Samsung software issue with cell phone

[rhody]

I just replaced my old Nokia cell phone with a new Samsung phone about two months ago. I loved the voice quality and reliability of my old Nokia, but they don't make them anymore, so I settled for a Samsung with a small keyboard. I use TMobile and in general have been OK with their service, etc... The new phone is only two and a half months old. Intermittently I have been having connect issues. I can hear the party I have just connected to, but they can't hear me. Today almost 60% of my calls are doing this. Took it to TMobile and they are getting me a replacement tomorrow. My question is, without changing or downloading new software to my phone, how can it suddenly get much much worse ? Lastly, TMobile said about 10% of these phones in this model line do this. This is the experience of the Tech that I spoke with today.

Has anyone here had the same thing happen to them ? If you have are there any workarounds you found that help. I was told to switch to speaker phone on connect to see if that would overcome the glitch.

Finally, we don't have to worry about hackers or terrorists disrupting our communications grid or devices. It seems that the cell manufacturers already have that angle covered.

Rhody...

 

[Proton Soup]

hackers are covered? when did that happen? there's a huge scandal going on in great britain atm about phone hacking.

as for how something can suddenly go wrong, remember these things are just computers. i had my samsung phone lose the front display for no good reason. at first, i thought it was just a hardware breakdown, but after removing the battery and re-attaching it, it came back. could be it just locked up and needs a reboot.

 

[rhody]

hackers are covered? when did that happen? there's a huge scandal going on in great britain atm about phone hacking.

as for how something can suddenly go wrong, remember these things are just computers. i had my samsung phone lose the front display for no good reason. at first, i thought it was just a hardware breakdown, but after removing the battery and re-attaching it, it came back. could be it just locked up and needs a reboot.

Proton,

Nope, the tech at TMobile has seen this behavior dozens of times on different model Samsung's. This isn't a internet phone and I haven't tried to hack into it, and hopefully no one from the outside has tried to hack into it either. The only other issue I have had is losing cell tower synch, and a simple reboot cures that. It used to happen to the Nokia I had before as well. I have had no display or button issues either. The phone has not been dropped or in any way abused.

Like I said before, I find it odd that the software (without being refreshed or updated) would suddenly start having issues, unless it has something to do with the memory that is also used for keeping my call logs, which obviously get bigger as time goes on, even though I remove them about once a month.

I am stumped and was hoping this super geeky intelligent crowd might have some insight. jhae2.718 if you are following this thread, any ideas ?

Rhody...

 

[ZapperZ]

You neglected to mention the type of phone you have. Which Samsung phone?

I have the T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II, and I haven't had any issue with phone quality, or have the same problem as yours.

Zz.

 

[rhody]

It was not marked on the case Zz, I called TMobile where I bought it, and it is called a Smiley.
I google imaged it, and the proper name is: smiley gravity 3 gravity t. I hope this link works.
It is the phone in the middle. Mine says T Mobile at the top versus Samsung.

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

My overnight replacement phone didn't make it to my house yesterday, hopefully today. The phone must know it is facing the shredder, because it has been behaving fine since the replacement was ordered, lol.

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

Follow up, it is not the phone, the dropped send channel is still happening, it is a network issue, my phone has only a single channel to handle send/receive and apparently there is a network issue. The tech's have my cell # and are going to run tower channel tests to determine if they can isolate the problem. I never had this problem, plus superior voice quality with my old Nokia phone that needed replacement because it was over 5 years old. I wish I had it back. Hopefully they will isolate and fix the issues. They will report in 48 hours, and in turn I will report back to you.

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

The Network techs never reported back, long story short, it happened again this evening and I am getting my old Sim Card replaced and repopulated with contacts for free. The Tech I spoke to said he is 70% sure this should solve the problem, saying there could be a physical connect problem with the Sim Card causing the dropped calls. We will see, I will let you know the outcome. Getting it replaced tomorrow. I find it odd that their are all levels of knowledge at TMobile, and depending on who you talk to, they will say it is something else, without ever mentioning the Sim Card. It is kind of like working with snake oil doctors, not a knowledgeable or reliable bunch to be sure. Even at the supervisor level the knowledge base is not consistent. It doesn't leave me with great confidence that they truly know what is wrong. I may eat my words, but I will have to have good service for a month or two before I am sure the problem is truly fixed.

Rhody...

 

[AlephZero]

It is kind of like working with snake oil doctors, not a knowledgeable or reliable bunch to be sure. Even at the supervisor level the knowledge base is not consistent. It doesn't leave me with great confidence that they truly know what is wrong.

I think you are missing the point about how large scale customer service operations work. They are not really bothered about finding out what is causing your particular problem. What they are doing is playing the percentages to fix the total set of problems they get as cheaply as possible. If on average the cheapest thing to do first is send everybody a new handset, that's the first thing they will do. If the new handset fixes the problem, nobody (including you) cares much what the problem actually was except from idle curiosity, but idle curiosity costs time and money.

If you have an oddball problem, you just have to work through the first N steps of the process till the only option left is talking to one of the few people who really does know how cellphones work.

Actually this isn't really so different from the way you probably solve your own problems. If some electrical gizmo doesn't work, the first things to check are always "is it plugged in", "is it switched on", etc .

 

[rhody]

The local TMobile store replaced my 2G sim card with a 3G one yesterday and copied all my contacts. When I bought the phone a couple of months ago, they asked if I wanted a new sim card unaware that they had gone to a new format, 3G. I said no at the time, unaware that they could copy the info to the new card. This is one of those cases where shoulda, coulda, woulda applies, but I think the staff should be advised without swapping for the latest sim card could result in connectivity issues with the phone, which I had. There, rant over. Let's see how this pans out. If I don't report back, assume all is well.

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

Almost a week has gone by since the 3G sim card replacement and no issues so far. I can lose a signal, but not when I call someone and they can't hear me, although I can hear them. So far so good. The redface smile will turn to a smile when a month goes by and no more one way connections.

Rhody...

 

[Pengwuino]

By the way, BOO SAMSUNG.

That is all.

 

[rhody]

By the way, BOO SAMSUNG.

That is all.

Not Samsung's fault Pengy, it is the misinformed or uninformed workers/management of my cell company, TMobile, now referred to as TDumbells, ring a ding ding.

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

It has been two weeks and not a single one way call lockup, I would say this problem is fixed.

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

It has been two weeks and not a single one way call lockup, I would say this problem is fixed.

Rhody...

ACK ! I spoke too soon. Eleven days after I said we are fine, I had 4 out of the last 6 calls be one way, frustrating. Phone is going back for replacement. I just found out that my "free" replacement was not free. I was charged thirty dollars by TMobile on my latest bill, that is going to get removed. The one way call connections came just like last time, coming in small clusters, very strange. I just want a safe reliable phone, is that too much to ask ?

Rhody...

 

[jhae2.718]

What model phone is it?

 

[rhody]

What model phone is it?

You may want to try an Android oriented forum. (I can't remember if xda-developers does support or not...)

Samsung Gravity Text... POS... I just spent over an hour on the phone with TMobile, finally got to a supervisor, the tech support staff are poorly trained and not consistent in followup or knowledge. That being said, they ran a network test trouble ticket, found nothing didn't follow through to let me know, now they have a service request, and are going to send tech's to my 7 mile tower radius with my type of phone and sim card and see if they can duplicate the intermittent one way connections, wife and daughter both have different samsung models, no issues, my previous Nokia, no issues plus superior voice quality compared to this piece of crap. I have supervisors name and badge # and I can contact, but have been promised that by Saturday I will be told if they have found a problem. They charged me a 20$ swap fee last time for my second phone with same issue. The supervisor assured my if they send me another phone I would not be charged the restock fee (basically the overnight FedEx fee to send me another phone). I have been let down multiple times, and am taking this woman supervisor at her word she would follow through. I have a feeling she will because of her time and sincerity on the phone. I will let you know how it works out. The weird thing is the one ways happen in bursts and clusters, once they start I get more than one fairly quickly. A hard thing to catch and detect, sort of like trying to detect the Higgs field, hehe... That is all for now. I have a headache.

Rhody...

 

[jhae2.718]

Seems like you're not alone: http://support.t-mobile.com/thread/9809

The "messaging" phones seem to be cheap pieces of s***.

 

[rhody]

Seems like you're not alone: http://support.t-mobile.com/thread/9809

The "messaging" phones seem to be cheap pieces of s***.

Thanks jh,

I will point the supervisor to this thread when she returns my call, or I will track her down and spare no mercy if she doesn't. Like I said I believe she will, and forward this on to her technical folks. Hunting for another tower once connected sort of makes sense, in that if the current channel isn't terminated too. We will see what the tech guys find.

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

After almost two weeks of hassle and talking to two supervisor's who never gave me status updates as promised, I need the dates/times and trouble logs from TMobile. They are unwilling to provide them, which I find annoying and appalling. The TMobile store may be able to see a sanitized version of the call logs to at least give me dates/times of my calls, but I will have to fill in the details. They don't have a replacement phone, just a gravity smiley which is cheaper and probably has the same issues without going to a smart phone and data plan. Second, since this POS phone is not reliable, they are unwilling to credit me in the event I do eventually find an upgrade. The new contract starts from the date you get your next phone.
There is an address, PO box where you can send a letter to complain, they do not allow email:

TMobile Wireless
PO Box 37380
Albequerque, NM 87176-7380

Attention: Customer Relations

At every step they have made getting information to and from them as difficult as humanly possible. Their customer business model for a huge corporation is broken, badly, no one is identified in official communications other than by the 7 digit employee ID, nor can they call or email or chat with them, this is stone age, or they are being difficult on purpose, I can't tell which. You can never be connected with the same person twice, and this means you have reiterate the same story time and again. Some reps are pleasant, some cold, some outright threatening, there is no consistent training and their knowledge is spotty at best and sometimes contradictory. I am getting no satisfaction from first level management support and contact above appears impossible, except through a formal letter by mail no less. I plan to pass along jh's link to prove this problem exists, has been reported and that no hardware or software fix has been attempted to address it, best to leave the poor consumer (me) hanging in the wind. One more thing, when they put you on hold and don't reconnect with you after four minutes, they automatically hang up ! This has happened two or three times, to make matters worse when you tell them, to unmute and reconnect so you don't get disconnected, a few folks I spoke with seemed annoyed, great place to work for, TMobile Bah... I hope they go the way of the dinosaur, with customer service like this, one can only hope.


Rhody...

 

[rhody]

Two months later and after all that hell that I was put through to try to get a phone that works, it appears that Samsung has discreetly fixed the software in the phone and pushed an update. I will never know, perhaps TMobile put some pressure on them because this problem was clearly documented by many users in many locations, and I am sure by many carriers of voice/data. I just wish it wasn't such a painful process. Large corporations can be such intractable beasts.

Rhody...