lg g4s manufactured before September have a defect

[tyhart44]

I don't know really what the infamous "boot loop" is, but four days ago my Sprint G4 started rebooting randomly while using it. It was booting back up fine (at first). Seems like it was doing it maybe once or twice a day. Then it started shutting down while not using it and it wouldn't restart until I did a battery pull. Sometimes I also had to pull and reinsert the SD card. It seems to be doing that several times a day which is obviously a problem as it would happen while in my pocket or something so I would miss calls.

Today I walked into a Sprint store, and both people I talked to (including the technician) were aware of it. They ordered me a replacement phone from "seed stock" (not refurbished but not in retail packaging, phone only) at no charge, said I should have it in 4-5 days. They said it was a well documented issue and had no problem replacing.

G4 is 3 months old, manufacture date of 5/08.

 

[Jim_in_VA]

To go 4-5 days without a phone is unacceptable. If the carriers are aware of the problem they should have stock to do a immediate swap on site.

 

[tyhart44]

Agreed, but they did check stock and tried to give me one onsite, just didn't have any. In the end, I'm just thrilled I don't have to send it to LG for repairs and be without a phone for 3-4 weeks, or buy a new phone. I was shocked they admitted the problem and ponied up.

 

[Im Broken]

Mine reverted to the boot loop less than a month ago. AT&T replaced it through warranty. The refurbished one I received sometimes loses connection to WiFi.

They gave me a brand new one. Serial number starts with 511 and still hardware revision 1.0 but I am 100% sure this one has a brighter screen. The difference is noticeable. Much better battery life too but that could just be the new battery.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[LGMOfield]

Sprint knows, they had the defected ones first.
On my second LG G4.
First restarted on its own then stuck in boot mode.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[wpavlik2]

My pre-ordered phone did this too. All of the sudden, Rebooted, then boot looped, never got past the LG Splash screen to the white T-Mobile screen. I couldn't even do a Hard Reset.
T-Mobile, to their credit after a phone call to tech support where they did try to trouble-shoot they overnighted me a replacement (that looked brand new).
I wonder if it was a poorly built update, but now seeing that Sprint, AT&T and VZW users were seeing this too, I have to suspect they had a bad component in their early build batch. Remember, this can happen in mass production and the right thing to do is not question the warranty issue and do the replacements. (Which is exactly what LG/T-Mobile did.)
I still love the phone. It's a great device.

 

[tardus]

Good practice is to keep all your stuff backed up. Google services covers much of what you need, but not SMS. I use SMS Backup and Restore to do nightly backup of SMS/MMS. Also LG Backup is about as good as Titanium backup and doesn't require root. I do a backup with LG Backup once a week to sd card. And for the cloud, backup to LG Cloud or encrypt and upload to a different cloud server.

 

[IrieBro]

I too had a day one T-Mobile G4. I went into boot loop city on October 27th. I believe it was manufactured in May also. I received a brand new one a day later after the retail store confirmed it was dead. It started acting up by randomly rebooting and excessive heat. That became more frequent until boot loop city.

 

[Mobius360]

My friend had this happen 3 days ago, mine happend an hour ago. Exactly as described in original post. Both phones on T-Mobile manufacture date of May on both. Had to go back to my back up Nexus 4for the night.

 

[Im Broken]

Crazy. I'm dying to know which component is failing. This problem is just picking up steam.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Inders99]

I just popped in a new SD card and backed up with LG backup. Going to make sure my SMS Backup & Restore is operational too. Not taking any chances. This is a pretty disturbing development.

 

[bobby35ny]

I posted about 2 weeks ago that my lgg4 died like the poster. I bought 3 for the family when they first came out on verizon. Well about an hour ago #2 just went into the endless reboot!
That's 2 out of 3 that died on me. I guess my #3 is a ticking time bomb. 2 out of 3 are bad??? Don't tell me that there are no problems. Verizon is telling me it's just bad luck. LOL

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[bigtnew]

Happened to my AT&T phone that I got in June at launch. Came out of nowhere, like Randy Orton.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[tardus]

I posted about 2 weeks ago that my lgg4 died like the poster. I bought 3 for the family when they first came out on verizon. Well about an hour ago #2 just went into the endless reboot!
That's 2 out of 3 that died on me. I guess my #3 is a ticking time bomb. 2 out of 3 are bad??? Don't tell me that there are no problems. Verizon is telling me it's just bad luck. LOL

Posted via the Android Central App

If they are from the same production batch- then the next one failing *might* have a higher probability of failure. But my guess is less likely than likely the third will fail.

When buying 5 hard drives for RAID it's better to get them from different production batches if possible, in case there's a bad batch.

 

[jkayakj]

Happened to my phone too. Went to sprint and said it was a known issue and they ordered a replacement at no cost. Just went in and said it was a known issue etc.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[tyhart44]

Happened to my phone too. Went to sprint and said it was a known issue and they ordered a replacement at no cost. Just went in and said it was a known issue etc.

Posted via the Android Central App

As I said earlier, this is what I did and I think it's the key (at least for sprint). If you act like you don't know, they may not be as forthcoming.

 

[Chris Rosas]

I send my lg g4 back to lg and it took them 2 weeks to send it back to me. According to them it was a capacitor that went out and struck it to a boot loop ...but when i got it in the mail and turned it on, it was exactly as when I send it to them . still in the same boot loop .....I went to T-Mobile and they send me a refurbished one. This new one was build in June not may like my last one. Hopefully this one doesn't go out. ( update....this new one seems to have a couple of touch screen problems .....)

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[dplane]

I send my lg g4 back to lg and it took them 2 weeks to send it back to me. According to them it was a capacitor that went out and struck it to a boot loop ...but when i got it in the mail and turned it on, it was exactly as when I send it to them . still in the same boot loop .....I went to T-Mobile and they send me a refurbished one. This new one was build in June not may like my last one. Hopefully this one doesn't go out. ( update....this new one seems to have a couple of touch screen problems .....)

Posted via the Android Central App

Wow..sounds similar to my issue: sent it in as well and it also came back still broken:
http://forums.androidcentral.com/lg-g4/628227-seriously-fed-up-defect-bootloop-issue-again.html

This is seriously unacceptable.

 

[starbuck88]

I've put in a support request today with LG UK. A few weeks ago, got lines come up on the screen with a complete freeze. Rebooted and it worked for a few seconds then rebooted again. Did Safe mode, then did factory reset, will just go off and reboot a few times before coming back on.

I had to go to LG direct as I bought mine Sim Free.Interesting to see mine has the 505 Serial Number. It's a 32GB H815.

The lady on the phone said that as I'd be getting a UK spec one back, it'd be a 16GB one.

Will I just get a refurb one back? Surely I paid for a working brand new phone, shouldn't it be replaced with a brand new one due to this being defective? If it is a refurb, will it look brand new?

I have taken extremely good care of this phone, it even still has the original screen protector and the plastic protection on the back cover. (She did tell me I needed to take the back off, the battery out and sim) and just send in the bare phone, (A courier is collecting with their own box).

Was told around 7 days for a phone to come back to me.

 

[Mooncatt]

Unfortunately you will most likely get a refurbished phone. I've taken to calling warranty phone exchanges "refurb roulette" because I've had so many problems with them. I'm based in the U.S. With a carrier branded version, so your situation may fair differently. I'm also surprised they would only exchange for a 16 GB version.

You can argue the refurb issue that you sent them a used phone, so you get a used phone back. Not that I agree with it, but it's at least a reasoning that makes sense. Sending you a lower spec version than what you are sending in is all together different. If I pay for the 32 GB version, I'd expect nothing less in return. Ok, maybe if they refunded me the difference and then some for the hassle, but only if I agree first. I don't see why it would matter which version you have. You bought what you bought and I'd suggest escalating the issue to a manager if possible. I've also heard of people opting to have their phone repaired instead of exchanging it. At least then you know what you're getting back. I'd try to go that route if I were you, just to avoid refurbish roulette.