I think Verizon's network is causing the reboots

[mcs1990]

So I haven't really been following this thread, but I might agree that reboots might have to do with the connection/radios.

I have been in Europe since the middle of May, therefore I have kept my phone in airplane mode and have used wireless occasionally for data. I have had no reboots while here. I'm one of the people that had a perfect thunderbolt before the update, and ever since the update, everything still works well. So not sure if having a good thunderbolt before the update makes my observations of no reboots in Europe less reliable.

 

[SoldierofCatan]

Well that would explain why I haven't had any issues. As I said in another thread the network here in St. Louis has been rock solid since day one. I have never dropped data connection unless I was in a basement or in the dead zone in my house.

I have noticed that I'm not getting my ridiculous 25Mbps download speeds anymore (only 10-15Mbps now), but that could just be volume at a certain time of day.

Rock on for St. Louis! I work down town and live on the Illinois side of the river. 4G is good all over. Never had a single unexpected reboot.

 

[AllisonR]

Possible. It's annoying but at the same time really interesting. I can't wait to find out the actually cause. If we do find out. It would be funny If it was something like it reboots if the device is turned sideways twice left and three times right. Ha.

Holy Hannah, can you imagine the call to tech support??

"I'm so sorry to hear you're experiencing reboot problems with your g-sensor! To correct this problem, strap the phone to your upper arm and execute a floor routine containing a series of somersaults, at least two back handsprings and ending with a double roundoff. Be aware that Verizon cannot promise this will fix the problem if you do not stick your landing."

 

[CaptDigB]

I just recently started getting reboot. My 4g won't transfer data now and causes connection issues . I had download lteonoff app and turn off 4g just to use data. Called Verizon they tried to blame it on the water I was on and the wind . I responded I had great service every were now I got none and doesn't land have wind . She didn't want to trouble shoot till I was on land even though I'm always with in 100 feet of land at all times in the middle of Chicago. Verizon sucks trying to blame it on the wind come on.then they wanted to swap out sims card mean while my 14 days return period would be up and is get a like new devise instead of a new one . So mine seems to be hardware issue's since I did factory reset and still have no 4g and random reboot.

 

[Mortiel]

Holy Hannah, can you imagine the call to tech support??

"I'm so sorry to hear you're experiencing reboot problems with your g-sensor! To correct this problem, strap the phone to your upper arm and execute a floor routine containing a series of somersaults, at least two back handsprings and ending with a double roundoff. Be aware that Verizon cannot promise this will fix the problem if you do not stick your landing."

I did once tell a customer that the best way to fix his Droid Eris was with butane and duct tape.

 

[iLLusive]

Just had a random reboot 12:45am CST, this is a week old brand new device is does NOT have the OTA update and is not rooted or running any tethering apps. I'm on hardware version 0002 and been on PRL 15011 for some time and this is 3G only area, as well as the TB startup sound didn't happen. For anyone who is still speculating and keeping track of course

 

[Mortiel]

So I haven't really been following this thread, but I might agree that reboots might have to do with the connection/radios.

I have been in Europe since the middle of May, therefore I have kept my phone in airplane mode and have used wireless occasionally for data. I have had no reboots while here. I'm one of the people that had a perfect thunderbolt before the update, and ever since the update, everything still works well. So not sure if having a good thunderbolt before the update makes my observations of no reboots in Europe less reliable.

Its sadly inconclusive if you have not been experiencing severe reboots after the OTA.

 

[robrecht]

The "handshake" issue you were referring to that would be linked on all the phones rebooting would be whats called a 2G feedback loop. Its where a phone pings a tower (handshakes), and the rejects the "handshake" for a plethora of possible reasons. The handshake is, in rare cases, mirrored back to the phone, creating a feedback loop. This happened on RARE occasions in hand-offs between one tower and another on 2G many years ago.

It seems like you think this is a thing of the past. Why couldn't something analogous be happening again, and not just on 2G? When my phone loses its data connection, in a strong 4G area, it says in Settings, Wireless & networks, Mobile network (checked but grayed out); "Turning on…" And somewhere else it say "Connecting …". That to me sounds like the phone is trying to connect to the tower to turn on the data connection. As soon as I reboot, it connects immediately. Sometimes, if I merely make a phone call, the data connection will restore itself. But if not, it can stay in this state for hours, draining the battery quickly. Then either I reboot the phone or it reboots itself and the data connection is restored.

Regardless, the towers cannot cause the phone to crash unless the phone has faulty programming or hardware the the tower exploits in some way. Does that make sense to anyone?

Of course, that part makes sense, but I havve not been saying that the tower causes the phone to crash. What we have here is a failure to communicate. I don't think you have established the idea that this failure to communicate between a tower and a phone can only be the fault of the phone or it's firm and software. Why can't the tower also be implicated, especially since this problem exists, to varying degrees, on so many different phones by different manufacturers?

And for the last time, PRLs are just a list of tower information. Its a reference list for your phone to locate the best tower based upon location and desired connection. They can't cause reboots either.

I have never said anything at all about PRLs being the cause of the problem.

I noticed that you did not answer some of my questions, which is fine, if you do not have an answer. For example, you spoke of people having reboots on WiFi. Are you speaking of ThunderBolts with this problem? How widespread is this WiFi reboot problem? I ask because I have heard many people complaining about reboots, but have not noticed a single person complaining of this occuring on WiFi. Have you had one ThunderBolt customer with this problem, a few, many, how many?

 

[FrankXS]

Honestly, I don't think any of us "amateurs" are gonna get to the bottom of this. Only the code/radio knowledgeable engineers can effectively troubleshoot it.

The TBolts radio system is very complex. It has so many radios. There has to be code that monitors the environment (signal) of all possible connections and then decides what radio to turn on or off. Then, there's the actual code for turning the proper radio on while gracefully turning the previously used radio off. Timing is everything. And, now that I mention timing - after 15 years in electronics calibrating and repairing electronic test equipment, I think it is entirely likely that this is a timing issue.

Anyway, bottom line... all this banter is interesting... but, where are the Engineers who are working on this!!!

BMX??????????? H-e-l-l-o!!!!!

JFTR, I am talking about the radio issues, not specifically rebooting. Although, I believe they are one and the same. Fix the radio code (and radio management code) and you'll fix rebooting.

I suppose if VZW was to come out with a statement something like: "We know there are some radio issues and we are working to improve the new 4G capabilities of our cell sites", the media would get ahold of it and what we would hear on TV is, "VZW admits 4G not ready!" Whatever.

-Frank

 

[Mortiel]

It seems like you think this is a thing of the past. Why couldn't something analogous be happening again, and not just on 2G? When my phone loses its data connection, in a strong 4G area, it says in Settings, Wireless & networks, Mobile network (checked but grayed out); "Turning on…" And somewhere else it say "Connecting …". That to me sounds like the phone is trying to connect to the tower to turn on the data connection. As soon as I reboot, it connects immediately. Sometimes, if I merely make a phone call, the data connection will restore itself. But if not, it can stay in this state for hours, draining the battery quickly. Then either I reboot the phone or it reboots itself and the data connection is restored.
Of course, that part makes sense, but I havve not been saying that the tower causes the phone to crash. What we have here is a failure to communicate. I don't think you have established the idea that this failure to communicate between a tower and a phone can only be the fault of the phone or it's firm and software. Why can't the tower also be implicated, especially since this problem exists, to varying degrees, on so many different phones by different manufacturers?
I have never said anything at all about PRLs being the cause of the problem.

I noticed that you did not answer some of my questions, which is fine, if you do not have an answer. For example, you spoke of people having reboots on WiFi. Are you speaking of ThunderBolts with this problem? How widespread is this WiFi reboot problem? I ask because I have heard many people complaining about reboots, but have not noticed a single person complaining of this occuring on WiFi. Have you had one ThunderBolt customer with this problem, a few, many, how many?

I honest do not hear my agents getting that many calls about Thunderbolts period, much less regarding rebooting. I think I have hear about 5 total Thunderbolt calls about reboots since the OTA was out. I *though* in one of the dozens of reboot threads someone said they had a reboot while connected to WiFi. I might have misread or completely imagined it. It would confirm my theory, which is below:

The reason I am so quick to implicate 2G is because I do not think it is something old. I think its a combination of new and old. eHRPD+1xRTT. eHRPD works on CDMA (not LTE) and is essentially the protocol for allowing simultaneous voice and data use. That ability was deliberately blocked on CDMA networks in the past. Why? I have heard rumors years ago it was blocked off due to major instabilities with 1xRTT, which is what the "voice" end operates on. That is just rumor, but it still makes sense. AT&T's network has a lot of instabilities due to the GPRS and HSPA+ systems.

An associate of mine also had an idea centric to the Thunderbolt: What is the battery cover/radio idea is causing shorts of some kind? This could be caused by a firmware update if that firmware causes the radio to use more/less power... I thought that was a long shot, but hey, an idea is an idea.

 

[VideoEngineerAJS]

I honest do not hear my agents getting that many calls about Thunderbolts period, much less regarding rebooting. I think I have hear about 5 total Thunderbolt calls about reboots since the OTA was out. I *though* in one of the dozens of reboot threads someone said they had a reboot while connected to WiFi. I might have misread or completely imagined it. It would confirm my theory, which is below:

The reason I am so quick to implicate 2G is because I do not think it is something old. I think its a combination of new and old. eHRPD+1xRTT. eHRPD works on CDMA (not LTE) and is essentially the protocol for allowing simultaneous voice and data use. That ability was deliberately blocked on CDMA networks in the past. Why? I have heard rumors years ago it was blocked off due to major instabilities with 1xRTT, which is what the "voice" end operates on. That is just rumor, but it still makes sense. AT&T's network has a lot of instabilities due to the GPRS and HSPA+ systems.

An associate of mine also had an idea centric to the Thunderbolt: What is the battery cover/radio idea is causing shorts of some kind? This could be caused by a firmware update if that firmware causes the radio to use more/less power... I thought that was a long shot, but hey, an idea is an idea.

Well I remember right after the nationwide LTE outage people on this board in 3G areas were saying that eHRPD was disabled when everything was supposedly back to normal. I guess eHRPD is back up because I remember shortly after that the posters in 3G areas were talking about being able to do SVDO.

I also remember having a discussion (which I think FrankXS was in on) where we found it odd that the Thunderbolt wasn't marketed as an SVDO device as well as an LTE device. I remember someone said that a rep told them that it wasn't marketed that way because not all of the towers have that capability. I would think by now almost all of the towers would have that capability since LTE is getting pushed now, but maybe some just aren't as stable as others and that's why Verizon didn't take advantage of the SVDO capabilities of the phone in their marketing?

 

[Chrisy]

Mortiel,
Any word on a patch for the TB OS? I am wondering if the reboots can be fixed by an update...

 

[bjboucher]

Although I have avoided any major problems since the OTA, I have found a specific place in San Antonio where i've had 2 "random" reboots while using data. Once using facebook at a light, the next using Google Nav as I was driving by that same location. This pretty much tells me that it has something to do with the tower I'm pinging off in that location since it never happens when I'm at home.

 

[r007]

City ID?

I run a stock Thunderbolt with very few apps and my phone reboots maybe twice a week (I consider myself very lucky).

After my phone rebooted today, the City ID app came up bugging me to buy it. Does anyone with a rebooting phone have a purchased version of City ID? Just an idea that City ID could be the issue...

 

[FrankXS]

I run a stock Thunderbolt with very few apps and my phone reboots maybe twice a week (I consider myself very lucky).

After my phone rebooted today, the City ID app came up bugging me to buy it. Does anyone with a rebooting phone have a purchased version of City ID? Just an idea that City ID could be the issue...

When I got that prompt I just chose Remove (or similar). And to my surprise it did remove itself. Non-rooted phone too. But, I doubt that is causing the Reboots.

No Reboots here. Stock, OTA update applied.

-Frank

Sent from my HTC ThunderBolt 4G/LTE using Tapatalk

 

[angus_3]

Well that would explain why I haven't had any issues. As I said in another thread the network here in St. Louis has been rock solid since day one. I have never dropped data connection unless I was in a basement or in the dead zone in my house.

I have noticed that I'm not getting my ridiculous 25Mbps download speeds anymore (only 10-15Mbps now), but that could just be volume at a certain time of day.

Im here in St. Louis and i have had good speed on LTE, however, my TBOLT has started to reboot several times a day. This all seemed to start around the time of the recent update. So much for the idea that we were safe from this bug in STL due to signal strength.

 

[robrecht]

I honest do not hear my agents getting that many calls about Thunderbolts period, much less regarding rebooting. I think I have hear about 5 total Thunderbolt calls about reboots since the OTA was out. I *though* in one of the dozens of reboot threads someone said they had a reboot while connected to WiFi. I might have misread or completely imagined it. It would confirm my theory, which is below:

The reason I am so quick to implicate 2G is because I do not think it is something old. I think its a combination of new and old. eHRPD+1xRTT. eHRPD works on CDMA (not LTE) and is essentially the protocol for allowing simultaneous voice and data use. That ability was deliberately blocked on CDMA networks in the past. Why? I have heard rumors years ago it was blocked off due to major instabilities with 1xRTT, which is what the "voice" end operates on. That is just rumor, but it still makes sense. AT&T's network has a lot of instabilities due to the GPRS and HSPA+ systems.

An associate of mine also had an idea centric to the Thunderbolt: What is the battery cover/radio idea is causing shorts of some kind? This could be caused by a firmware update if that firmware causes the radio to use more/less power... I thought that was a long shot, but hey, an idea is an idea.

I agree that eHRPD seems like a pretty good suspect since it is new (to Verizon) and complex and especially because it could contribute to the issues we are seeing in both 4G and 3G areas. That's partly why I was wondering up above about how pervasive eHRPD is in Verizon's non-4G areas. I was also wondering if that could be a factor to consider in Al's experiece in Mississippi. Are there areas within Verizon's 3G coverage where eHRPD is not yet enabled? If so, are these areas also reporting data connectivity and random reboot problems at the same rate as other areas?

But I'm not sure I understand how the possible reboot for one person using WiFi confirms your theory (see my bolding in the quote above). Perhaps I am misreading your post, but is it because your focusing on the connection of the of the phone to the tower for voice calls as central to the rebooting problem? Because you consider the data connectivity issues to be unrelated to the rebooting issue?

 

[robrecht]

Its sadly inconclusive if you have not been experiencing severe reboots after the OTA.

One person's experience can never be conclusive. But interesting that you are presumably acknowledging that there is another factor contributing to the problem. Are you thinking about differences/defects between individual phones and not just the OTA update?

 

[robrecht]

Honestly, considering the amount of power cycling issues I hear about on a wide variety of devices, I suspect it is likely a protocol corruption that has been severely overlooked for a long time now, or a new technology update that does not mesh well with older technology still in use.

And what's the most common denominator? The Verizon towers that combine old and new technology and protocols.

The iPhone is about the only device that appears immune, which irks me since Apple is so secretive about everything.

Verizon's contract with Apple does not allow for, even require, sharing of code and engineering design parameters? Surely some people at Verizon have access to this. If so, maybe it's just an issue of corporate priorities.

Coming back to this question. Don't some Verizon engineers probably know exactly how each phone manufacturer is managing their phones' connection to the Verizon network? If it is such an old issue, I would think it would have been identified by now. If it has to do with the very recent implementation of eHRRD into Verizon's 3G and 4G network, I would think Verizon would have been collaborating very closely with HTC to design the radio & code on this phone to make sure it meshes well with their all-important network.

While I certainly wouldn't expect Verizon to share Apple trade secrets with HTC, wouldn't Verizon also have collaborated closely with Apple on how the Verizon CDMA iPhone communicates with their network?

In other words, I don't think Verizon can play the victim card here, at the mercy of the OEM electronics companies like HTC. I recall that one of the last obstacles to the ThunderBolt being released was an agreement that HTC would provide an OTA update and a later upgrade to GB for the ThunderBolt. Ultimately, Verizon is responsible for the QC of the phones it contracts with the manufacturers to manufacture for Verizon's customers. I get tired of Verizon techs frequently blaming problems on OEMs. Not saying you are doing that, but it does happen too frequently when we customers call Verizon tech support. Thanks for listening. I feel better, anyway.

 

[VideoEngineerAJS]

Im here in St. Louis and i have had good speed on LTE, however, my TBOLT has started to reboot several times a day. This all seemed to start around the time of the recent update. So much for the idea that we were safe from this bug in STL due to signal strength.

Depends on where you are. Like I said, I've not had any reboots minus the 2 where I didn't have a signal lock on. Of course most of my time is spent in North and West County and the occasional trip to St. Charles and St. Peters.