HTC Rezound Constantly Rebooting when Cover is On

[dgornstein]

I've had my Rezound for a month without problems, and last night it started having a problem. Here's the short version, and I'll give the full explanation after. When the back cover is on, the phone reboots itself, gets to the lock screen, and about 10 seconds later, shuts itself down and reboots itself again. Rinse, repeat. This ONLY happens when the back cover is on, and does not happen when the back cover is off. When the back cover is off, the phone behaves normally (except for not getting a cell signal, because the antennas are on the cover).

Here's the history: Last night, I used my phone until it ran out of power. I've done this maybe two or three times since getting the phone a month ago, and it didn't cause problems before. I took it upstairs and plugged it in, and left it for about an hour. I came back, and while it was still plugged in, I turned it on. It seemed to boot up normally. When the lock screen came up, I dragged the ring up to unlock it, and noticed that it was extremely choppy and laggy. It got to the "dot pattern" screen where I started to enter my pattern to unlock, then the phone shut off. A few seconds later, it started booting itself up again. When it got to the lock screen, I let it sit for a few seconds, and it rebooted itself again.

I let it reboot itself a few more times before I decided to pull the battery. I took off the back cover (which I had never done before), took out the battery, visually inspected everything that I could see with the cover off (which all looks normal to my untrained eye), put the battery back in, put the back cover on and turned on the phone. It got the same behavior (getting to the lock screen and rebooting). I decided that maybe the OS just had some issue to work out, and decided to let the phone try rebooting itself until it figured it out. I went to sleep.

This morning, the phone was still rebooting itself. I decided that maybe there was a corrupted file somewhere, and if I was lucky, that file was on the SD card. I unplugged the phone, took off the back cover, pulled the battery, pulled the SD card, put the battery back in, and turned the phone on (note that at this point the cover is still off). The phone appeared to start working normally (except for no cell signal). I concluded (incorrectly) that it was an SD card problem after all. Just to confirm I turned off the phone, pulled the battery, put the SD card in, put the battery back in and put the back cover back on, and turned on the phone. Again, the rebooting behavior. "Ok," I decided, "I can live without the SD card until I can get that resolved." So I pulled the SD card, put the battery and cover back on, and was surprised when the rebooting started happening again.

I looked back over what I had done and realized that the only time it worked, the back cover was off. So I pulled the back cover off again, took the battery out and put it back in (with the SD card in), and turned it on again. Sure enough, the phone started working normally again. A few more tests later, and I confirmed that the back cover appears to be causing the issue. Even if I let the phone boot normally, and stay on for a few minutes, if I put the cover back on, it reboots itself a few seconds later.

The question now is "why?" Nothing looks to be wrong with the back cover, the gold "antennas,", or the contacts. The cover hasn't been off of the phone since I bought it (and that was just when the Verizon sales person put in the SIM card to activate the phone), so I think it's unlikely that the antennas inside the cover are damaged. I'm taking it over to the Verizon store at lunch, but any ideas the forum can provide are welcome.

 

[isdaako]

Nice write up... let us know what you find out.

 

[wera729]

There is a problem with the phone changing it's (I think you call it) radio setting. Here's how I got out of it when it happened to me.

Boot the phone with the cover off.

Go to the phone dialer and type *#*#4636#*#*

A menu screen will come up labelled: Testing

Select: Phone information

Scroll down to the first drop down. Mine was set to WCDMA. Change it to CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto

Back all the way out to the home screen.

At this point I shut down my phone, put the cover back on, and rebooted. I guess you could try just putting the cover back on though. If you do and it goes back boot looping do the whole thing over but shut it down before you put the cover back on.

I hope this helps.

 

[Dovahkiin]

Dial *#*#4636#*#* from your Rezound. From the menu, set it to "CDMA/LTE."
This should fix the issue for you.

More info here: **Bootlooping Network Problem *FIX INSIDE* - xda-developers

 

[dgornstein]

And thus we learn the value of patience. Instead of waiting for the wise forumites to reply, I tried a factory reset on my phone. This worked, and my problem is now fixed. But your solution would have saved me the headache of setting my phone up from scratch again.

Thanks all!

 

[ianmorris75]

Had this happen to me. Found this post and it solved my problems.

Thanks guys.

 

[BigDNY#AC]

I wish I found this as well.. Did a factory reset at Verizon... I thought I was getting a new phone because of the reboot!!

 

[humpagardengnome]

There really should be a boot loop/bug fixes sticky on our main page. It's ridiculous that there's 30 boot loop threads and people still encounter it and do unecessary resets.

 

[skatergirl]

There really should be a boot loop/bug fixes sticky on our main page. It's ridiculous that there's 30 boot loop threads and people still encounter it and do unecessary resets.

I agree. I was just thinking, what if this happened to me? I would have to search for this thread. A sticky is needed.

 

[twolastnames]

There really should be a boot loop/bug fixes sticky on our main page. It's ridiculous that there's 30 boot loop threads and people still encounter it and do unecessary resets.

What's a sticky?

 

[dpham00]

What's a sticky?

Threads that are "stuck' at the top of the page.

 

[humpagardengnome]

What's a sticky?

Go take a peek @ the GNex forum, for an ideal example. Why we don't have, at least one misc. thread for issues/bug reports/fixes/ troubleshooting, eludes me. It's closing in on 6mos. since release and there's a boatload of old threads scattered that could be very helpful if something was up front for new owners to easily reference.

 

[HES]

Cripes this is a much wider problem. I had a phone that was doing this. Not seeing this thread I did a factory reset twice. On the second time I had Verizon send me a new one. The new one is doing this as well. So this morning I tried the above instructions. Everything went well. When I put the cover back on the phone it did reboot, but only once.

 

[318sugarhill]

I just got two rezounds today, one for me and one for my wife. I got the boot loop problem on mine, but not hers. Really pissed me off. A quick google search turned up the problem that should be stickied here. The solution posted earlier is correct, but you can also download LTE switch from the market and it will do the same thing for the noobs and the weary.

For a phone that's been around for 5 months, I can't believe VZW hasn't fixed this yet. Do they like dealing with this problem and issuing new phones constantly? Because you know the average customer is not looking up this problem on AC. They just take the phone right back to the store.

 

[kulkaholic]

For a phone that's been around for 5 months, I can't believe VZW hasn't fixed this yet. Do they like dealing with this problem and issuing new phones constantly? Because you know the average customer is not looking up this problem on AC. They just take the phone right back to the store.

Is it Verizon's problem to fix? I am not saying this to create an argument but to bring to light the challenges with the cell industry.

Smart phone manufacturers, mainly android devices are in a constant "what is coming out state". Yet when we have a problem we call Verizon, not HTC, Motorola or more importantly Google. Now look at the Rezound, a really good phone that is still a contendor for newer phones that are just hitting the Market, yet in three months they all could be old news.

The industry has grown so quickly that they (manufacturer and retailer alike) really do not have the infrastructure to provide the support we crave. In this case Verizon cannot itself make some changes especially to the physical characteristics with phones but have to rely on the manufacturer to make the proper correction while the manufactuer has moved on to their next project.

 

[318sugarhill]

Is it Verizon's problem to fix? I am not saying this to create an argument but to bring to light the challenges with the cell industry.

Smart phone manufacturers, mainly android devices are in a constant "what is coming out state". Yet when we have a problem we call Verizon, not HTC, Motorola or more importantly Google. Now look at the Rezound, a really good phone that is still a contendor for newer phones that are just hitting the Market, yet in three months they all could be old news.

The industry has grown so quickly that they (manufacturer and retailer alike) really do not have the infrastructure to provide the support we crave. In this case Verizon cannot itself make some changes especially to the physical characteristics with phones but have to rely on the manufacturer to make the proper correction while the manufactuer has moved on to their next project.

Very True. Now I can tell you I loved my Incredible, and in less than 24 hours I am loving this more. However, this is a HUGE problem with the industry. Once a product is sold, it feels like they could care less, but if they are still selling the product, you think they would care more. Maybe VZW could at least have their employees trained to fix the problem with LTE Switch at purchase, and they would have to deal with less returns. Returns cost them money, so anyway to minimize it would be good for them. Especially a problem as well known as this with such an easy fix.

Anyway, I always felt the other manufacturers could learn something from Apple. 1 iPhone comes out each year. That's it, and it sells. If the other manufacturer's weren't so busy trying to one up each other, and followed suit with one phone a year, or maybe two phones a year, they would probably have better profit earnings. Less time on development, advertising, etc. Apple makes ONE phone, and they put ALL the hardware for ALL carriers into it. It streamlines manufacturing, updates, fixes, etc. Unfortunately they such arrogant SOB's I will NEVER buy their phone (even though I do use their computers)

 

[kulkaholic]

Very True. Now I can tell you I loved my Incredible, and in less than 24 hours I am loving this more. However, this is a HUGE problem with the industry. Once a product is sold, it feels like they could care less, but if they are still selling the product, you think they would care more. Maybe VZW could at least have their employees trained to fix the problem with LTE Switch at purchase, and they would have to deal with less returns. Returns cost them money, so anyway to minimize it would be good for them. Especially a problem as well known as this with such an easy fix.

Anyway, I always felt the other manufacturers could learn something from Apple. 1 iPhone comes out each year. That's it, and it sells. If the other manufacturer's weren't so busy trying to one up each other, and followed suit with one phone a year, or maybe two phones a year, they would probably have better profit earnings. Less time on development, advertising, etc. Apple makes ONE phone, and they put ALL the hardware for ALL carriers into it. It streamlines manufacturing, updates, fixes, etc. Unfortunately they such arrogant SOB's I will NEVER buy their phone (even though I do use their computers)

When I first got my t-bolt I was agonizing on if I wanted to get something else or the t-bolt. I wanted to lock in my data rate plan and thus got the t-bolt but was irritated at the frequency of phones. However for me that is what makes the android operating system a better fit for me. I can choose a phone that I want based on design, focused features and physical fit instead of getting the cookie cutter phone you get with iphone.

Yes, there has to be a better way to support the devicees. The phone market is quickly catching up to your personal computers in technology (ref: processor size) so I would assume that there will be a bit of a slow down affect soon that will allow things to stabilize a little (I hope).

 

[rhegarty]

this helped me out, thanks

 

[kulkaholic]

Very True. Now I can tell you I loved my Incredible, and in less than 24 hours I am loving this more. However, this is a HUGE problem with the industry. Once a product is sold, it feels like they could care less, but if they are still selling the product, you think they would care more. Maybe VZW could at least have their employees trained to fix the problem with LTE Switch at purchase, and they would have to deal with less returns. Returns cost them money, so anyway to minimize it would be good for them. Especially a problem as well known as this with such an easy fix.

Anyway, I always felt the other manufacturers could learn something from Apple. 1 iPhone comes out each year. That's it, and it sells. If the other manufacturer's weren't so busy trying to one up each other, and followed suit with one phone a year, or maybe two phones a year, they would probably have better profit earnings. Less time on development, advertising, etc. Apple makes ONE phone, and they put ALL the hardware for ALL carriers into it. It streamlines manufacturing, updates, fixes, etc. Unfortunately they such arrogant SOB's I will NEVER buy their phone (even though I do use their computers)

Well put. However I think that the iPhone may need to change their thinking. They are used to entering a market and controlling a segment based on their production and developmental rates. Thus no 4g I phone yet. For the user that wants the phone because it is cool not a biggie. For the user that is technology drivin I am hearing rumblings how they are falling behind.

 

[dplane]

Well put. However I think that the iPhone may need to change their thinking. They are used to entering a market and controlling a segment based on their production and developmental rates. Thus no 4g I phone yet. For the user that wants the phone because it is cool not a biggie. For the user that is technology drivin I am hearing rumblings how they are falling behind.

To build on that; I agree that the pace at which phones are being moved in the Android world is slightly problematic, albeit slightly relieved by the tremendous dev community. I don't like what Apple stands for as a company and because of that will not buy their products, I do however credit them for being a large reason why we continue to see such a hardware push. Seeing the One X and now the SG3 however I am secretly smiling knowing that it appears as if the hardware reached a bit of a plateau. Our Rezound can still very easily match up with the latest and greatest. Highest pixel density 720p display on the market: check, amazing camera: check (probably only beaten by the One X camera), overall very decent to good battery life: check, removable battery and microsd: check, gsm ability: check (aye I know it's not officially supported), 1gb of ram: check...and I could probably go on. Sure it is not the thinnest or the lightest and yes on paper (aka benchmarks) it is not the fastest but especially the latter will mean very little in the real world. They can keep their new "super phones"...by the time I'm due for an upgrade again there will probably be some truly noteworthy hardware advances...and in all likeliness because Apple will be pushing the envelope with the Iphone 5.