Database Info

Verizon Knowingly activated my phone with a custom ROM

So my HTC VZ6900 (Vogue) was acting up two days ago and I could tell it was a software issue and has not done any real research on the device till yesterday! Here is my story...
HTC started acting up while at school on Monday and was not doing great. I tried a soft reset but nothing worked... Booo. I tried removing the battery and waiting a few minutes and it took an entire 90 minutes + to get past the WM 6.0 screen! Once it got to the today screen the touch feature was none responsive so I could not really access anything. Soft keys worked. Couldn't get anything and the phone would not connect to the network.
Tuesday morning I took it to the Verizon store before I went to work. I had brought my old phone because I was not sure what was wrong. I personally thought it was a software problem, and figured that if that was the case Verizon would hard reset the phone or at least give me a replacement. Wrong. The clown at the desk took my phone and word for word quotes here: "Ah, yeah this thing is dead you’re going to have to get a new phone. Oh! Wait you have insurance you can pay $50 and they will give you a replacement."
I am a studying to get a PHD in electrical engineering and my gut told me this was not the case... So I said no thank you to the insurance and ask him to switch my phone to my old phone that being my old envy which still works perfect. When I went to leave they tried to take my HTC touch to which I protested and they complied. To work I go...
Well it was a quiet day so I had lots of free time and decided to Google VZ6900 problems, after about 10 minutes of searching I came across XDA-Developers! Did a little searching and saw that some people had similar problems. Figured out how to hard reset my phone (This was not a problem all of my contacts were saved to windows live!). Phone resets and it’s like brand new. I had seen these ideas of Custom ROM's and decided to do a little reading. After about 20 minutes I decided that it would not be hard to upgrade my ROM, loaded coke loader and followed the Verizon directions, 20 minutes later BAM running WM6.5 custom ROM. Hm I began to wonder, will Verizon be so nice as to activate this for me? I know they love to lock everything down so that they will get paid. I walk back to the store at 430 and proceed to wait 25 minutes to talk to a different person. I was explaining that their Tech earlier had told me the phone was broken beyond repair and that in fact he had just been lazy and refused to even attempt to fix the phone. They did not like this one bit. They told me I would have reset to the original Verizon settings. Though what he intended was that I needed to run the Verizon ROM with its own customization. So I asked the guy if he could get the other Tech who had helped me earlier to come into the conversation and he was somewhat upset at this time, but complied.
"Hey your back, oh wow this is the new Windows Mobile Cool!"
"Yeah I spent the better part of the day fixing my phone, now switch my phone back"
"Um... I do not know if I am supposed to do that. Um."
"Remember this morning when you told me to file an insurance claim for a broken phone?"
"Yeah, don’t have to do that anymore but I cannot activate an unlocked phone"
"Yes but telling me to file an insurance claim for a broken phone when it was not actually broken is insurance fraud"
"Oh... well we are not supposed to do this but I'll make an exception"
Two minutes later that had it all up and running and I was out the door without any problems.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the information I used, it saved me a great deal of time!

[Q] Nexus S goes into some sort of fault state

My two months old Nexus S started to behave in a way that renders it pretty much useless - Freezing / Locked U
Freeze/Delay Between Menu and basically the phone is dead.
Very often when the screen is off, pressing power button powers up the screen with the screen lock, but the phone is not responsive so the screen just goes off again as it is impossible to slide to unlock it.
On top of that, leaving the phone with the screen off for a half an hour or so brings up some sort of warning sign and a small android (can see the screen shot here: http://yfrog.com/h3apmgqj) and the phone is effectively dead. The only thing to do in any of the two cases is remove and reinsert the battery, but that is no solution to anything. All this is while the battery is fully charged.
Did anyone experienced this before? resetting phone does not help.
Here is more info on this topic: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/label?lid=4e31a500f89fe575&hl=en

Are you using a custom recovery/ROM? That icon you posted isn't the stock image

Hi, no I do not - the image is actually from different phone but it looks exactly as it did on my Nexus S (little green guy with an exclamation mark). I never rooted my phone or done any custom mods to its system.
I actually sent it to Samsung and they are claiming that they found no problem, so they re-flushed the phone and are sending it back. I am seriously angry at samsung. It is arriving on the 11th so I'll let you know if that helped but I doubt it.
I believe this might be a faulty memory because I often received notification that the internal storage was unavailable or something of that nature as well, right before the problem would occur. Are the any tests I could perform for memory / storage?

just try to flash it back to stock
then do wipe data and wipe cache
see if that gets it back on its feet

Hey,
thank you, I thank that means I would have to root it first ehhh
Samsung told me they've done just that (flashed phone) so I am seriously hoping that my phone will work when it arrives on the 11th.
thanks!

Samsung supposedly is looking into this problem, please see link below:
http://www.google.com/support/forum...ad?fid=44db6d8e31129d4c00049e3b2a6db4d1&hl=en

Update:
I just received my phone from Samsung repair and of course, the phone is NOT fixed. On the side note, they also sent back my note that explains the problem meaning it was ignored completely.
I will be contacting @SamsungServic and calling but at this point I am not sure that they can fix the phone other then replace it.
Also,
I've spoken to Samsung and chat online and - yes they nice and throw back lots of promises and niceness back but they are NOT doing anything about it, for now at least.

I copy and paste the best answer on the google support topic to here:
I've been keeping a notebook to document my debugging of this problem. No app in particular is responsible, in my opinion. I have observed the phone lock up after a Factory Data Reset + USB wipe, and with no accounts configured. In fact, I have had it freeze after following this procedure:
1. Factory Data Reset + USB erase from Settings menu
2. Phone reboots.
3. Go through initial setup screens, skip account setup.
4. Power down phone.
5. Remove battery.
6. Remove SIM card.
7. Replace battery.
8. Power up phone.
9. Let phone sit for 15 minutes or more.
10. Phone freezes.
This is about as close to bare bones as I can get with this device.
I have also documented at least four freeze modes:
1. Phone is completely dark (both display and buttons). No combination of power button or other buttons can bring phone back. Battery removal required.
2. Phone display is dark, but the four "hard key" buttons are illuminated. No combination of power button or other buttons can bring phone back. Battery removal required.
3. Phone displays only a green android by a warning exclamation sign. Holding power button down, then volume up, then release volume up, will bring up the Android system recovery screen, from which phone can be rebooted.
4. Phone is frozen at the unlock screen. Sometimes this freeze occurs while swiping the unlock icon. No combination of power button or other buttons can bring phone back. Battery removal required.
I have observed the phone going from normal standby state (display and buttons dark) to state 2, and at other times to state 3, while it was sitting on my desk by the keyboard.
I'm just about ready to send it to Samsung. I just wanted to verify that the problem would be reproducible after a factory reset and without the SIM card.
I think it may be a hardware problem. It's also possible that part of the Android kernel or some device driver on my device has become corrupt. Unfortunately I can't reset the OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did a factory reset from the stock recovery, too. Doesn't help either.
My phone arrived on Friday Samsung mobile repair in Texas. And like they did to ohter Nexus S devices from other users they will do the following to mine:
Reflashing the phone -> doing some functional tests ...
... and this is the crazy thing about it. The error we have is just appearing when the phone is in standby and because of this the phone passes the functional tests Samsung is doing at the end of the service. Phone goes back to user. A defective phone.
Some guy managed to keep the phone alive by setting the display turning off after 30mins. He is charging it twice a day
I got a reply from @SamsungSupport on twitter:
Thank you Fabian for again reaching out to us. We are aware of this issue as some of us have your same phone.
An evaluation is already being conducted to determine the fix. We don't have a timeframe of the resolution.
But understand it will be pushed to phones. We will advise once we have a timeframe.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The support team is friendly and to me it feels like they try to do anything they could.
Funny: One guy got a replacement device. But then no one other. Just reflash...
I think they will do something but on the other hand I'm worried that they will do nothing. But time will tell....
Maybe it would help us if Google will be aware of the problem, too. Ok maybe they allready know it, but I don't know that.
So if some of you here do have some connections... please do us a favor and forward this topic or the link to the google support topic. Feel free to forward this topic to any website you think it would write a news about it. Maybe Google will throw a eye on it. My phone is 8 weeks old and yeah this so anoying. And of course all my friends who are iHippster are trolling me like hell.
It don't want to flame or blame Samsung\Google for this.But our phones are in warranty. The error hits only a few devices and so they should replace it. My 50cent about it... this is not a Google expierence they talked about...

I also had the same problem and sent my phone into Samsung. They only re flashed it, which didn't fix the problem. I immediately called Samsung to inform them that the issue was not fixed and they just told me to send it back for "double checking." Do you think it is better to send it back in or just wait for fix to emerge?

I will be sending it back and demand replacing the phone, also making sure they just don't re-flash again. I guess anything but re-flashing could work.
Remember that I've mailed my phone with one page letter explaining the problem. Their response was flashing the phone and sending it back - with my letter.
Here is note from the support team:
----------------------------------------
Original Problem:
Technical Inquiry
Phone Freezing / Locked U
Freeze/Delay Between Menu
Problem found:
NO TROUBLE FOUND
SW,PRL,OTSL RESET
Solution:
Passed All Functional Testing
--------------------------------------
@Samsungservice did not even acknowledge it officially that this is a problem.

Yeah i wrote a letter too explaining the issue and how to recreate it (the first time). They told me that it passed their quality assurance inspection after re-flashing it, which must be very poor because my phone shut off again 15 minutes after receiving it. Just dropped it back off at UPS today. Can they replace the phone because of this issue? I know one person had success, but it doesn't seem anyone else has.

Nexus S faulty
Samsung may not be able to reproduce it after reflashing; as this issue does not seem to occur when connected to a PC/computer via USB. Their automated testing could be over USB.
Looks like more and more people are facing this issue as the day goes by.
Search for "Nexus S fault state" on google and you'll find the google support forum thread discussing it

Guys,
Did anyone have tried to flash a custom rom to see if this will solve the problem ?
cheers !

No, but this problem is not ROM related.

discr said:
Samsung may not be able to reproduce it after reflashing; as this issue does not seem to occur when connected to a PC/computer via USB. Their automated testing could be over USB.
Looks like more and more people are facing this issue as the day goes by.
Search for "Nexus S fault state" on google and you'll find the google support forum thread discussing it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I figured that was why they couldn't recreate the shutdown. Made sure they knew that it has to be unplugged. Mine always shuts off within 10-15 minutes if untouched.

I have same problem.Only remove battery helps. I have been having nexus s for 2 and half months and this problem just came last week. I don't know how to solve it. I tried reflash firmware but didn't help.

welcome to the club. you have to send it to USA to get it serviced (make a extreme detailed problem description and make sure the support worker writes it down 1:1 into their ticket system). they provide a 2day ups shippment label, BUT only to locations in USA.
I can recommend FedEx. They helped me a lot with this duty stuff for shipping to USA. That's not so easy . I paid €50 to get it shipped to a friend of mine in USA.
You have to send only the foreparts of the device. No battery and back panel, no charger and so on. But they will give you all informations at the end of the service request.
or: wait for a hotfix. which maybe never will come.

Update:
I just mailed my phone again... they told me they do not replace phones (not sure what that means yet). The Rep was arguing that if I want the phone replaced then I need to talk to T-Mobile - it does not make any sense.
Anyway, I explained the problem as much as I could and did not mail any notes this time as they obviously do not care for it. But I made sure he included every detail in his notes.
I am very skeptical but still hoping....
Also,
About the part when the phone does not freeze when plugged in or charging. I had my Nexus S charging overnight and it was frozen in the morning.

Update:
Also, I've contacted @SamsungServic via Twitter and asked if their team recognized it as a problem, but I've got no response.
On the other hand if you report the problem to them, they will respond that they will look into it - which means nothing, but if enough people asks the same question them they will have to.
-thanks

I've got some sort of responce via Twitter from @SamsungService, here is what they wrote back:
@SamsungService
Thank you for reaching out to us. We are aware of this issue as some of us have your same phone. An evaluation is already being conducted to determine the fix. We don't have a time frame of the resolution, but understand it will be pushed to phones. We will advise once we have a time frame. Thank you. ^Mary
@Keinam
Does this mean we should stop sending our phones back for repair and just wait for your OTA update? If it happens?
@SamsungService
Many issues can be resolved with warranty service. Regarding the issue you've referred to,It is my understanding that a fix if being worked on which would be sent out OTA. ^Mary

[Q] HTC Surround Frozen?

Okay, googled, and bing'd the crap out of this and it looks like so far everyone who's had this issue has had to send their phones in for repair, but before doing that I thought I'd ask here aswell to see if anyone has been able to solve this problem.
I've had my HTC Surround for about a month now and this morning when I went to use it I noticed I couldn't read my emails, it said something like "Oops we were not able to retrieve your email." I thought no problem I'll just restart my phone. I turned it off, and turned it back on. Ever since then the phone has been stuck on the white HTC start screen. I've pulled the battery four times and tried restarting it. I've restarted it holding the volume up and down buttons and I get a bootloader screen (no option to hard reset). I can plug it into my computer on the bootloader screen and the computer recognizes the device as an HTC SD card. (This is nice to know seeing as I can, if I ever get the phone working again, load files on the phone's SD card that Zune won't let me) however this is bad because Zune will not recognize the phone.
Sooo, anyone else had this problem and been able to fix it themselves? I don't want to have to send it to HTC because I have no warranty. I bought the phone used. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
And this is running 7004, I have no unlocked the phone or tampered with it in any way. (yet)

Have you looked in the development forum for your stock ROM and tried flashing it from the bootloader?

I couldn't find a rom to flash. Maybe I will just use this as an opportunity to switch to Sprint and buy an Arrive. That way I can be done with ATT's crappy service.

I'm on my third surround now, with both previous ones dead with the exact same situation you have described. I called ATT, had them replace them on warranty for free. I'm waiting for this third one to die so I can get a different model
P.S. I tried flashing the stock ROM, hard resetting, and everything else trying to get both phones back to life but I ended up just having to warranty them. Call up ATT and have them send you a new one.

Thanks, I was able to do a warranty claim. Technically I wasn't allowed to because I bought the phone outright (used) on craigslist. But since the person at ATT was lazy and didn't check when I went in the sent me to my local device support center and I was able to walk out with a new phone in 5 minutes.
Hope this doesn't keep occurring though. If they were to ever check how the phone was purchased I'd be screwed.

doejohn531 said:
Thanks, I was able to do a warranty claim. Technically I wasn't allowed to because I bought the phone outright (used) on craigslist. But since the person at ATT was lazy and didn't check when I went in the sent me to my local device support center and I was able to walk out with a new phone in 5 minutes.
Hope this doesn't keep occurring though. If they were to ever check how the phone was purchased I'd be screwed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same problem with my Surround a few months ago. Then I had another one that kept losing the data off the device. I'm on my third one now and it has been holding up for three months.
I also noticed in the store that all the display models of the phone were having the exact same issue.
I think they changed something up, as this new one seems to be hanging in there much better than the last two.

hi
i am new , post post post

Phone dead after trying new SIM

Hi! first of all, this is the first time I write here, but I've been reading XDA for a while.
OK, thing is, my Nexus S, which I bought in Spain a year ago died two days ago in the USA (i'm an exchange student). Is a free phone, I mean it has no carrier and in Spain I've used it with two different companies with no problems.
I went to a Tmobile store to get an american SIM card, the man asked me a few questions, among them what was the phone's IMEI. I turned it off and put the new SIM, but the phone won't turn on. I've tried my old spanish simcard and also no simcard at all and nothing works. Also I've tried holding the button for 20 seconds and holding power+volume, but it's dead. It gets warm when is charging and also shows a blue screen when I put the battery on it, or sometimes when I press the button.
The phone has never been rooted, the bootloader is locked and the rom was the last official JB for nexus S.
My question is, is this just a coincidence or there is a possibility to brick a device by changing the SIM? looks like a great coincidence that it just decided to die there.
Can it be just a dead battery? Is it worth to try to buy a new cheap battery in ebay?
What can I do to try to revive it? It's hard to be so far away from home and with my beloved Nexus Dead:crying:
Sorry for the long post!

Odd problem, broken home button?

Hi all,
Long story, but the quick version is my home button rarely does anything any more and the screen wakes up by itself from being asleep after anywhere from 3 seconds to 12 seconds.
Now for the long version:
Non-rooted Galaxy S6, by the way. I did a factory reset last week, just because things were getting sluggish. It went well, things were back to speed, and I reinstalled the essentials I wanted. Last night I noticed my phone kept waking itself up over and over again. Then I noticed the home button wasn't doing anything. I rebooted it and it didn't change a thing. After a little more time, the power button also stopped responding. I couldn't even do an emergency reboot with those two buttons disabled. I even tried sticking it in the freezer for a few minutes to see if it was too hot. Google told me about the on screen menu thing to emulate the softkeys so I was able to use that to get around and do reboots.
I hadn't installed any new apps in the last 24 hours, but what the heck, I did another factory reset. I had the option to restore all the apps and settings from 1 day ago, so I chose that. The problem still was there. Dang it, I thought I should not have restored those apps, so I did another reset, this time a totally clean one. The problem not only still happened after the reset, it was doing it during the reset, if the screen went to sleep during a step in the factory reset, the glitch would wake it back up in a few seconds.
I decided last night to just turn it off and charge it fully and hit the Sprint store in the morning. Oddly while charging with the phone powered off, the green battery display would go off and on the whole time it charged.
In the morning I turned the phone on....and NO problems. (of course) For 2 hours not one glitch. So just before leaving for work it starts happening again. Another factory reset at work and a system update from Samsung and still, the problems are there.
I'm just thinking I'll hit the Sprint store tomorrow and swap it out for a new one...but I thought I would tap you guys for any info if you had any.
Thanks in advance, Larry

Sounds like your phone got wet. Factory reset over and over again will not fix this problem ha

Hi,
It seems like a problem with the hardware itself. So yeah, factory resetting all times won't help. Go get a new one .
All the best,
~Lord
Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

Try to use this method
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=62872996
_______________________________________
thereassaad
XDA Assist

Thanks for the ideas, I tried the dialer thing, thereassaad, but it didn't help. It does sound like water damage, but there is no way. I've never dropped it or been near any water. I'm heading to the Sprint store tomorrow, too busy today. I'll let you folks know how it went tomorrow night.

Just FYI, they replaced the screen saying that fixed the home button not responding and the screen waking itself up, but said I probably shouldn't restore with my google account, since it's likely corrupting my system... Huh? I said. They said the hardware was fixed, but I should create a new google account. I said no way. I said what does having just my contacts imported (no apps) have to do with hardware failure. I said, open up a new phone and lets put my google account on it and see if it breaks the new phone, they said no.
In the store we added my google account to my "fixed" phone with the new screen and all and it messed up again. They said, never mind, we'll replace it, and it should be there this Tuesday.
I didn't ask if it would be a refurb, but I really don't care as long as it works.
So that's my story. So far.

They swapped it out for a new phone, refurb likely, but I'm not sure how to find that out. (not that I care too much) I'm loving the new phone, it's like unboxing day again. No cost out of pocket for me too, which is nice.