I have been for the past week, at my house, having about the worst 4G reception ever. It shows 4G in the status bar, until I actually try and connect to any internet service, and then it disappears. Well this started on my second Thunderbolt, so I assumed something was up with the phone, specially since I unrooted the phone, and the issue was still there. So I went and exchanged my phone today. I noticed that the issue remained. Brand new phone, at my place of work today was pulling 20+ down from speedtest and then I go home, and even outside my house, it is loosing 4G everytime you try to do anything on the internet.
I noticed only one difference. My PRL changed from 15008 to 15011.
So figuring my new phone is probably fine from a HW standpoint, I went ahead and rooted this phone, and I noticed something weird. Everytime I boot the phone, it switched between two PRLs. It either has a PRL of 1, and then reboot and it then will have a PRL of 15011. Rinse and repeat.
I also noticed that in the same location that it used to be signal strength was around -82Db, and is now closer to -95Db.
So I am going to call Verizon tomorrow, and see if they know if a tower is down, etc, or see if they can check into it, as my phone is only usable at home on 3G, which is the same reason I paid my ETF on sprint and left for verizon, because I could get LTE in my house.
I even tried Das BAMF 1.5 and then flashed the radio update, and there was zero change in anyway.
I am going to assume there is a screwy tower nearby that is causing my problem, but if anyone has any suggestions let me know!
my phone acts the same way around my apartment...
i think they must be messing with the towers still. specially cause we haven't officially got 4g here yet.
have the same problem up in Northwest Columbus - 4G has been going in and out for the last two days for me - figured it was just the tower, 3G is absolutely fine.

[Q] Losing network with the Inspire 4g

Hi all, after a fruitful unlocking, rooting with the hack-kit, i updated the radio using the hack kit itself. However previously as well as with the new radio, the network reception was bad. I can tell this as my phone was showing no network whereas a friend along was chatting away on his phone. I thought this might have to do something with the radio. Hence i loaded up the Android Revolution HD 5.2.3 along with the recommended radio 12.54.60.25_26.09.04.11_M2; although the data speeds improved greatly, it is still losing connections in areas where other phones are easily able to make a call. I had this radio yesterday only, so should i wait for sometime or there is something wrong with the hardware?
I've also had this issue, and tried troubleshooting in the same ways. Randomly, my phone will cycle through all the connections (GSM, 3G, H, etc) and then go to "no service" no matter if i walk around or even go outside. I have called AT&T about this issue to see maybe if there are issues going on with the towers in my area...and they report no probems. The closest tower to my apartment is less than a mile away, and I live in a metropolitan area. So then they had me go to a store to have the sim card replaced because its plausible that a bad sim card could cause this issue. So far, with a new sim card, it's still having signal issues. So the next step is to do a warranty exchange.
AT&T service in my area is awful. Since moving south to Florida I have had the same problem but it's not unique to my Inspire. I experienced the same sort of nonsense with my old blackberry. Trying different radio/ril combos has given me some better results but it's an been an issue ever since I got south of Georgia.
It's one thing when the service is bleek in a certain area, thus causing you signal issues. But in an area that has AT&T coverage all over, like in the instance of my area, then you really can't blame the coverage. In my situation, AT&T was unable to explain why I'm having these issues in the area that I am in. They even logged in my account that if replacing the sim card has no affect, then they will go ahead and do a warranty exchange.
cavsoldier19d said:
It's one thing when the service is bleek in a certain area, thus causing you signal issues. But in an area that has AT&T coverage all over, like in the instance of my area, then you really can't blame the coverage. In my situation, AT&T was unable to explain why I'm having these issues in the area that I am in. They even logged in my account that if replacing the sim card has no affect, then they will go ahead and do a warranty exchange.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the coverage in my area should be great. The closest tower to my home is just over a mile away. I live right outside of Tampa. AT&T has coverage here. If I can get 5 bars on "H" one moment and 0 bars on anything a moment later without moving the phone I doubt it's just generally poor service in my area specifically. In any event I hope you're issue gets solved. I'd be interested to see what the resolution is
Well i understand the network issues might be there, but then if i see on the other phone (Galaxy S) its showing full network at the same place. So I assume there is something in my hardware or software which is having some issues...
Be sure to check teh signal strength between the two phones(android) by pressing *#*#4636#*#*>Phone Info Compare the dBm and asu of the two. Make sure the contacts between the batt and sim covers are clean as both are antennas for different radio's(sell and BT)
Tx Redneck said:
Be sure to check teh signal strength between the two phones(android) by pressing *#*#4636#*#*>Phone Info Compare the dBm and asu of the two. Make sure the contacts between the batt and sim covers are clean as both are antennas for different radio's(sell and BT)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok... will try with this and see what is the problem... anyways it's just a 3 day old new phone and the battery cover... well i am still trying to open it... what a mess... would you recommend flashing another radio and check or i am the only one with the network losing problem here?
Out here in Cincinati my signal has been going to garbage and I'm stock. If I put the sin in my Samsung focus I get 4 bars and 3g, in my inspire I'm lucky to get 2 bars. I think it has to do with inspire and 2.3.3 dident help me at least
Sent with Dr. Brown Technology & my HTC Inspire 4G

Thinking outloud, please discuss: could a 3rd party ROM fix *some* signal issues?

Hi everyone. Please forgive me for oversimplifying things and bear with me a moment. It's been 8 years since I made my own Android ROMs, but I've been thinking on this a lot lately.
I bought my Essential PH-1 about a month ago. Signal problems on Verizon (through MVNO Straight Talk) have plagued me ever since. At the root of the problem, it seems like whenever signal strength for LTE dips below a certain point, it shunts everything over to CDMA. I try to force my phone into LTE only mode, but it still seems to hit a certain threshold where suddenly I have NO service at all, rather than just weak service. Sometimes I end up with NO data even when the phone is in LTE/CDMA mode because, for whatever reason, it doesn't want to switch. And, yes, I've read all the threads, tweaked all the settings, tried just about everything, but I either live with my phone in CDMA ONLY or LTE ONLY mode, depending on where I'm at (and when I'm in LTE only mode, I can't get VoLTE phone calls because Straight Talk doesn't seem to know how to update my account on their end to support "Enhanced 4G LTE Mode" as this phone calls it).
Now, here's my theory. Since it's so close to stock Android, would it be possible to take something, say like AOSP or even LineageOS, create a fork for the Essential Phone, and go in and tweak that setting? In my mind, it's got to be something akin to an "if/then" statement. Again, I'm over simplifying, I know, but there's got to somewhere in there that you can specify signal strength thresholds and then build your own ROM with a higher tolerance for crappy signals. It's at least worth a shot, isn't it?
Discussions? Input from ROM builders?

Wildly intermittent data connection

Starting about two weeks ago my phone started dropping 4G signal down to 3g with no apparent reason. This is in the same locations that I've been in multiple times in the past and had excellent connectivity. To make it more interesting, my wife has the exact same phone purchased on the exact same date. standing next to her she will be on 4g and I will be on 3G. This is on the Verizon service. So far I have been to Verizon and replace the SIM card. Reset data connection. And done a factory reset. If I cycle the airplane mode four five times in a row many times but not always it will restore 4G service. Any guesses at all?
Open 'About Phone' under settings on both phones and compare various versions. One may have received a new update before the other.
Ever since the March retail update my signal indicator seems to constantly bounce from Edge to H, H+ and LTE(xt1955-5 on TMO). When I am in an area with good reception(I live deep in the sticks), the download rate(1-4 MB/s) does not waiver despite the signal indicator changing every 10 seconds. When reception is known to be sketchy, and it indicates I have LTE, I am still lucky to get 100 KB/s max down.
Is your phone rooted? If so, what ROM are you using?
Some ROMs (and perhaps stock firmware) have an option to choose the preferred network type for your phone to connect to. Perhaps the setting was changed to 3G on your phone.
Replaced
Never did get to find out what the problem was. I was able to get a warranty replacement. Thanks for all the suggestions. I did look into most of them. I think it helped me get the warranty service expedited by saying that I tried all these various things. My wife's phone in mine are on different software versions. However my replacement phone, which I'm presently using, had the same software version that I had problems with before and it's working flawlessly. So it ended well but I still have no idea what happened. Thanks again for all the help and suggestions.

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