Why am I regularly being asked to connect to my cell network?

[Tall Mike 2145]

Relevant Background:

Hardware: Nexus 4, 8GB
OS: Stock Android 5.0.1


Specific Problem:

For about the past couple months, I have been getting random notifications about tapping to reconnect to the AT&T cell network (I'm on Straight Talk and use the AT&T network). I have experienced absolutely NO disruption of telco, SMS, MMS, or data services.

Attempted Resolutions:

Obviously, I have tapped on the prompt to connect to the network. I have power-cycled my phone, uninstalled recently-added apps, flushed cached data, re-seated my SIM card, and wiped my phone. Today, I downloaded and re-flashed the stock factory 5.0.1 image data, did the relevant updates, but have NOT yet reinstalled ANY 3rd party (including from Google) apps. In other words, updates aside, my phone is as stock as it can get.

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Since my phone still works perfectly, I'm mostly posting this to see if anyone else is seeing this sort of behavior.

Thanks in advance, folks!

 

[DLK1]

Sounds like you have tried most everything, did this start with the upgrade to 5.0.1? I have read in other post that 5.1 is a big improvement over 5.0.1 it the way of stronger and solid signal for cell radio. You may have to wait until 5.1 is released for the N4. Or perhaps, if you are looking for something to do, you may want to try rolling back to KitKat 4.4.4.

 

[Tall Mike 2145]

Huh... I hadn't thought about that. I don't think so, because I've had 5.0.1 since it was released for the N4, and this is more recent. I guess I could roll back to either 5.0 or 4.4.4 to test it. I have done some pretty exhaustive Google searches and nobody else (that I can find, at least) has talked about it, so I was wondering if it could be a hardware issue.

Of course, the problem then is that if it were a hardware issue, how is it that there's no physical symptoms (disruptions in various services) and just that I'm being told to connect? Anyhow... I'll see what I can do.

 

[DLK1]

Please let the forum know what you try and what you come up with. If you roll back to 5.0 or 4.4.4, let us know the results.

 

[Tall Mike 2145]

UPDATE:

Ok, well, sort of an update. I have not tried going back to either 5.0 or 4.4.4, mostly because of being busy. However, I did flash my phone to 5.1 the other day, and my phone has been fairly well-behaved until today, when it started the same nonsense again.

I have a feeling it is somehow connected with Google's location service. I don't have any particular troubleshooting to back that up; it's merely a "gut thing".

I've had the situation in the past where my phone didn't know what to do when connected to a wireless network that had no external (i.e. Internet) connection. And what with 5.x capable of reaching out to every Tom, ****, and Harry wireless network out there to get location data even when wireless is nominally "off", that's the thing that's niggling me in the back of my head.

I have location turned off completely now, though I did before, too, so... not really sure what else to try. I guess the next logical step might be to get a new SIM card from Straight Talk, but I shudder at the prospect of having to deal with their tech support.

I wish there was an easy way for the nonspecialist like me to look at some kind of log file. Maybe I could find something that looked odd. Dunno...

 

[DLK1]

I don't know where you are located, but maybe you could just do a walk-in to the carrier store and ask for a replacement SIM's. Post back would like to hear the solution.