No updates for S21 Ultra on AT&T?

[Mdbills484]

Still on January security patch. Anyone else?

 

[mustang7757]

Hi,sounds like you have the Att issue , probably going have to Odin the update.

 

[RoseBud68]

Hi,sounds like you have the Att issue , probably going have to Odin the update.

Odin the update???? What does that mean?

 

[mustang7757]

Odin the update???? What does that mean?

It's a Samsung official tool.to flash firmwares when experiencing issues like you have .

 

[sulla1965]

Did you get the ultra from AT&T or unlocked. AT&T will only update when it feels the need too.Unlocked phones get updates according to Samsung's own update schedule. If you got it from AT&T, i suggest you just wait until they send out an update.

 

[bhatech]

No updates for S21 Ultra on AT&T?

Did you get the ultra from AT&T or unlocked. AT&T will only update when it feels the need too.Unlocked phones get updates according to Samsung's own update schedule. If you got it from AT&T, i suggest you just wait until they send out an update.

The US unlocked models don’t get updates according to Samsung schedule since the US carriers still have to certify the update on US unlocked models. So yeah Samsung has no control and still have to bend over to US carriers.

Granted on the US unlocked models, once it’s certified for a carrier then you can just insert even an inactive sim of that carrier and pull the update even if you are on different carrier. But if you are just using the unlocked model on a particular carrier, then that carrier has to certify the update before Samsung pushes the update to your phone.

That’s why you will see even on the US Unlocked model updates pushed at different times depending on which sim you have. For example if you Verizon you may get update today but T-Mobile may not certify until one more week then you’ll have to wait if you have a T-Mobile sim in your unlocked model.

 

[Mdbills484]

Did you get the ultra from AT&T or unlocked. AT&T will only update when it feels the need too.Unlocked phones get updates according to Samsung's own update schedule. If you got it from AT&T, i suggest you just wait until they send out an update.

It's an AT&T branded phone I bought from Samsung. I find it hard to believe they haven't updated since January.

 

[cohoman]

It's an AT&T branded phone I bought from Samsung. I find it hard to believe they haven't updated since January.

I have an AT&T branded phone that I bought from Samsung also, and it had the December update (as of last month) until I manually updated it to the latest firmware using the Odin software. I've chatted with AT&T many, many times now and they just can't get their system fixed to send me an OTA firmware update. From what I've read in other forums this a known issue with AT&T that is tied to a person's account.

 

[mustang7757]

I have an AT&T branded phone that I bought from Samsung also, and it had the December update (as of last month) until I manually updated it to the latest firmware using the Odin software. I've chatted with AT&T many, many times now and they just can't get their system fixed to send me an OTA firmware update. From what I've read in other forums this a known issue with AT&T that is tied to a person's account.

It's been ongoing issue for Att branded samsung since s8 models as far as I remember.

 

[Mdbills484]

It's been ongoing issue for Att branded samsung since s8 models as far as I remember.

I've had every galaxy on ATT since the 3 and never had this problem.

 

[mustang7757]

I've had every galaxy on ATT since the 3 and never had this problem.

I've helped countless members here that been on Att that did !

 

[ironass]

I've had every galaxy on ATT since the 3 and never had this problem.

This is a well known issue across a range of devices on AT&T who push their own updates out rather than using Samsung.

See this thread on the AT&T forum which mentions that this is a longstanding problem with AT&T...

https://forums.att.com/conversations/samsung/samsung-s20-wont-update/5f00478ec17a06434ce9c141

 

[sulla1965]

Re: No updates for S21 Ultra on AT&T?

The US unlocked models don’t get updates according to Samsung schedule since the US carriers still have to certify the update on US unlocked models. So yeah Samsung has no control and still have to bend over to US carriers.

Granted on the US unlocked models, once it’s certified for a carrier then you can just insert even an inactive sim of that carrier and pull the update even if you are on different carrier. But if you are just using the unlocked model on a particular carrier, then that carrier has to certify the update before Samsung pushes the update to your phone.

That’s why you will see even on the US Unlocked model updates pushed at different times depending on which sim you have. For example if you Verizon you may get update today but T-Mobile may not certify until one more week then you’ll have to wait if you have a T-Mobile sim in your unlocked model.

I don't think that is correct. The unlocked s21 direct from Samsung gets updates regardless of carrier. Same reason people say not to get the oneplus from t-mobile but get the unlocked one direct from oneplus. Or suggest you flash the unlocked firmware which then bypasses t-mobile.

If you get the s21 from a carrier, then yeah you will be subject to your carriers update procedures.

 

[bhatech]

Re: No updates for S21 Ultra on AT&T?

I don't think that is correct. The unlocked s21 direct from Samsung gets updates regardless of carrier. Same reason people say not to get the oneplus from t-mobile but get the unlocked one direct from oneplus. Or suggest you flash the unlocked firmware which then bypasses t-mobile.

If you get the s21 from a carrier, then yeah you will be subject to your carriers update procedures.

I have gotten every US unlocked Galaxy and Note that's been sold by Samsung till now, so I can tell you how is works

Are you in the US and get the US unlocked models?

And also I have gotten every Oneplus US unlocked phones. Oneplus does push updates directly on their phones without any carrier involvement. At least till date they have.

With Samsung US unlocked models that's not the case, that's probably because Samsung works closely with US carriers and has their devices certified to work on all carriers as opposed to Oneplus. Could be variety of other reasons since Samsung isn't going to come and tell us why that's the case.

And finally, even Pixel devices in the US goes thru the same carrier certification process and many times updates to even Google store unlocked Pixel phones to T-Mobile are delayed because TMobile certified them late.

Believe me I have been only buying US Unlocked phones forever and know how this works

 

[mustang7757]

Re: No updates for S21 Ultra on AT&T?

I have gotten every US unlocked Galaxy and Note that's been sold by Samsung till now, so I can tell you how is works

Are you in the US and get the US unlocked models?

And also I have gotten every Oneplus US unlocked phones. Oneplus does push updates directly on their phones without any carrier involvement. At least till date they have.

With Samsung US unlocked models that's not the case, that's probably because Samsung works closely with US carriers and has their devices certified to work on all carriers as opposed to Oneplus.

And finally, even Pixel devices in the US goes thru the same carrier certification process and many times updates to Pixel phones to T-Mobile are delayed because TMobile certified them late.

Believe me I have been only buying US Unlocked phones forever and know how this works

Pretty much spot on

 

[amyf27]

I have factory unlocked and am on March security

 

[lcs101]

I'm one of a number of people who have had multiple Samsung phones on AT&T that never received any OTA updates, including my latest (AT&T branded Note 10). Unfortunately, I couldn't use Odin because I have a Mac. Samsung told me it was AT&T's fault, and AT&T told me it was Samsung's fault. Unfortunately the only way I was able to get regular OTA updates was to get the phone unlocked and leave AT&T. The only other way I found was taking it to ubreakifix to flash it, but doing that every time wouldn't have exactly been convenient.

I know this isn't helpful, but just thought it was relevant to share. Even though it is a small minority of phones/accounts, as Mustang pointed out, this is an issue AT&T has had for a number of years. They have known about it (plenty of discussion about it on their own help forums) and seem to still have not have fixed after all this time. They clearly don't care about it.

(I also recognize you could be having a different issue, and for your sake I hope it is, and you can figure it out)

 

[cohoman]

I've read in forum postings that some ATT users will insert an old SIM card from a different carrier (Verizon or T-Mobile) and the updates would start rolling in. So, I bought a 3-pack of SIMs which you can activate for a monthly plan for ATT, Verizon, and T-Mobile. It cost $1.00, so I thought I'd give it a try. Unfortunately, these SIM cards didn't seem to work so far as OTA updates.

In the end, I resorted to using Odin to install the firmware update manually. I also use a Mac, but luckily I also have access to a small Windows system at home.

 

[mustang7757]

I've read in forum postings that some ATT users will insert an old SIM card from a different carrier (Verizon or T-Mobile) and the updates would start rolling in. So, I bought a 3-pack of SIMs which you can activate for a monthly plan for ATT, Verizon, and T-Mobile. It cost $1.00, so I thought I'd give it a try. Unfortunately, these SIM cards didn't seem to work so far as OTA updates.

In the end, I resorted to using Odin to install the firmware update manually. I also use a Mac, but luckily I also have access to a small Windows system at home.

Yes Odin is great tool .

 

[joeldf]

I feel lucky not to have experienced this issue with my AT&T Samsungs. But hanging out on the AT&T support forums has certain made me aware of the problem.

AT&T and Samsung blaming each other sounds normal, but AT&T knows they are the ones that control the OS rollout to the phones they sell.

However, as best some of us can tell, it seems the issue is that AT&T does not always get the right IMEI in their back-end OS distribution system. The account system may have it right, but somehow it gets lost on the back end, causing a break where the phone just isn't seen to ever get the OS. That's possibly why even if you get tech support to force sending the OS, it still doesn't get to the phone - possible IMEI mis-match. This is all speculation, but AT&T sure ain't trying to figure out the problem.

It also could be why unlocked phones have problems as well with AT&T.

If using Odin is not possible, you could try to find the nearest uBreakiFix store. They can usually directly upgrade the OS. But you'll have to do a backup as their process usually wipes the system memory to factory defaults.