I have a few issues with the Captivate, that I just can't get an answer to, except send it in to Samsung, and we'll repair it. AT&T just does a very poor job, of tech support, on my end of things. I spend hours by phone, poor email replies, and going in for a face-to-face yesterday, simply does no good. I bought the Captivate with Android 2.1, and updated to 2.2, from Samsungs site. My issues are:
AT&T will stop BLOCKING apps, that come from other places, besides their Market. Talk of OTA being pushed, and the Captivate being one of the first to get it, led me to learn that OTA, is not a software push, but a set of instructions, to help us manually change a SETTING in the Captivate. This, from three different tech people, all the way up the ladder at AT&T. That said, the head tech, Glen, COULD NOT FIGURE OUT how to tell me to change the Settings. Another issue, is with SMS and MMS messaging. I can send them no trouble, but I don't really know if the ones I'm sending to, have got them. Surprise. I found I could make requests, for a Notice of Delivery. I just have 'to ASK FOR ONE'. Trouble is, no one can help me figure out how to ask. On AT&T site, under my contract, they have Captivate as my phone. They have a tutorial on MMS settings, so I went to it. I followed the steps they give, and at the END, they show 5 options, that are greyed out, that you can activate. They show 5, but my Captivate only shows 3. The two that are missing, DELIVERY REPORT and READ REPORT, are what I'd need, but they aren't there. Yesterday in a face-to-face, the tech I was talking with, played with a Captivate demo, and actually found those two options on it. His reply, the demo is Android 2.1, I upgraded to 2.2. Conclusion, I screwed myself, with the update. He didn't explain, why the Captivate HE OWNS, and is 2.1 itself, DON'T HAVE THE TWO OPTIONS EITHER. The third issue, is EDGE. Where I live, AT&T's tower, are horrible. No one with AT&T, can connect to them. I pay over $70 a month, to use my Captivate, on my WIFI. My use is rare, for phone calls. It's mainly for the Smart Phone part, that I use it. When I bought the phone, EDGE was not active, but some smart guy at a hugher level, had me make a settings change, and it appeared. But it no longer appears, and it seems if you don't ask a 3G question, they ignore you now. So, after countless failures, I left AT&T yesterday, and stopped at Verizon, just down the road, to get info with them.
I contacted Samsung when I got home, telling them the troubles I'm having, and asking if they could help answer my issues? This morning, I got their reply. The answer was an EITHER/OR reply, and that's why I'm asking this here. They say I could either restore my software to brand new, and lose all my phones content, or send it in for repair, which probably would lose the content with as well. Not an indication, if it's a software(Android) problem, or a hardware problem. No indication if AT&T's OTA, is a software PATCH, or if it really is nothing but instructions on what I need to change. AT&T sent me two MMS TEXTS, while I was on the phone with them, that were 4kb in size, and were ONLY GOOD FOR 4 DAYS, by what was said with them. Both opened with the word, DOWNLOADING, following it, but the word DOWNLOADING, is still present, 2 days later. Must mean what they sent, I never had installed. But why install something, if it's NOT A SOFTWARE ISSUE as AT&T claims, and instead send a simple email with instructions, or a web site, I can read the instructions on? But, as of this morning, I really don't know how to handle this. Does anyone, understand what this means, and can explain in basic English, just what is wrong? Thank you.
All of this is software, stock sucks and now you see why the custom rom community is so large.
For edge, go to settings> wireless and network> mobile networks> network mode, change that to gsm only.
The nonmarket ota will have to be
a software patch because it's disabled completely in the settings of the OS. A simple guide on what to turn on in the settings won't do it it's deeper than that.
the sms/mms issue have you tried clearing the cache and or data in"settings>applications> manage applications>all> messing. Or using a different messaging app? I use handcent sms but there are several in the market.
Thanks. I'm starting to understand this rom craze I've been reading about.
On Edge as you suggested, when I get to Mobile Networks, after I click on it, I see NO Network Mode, that I could change to gsm only. I have 4 choices, Use Packet data, which is active, Data roaming, which is not active, Access point names, which shows ATT WAP, avtive, and Network operators, which shows a blacked out Default Setup. It's listed under Available Networks, but I can't even activate the Default setup. What's missing here?
As for the OTA, I'm glad to know it's as I thought, not as AT&T lied to me about. The two seperate AT&T messages they sent me, a little over two hours apart, are listed as such: <Subject: AT&T
test MMS> Downloading
Message size: 4KB
Expires: 5:57 pm, mAY 23
and when you long press it, a menu appears, that allows you to View message details. Click on that, you get
> Message details
Type: Multimedia message
notification
From: 28838270
Expires: 5:57 PM, May 23
Subject: AT&T test MMS
Message class: Informational
Message aize: 4KB
That is what they tried to push me, as the OTA, and as I said, Glen, an upper level tech, tried walking me through the settings, to physically make the change, but failed to do so. Do you understand what type of crap they were really pushing me?
I do have Handcent sms, but I never used it. I suppose I need to stop thinking everything is alike. I opened it up, and the options, are over whelming, so I chose those I thought were right. I'll read up on it later, to try and understand it better. It showed my text messages I already had, including the two test from AT&T, which actually allowed me to DOWNLOAD. Dowload what? Good question. But clicking it, showed it downloaded, SOMETHING. After that, I tried to install the Amazon appstore app, which AT&T kept blocking, and no surprises, it was blocked again just now. So, maybe AT&T knows what type of crap they sent me, but it damn sure didn't fix the BLOCK.
Guess you see I'm frustrated, but thanks for your reply. If this note helps you try something else, please let me know. Thanks.
MarketEnabler to get past the AT& T blocking (requires root)
IMHO, Custom ROMs is the only way to get the best out of your device.
Sent from my Captivate. Andromeda 3, Onix 2.0.5 @ 1.2Ghz
Downloading?
I've had messages get stuck in downloading when someone sends me a MMS with a picture or a web link that needs to use the data connection to download the message and I have the Data network mode shut off. May want to check you're Data Network setting to see if its on or off. Something to check.
With 2.2 you can turn on or off Data network mode by holding the power button to bringing up the menu.
It seems if I want to stop being frustrated over AT&T and their not helping fix the issues, is to start thinking like a lot of you do. I have seem a lot about ROM, but in truth, don't know much about it. I'll try and read up to learn, just what I'm looking for, like what would best fit my issues. Thinking back on my face to face with Tech support, Friday, when I acted so frustrated, that even they couldn't fix my AT&T BLOCKING of apps NOT FROM THE MARKET, I had two different AT&T TECHS ask me, "WHY DO YOU WANT TO LOAD APPS, THAT ARE NOT FROM THE MARKET"? Why? How about I simply want to? Does that mean that AT&T has the mentality, that since they charge to provide service, that it allows them to DICTATE how we use the equipment we buy? What ever happened to the concept of TRUTH, in business these days? Anyway, I'll start trying to gain ideas from going with a custom rom, and see what woud best meet my needs, with one. Thanks.
You know what's funny?
All of the roms have what you're looking for
That's the entire spirit of roms, I bought this awesome peice if hardware but the software it came with is locked down, freedom robbing, laggy, ugly garbage. The phone belongs to us it's ours to do with what we please.
But before you take the rom leap, try super one click to root and it also unblocks non market apps
Hey guys, let me just start off by saying I have spent almost 8 hours straight today trying to figure this out and dig myself out of a hole I've created for myself, that being said, I'm going to try and be as detailed as possible so you guys know EXACTLY where I am and what I've tried. This post looks long but that's because it is. It's pretty much my entire day's worth of trouble typed out. So just bare with me and see if you guys can help me out here!
I have a T-Mobile Galaxy S4 model: SGH-M919 it has Android 4.4.2. Now on to the problem: I've had this phone for almost a year now and a few months ago I rooted it. Did a simple Youtube tutorial and used Odin to do the work and everything worked out fine. A couple months down the road (yesterday), after using the phone like a teenager, downloading apps and cluttering it up it started to slow down and not run some apps. After thinking about it I decided to factory reset it. All of my contacts, photos, and videos were backed up on Google so I thought "why not?" Well, this is where $#!% hit the fan.. being rooted then factory reset, right before the phone came online it had me answer two questions about the root. Something to the effect of "Do you want to keep root? (This option is not reversible)" I thought since I wasn't using the features I originally rooted the phone for I figured nah just get rid of the root. So the phone did its T-Mobile boot up and started the Initial setup.
Everything up to to this point was fine until I wanted to log in to my Google account during the setup. Please understand that where I am I have full 4G LTE coverage and have access to a pretty fast and sturdy wifi connection. Well, when it came to the google sign in I entered my email and password and it came up with a message reading "Can't Sign in - Can't establish a reliable connection to the server" (believe me i wish that was the only issue) so after reading that, I thought I'd try with my wifi.. nope. Same thing. Since neither my 4g or wifi worked I thought it was Google's servers so I tried again this morning, same thing. (keep in mind at this point i think my phone isn't rooted anymore.) I call the t mobile store and they give me a technical support number, so I call it and I tell them i cant sign into Google. The gentleman told me he cant do anything because he can tell my phones been rooted. Only thing he suggests is to contact Google, well, the customer care number just tells you go to google.com/support and there's nothing there about my problem.
This is where I dig my hole even deeper. I tried another factory reset and up in the top left corner i still see that root text. Even the rooted android symbol pops up before the Samsung logo or t mobile. Since I saw that I thought "ohh it just didn't get unrooted all the way." I look up ways to completely remove a root and a lot of them require plugin your phone into the computer and using Odin to flash a stock firmware on to the device. I went to plug my phone into the usb port but my computer didn't recognize the usb device, having experienced this a long time ago I searched around for the latest Samsung usb drivers and I installed those. Device still isn't recognized. Let me just note before people tell me to use MTP mode or Developer tools> usb debugging or connection mode.. The only thing that happens when plugging my phone via usb is the phone starts charging and my computer makes the trumpet noise like something is plugged in. Other than that, there is NO notification of it being plugged in. The reason i stress this is because I called Samsung technical support at this point and the guy (not gentleman) treated me like a 5 year old and ran me through all of these options after i told him I already did everything he was suggesting, including downloading Samsung Kies 3 and having it install the drivers. It does not pick up the device either.. at this point I looked up ways to remove the root without the computer. I found out you can just go into the root app "SU" or something and theres a remove root option. I jumped on that opportunity and had it removed. I restarted the phone and all the problems still persist, it even still has the root text on the top left when you factory reset it again. However now, even if you factory reset and select the option "keep root," thinking it would bring back the"SU" app it does NOT.
So lets recap. I have a phone that thinks its rooted and even appears rooted to t mobile but doesn't have any of the root apps or privileges or capabilities to fix my Google log in issue (like the host file in filemanager). And I can't re-root to get that app back because none of my 3 usb ports, 3 different usb cables (one being the cord that came with the phone), or any of the ports/cables on someone else's computer will recognize the darn thing to work on that way! I have all these issues that are supposed to fix each other but I can't do any fixing because they cancel each other out too... I'm at a dead end.
In case this isn't the right forum/website/thread/post area etc.. I have this whole message saved in Microsoft Word document so I can repost it anywhere you guys might suggest better results. Any help/advice will be much appreciated.
Hi!
So I have a Galaxy S6 which came with a Dutch T-mobile package. On my way to China, where I moved a few weeks ago for an indefinite period, I cracked the screen and brought it to the local repairman to fix. That went perfectly well, but the phone didn't recognize my fingerprint anymore and I forgot my backup password. That's why I performed a factory reset, and that's where the real trouble began.
After the reset, I tried setting up the phone again, and got to the Samsung reactivation screen. I entered my account info, and provided the password for the wifi, after which the phone connected to wifi (with the corresponding message), but after a few seconds I get a pop up message saying "Unable to connect to the Internet" - even though the wifi symbol would still flash its arrows in the upper right corner. Thus, I can't get past this screen nor in my phone, which is quite a devastating fact as a poor new expat in China . Tried several other wifi networks, to no avail.
My guess is that it's the Great Firewall of China acting here, somehow preventing the phone to connect to the Samsung (and/or Google) network to check my info. I don't know if this is correct, the Samsung helpdesk couldn't say for sure as well, but I really really want to find a workaround here. Once I get the phone working again I can install a VPN to have the Google stuff working in China, but this way I can't get to that point. Now I am completely new to rooting/ installing ROMS and the works, but I am willing to try anything to get this expensive piece of electronics to work out here.
Any helping comment is an absolute lifesaver, and I will name my firstborn child after you!!
Thanks so much!
All the best, Maarten
EDIT: I made some screenshots, but appearantly I am not allowed to post outside links yet.
I had a small hardware shop unlock a Rogers Samsung Galaxy S7 (SM-930W8) and many things have straight-up stopped working. Keyboard, back and recent apps vibration feedback is always weaker than usual. I have already factory reset this phone 5 times out of frustration now, and have tried to also back up a phone from Smart Switch, but all Smart Switch is giving me is a "Failed to connect to device, the connection to this device has timed out." Another difference from before and after is Knox giving me a Security notice, details are "Unauthorized actions have been detected." When I tap the notification, it brings me to the Device security part of Settings, and says that there is a Threat found and I have to restart the phone to undo any unauthorized changes, upon restarting the same error appears in the notification pane everytime I try this process. I have also noticed unexplained slowdowns while launching apps and hitting back and the phone actually doing something. Yet another thing I have noticed is that the phone does not seem to remember any WiFi connections that I connect to and takes excessively long to turn on WiFi and excessively long to connect to any WiFi connection. Another different thing that happens is whenever I reboot the phone, a process called "LoggingService" always crashes. There are still several issues I have noticed, and it's only been 3 hours since unlocking the phone. The device is not rooted.
My dad has been unable to unlock his S7, despite trying to do so directly with Rogers. Did you unlock the phone yourself? Were you able to figure out what went wrong after the unlocking?