Question Bizarre problem with Android phone

[StanG]

My wife is an RN working in a Critical Care/ICU unit. Whenever she's at work, her phone keeps restarting... up to 7-10 times per shift!
Sometimes it'll reboot and go back to working and sometimes it'll get stuck with Japanese characters on the screen. She has to click on English and then restart.
So here's the bizarre part:
It ONLY happens when she's at the hospital! It never happens at home, in stores, in the car, etc. Since it only happens at the hospital, we ruled out malware/virus, system update, memory, etc.
I'm thinking it might be more than one wi-fi signal in the hospital that's conflicting with her connection, or maybe it's the telemetry?
None of her co-workers have this problem with their Androids. Hers is a OnePlus Nord 100
Any idea what's going on?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Very odd! It may be a bit challenging, but tell her to try testing the phone in Safe Mode: https://www.hardreset.info/devices/oneplus/oneplus-nord-n100/safe-mode/

If this isn't feasible while at work due to needing to use 3rd party apps, then ask her to go to her workplace when she's not officially on shift and test Safe Mode then.

 

[Mooncatt]

...sometimes it'll get stuck with Japanese characters on the screen.

Has that ever happened with an intentional reboot, or only with these mysterious reboots?

Something else to try other than safe mode would be to leave the phone some place stationary. I understand this can be easier said than done, but I'm wondering if something about her movements are pushing the buttons just right to cause a reboot (similar to pocket dialling).

 

[StanG]

Has that ever happened with an intentional reboot, or only with these mysterious reboots?

Something else to try other than safe mode would be to leave the phone some place stationary. I understand this can be easier said than done, but I'm wondering if something about her movements are pushing the buttons just right to cause a reboot (similar to pocket dialling).

Thanks for your reply. Never happens with intentional reboot. Happens when it's stationary as well as when she's carrying it. Also, it doesn't matter where she is in the ICU and it happens all over the hospital.

 

[StanG]

Welcome to Android Central! Very odd! It may be a bit challenging, but tell her to try testing the phone in Safe Mode: https://www.hardreset.info/devices/oneplus/oneplus-nord-n100/safe-mode/

If this isn't feasible while at work due to needing to use 3rd party apps, then ask her to go to her workplace when she's not officially on shift and test Safe Mode then.

Thanks for the welcome and the reply... I'll have her give it a try. However, if it were a 3rd party app, wouldn't the phone be affected everywhere and not just the hospital?

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm just wondering if there's some app that's primarily active while she's working there -- maybe a work-related app that's causing the phone to freak out?

 

[StanG]

I'm just wondering if there's some app that's primarily active while she's working there -- maybe a work-related app that's causing the phone to freak out?

Good thought, but no, she doesn't have a work-related app on her phone and the apps she does have are active both at work and away.

 

[B. Diddy]

Did she get the phone directly from OnePlus or from her carrier? Or was it an import? And are you certain they're Japanese characters that appear, or are they Chinese? If she's seeing Chinese characters on a completely black background, that would probably be the fastboot or recovery menu on a phone that was possibly originally intended for the Chinese market. That would also suggest that the phone is having some pretty major glitches.

Still worth trying Safe Mode, to narrow down the problem to something that she might have installed vs something wrong with the system or the hardware. If it persists in Safe Mode, she may want to look into contacting OnePlus for warranty repair/replacement (if possible), or discussing this with her carrier to see if they might be able to replace it.

 

[StanG]

Did she get the phone directly from OnePlus or from her carrier? Or was it an import? And are you certain they're Japanese characters that appear, or are they Chinese? If she's seeing Chinese characters on a completely black background, that would probably be the fastboot or recovery menu on a phone that was possibly originally intended for the Chinese market. That would also suggest that the phone is having some pretty major glitches.

Still worth trying Safe Mode, to narrow down the problem to something that she might have installed vs something wrong with the system or the hardware. If it persists in Safe Mode, she may want to look into contacting OnePlus for warranty repair/replacement (if possible), or discussing this with her carrier to see if they might be able to replace it.

Interesting! Truthfully, I assumed they were Japanese, but they could be Chinese since they are both so close. The phone was bought from MetroPCS (T-mobile). I don't know if they sell grey market phones, but it seems to me that if it was a Chinese market phone, she would be having issues everywhere and not just at the Hospital.
We've even taken road trip vacations from Texas to Upper Michigan and back with that phone and it's never rebooted anywhere else. That's why this is such a mind boggling problem.

 

[B. Diddy]

This may be way out in left field, but I wonder if there's some significant RF signals where she works in the ICU that might be causing serious interference with the phone and causing it to reboot. I've seen posts and articles about how RF can do this with IP phones, but can't find anything definitive about smartphones. And the reason why it's affecting her phone but not other people's phones could be due to how the phone is assembled -- maybe there's inadequate shielding?

Or is the ICU pretty close to the MRI machine? Strong magnetic fields might cause similar issues.

 

[winmod21]

This may be way out in left field, but I wonder if there's some significant RF signals where she works in the ICU that might be causing serious interference with the phone and causing it to reboot. I've seen posts and articles about how RF can do this with IP phones, but can't find anything definitive about smartphones. And the reason why it's affecting her phone but not other people's phones could be due to how the phone is assembled -- maybe there's inadequate shielding?

Or is the ICU pretty close to the MRI machine? Strong magnetic fields might cause similar issues.

That ↑... is exactly what I've suspected since reading the OP's discussion starting post. I've witnessed the same and similar phone irregularities and lost signals (most common), as well as reboots (a lot less common though), over the last 13~14 years, while my wife has been working in and around a large hospital complex,
although always depending on the phones' location within the hospital complex.
As I've understood it, all caused by the massive RF fields in and around hospital complexes.

 

[StanG]

This may be way out in left field, but I wonder if there's some significant RF signals where she works in the ICU that might be causing serious interference with the phone and causing it to reboot. I've seen posts and articles about how RF can do this with IP phones, but can't find anything definitive about smartphones. And the reason why it's affecting her phone but not other people's phones could be due to how the phone is assembled -- maybe there's inadequate shielding?

Or is the ICU pretty close to the MRI machine? Strong magnetic fields might cause similar issues.

I've thought about RF interference as well, but there's no MRI on site and she's not in the vacinity of CT scanners.
Could it be that there are multiple routers and somehow her phone is trying to scan between them to grab the strongest signal and makes it crash?

 

[StanG]

That ↑... is exactly what I've suspected since reading the OP's discussion starting post. I've witnessed the same and similar phone irregularities and lost signals (most common), as well as reboots (a lot less common though), over the last 13~14 years, while my wife has been working in and around a large hospital complex,
although always depending on the phones' location within the hospital complex.
As I've understood it, all caused by the massive RF fields in and around hospital complexes.

I've thought this as well, but not sure how to eliminate the issue other than getting a new phone.

 

[winmod21]

~
Could it be that there are multiple routers and somehow her phone is trying to scan between them to grab the strongest signal and makes it crash?

That's what I've suspected, after noticing that the poor reception worsens the deeper one ventures into the inner parts of a hospital. With reception greatly improving near windows & doors.

Aside from typical hospital building materials not being conducive to good cellphone signal transmissions, I've also wondered if some hospitals employ cellphone signal blocking interference in order to prevent electromagnetic interference (EMI) emitting from cellphones in close proximity to hospital electronic equipment (see article below), such as ventilators and pacemakers and dialysis machines, and etc.
In fact, the more I think about it, I was convinced of that approx 12~13 years ago, and if I recall correctly, I think a hospital employee told me something about cellphone signals either being blocked and/or not working in several areas within the hospital.

Massive amounts of articles and hypotheses— if you search something like: ' reasons for poor cellphone reception in hospitals? '
E.g.—
"In a Dutch study, published Wednesday in the online journal Critical Care, researchers measured the impact of electromagnetic interference (EMI) from cell phone use on hospital equipment such as ventilators and pacemakers. Signals that were equal in strength to those given off by second- and third-generation mobile phones significantly interfered with medical devices, and the study's authors categorized 75% of those incidents as "hazardous," meaning that the interference had a direct impact on patient health, or "significant," indicating that it distracted health care providers. Hazardous incidents included the sudden switching off or restarting of machines — which could mean disruption of a patient's feeding tube, ventilator, pacemaker or dialysis machine — and most events occurred when mobile phones were within 3 cm of critical-care equipment.

Dr. Erik van Lieshout, a critical-care physician at the University of Amsterdam's Academic Medical Center, and his team were prompted to begin their study last year, when they wanted to use 3G mobile phone technology to monitor mobile intensive care units remotely. They asked a Dutch telecom company if it would be safe to use UTMS, or Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, technology — which, like W-CDMA in the U.S., facilitates data transfer — near medical devices. The company didn't know. So van Lieshout and his colleagues decided to evaluate the impact of cell signals themselves; they tested the signals' effect on 61 medical devices and found that 26 (or 43%) were disrupted by EMI. Most incidents were caused by a GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) signal, a mobile data service that handles heavy-duty data transfer in international GSM networks, used by companies such as Cingular/AT&T and T-Mobile."

 

[Windroid 2483]

Does your phone have that same problem at your wife's workplace? If not: You and she could exchange phones. That is: You give her your phone, and she gives you her phone.

 

[StanG]

Does your phone have that same problem at your wife's workplace? If not: You and she could exchange phones. That is: You give her your phone, and she gives you her phone.

We both have the same model phones, but not all the same apps so that would be an interesting experiment. I may just visit there for a couple hours with my phone and see what happens. We couldn't really switch, because her phone has Doctors & co-workers contact numbers that she needs to text during shifts.