Note 4 Lollipop Update killed signal strength

[CAO]

I have a Note 4 through US Cellular. I LOVED it before the Lollipop Update. Since the update, my signal strength went from -81 to -85 at home to -113 to -119 on 4G. I have done numerous things to it to try and improve it but to no avail. I have restarted it. I have pulled the battery. I have pulled SIM card. I have called star 228. I have done a factory reset. I have put the phone in safe mode to see if an app was at fault. I have even called US Cellular who had not heard of this problem. However, the woman at US Cellular noticed another Note 4 had weaker signal strength as well. A few friends where I work have low signal strength as well, but they did not noticed a difference (did not take note of signal strength number) before doing the update. This phone used to be able to pick up in areas my other phones--Galaxy 1 and Galaxy 4--could not. Now, I loose signal going to the basement of my home which it never had in the past. The only saving grace is being able to switch down to 3G which will give me a signal strength of about -87 to -94. US Cellular advised me doing this should help until a possible fix is looked into. The woman advised she was going to fill out a work order and send it to Samsung. I just don't understand how an OS update would affect signal strength. Any suggestions? Any explanations would be greatly appreciated.

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[LaTuFu]

It's definitely possible for the firmware update to mess with the radio settings. I have not noticed any difference on my Note 4 since the update yesterday (I'm also on USCC) with regards to signal strength.

 

[CAO]

I wonder if update can be reinstalled this time through Kies and make a difference. Any thoughts?

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[lagunarad]

How do you switch down to 3g.?

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[bbmjack]

Mobile networks more networks
Change to WCDMA

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[1812dave]

sometimes its just the way the SS is reported by SW. If you aren't have trouble making/receiving calls, SS may literally be identical to what it was prior to the update.

 

[CAO]

Thanks for the reply. I haven't had difficulty making calls yet, but the battery is not what it used to be, and I contributed this to phone trying to link to a cell tower. Since switching down to 3G, however, the battery is much better than on 4G. Still not as good as it once was. I can't understand why all these problems occur on OS updates. Sometimes, I wish they would give us the ability to reject these updates as long as we want. I wish I could go back to Kit Kat 4.4.4.

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[rong21]

I work in cell purgatory. Before lollipop my phone didn't drain as bad as it does now. Anywhere else it's fine. I'm guessing my radio functionality was affected somewhat

 

[Eric Head]

I'm on Verizon and I'm having similar signal issues since the lollipop update. My Note 4 will randomly drop service at any given time. I have to restart the device to get it to pick up service again. I never had this issue before the OS update.

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[Metah4]

Is this a typical issue?

 

[idkwtf]

I am having the exact same problem , I have done three factory resets have cleared my cache multiple times, i have gone to where there was a stronger signal and did numerous restarts i plugged into Kies and tried it that way. I then called verizon to ask for help they in turn hooked me up with samsung in which they recomended to flash my phone, they have a rep at our bestbuy so i was able to go there, it did no good at all, now i have called samung again and im sending my ohone back to them so they csn wipe it all clean and reinstall all the software. .. I dont know id it will work but i hace no choice.
Everything the op posted is exactly what happened to me.
Fingers crossed and when i get my phone back ill let you know, they expect 7/10 days turn around.. my radio worked better than any other phone I've had in my area and after lollipop im very lucky if i get one tick (bar)
Frustrating to have such a nice phone that wont work in my home.

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[clownin72]

Similar problems. Signal strength is far from where it was with kit kat. Done numerous cashe wipes and factory reset. Phone is killing battery faster trying find a signal

Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 4!!

 

[smoothrunnings]

Factory reset your phone and test it again.

 

[CAO]

Hopefully, those who are seeing the signal problems are reporting them to the carrier. The more complaints that are filled the better the chances it will be addressed. I think this is a big issue that may not have been uncovered at first. Most people likely did not check their signal strength before doing the update. I only noticed it as I am always checking my signal strength to see where it falls. I unfortunately got into this habit after upgrading my Galaxy S1 to the S3. The signal strength on the S3 was so horrible that I lost calls and texts. I had US Cellular take the phone back and used my S1 until the S4 came out which had similar signal strength as the S1 did. The Note 4 running Kit Kat was the best phone signal strength-wise I have ever had. Now, it is worse than the S1 and S4 but not as bad as the S3. On Saturday, I ran the Lollipop Update through Kies, and this made most things faster and snappier. But the signal strength has not improved.
I hate to say this, but I wonder if Apple has the same problems during updates. I used to look forward to updates--I go back as far as Eclair--but now I can't stand how these things alter my phones. I am getting to the point of "If it isn't broken; don't fix it."

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[Jag77]

I have 2 new Galaxy S5 and after my phone updated to lollipop my signal strength got terrible. Before it was -83dbm and now it isaround -112 and 28 asu. My wife did not upgrade her phone right away since i had problems and so I had 2 identical galaxy s5 phones from us cellular (month old) and I compared the signal strength side by side and the one with lollipop was terrible and her phone(kitkat) stayed at -83dbm. Then she accidently upgraded because of that annoying pop up and now her strength is also in the -110 range and sometimes go down to 1 bar and switch from 4 g to 3g. Can not get a good connection in a lot of places now, and before it was excellent signal. Dropped calls since upgrade. Called us cellular and of course the lady said they had no reported incidents, which I know is not true. They will not report the problem unless you are having the issue while they are on the phone, They will not take your word that since the upgrade the signal strength got worse. Maybe everyone needs to contact Samsung? I don't know who else. My carrier will not pursue to issue. But I know the upgrade effected the signal strength. Never had any connection problems with kitkat, now I have several

 

[Rukbat]

Install LTE Discovery and see what your 4G signal strength is. Anything over -110dBm (IOW a smaller number) is a solid signal, but the phone should work down to -117dBm with no problem (costing a little more battery). If you're getting -80dBm and a lot of battery drain, it's not a bad modem (the software part of the radio), it's something else associated with 4G.

Regardless of what it is, though, CAO is right - scream loud and long. Many "customer service" reps will tell you that they've never heard of the particular problem you're reporting, even though you're looking at a thread of 50 people who have already reported it (and we're a tiny part of the total number of people using any given Android phone on any given carrier). When you can tll them that you know for a fact that it's been reported to them at least 50 times, because you've spoken to the people who have reported it, you have ample grounds to demand that they connect you with a supervisor, and then ask that the trouble (that's what phone companies call problems) be elevated to at least level 2. Enough calls getting to people higher up than hamburger flippers may give the carrier a reason to actually look into the problem, instead of just telling everyone "it'll be fixed in the next update" - which we know isn't true in most cases, because an update is for flash, not for technical improvement. (If all Lollipop did was double the battery life, but otherwise work and look exactly like KitKat, no one but those of us who post to forums like this one would really care.)

 

[smoothrunnings]

Contact your carrier. Let them deal with it...they might be forced to roll out 5.0.2 or they might just tell you too bad so sad. But have you tried doing a factory wipe? Have you dumped the cache?

 

[CAO]

Smoothrunnings,
How do you dump the caches? I have done 2 factory resets. Wouldn't that dump the caches? I'm open to any suggestions. An OS update should not have messed up the phone signal. Ultimately, these "phones" are phones. If they can't receive or send calls, their value goes down greatly. Also, if signal strength is weak wouldn't GPS be affected as well. I use that feature a lot. I wish I could go back to Kit Kat. Starting to get upset at the Android experience.

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[idkwtf]

Im happy I found this thread. like i said previously, all these things happened to me in the exact same way.
Full factory wipe three times,
Clear cache plenty of times.. took phone to samsung rep and had my phone flashed none of this helped. I spoke with samsung and have mailed my phone back to them for a complete wipe and install of software. .. I'll keep you posted if it helps or not..
Im sorry for the ill will but im glad im not the only one that this happened to and that I found this thread in the search I made.

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[beh]

if, by signal strength, you mean the bar graph on the navi bar, then you should know that that display isn't really actual signal strength. It is the result of an algorithm which includes actual signal strength, and several other factors. Each carrier has its own algorithm including those for Android phones, iPhones, and Windows phones. In addition the manufacturers have their own algorithms and even different models by the same manufacturer have been known to use different algorithms. If you are really interested in what your signal strength is you may wish to try apps like "network signal info" to get actual decibel strength and tower location.