how do i fix my ZTE Blade, 4g turns On and off, screen flickers and google apps crashing

[Myzteneedsu]

I'm having similar problems between both my zte blade spark and my galaxy amp prime 2. This is all new. Ive had and continuously used both phones for at least a year now without problems.

1. The 4g lte turns on and off but is mostly off. This is not related to wifi because i do not have wifi available. To fix I turn off mobile data for a few minutes then back on, but it will turn off again after 5 minutes or so.
2. Google drive started crashing and stopped saving anything. A few times, there was an error box saying the google drive storage was full even though it is less than half used. Deleting almost everything did not change this. That stopped suddenly but then...
3. Google drive, playstore, and a number of system apps, including system ui has started crashing one right after another, along with non-system apps (non-system apps are all stored on my sd card which is formatted as internal or not portable).
4. Recently, my battery drains excessively in a matter of minutes. I have never had battery drainage problems til now.
5. Also recently, the screens are dimming and flickering, even shutting off regardless of any tapping to wake it up. The screens are set not to time out and the battery level has been above 80% each time this has happened
6. Sometimes, my phones restart at random.

Things I've tried:

1. I clear the cache and run sd maid everyday at least once
2. I clear the cache partition daily
3. I have uninstalled and reinstalled apps during safe mode
4. Ran apps like: Malwarebytes, Lookout, Norton, Knox, and plenty others. They never find anything.

Apart from system apps that i don't understand (i don't speak Techy), I can't find anything suspicious looking, nor has any security app I've tried.

I can't do a complete back up to a computer, laptop, or tablet. I don't own any. And my phones are not rooted.

What can i do?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! You mentioned uninstalling and reinstalling apps during Safe Mode -- but can you tell us if those problems happen when you're simply trying to use the phone in Safe Mode?

 

[Myzteneedsu]

No crashing apps, but i did lose the 4g lte and the screen dimming still happened

 

[Myzteneedsu]

Also, i just went into the developer options and saw that nearly every single app was active. I tried toggling them off, but none of them became inactive.

 

[B. Diddy]

Does the network issue happen anywhere, or does it only happen at home?

It's suspicious that two different phones from different manufacturers are behaving the same way. It makes me wonder if something you installed on both devices might have contained some kind of malware. You may want to consider backing up the important data from both devices, factory resetting them, and then preventing either from automatically reinstalling apps from the Play Store. Then see if the problem persists.

 

[Myzteneedsu]

Yes.. that was my concern. I usually don't install the same app on both phones until i get to know it and it seems safe. I don't know how possible it is for a person to cause these problems by hacking my email or something without access, but i do have an ongoing issue with an ex... Is that scenario way off base? Do you know how i can be sure? And would a factory reset and password change be a cure? Thanks, btw for the help

 

[Myzteneedsu]

Oh, and how do i back my stuff up without a computer or root?

 

[B. Diddy]

I think it's unlikely your ex would be the cause. First, he (or she?) would need to be fairly tech savvy -- the average joe won't have the knowhow to carry something out like this. Second, malware is usually meant to spy or steal stuff, and to do that well, it should be pretty much invisible -- making a phone bug out isn't really a very useful goal for malware.

You can back a lot of stuff up into the cloud. If you saved your contacts to your Google account, they should already be synced to your Google account in the cloud. Photos can be easily backed up to Google Photos: https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6193313?co=GENIE.Platform=Android&hl=en. Documents and other files can be uploaded to Google Drive, or some other cloud storage of your choice (like Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.). You can backup app data using Helium.

 

[Myzteneedsu]

Really great insightful info...also, i feel better about the ex (he), your answer makes sense.
Thank you for all your help and for responding so quickly. I'm gonna follow your advice and cross my fingers. Take care