Help Request: "Sleep of Death"

[yapkuen]

Originally brought this up in the Bugless Beast thread, but it doesn't seem to be isolated to BB on my phone anymore, so I started a new thread to avoid jacking that thread.

In a nutshell, my Nexus goes into the "sleep of death" (power button won't wake phone, after 5-6 presses of the power button or holding it, it reboots) unpredictably. On the first JB build of BB, it happened once every day or two. As I went through the BB nightlies the frequency went down to about once a week, but still persisted. I tried a couple of clean installs of the 8/7 Bugless Beast nightly with no luck. Then I tried a couple of other kernels (Vicious' stock JB kernel, and Popcorn), also with no luck - Vicious' stock kernel did it within a few hours of flashing, and Popcorn within 24 hours. I also tried switching ROMs (ran the 8/27 CM10 nightly for about a day) and that was even worse - it was ok the first 12 hours or so, but after that it started booting into the sleep of death.

Never had this problem on any ICS ROMs, so I'm thinking about going back, but I really like the smoother transitions in JB. Any suggestions for getting to the bottom of this would be much appreciated.

 

[digitalslacker]

Originally brought this up in the Bugless Beast thread, but it doesn't seem to be isolated to BB on my phone anymore, so I started a new thread to avoid jacking that thread.

In a nutshell, my Nexus goes into the "sleep of death" (power button won't wake phone, after 5-6 presses of the power button or holding it, it reboots) unpredictably. On the first JB build of BB, it happened once every day or two. As I went through the BB nightlies the frequency went down to about once a week, but still persisted. I tried a couple of clean installs of the 8/7 Bugless Beast nightly with no luck. Then I tried a couple of other kernels (Vicious' stock JB kernel, and Popcorn), also with no luck - Vicious' stock kernel did it within a few hours of flashing, and Popcorn within 24 hours. I also tried switching ROMs (ran the 8/27 CM10 nightly for about a day) and that was even worse - it was ok the first 12 hours or so, but after that it started booting into the sleep of death.

Never had this problem on any ICS ROMs, so I'm thinking about going back, but I really like the smoother transitions in JB. Any suggestions for getting to the bottom of this would be much appreciated.

I've seen this on BB very occasionally, but not with the frequency that you are. Maybe once a a week..but probably less than that. I'm running BB with the latest franco nightly (or Milestone5).

Once a week, I think, isn't fun but perfectly acceptable when you are running non-stock software. Just the risk you take pushing things. If you need/want more stability than that then stock is your best option. But, that answer wouldn't fly with me, can't go back to JB at this point so here are some other thoughts.

Is it possible that an app you have installed is causing it? If no one else, that I've seen, is reporting that problem with the frequency you are seeing it and it's following you around from ROM to ROM, the only other option I think, aside from bad hardware, is an app. Maybe try a clean build with the basic apps installed and see if it stops?

Have you tried the latest leaked OTA yet? Keeping in mind that JB still isn't officially released on VZW so trying the latest version out there might bring with it a fix. VZW tests the crap outa stuff and I'd like to think something like this they've found and fixed. We should get something for waiting months for JB, right?

Hope that helps!

 

[dmmarck]

With SODs, there are usually two culprits--a rogue app or the kernel. I know you've tried a bunch of kernels, but what are your settings? Just something to think about...

Another thing--when's the last time you did an absolutely 100% cleaning--including the SDcard? You'd be shocked at how many...ghosts...build up over time.

 

[yapkuen]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'm wondering if my problem isn't somehow related to how the phone is handling 3G/4G/WiFi transitions. I've noticed that many (but not all) of the times I get the SOD, when the phone reboots the date and time have reverted back to 4:00pm on December 31, as if the phone isn't able to pull accurate date/time data from the network (why it picks 4pm on 12/31 I have no clue). And it happens a lot in my office, where I seem to have trouble hanging onto 4G and often use WiFi to maintain persistent network access.

 

[digitalslacker]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'm wondering if my problem isn't somehow related to how the phone is handling 3G/4G/WiFi transitions. I've noticed that many (but not all) of the times I get the SOD, when the phone reboots the date and time have reverted back to 4:00pm on December 31, as if the phone isn't able to pull accurate date/time data from the network (why it picks 4pm on 12/31 I have no clue). And it happens a lot in my office, where I seem to have trouble hanging onto 4G and often use WiFi to maintain persistent network access.

good theory....if you try out the latest leaked OTA you'll have the latest binaries and radios....
those are suppose to improve that hand off.

 

[yapkuen]

Well, just had it happen right off the bat on a clean install of CM9, so now I know it's not limited to JB. Guess I'll give the leaked OTA a shot and see what happens.

 

[chubb]

With SODs, there are usually two culprits--a rogue app or the kernel. I know you've tried a bunch of kernels, but what are your settings? Just something to think about...

Another thing--when's the last time you did an absolutely 100% cleaning--including the SDcard? You'd be shocked at how many...ghosts...build up over time.

This has happened to me. Couldn't get anything to work. But after relocking and unlocking the bootloader, have been problem free. Doing that should erase everything 100% and allow you to start over completly fresh. It is a pain to get everything set up again, but better than having a halfass working device.

 

[chubb]

Well, just had it happen right off the bat on a clean install of CM9, so now I know it's not limited to JB. Guess I'll give the leaked OTA a shot and see what happens.

I cleaned flashed AOKP a few weeks ago and had nothing but bootloops. No nandroids would work, nor flashing other ROM's. I had to start from stock again. Not sure what happened, but something somewhere got corrupted. After relocking the bootloader and unlocking it, I have had zero issues. Everything is fine again. You just might have to do this.

 

[JkdJedi]

Well, it takes a gadget to screw things up sometimes, but to really foul things up it takes a human being! Root is a cool to have and a pain to have as well. Android.

 

[chubb]

Having root isn't that much of a pain, as long as you dont mess with things you don't understand. Flashing rom after rom after rom can cause some issues though. Sometimes you just need to go back to stock and start over, clean house so to speak. This is why it is important to know how to work recovery, and not always let Rom Manager do all the work for you. It is even better if you know how to work ADB.

 

[yapkuen]

Man, my phone is really battling my efforts to figure this out. Went back to stock and locked today (didn't stay there long, just did it to fully wipe the internal storage), then back to unlocked, rooted and CM10 (same build as previous) - SOD came back within a few hours. Now paring down my apps one by one. If that doesn't shed any light, it's off to the leaked OTA.

 

[chubb]

Man, my phone is really battling my efforts to figure this out. Went back to stock and locked today (didn't stay there long, just did it to fully wipe the internal storage), then back to unlocked, rooted and CM10 (same build as previous) - SOD came back within a few hours. Now paring down my apps one by one. If that doesn't shed any light, it's off to the leaked OTA.

Did you have apps automatically re install, or did you install them one by one again? Reason I ask is because I have had issues in the past with having all my apps re install at once. Some don't play nice with each other, and some don't work right with certain roms or os updates. Since I restored mine, after having major issues with flashing, I went from 115 apps down to about 12 of my most used ones. Haven't had issues since.

 

[yapkuen]

Did you have apps automatically re install, or did you install them one by one again? Reason I ask is because I have had issues in the past with having all my apps re install at once. Some don't play nice with each other, and some don't work right with certain roms or os updates. Since I restored mine, after having major issues with flashing, I went from 115 apps down to about 12 of my most used ones. Haven't had issues since.

Reinstalled one by one. Including system apps and stuff that came with CM10 I'm at about 3 screens in the app tray, so probably around 20 apps that I installed myself. It's hyper-frustrating because the SODs are happening daily now after I wiped, and usually within 5 minutes of me looking at my phone and putting it in my pocket. Just now I literally looked at it, locked it, put it in my pocket, walked upstairs, and found it in SOD.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[jova33]

Do you have setCPU installed by chance?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[yapkuen]

Do you have setCPU installed by chance?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

I do not. Do you recommend installing it, or were you suspecting that it was causing the problem?

Just switched my Nexus over to the leaked JRO03O, no apps other than what comes with the OTA. Will see if that gives me any better luck than any of the other combinations I've tried (gave up on CM10 and Bugless Beast after getting the SOD with only stock apps and Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram installed). If JRO03O with no downloaded apps doesn't fix it, I'm going back to stock rooted ICS for awhile.

 

[jova33]

Well I caused some problems with setCPU and that was giving me SOD. I didn't know you couldn't have screen off profiles for the GNex lol. My previous phone it was almost needed to get the battery to last me the day.
But I don't know what could be causing your issue. If I were you, I'd back everything up to PC, return to stock, and if the issue persists, time for warranty replacement.
Edit: or just go with what you posted. It's late lol.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[yapkuen]

I may be jinxing myself here, but I'm cautiously optimistic that JRO03O will work out. It's been about 48 hours now with no SOD, which is better than any of the other ROMs did when I was actually paying attention to them. Added a few basic apps (SwiftKey, Facebook, and Twitter) yesterday around the 24 hour mark... will throw a few more on today if all remains well.

 

[yapkuen]

Still getting the SOD, except I'm suspecting it's not a "sleep" at all, and in fact a total power interruption. I was listening to music today (meaning that the system was awake, not sleeping) and right smack in the middle of it, the whole thing shut down. I hope it's a problem with my battery, and not some power supply circuitry internal to the phone. To test, I swapped back out to my original stock battery (was using the Samsung extended battery). The process of pulling the battery caused my date/time to reset to 4:00pm on December 31, just like during some of my "SOD" events, which seems to corroborate my theory that it's a power problem.

 

[2defmouze]

Still getting the SOD, except I'm suspecting it's not a "sleep" at all, and in fact a total power interruption. I was listening to music today (meaning that the system was awake, not sleeping) and right smack in the middle of it, the whole thing shut down. I hope it's a problem with my battery, and not some power supply circuitry internal to the phone. To test, I swapped back out to my original stock battery (was using the Samsung extended battery). The process of pulling the battery caused my date/time to reset to 4:00pm on December 31, just like during some of my "SOD" events, which seems to corroborate my theory that it's a power problem.

Yeah this is sounding like a definite hardware problem. Good to test another battery, hopefully you'll find that the first one was the culprit. If not then unfortunately it's probably the phone itself, but at least its replaceable.

Question though: Is the issue only now happening while the phone is doing something power and/or signal intensive, such as streaming music like you said? There's history of what you describe happening in weaker signal areas when the phone has to use too much juice to maintain a signal while streaming media in a weak area, especially so if the screen is off since that caps the processor power the phone will allow.

 

[yapkuen]

Yeah this is sounding like a definite hardware problem. Good to test another battery, hopefully you'll find that the first one was the culprit. If not then unfortunately it's probably the phone itself, but at least its replaceable.

Question though: Is the issue only now happening while the phone is doing something power and/or signal intensive, such as streaming music like you said? There's history of what you describe happening in weaker signal areas when the phone has to use too much juice to maintain a signal while streaming media in a weak area, especially so if the screen is off since that caps the processor power the phone will allow.

Since flashing over to JRO03O, I've only had two occurrences, and both times have been while listening to music. The music I was playing was stored locally, not streaming from the cloud, so I'm not sure if that counts as a power or signal intensive application. Both times I was on WiFi, but my cellular reception seemed to be pretty stable when it happened as well.

As an aside, I didn't realize how perceivable the difference in thickness is between the Samsung stock and extended batteries until I switched back to the stock battery... feels like my phone went on a diet.