Hi all, my mom has an Motorola Moto G3 phone. Have noticed many weird things happening on the phone since yesterday.
The notification panel won't slide down. Also, no notifications are displayed in the notification bar, even when there are notifications, like receiving sms or messages on Whatsapp.
The phone has a swipe lock screen. But, the lock screen won't work, even though it shows in Security settings, that there is one.
Calls are being made from the phone, but no calls are being received. For example, if I call the phone, it says that the person is busy and the connection ends. My brother had also tried calling... same thing.
No apps can be downloaded or updated from the Play Store.
I tried to connect the phone to the PC, but, since I cannot slide down the notification panel, there is no way to change the connection mode to transfer data.
I should mention that the storage on the phone was getting close to being filled, and the phone was showing the warning that storage was less and that some of the functions might stop working. So, are these things because of that?
But, I did delete a lot of photos and videos and uninstalled apps, and now there is sufficient storage for the phone to run properly, but it still doesnt work, and these weird stuff are happening.
I suspect from the weird behavior that there might be a virus. Is that so?
What do I do? How will the phone return to sanity? How do I backup the data... if the solution is to factory reset the phone. There are important photos and videos and whatsapp data which I would like to save before performing a reset.
Any help will be appreciated.
A lot to cover there.
First Long press the power button whilst the phone is on.This will reboot to Safemode.See if you can now use a USB Data cable to backup what you need to your PC/Laptop/Tablet.
Note:Some USB cables are,"Charge Only" so check the USB cable is Data transfer capable.
Then if you have a Google account and are connected via Phone data or WiFi go Settings/Accounts/Google and untick and re-tick all sync options to make sure all your Google stuff is updated.
Then do a,"Hard Reset/Factory Restore.
Just put Moto G3 into youtube with the words Hard Reset,
https://www.youtube.com
Although a Hard reset seems like a big move I do one at least a couple of times a year as a kind of 10,000 mile service for my Android phones even if they are running well and it clears out all the junk I tend to accumulate and keeps them slick,fast and problem free.
HTH
Thanks a lot for your reply. Your post comes as a lifesaver.
I took a backup of the data by transferring stuff on to the SD card and then transferring the data from there to the computer.
I had booted in safe mode, but there too the phone showed same behavior. I also noticed that the home button, or the task manager button were not working too.
After taking the backup, I also changed the password for the Gmail account for security, in case the mobile was somehow compromised.
Then I wanted to do a factory reset, but the button seems to be greyed out, and there seems to be no way to perform a soft factory reset. So, your post comes at the nick of time to save me, as I was thinking what to do now. Thanks a ton!
Performed a hard reset of the phone, and the phone is working fine now. Everything is normal.
What might be the reason for such behavior though?
Not being able to lock the phone, install/update apps, factory reset... all this makes me think if it was some kind of malware.
Another reason I can think of is that the storage got full, and so these strange stuff started, but it should go back to normal when stuff was deleted and sufficient storage became available. Still, doesnt explain why lock wouldn't remain.... and other stuff. Really weird.
Modern,"Smart Phones" are very complex computers.With so many apps on them that get updated some updates don't always play nice and mess up the phones.You could spend hours tracking down a single app that might be a cause of a problem.
As you say as well the the storage on the phones might well have got clogged up with old Temporary data that has not been cleared out as it should.
For future reference another trick is to wipe the Cache partition from Recovery mode.I would have suggested this first but as you said space was running out it's best to have a clean start
Yes, it was good to have a clean start with the phone.
Thank you for that trick to wipe the cache partition from Recovery mode. Will keep that in mind.
Thanks a lot again.
Related
Device is locked and never been rooted. Took the 5.1.1 update and apps like Netflix and HBO GO fail unerringly after 1-5 minutes of streaming.
Somethings...
-Neither app actually crashes to the desktop. It crashes to the apps main menu.
-Both apps attempt to "redraw" (3-4 times in quick succession) after the player fails, then I can usually reload the video.
I have...
-Cleared data/cache
-uninstall/reinstall the apps
-did a full factory reset
ANY thoughts would be really appreciated. Not having much like finding any resolution here. Thx in advance
I have the same problem. I have flashed the latest firmware with Kies and Odin to make sure there were not issues and still Netflix stops playing as does Youtube, Plex etc...
I have spent around 8 hours trying to find a fix to no avail. I made sure that Display > Smart screen options were disabled. In developer options I checked Force GPU rendering and Turn off hardware overlays. I also tried and unending list of other settings to no avail. Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks Chris
Khazaad said:
Device is locked and never been rooted. Took the 5.1.1 update and apps like Netflix and HBO GO fail unerringly after 1-5 minutes of streaming.
Somethings...
-Neither app actually crashes to the desktop. It crashes to the apps main menu.
-Both apps attempt to "redraw" (3-4 times in quick succession) after the player fails, then I can usually reload the video.
I have...
-Cleared data/cache
-uninstall/reinstall the apps
-did a full factory reset
ANY thoughts would be really appreciated. Not having much like finding any resolution here. Thx in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go in to About Device in Settings. Does your status show "custom?" If it does, remove your SD card and transfer the files on it to your PC. Reformat the card on your Note and afterwards put the files back on it. There's a strange SD card glitch that occasionally causes the system status to show custom when it's not.
BarryH_GEG said:
Go in to About Device in Settings. Does your status show "custom?" If it does, remove your SD card and transfer the files on it to your PC. Reformat the card on your Note and afterwards put the files back on it. There's a strange SD card glitch that occasionally causes the system status to show custom when it's not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No my Device Status is Official. I tried using a different launcher "Google Now" hoping that a more simple launcher might clear things up but no luck. Netflix stops playing after a couple of minutes and youtube pauses. I want to be clear Netflix does not crash it just goes back to the menu where I can hit play again.
This fixed my tablet!
I may have found a fix. At least this fixed the issue for me.
The Back Story: (for you to compare similarities in device errors)
I have been having the same which started after the update. and my tablet has never been rooted either. I chatted with Samsung several times. They acted like this has never happened before and they kept saying it might be a bad wifi antenna. Which sounded like BS since I was able to surf the web and even watch youtube through chrome no problem. If I tried to watch videos on youtube, netflix, vudu it would reset as you mentioned. I even noticed that when I was using Polaris word it would erase everthying I had written randonmly. Samsung also tried to say it could be the app itself. Which I instantly doubted since the apps are made by different companies. I did the factory reset. I even took the tablet to Best Buy to have them do a system re-flash with no luck. I almost sent the tablet to samsung to have them try to fix it, but I had a feeling it was something easy to fix and I could save myself money.
THE FIX:........ I have no clue why this worked. If anyone knows why it worked I sure wouldn't mind hearing your thought!
1. Pop the sim card out.
2. Try playing videos on your apps. (Be sure to check a couple apps) It worked like a charm for me. I dont think I had to reboot to get it to work, but the fix stays after a reboot.
3. What you do not want to do is put the sim card back in because you will have the issue again.
- If you do put the card back in dont worry. You can simply remove it again and it will work again.
One thing to keep in mind.....I stopped my subscription on my verizon data plan. So it doesn't matter to me if the sim card is in. So If you still use Verizon Data plan and this fix worked then you should contact Verizon and let them know whats going on. Maybe you just need a new Sim Card. Like I said I don't know why it worked, but it did. I had data turned off completely so my device shouldn't have been trying to use anything other than wifi.
Please let me know if this works for you as well!
Thanks are always welcome!
****Please keep in mind that anything you try is done so by your own free will and I am in no way liable. ***
Khazaad said:
Device is locked and never been rooted. Took the 5.1.1 update and apps like Netflix and HBO GO fail unerringly after 1-5 minutes of streaming.
Somethings...
-Neither app actually crashes to the desktop. It crashes to the apps main menu.
-Both apps attempt to "redraw" (3-4 times in quick succession) after the player fails, then I can usually reload the video.
I have...
-Cleared data/cache
-uninstall/reinstall the apps
-did a full factory reset
ANY thoughts would be really appreciated. Not having much like finding any resolution here. Thx in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ceblume83 said:
I may have found a fix. At least this fixed the issue for me.
The Back Story: (for you to compare similarities in device errors)
I have been having the same which started after the update. and my tablet has never been rooted either. I chatted with Samsung several times. They acted like this has never happened before and they kept saying it might be a bad wifi antenna. Which sounded like BS since I was able to surf the web and even watch youtube through chrome no problem. If I tried to watch videos on youtube, netflix, vudu it would reset as you mentioned. I even noticed that when I was using Polaris word it would erase everthying I had written randonmly. Samsung also tried to say it could be the app itself. Which I instantly doubted since the apps are made by different companies. I did the factory reset. I even took the tablet to Best Buy to have them do a system re-flash with no luck. I almost sent the tablet to samsung to have them try to fix it, but I had a feeling it was something easy to fix and I could save myself money.
THE FIX:........ I have no clue why this worked. If anyone knows why it worked I sure wouldn't mind hearing your thought!
1. Pop the sim card out.
2. Try playing videos on your apps. (Be sure to check a couple apps) It worked like a charm for me. I dont think I had to reboot to get it to work, but the fix stays after a reboot.
3. What you do not want to do is put the sim card back in because you will have the issue again.
- If you do put the card back in dont worry. You can simply remove it again and it will work again.
One thing to keep in mind.....I stopped my subscription on my verizon data plan. So it doesn't matter to me if the sim card is in. So If you still use Verizon Data plan and this fix worked then you should contact Verizon and let them know whats going on. Maybe you just need a new Sim Card. Like I said I don't know why it worked, but it did. I had data turned off completely so my device shouldn't have been trying to use anything other than wifi.
Please let me know if this works for you as well!
Thanks are always welcome!
****Please keep in mind that anything you try is done so by your own free will and I am in no way liable. ***
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It Worked!!!
Thanks very much for the suggestion. As it turns out the tablet came to me with a sim card in it. I never intended on using it with Verizon so I did not look. Once I removed the inactive sim card everything worked great.
Thanks again I really appreciate the help.
I used to be happy with my S6 DUOS:
it did require a few clicks from the drop down menu, but changing data sim card worked ...
Now using the S8+ DUOS (G955-FD) I have the same two sim cards, and every time I switch data sim in the settings, I get a pop-up telling me that I inserted a new sim, and that my phone will require a factory reset. I have found no way to dismiss this message, and there is only the option to press OK/accept (forgot the actual option, but hopefully you get the picture)
To make my phone usable again without daring to see if the factory reset will actually happen or not, I came to the solution to switch off the phone and restart it.
After phone is finally on, the data sim has switched, and the phone is usable again without needing a factor reset.
I feel that is is a Major setback from the S6, where switching active datasim, just happened, and so I wonder if I did something wrong in my setup, or if I forgot to click a switch somewhere.
did anyone else run into the same problem, or can you freely switch sim cards for data usage?
Hoping to solve this as it is really wasting my time.
Cheers
You can just swipe that message away. If you don't want to see it at all, long press it and block notefications from the service.
You don't need to restart to change sim, and certainly don't need to factory reset.
Thanks!
I now realize that the message comes from "AutoPreconfig" a system app.
It appears in the dropdown menu, and the popup only appears if clicking on the item.
The clickable button on the popup is "close" which makes sense, but is also not 100% reassuring when reading that a factory reset is involved.
Once again thanks for clarifying!
So been running c59 Android 11 for a couple of weeks. All working pretty well when today i noticed my device was not on Wifi..
I went to wifi settings the phone locked up and crashed - rebooted.
Same thing is occuring except now i have a little Sim icon and an X in where the celluar signal is.
I still can recieve calls though no network access at all!
Just tried aeroplane mode and now its stuck and i cannot turn off aeroplane mode..
tried the reset network settings.. no change..
this phone is rubbish.
looks like another factory reset coming up...
just for anyone else who has this issue. you need to Format Data through recovery.. you lose everything. this fixed it for me.
You lose nothing because people are supposed to BACKUP their stuff.
Smartphones haven't been around since only a few weeks ago, it shouldn't come as a surprise that at some point they can fail or like in this case for some reason need a formatting.
Craphead said:
You lose nothing because people are supposed to BACKUP their stuff.
Smartphones haven't been around since only a few weeks ago, it shouldn't come as a surprise that at some point they can fail or like in this case for some reason need a formatting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you think about it you should be able to format Application Data only and not lose your photos etc..
Even my old Nexus 4 from 9 years ago can do that..
actually every phone i have ever had could do that other than this one.
Why would the existence of personal photos cause a phone not too boot? So why would the manufacturer make you format them to reset the phone?
Just a poorly designed device really..
And for the record i did backup and do backup. Though i wanted to inform others who may have to perform this fix that they will lose data.
I'm actually in a very serious problem as I have a problem with restoring my whatsapp messages please help me asap I uninstalled my whatsapp on 16th July and last I backed up it on 7th July. Now when I try to restore the messages after reinstalling it shows my google account but it doesn't show the size of backup and also it says no Internet connection please help me. Also my whatsapp images and whatsapp videos folders have disappeared. I really want to get back my chats. Hope someone will really help me as it means alot to me now
Connect to a wifi or a hotspot, or get better signal then H+
Kenora_I said:
Connect to a wifi or a hotspot, or get better signal then H+
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm already using WiFi and I tried using mobile data as well both didn't help and I tried reseting network settings and all still it didn't work out
ruinaaaa said:
I'm already using WiFi and I tried using mobile data as well both didn't help and I tried reseting network settings and all still it didn't work out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you check your google account the backup.
It could be app problem, try resetting and other stuff.
Kenora_I said:
Did you check your google account the backup.
It could be app problem, try resetting and other stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey yes I checked it as well in google drive it shows the backup I can't restore it locally because I deleted the whatsapp databases like or two months ago will it affect this
Try clearing the data and cache of whatsapp or reinstall it.
Kenora_I said:
Try clearing the data and cache of whatsapp or reinstall it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried this too and tried so many things.I watched so many youtube videos and searched a lot in google as well still couldn't find any possible way to recover
Albert83BCN said:
Hi guys!
I have been facing this issue this whole week while trying to move all my chats to a new phone I just bought as with the old one the charging port was dying and I could not bear it anymore. So almost everything restored smoothly from Google Backup and it was like being in my phone again with a few wizard steps but then I Installed WhatsApp (WA) and gone through the typical activation and restoring process and. as many, I got stuck at the 24% sometimes, some others 31% and 39%, and never got past the 39%.
I Tried almost everything: restoring from Google Drive, transfer all WhatsApp directory to internal storage and trying to restore from there, etc. Going back to the old phone to create fresh backups just in case they were corrupted as many people suggests, getting every time more delay to be able to activate WhatsApp again up to 12h for both SMS and call activation... just to mess again and feel back at square one, I guess you all feel the pain.
Well, the good news is that I finally managed to restore all the chat history!!! (well, cannot be certain that 100% was restored but I do not miss anything ATM and I can go back up to 2012 chats so I guess that qualifies as "everything" hehe).
So, I'm posting here because I've been searching a lot on the forums and the reddit and for all the people that is having this issue recently, almost no body came back to report success and I know it feels really discouraging It certainly gives the impression that this issue has no fix at all, and that you should accept losing all the chat history and starting from the start again. But from all the data I've been gathering during this week, at least two or three people reported to eventually being able to restore the chat; they fell in one of these two categories: they either transferred to a different phone where the backup seemed to restore okay, and then exported and restored in the target phone with success (something like a "bridge" restore mode, most of the cases I've read did it this way) or they finally succeeded by sheer brute force by trying again and again and again.
I fall in this 2nd category. In the most recent attempt I was doing what I've been doing again and again and again with just minor variations in the workflow and finally succeeded. TL; DR; I think in reality in many cases attempts could succeed by just letting the phone restore the backup endlessly, by not giving up and assuming the restore process went wrong when it has been stuck forever at either 24, 31 or 39% and force closing..
But I know in the midst of desperation OCD kicks in and you want step-by-step success case scenario reproduction so I will tell you all the steps that I followed that I can remember that got me to finally have the backup to end successfully:
0. First of all, in the winning attempt I had already uninstalled WA from the new phone and removed totally the WA folder in the internal storage / sdcard storage. Not sure this is mandatory but just to tell this was the case.
1. Since I got WA working perfectly on the old phone at every moment, I backed up locally for the Nth f%!?&ยท( time. This left me with the latest local backup plus a few others in the databases folder as a result of keep messing up.
2. I copied the full WhatsApp directory from the internal storage of the old phone to a safe place. This could be the PC or whatever, but PC transfer via USB seems too sloppy. You maybe could do it via ADB, whatever, I went by the route of coping it to the external SD with some random explorer utility like ES File Explorer. It does not matter, the point is to be able to backup the full WhatsApp folder in order to restore it as similar as possible as the original. What we are more interested right now is in the database folder but having all images, videos etc in place will help in getting it like before the easiest way. (Disclaimer: Ok guys sorry if some steps are too obvious to XDA users which usually are highly educated in the matter, but I was thinking of sharing/linking this text on the reddit and others, so please bear with it).
3. I installed latest WA in the new phone, opened the app (I intended to not open but I somewhat forgot) and got to the welcome screen, immediately closed the app at that step.
3. I restored the full folder to the new phone internal storage, pure copy/paste style (as said, in my case via the SD since both phones have SD slot and was very convenient, but via USB, cloud, etc. can be done).
4. I went to the databases folder and only kept the msgstore.db.crypt12 file and the latest backup with a date (ie: msgstore-2019-11-21.db.crypt12), deleted the rest. Honestly I do not think this is crucial but I somewhat wanted to make it easier for WA to know which one to target, I thought about keeping only the msgstore.db.crypt12 but some random dude pointed that the one with the date was needed. I was under the assumption that file structure is identical in both but just wanted to get done with this and keep both, just in case.
5. Before opening again the WA to try to activate and restore with this full local copy, I opened the Android settings app and went to applications > whatasapp > storage, as suggested by user redweaver, thanks for the tip! by keeping looking at the storage usage of the app during the restore process we could get insight about if it was really doing something or the app was really stuck. Keep open for now. In my case, I saw also on the old phone that my data used for the app was 780+ MB, so I had an idea of what should be on the new phone by the time it finished (if it did!).
5b. I don't think this is really necessary but I did it just in case. I was planning to go to work and let the thing running as long as it would need, and I would make sure that the process would get maximum uptime and nothing would get in the way. So I went to Applications > WhatsApp > Battery usage (or something like it) and disabled the battery optimizations for this app. I also went to the developer mode settings and enabled do not lock the phone while it is charging and everything that looked like it might be relevant. Again, most likely this has nothing to do, but reproducible steps, right?
6. Now open WA and activate it as usual, but when it seems that the activation step ended and you go to the next screen, immediately put the phone in air plane mode or disable data/WiFi, whatever. The goal is that it cannot reach Google Drive to look for the online backup. Honestly maybe in the end is not the culprit of GDrive but many people states that the GD backup is broken at this time and suggests going the local route, so we will do it like this.
7. WA should tell you that looking for the backup is going too slow and to skip this step (sorry to not have exact message, I have it in Spanish, but something in these lines, BTW excuse my somewhat limited English ). The point here is to click on the link that says skip the step and when you are prompted with a popup, click also on Skip.
8. WA will display the typical restore / transfer-like screen where the process starts. At this point you have to enable again data plan / WiFi at least or exit air plane mode, don't know really but even if restoring from local it complains about not having internet connection, maybe needs it to encrypt with the key or something? don't know.
9. Now is the feared moment! Even this time, I got somewhat stuck at 31% again. I left it do its thing, and some time later, it prompted for the popup that has a progress-bar from 0 to 100 (honestly, what is the difference between both?!) which also got stuck at 31%. If you let it be, it starts going back and forth many times, I guess maybe its going chat per chat and the progress-bar represents each one? Dunno. Thing is, even in the prior attempts I got at this point and the backup did not finish successfully. But this time I was decided to let it do its thing as much time as it would take, until the end. In the process the phone might display a pop up saying that WA does not respond. I clicked a few times in the 'keep waiting' option, then I just forgot because I did not have time to mess with it and hoped that it was still working on the background, which bring us to step 10.
10. While we are contemplating the backup process, we can go to the settings app again and look how the internal data is going for the WA. In my case, after some time under the restore process, when I went there I saw WA had occupied 0.91 GB of data space. After going back and forth again between WA and settings, the usage keep growing: 0.96, 1.03, 1.10... I thought it was on the right track, and encouraged me to keep waiting. Maybe in the end the process is too slow for old databases. Note that some people speculates that having messages from very long ago might be the culprit here due to changes in the table structure and that this might be the reason breaking the restore process. And maybe it is the case, but even if it is, in my case I finally succeeded where previously I didn't and without deleting anything, so this does not seem to be a deal-breaker or I would have never succeeded. I say it because some people reported that deleting old conversations and trying again finally made them succeed. Now I suspect the true reason was simply that by making the database smaller the process finished earlier, but YMMV.
11. Cannot be totally sure, but in my case, I noticed that leaving WA on the background and clicking on the WA icon again might stop the process for true and bring a message about not being able to recover the chats, I got this previously, do not try to open the WA normally, only leave it temporally to look to the space usage in the settings to get back to it by swyping between recent apps to keep the same instance open and working, this was a key point in my success trial that did not happen during the previous ones.
12. And finally, while I kept switching between WA and the settings and when I last saw like 1.30GB of space used (almost twice the space compared to the old phone, maybe it leaves a lot of temp data) I don't know if I either messed with the app-switching or it really finished, but then I got prompted to the screen where you enter your name or nickname. And when I completed this step, I finally got to the chats screen and everything was like in the old phone! Where previously I would get to a lot of empty chat rooms with maybe 40 total messages restored according to WA. Hurray!
Notice that in my case it was still reporting 31% on the WA background screen under the progress bar popup when it finished!! so it seems that is not really mandatory to experience the 100% complete to have it work in the end, but YMMV.
OK, maybe not the most elegant "guide" out there but I wrote it in a hurry and my english sucks, I just hope it might help someone to not lose their WA chats forever.
Good luck!
Edit: I almost forgot but, for the sake of completeness. I also tried a certain script that can backup WA from the phone and retrieve the encryption key, it will also leave an unencrypted copy of the chats database that can later be viewed with a WhatsApp viewer like this. The script is called WhatsApp Key/DB Extractor, and it still works as of 2019, just look at the latest posts in the thread. Guys here on XDA most likely know about it but if not, you might give it a try. I tried it because I assumed that maybe I could circumvent the restore issues by going that route and pushing the backup via ADB, but turns out the legacy WA won't prepare the database due to the time out of sync issue, or at least the data seemed to be lost after performing the restore process, and the unencrypted database on the PC cannot be digested by WA latest versions by just putting it into the internal storage directly according to what other users commented. But, if you finally give up trying the restore process, it still could be relieving to know that you keep a local copy in the PC that can be viewed with another PC tool, at least you get a backup and the conversations are there, in a different way though. Maybe in the future there's a process that can restore them again to a different phone, and you could then merge the new chat database with the older backup with tools like Merjeapp.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has the solution
Kenora_I said:
This has the solution
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you but today I read this in the afternoon. This guy has solved it through whatsapp databases but I don't have a way go backup locally as I deleted my whatsapp databases two months ago. All I can do is recovering from google drive but the thing in this guy's scenario his chat was actually being restoring but I can't even do that since it says that I have an Internet connection problem
Hi all.
I have searched quite a bit and have found no answer to this problem yet.
So the phone is fresh from factory reset. Phone is pre-owned. Never connected to any wifi network and the wifi always remained off. Same goes with mobile data, never turned on. What's even more interesting is the sim is a prepaid simcard with no credits and no data. The simcard is intended to receive text and calls. (No cost to receive calls or sms). So data leak from that isn't possible either.
I have seen hidden downloaders from carrier that downloads bloatware by itself before. But this is the first time I've ever seen it self download apps without any data connection.
The built-in data usage counter still shows 0. The phone has never connected to anything. But now several bloatware apps just showed up. And those apps do work and storage used has increased. I noticed this around 24 hours after the reset.
Can someone please explain what is going on?
Do phones have secret functions to access data undetected by wifi or carrier?
The phone manufacturer is a one of the major brands and probably the largest that don't have access to GMS.
WishTime said:
Hi all.
I have searched quite a bit and have found no answer to this problem yet.
So the phone is fresh from factory reset. Phone is pre-owned. Never connected to any wifi network and the wifi always remained off. Same goes with mobile data, never turned on. What's even more interesting is the sim is a prepaid simcard with no credits and no data. The simcard is intended to receive text and calls. (No cost to receive calls or sms). So data leak from that isn't possible either.
I have seen hidden downloaders from carrier that downloads bloatware by itself before. But this is the first time I've ever seen it self download apps without any data connection.
The built-in data usage counter still shows 0. The phone has never connected to anything. But now several bloatware apps just showed up. And those apps do work and storage used has increased. I noticed this around 24 hours after the reset.
Can someone please explain what is going on?
Do phones have secret functions to access data undetected by wifi or carrier?
The phone manufacturer is a one of the major brands and probably the largest that don't have access to GMS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some devices have system apps that can be "uninstall", but they don't actually uninstall completely because the uninstalled apps are stored in a hidden partition. But, once uninstalled, if the device is factory reset, the apps automatically reinstall themselves from the hidden partition, similar to when resetting a PC to factory defaults. I had a tablet that would do this, the apps were definitely uninstalled but would reinstall from the hidden partition when I would factory reset the device, then I would have to uninstall those apps again. This would happen every time I did a factory reset.
Droidriven said:
Some devices have system apps that can be "uninstall", but they don't actually uninstall completely because the uninstalled apps are stored in a hidden partition. But, once uninstalled, if the device is factory reset, the apps automatically reinstall themselves from the hidden partition, similar to when resetting a PC to factory defaults. I had a taste would do this, the apps were definitely uninstalled but would reinstall from the hidden partition when I would factory reset the device, then I would have to uninstall those apps again. This would happen every time did a factory reset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the answer.
Yes I understand that part of uninstall. But the difference here is those apps never returned fresh from factory reset. It returned hours after using the phone. The first few hours of using the phone, those apps doesn't exist, doesn't even show up on the free space count. It wasn't until the next day those apps appear.
I did suspect what you said too, but I can't explain why it waited at least 18-24 hours delay before installing itself and show up on the phone. If that was the case, it should have appeared right after the reset.
WishTime said:
Thanks for the answer.
Yes I understand that part of uninstall. But the difference here is those apps never returned fresh from factory reset. It returned hours after using the phone. The first few hours of using the phone, those apps doesn't exist, doesn't even show up on the free space count. It wasn't until the next day those apps appear.
I did suspect what you said too, but I can't explain why it waited at least 18-24 hours delay before installing itself and show up on the phone. If that was the case, it should have appeared right after the reset.
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Click to collapse
Yes, I considered that also. The only other thing I could imagine is that maybe you installed something and then whatever that was installed the additional apps.
Questions of a hidden Google mesh network come to mind after reading this. I guess it's theoretically possible via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth between devices. I don't know.
So after trying to gather more information.
I believe it is installed from some "hidden partition" by some hidden app installer.
The reason is.
1. No data of what so ever is connected.
2. The installed app version is old, as in few months before the official release.
What is intriguing is.
1. The delay before installing this app (and through an installer), rather than just install it fresh from reset.
2. It doesn't appear to be consuming and storage, as if this hidden partition cannot even be seen. Once the app appears, the storage usage increases.
zpunout said:
Questions of a hidden Google mesh network come to mind after reading this. I guess it's theoretically possible via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth between devices. I don't know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually believe it is a thing. I vaguely remember that my brand new iPhone detected and recommended my current location region without even inserting a simcard or connecting to wifi yet. The kicker is, phone was purchased in another country that is separated by vast ocean and several time zones.
To this day I still can't figure out how did the iPhone know that. I suspect that the wifi routers broadcast more than just SSID to any device that is not connected. Or it could be from another iPhone. Maybe some similar bluetooth tech that predates "Airtag". This was about 3-4 years ago, likely it was the X.
WishTime said:
So after trying to gather more information.
I believe it is installed from some "hidden partition" by some hidden app installer.
The reason is.
1. No data of what so ever is connected.
2. The installed app version is old, as in few months before the official release.
What is intriguing is.
1. The delay before installing this app (and through an installer), rather than just install it fresh from reset.
2. It doesn't appear to be consuming and storage, as if this hidden partition cannot even be seen. Once the app appears, the storage usage increases.
I actually believe it is a thing. I vaguely remember that my brand new iPhone detected and recommended my current location region without even inserting a simcard or connecting to wifi yet. The kicker is, phone was purchased in another country that is separated by vast ocean and several time zones.
To this day I still can't figure out how did the iPhone know that. I suspect that the wifi routers broadcast more than just SSID to any device that is not connected. Or it could be from another iPhone. Maybe some similar bluetooth tech that predates "Airtag". This was about 3-4 years ago, likely it was the X.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Location is detetmined by more than just mobile data and Wi-Fi, it also uses the regular cellular part of the radio. The cellular part of the radio works even without an active SIM. That is why the emergency location and emergency call features work even without the device being activated on a network so that you can make emergency calls and your location can be tracked in emergency situations so that you can be found if you need help or rescue.