Nokia G60 5G Problems

[ianj14]

Hi all,

I bought a Nokia G60 5G towards the end of last year, and I've been having some problems.

Firstly, third party app problems since day one. They keep getting shut down, if they are background processes. I tried to turn off the phantom process killer, but it doesn't seem to have worked. The apps are things like DuckDuckGo's tracking blocker; Business Calendar; Chomp (for SMS); R2Mail2 (for email); BlueSky. All these need to run in the background in order to do their job, but the system keeps killing them, while Google's own apps (Messages, Calendar) don't seem to be affected. It smells of Google deliberately targeting third party apps to make them unstable so that we have to use their apps instead.

Secondly, in April of this year, I believe my service provider (EE, UK) changed something on their network and now 4G internet connections have become somewhat high latency, with delays of many seconds before responses come back. I don't have the same problem on my Nokia T21 tablet that also has an EE sim in it, so I know it's not a problem consistent across devices.

Any insight as to what is going on would be gratefully accepted, as would any solutions to fix them.

I'm seriously considering that if these can't be fixed, I have to change to an Apple phone, something I am loathe to do, but I need these kind of apps to work, and for the internet to be properly available.

Ian J.

 

[B. Diddy]

What you're experiencing with background apps being killed is much more likely to be related to Nokia's firmware being overly aggressive with RAM management, in a misguided attempt to save battery. Google's apps are very much core apps, which is why Nokia most likely doesn't kill those apps aggressively (although I suspect if you installed some other Google apps that aren't preinstalled core apps, like Google Arts & Culture, the same thing would happen to them). Look through all of Nokia's system settings for options related to memory or battery management, and look for "optimization" settings. Make sure the apps that are important to you are Unrestricted, not Optimized. Sometimes there is a separate manufacturer's system app that is responsible for the app killing, so look for any Nokia app that might contribute as well.

If you turn off every optimization option you can find and apps still get killed in the background, it might just be baked into the firmware, which can be very frustrating. I used to have a TCL Tab 8 that would kill Spotify in the background, even though one of the main functions of a streaming music app is so that you can listen to music while doing other things. Nothing I did helped.

You can check out this website from a developer who has documented behavior on a variety of devices: https://dontkillmyapp.com/. So to be clear, this is not a universal Android thing -- it has to do with the manufacturer. If you want a phone that won't do these kinds of shenanigans, stick with a Pixel phone.

For your second issue, have you checked to make sure your APN settings are completely correct for the carrier? https://www.androidcentral.com/what-apn-and-how-do-i-change-it. Also, have you spoken to your carrier about it?

 

[mustang7757]

See if you can lock those apps in recent apps list that way they don't get flushed by RAM, also look in each individual apps by long pressing the app then tap info>battery>are they allowed background and are they set on optimize?
For the network maybe try stopping by your carrier so they can look over the settings

 

[Laura Knotek]

Unfortunately that's probably going to always happen with a device that only has 4 GB RAM. That's not a lot nowadays.

 

[ianj14]

Thanks for the responses.

@B. Diddy I'll get round to checking if I can change those settings in the next couple of days and report back.

I won't have a Pixel, as I prefer to try and keep my Google usage to a minimum. My 'ideal' phone would be an Android that doesn't have anything Google on it, but still has access to the Play store due to the sheer number of official apps on there.

 

[B. Diddy]

I can understand why people might be wary of a big company like Google these days, but just be aware that other companies will also collect data and potentially share it with 3rd parties. For example, HMD Global (which makes Nokia phones) states that they may share your data with 3rd party marketing partners: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int...obal-privacy-policy-for-products-and-services.

 

[ianj14]

I think short of a switch to Apple, there's little chance of a phone that also has a good app store and that doesn't share info (I'm presuming Apple keep such data closer to their 'chest' so they have the advantage).

 

[J Dubbs]

I love Samsung's hardware, specifically the Flip line, and I've grown to appreciate their customizing options, but honestly their software creeps me out a little... they have so many deceptive ways of trying to get you to turn on "pay" features with their constant bloatware, and they're always fishing for your data in what seems like rather sneaky ways.

I trust Google more if I'm being honest... but that's not stopping me from using Samsung messages and their phone dialer (which I both like). Bixby actually does a decent job of replacing call screening on the Pixel... wasn't expecting that

I do use the Gmail app and Brave Browser though

 

[ianj14]

OK, so I tried the idea in the dontkillmyapp on this phone and it hasn't worked.

If all Androids other than the Pixel are affected by this crappy approach to process killing, and I can't bring myself to go with a Pixel, then my next phone is an Apple.

Sorry guys, but thanks for trying.

 

[ianj14]

Ok, I just found this:



At the bottom is 'App Background Manager'. I've turned it off (it was on).

It's not on my Nokia T21 tablet, and I did a quick internet search and could find no results with it for with android in the search term as well. Could this be Nokia customising the standard Android battery interface with a switch for their process killer?

So far it seems to be working...

 

[B. Diddy]

Good find -- pretty sure that's a Nokia customization, since it's not on Pixels. This is why it can be difficult to figure out issues like this, since different manufacturers have their own customizations. Hopefully that did the trick!

 

[J Dubbs]

Yep I've never seen that setting on a phone I've used before... but the only Nokia smartphone I've used was a Windows phone

 

[Laura Knotek]

I've never seen that either.

 

[mustang7757]

Yep I've never seen that setting on a phone I've used before... but the only Nokia smartphone I've used was a Windows phone

I've never seen that either.

Samsung has it in device care app under battery >background usage

 

[ianj14]

OK, so the setting change does seem to be working.

That just leaves the internet latency issues. I've yet to contact EE, but resetting the network settings didn't work.

 

[B. Diddy]

Good to hear about the background activity issue!

Did you already confirm that your APN settings are correct?

 

[ianj14]

I have no idea, as I don't know what they should be.

 

[B. Diddy]

I have no idea, as I don't know what they should be.

I think these are up to date: https://apn-settings.com/uk/ee-apn-settings/

 

[ianj14]

I looked at the existing settings, and they're not editable, but they appear mostly the same. I tried a reset but that didn't fix or change anything.

 

[ianj14]

So, I created a new APN, and tried to set it to the setting in your link, and some things were missing, such as APN protocol. These were auto filled to IPv4, and that works ok. The default original settings had IPv4/IPv6, so I tried that and those have the latency. I also tried IPv6 only, and that has the latency. So it looks, on the surface, like it might be something to do with IPv6. I'm leaving the setting at IPv4 for now, as that's faster.