KitKat is Here for the Verizon Galaxy S3

[GSDer]

Welcome to the forums!

I can't send text messages or receive them since I installed the update.

Do you mean SMS (regular text) or MMS (text + attachment; or group messages)?
Are you using the stock Messaging app?
Does your Status bar show the normal cellular signal icon (the triangle of rising bars, with some filled in)? How many bars?
Can you make regular phone calls?

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[StingrayJG]

I just had the update pushed through to my phone this past friday 6/27 and things we're going ok for me, didn't really notice too many earth-shaking differences, but this morning I had a problem with my phone that I never had before.
(I can't definitively pin this issue on the update but the timing can be considered suspicious.)
My phone was attached to a charger and was at 100% charge. I took it off the charging wire and brought it to my nightstand and went to bed. This has been my routine since owning the phone. Usually by the next morning, the phone still has 90+% charge and may have some email, text, or other notifications on it depending. Well, I just followed that same routine last night and when I woke up this morning, I rolled over, grabbed the phone, attempted to turn on the screen, and the phone was powered off. Hmmm. That's unusual. I didn't think too much of it since on my home PC sometimes on microsoft "update tuesday" I'll come home and my computer has turned off on it's own but it was due to a critical update being pushed through. So I thought maybe the same thing might've happened to my phone overnight and I just have to turn it back on and everything will resume being fine. Not the case. When I powered it back on, power was the problem. I only had 3% battery life left! As soon as the screen came back on, a break message warning me that the phone was almost dead and to plug into a charging device right away was on the top of the screen. This has NEVER happened to me before. So in the span of just sitting on a nightstand for about 6+ hours idle with the screen off, it went from 100% to 3% where every other time it never fell below 90+% doing the same thing. Right now I have it charging while powered off to hopefully expedite getting it fully charged back up.
Like I said, I don't really have a smoking gun that can fully pin this on something to do with the update, other than the circumstantial coincidence of it happening only 3 days after the update pushing through. Just wondering if something similar happened to anyone out of the blue since the update where it might be a known issue or not.
And to be fair, I got this phone as part of the initial Verizon pre-order debut of the S3 so it's knocking on the door of being 2yrs old with near constant use (fairly light use, but almost constantly powered on is what I mean) so for all I know, the original battery may be just plain old quitting on me. Not sure yet. I guess I'll have to see how the phone handles this next full charge I'm in the process I'm putting on it now.
Any thoughts, advice, or similar experiences out there with this issue??

 

[GSDer]

Any thoughts, advice?

Boot the phone into Recovery mode, wipe the cache and perform a Factory Reset (obviously make sure you backup anything important first).

Any time squirrely things start happening after an OTA that's the best course of action; that way you don't spend the next month fiddling with this strange app behavior or that odd reboot or the other weird battery drain. YMMV.

Sent from my rooted, debloated, deodexed Sinclair ZX-80 running CM -0.001 using Tapatalk

 

[StingrayJG]

Thanks for the advice.
I've had the phone on charge most of the day so far but I will soon be approaching some time where I will be out and about without plugs around so that will be the next test where I will be eager to see its behavior battery-wise.
Before I carry out any of your recommendations I want to have a body of work to look at and see if it was just some kind of anomaly or if its a chronic recurring pattern/problem. If it keeps draining at that ridiculous pace, I'll obviously have to act on it somehow.
Thanks again.

 

[SvenOops]

Anyone experiencing issues with WIFI not turning on? I have a buddy with an SGS3 on Verizon (I have ATT) he said his WIFI will not turn on. when trying to turn on it seems to lock up the phone, then wifi turns off again.

I am dealing with the WIFI and Mobile Data turning themselves off intermittantly. I was dealing with battery issues before the update, so was looking forward to KitKat somehow magically fixing that. The battery seems to last longer, but it could be related to the WIFI and Mobile Data being off so much. I currently have the phone in Safe Mode and am monitoring it. All seems to be working properly in Safe Mode, but it seemed to be working right during this time of the day yesterday. Possibly Battery Defender is the culprit, but I disabled it yesterday, can it still be trying to work if I disabled it??? Any suggestions??

 

[Jean Pikowsky]

Received the kitkat update on my gs3 and now my email wont sync. All sync options are on. Would appreciate any help.

 

[GSDer]

Welcome to the forums!

Possibly Battery Defender is the culprit, but I disabled it

More likely than just possibly. You should clear cache, clear data, uninstall it and reboot (just to be on the safe side).

If the phone works fine in Safe mode then it's definitely a 3rd party application causing your problem - then it's just a matter of identifying which one (with battery savers at the top of the list).

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[fiat3192]

T-Mobile s3 hasn't got 4.4 yet

Posted via Android Central App

 

[MrDoh]

Thanks for the advice.
I've had the phone on charge most of the day so far but I will soon be approaching some time where I will be out and about without plugs around so that will be the next test where I will be eager to see its behavior battery-wise.
Before I carry out any of your recommendations I want to have a body of work to look at and see if it was just some kind of anomaly or if its a chronic recurring pattern/problem. If it keeps draining at that ridiculous pace, I'll obviously have to act on it somehow.
Thanks again.

You can use one or two of the battery usage apps to see what's causing the battery drain that you're having. BetterBattery Stats is the best one, Wakelock Detector is pretty good, and for apps, GSAM Battery Monitor is pretty good. I think that I'd take the other approach, though, factory reset and clearing the cache to get rid of stuff left over after the update process before I spent time looking at what was causing the battery drain. Clearing the cache and doing a factory reset is likely to solve your problems. But that's just me, I like a clean start so that I'm just looking at what ought to be there when I'm working on phone problems.

 

[shardede]

I have found three annoying issues.

1. Can no longer toggle Mobile Hotspot via widget. I was using Settings Extended, have tried Power Toggles and several others. It briefly starts to turn on, then turns back off. I have to open the App to turn it on.

2. GPS & Locations combined. Before, I could leave non-GPS locations on, so my Weather apps, Google searches, etc. would know where I am. Then I could easily toggle GPS on/off. Now, it's all or nothing, so I have to leave Locations on, then open up the settings and change to High Accuracy if I want to use GPS. Again, what used to be toggled now requires extra steps. I know someone said that the GPS isn't used unless an app wants to, but the point is that I don't want GPS using up battery if the other location services are good enough... but I want to quickly turn it on when I use Maps.

3. Messenger box in lock screen. This used to be optional, now you get a box no matter what. You can turn off "preview" but this also turns it off in your Notifications bar. I ended up downloading a different messenging app and changing the default to that one instead.

 

[donaldjl]

I've had my update about a week. Not a fan of the white status bar fonts, but can live with it. I use Image 2 Wallpaper for selecting wallpapers and lockscreen backgrounds, and select for the status bar to be excluded. Black background, white text and icons, easy to see.

Battery life seems a bit better now. Haven't noticed any improved smoothness or speed.

I have found three annoying issues...

3. Messenger box in lock screen. This used to be optional, now you get a box no matter what. You can turn off "preview" but this also turns it off in your Notifications bar. I ended up downloading a different messenging app and changing the default to that one instead.

This is my big pet peeve right now. The point of a lockscreen is to enhance security and privacy. If there are notifications announcing who's sending you messages and calls, that defeats the purpose. From what I've seen about the web, it's a new forced "feature" with no way to turn it off. Is Samsung trying to be the next Apple? ("We know what's best for you.") Sadly, Lockscreen Policy, which I used previously, doesn't appear to be on the slate for the 4.4 update.

I'd use a third party messaging app, but it does it for phone calls as well. I tried NiLS, but that doesn't seem to be able to shut it all down and leave me with just my lockscreen. I know you can technically turn off the previews, but you' still have notifications, now saying simply, "You have a message." "You have two missed calls." "You have a voice mail message." I still see the occasional notification, in spite of poring through the NiLS options and settings. Is a complete third party lock screen necessary just to provide some privacy and security that Samsung deemed unneccesary? Not impressed with this move at all.

 

[chroma601]

Since Kitkat update Wednesday morning, my phone randomly stats flashing the LED and beeping twice in the headphones. There is nothing in the notification area to explain why it's doing this. It's well charged, not having any other issues. All I can do to stop it is reboot, but a few hours later it does it again. Help appreciated. Would prefer to avoid a factory reset and the attendant time to recover, but if I must...

 

[GSDer]

but if I must...

You must...

I suppose you could try rebooting into Recovery mode and clearing the system cache and see if that helps; you'll definitely want to do that anyway if you decide to Factory Reset.

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[TBoltShock83839]

Can anyone confirm that FoxFi is still working after update?

 

[Davidoo]

Can anyone confirm that FoxFi is still working after update?

I had FoxFi before the update and it still works fine after. No new lockscreen or anything needed. When you start FoxFi there is now one more step you have to take to get it started. After starting the FoxFi key, it prompts you to go to the Hotspot settings and manually turn it on also. The only other thing is that when you turn on or restart the phone there is a warning about the FoxFi certificate, but you just clear the warning and it doesn't return. I also wanted to know about this because others said I would have to put in some type of lock screen or PIN password, but that did not happen for me. I think that only happens if you already have KitKat then install FoxFi. Since I already had FoxFi than updated I didn't have to do anything.

 

[TBoltShock83839]

I had FoxFi before the update and it still works fine after. No new lockscreen or anything needed. When you start FoxFi there is now one more step you have to take to get it started. After starting the FoxFi key, it prompts you to go to the Hotspot settings and manually turn it on also. The only other thing is that when you turn on or restart the phone there is a warning about the FoxFi certificate, but you just clear the warning and it doesn't return. I also wanted to know about this because others said I would have to put in some type of lock screen or PIN password, but that did not happen for me. I think that only happens if you already have KitKat then install FoxFi. Since I already had FoxFi than updated I didn't have to do anything.

Thanks, man. Will update now.

 

[Davidoo]

Thanks, man. Will update now.

Good luck, hope it still works for you. These things are finicky as I've seen 2 of them sitting side by side with the same system do different things.

 

[Jowlah]

The more I think about it, with a lot of people complaining about the bugs in the 4.4.3 update, what do you think are the odds that 4.4.4 gets to the GS3? A lot of phones that got 4.4.3 seem to be in the running for the 4.4.4 update, like the HTC One (M8). What say you?

 

[jlost]

No way. This phone is too old

 

[_YoKolorMeBadd]

The more I think about it, with a lot of people complaining about the bugs in the 4.4.3 update, what do you think are the odds that 4.4.4 gets to the GS3? A lot of phones that got 4.4.3 seem to be in the running for the 4.4.4 update, like the HTC One (M8). What say you?

The only reason why the M8 is possibly getting 4.4.4 is because it's relatively new. The S3 is a 2 year old device, most devices don't get anymore updates after the 2 year mark.