Phone Crash hard because of SDcard after update.

[Android Central Question]

I have a Cat phone S41, and yesterday a phone update it started automatically rebooting, constantly! Could use the phone at all... With error com.phone.android. So i checked a lot of topics. Tried everything nothing would work. When i removed the sim cards it would last a bit more, or in plane mode. I decided to do a hard factory reset, no other option i need to be able to use the phone...

After the reboot it started being 10 times worse! I couldn't even finish the factory reset. It would restart every 20 sec. At some point I remove the SD card and BAM! I can finish the factory reset. Now my phone works but each time I insert the SD card I crashes all the same. I think it didn't crash with an empty SD. But no use for an empty SD... Even after formating the card and reuploading my music it does the same. I changed my 64GB SD card for another, reupload all my music : BAM it crashes and reboot all the same... I'm stuck with a phone that doesn't accept any SD card anymore while it worked fine for more than 6 months.... The SD cards still work fine on my go pro, so i beleive the card is not the "broken".

What should I try ?
Thanks for your help !

 

[dobrin]

I have the same problem. It seems that after the last update the phone crashes and reboots when an app tries to access a folder with many files on the SD card.
Firmware version: LTE_D0201121.0_S41_0.034.01
SD card: Samsung 64 GB class 10

 

[gryban1]

Same problem here with my cat s41.
Thanks for your time to find out how to temporarly avoid the problem with removing the sd card!
I hope cat will fix this problem soon.

Edit: I mailed the cat support and linked your thread. I will keep you updated.

 

[Arniels]

Good (and bad for you guys) to know I'm not the only one in this situation ! Hope they make a fix or someone finds a solution.
My SD card is a Sandisk extreme class 10.

 

[JSaunders80]

I am also experiencing the same problem with my S41 following the recently released firmware update. Is it worth contacting CAT support about the problem?

 

[gryban1]

I am also experiencing the same problem with my S41 following the recently released firmware update. Is it worth contacting CAT support about the problem?

Already mailed them, but I think we have to wait till monday.
I will post their answer here.

Regards

 

[Andoidaz]

I am also experiencing the same problem with my S41.
Someone has fixed it?

 

[gryban1]

Till now noone aswered my mail, but I got an answer from Andija via live chat:

------------
Hallo Herr Siegel
Bitte versuchen Sie Ihre SD Karte zu entfehrnen und dann starten Sie Ihr Handy neu.

Bitte formatieren Sie die Karte als FAT und EXTERNAL.

Unsere Geräte unterstutzen nur die SDXC Typ von SD Karten.

Falls Sie andere Fragen haben, stehen wir Ihnen gerne zur Verfügung.
------------

Short: Cat phones only support SDXC and I shall format my sd card as FAT and EXTERNAL and try it again.
I don't know if I ever formated my sd card. I think I used it out of the box without any problems, but I will try this evening if it changes anything.

 

[Arniels]

I used it out of the box and had no problem ever until the update. Then the problem appeared, I formated it through my laptop in ExFat : crash, then i Formated it through the phone and then uploaded files though my laptop: Crash...

Don't know what the solution is but to me since it all appeared since the update it can only be an update issue to be solved by CAT

I sent a mail too. I believe the more people report the issue, the faster they'll react

 

[Andoidaz]

The problem has been resolved!
I have formatted the memory card as FAT32 on the computer.
Insert the memory card into CAT S41, then format the memory card with S41.
Everything works fine.
Memory Card: Kingston 16GB.
Firmware version: LTE_D0201121.0_S41_0.034.01

 

[Arniels]

This worked as well when I tried it a few days ago. But did you tried to reupload files from your laptop on it ? Because when I did it crashed all again...

 

[gryban1]

Got a response today!
-----------------
Dear Roland,

Thank you for contacting Cat© phones Support.

In regard to your query, we would like to inform you that the most recent update for the S41 has caused issues with the SD slot hardware. This means that if you use an SD card in your phone, the phone will continually reboot and turn off. To resolve this, please remove your SD card from your phone and it will stop rebooting.

We understand that many of our customers use and SD card and would like to inform you that our technical team are aware of this issue and are working on a fix. A new software may be released soon so please check your updates daily.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

Neave

Cat© phones Support
ref:_00Dj01o5yW._5000ahyBjZ:ref

 

[Arniels]

Thanks à lot for forwarding the info! It's a start

 

[Leech89]

Hi all,

I have experienced the same issues as described. I find that response so dismissive and insulting - especially since it's obvious that they didn't in any way test this alleged 'update' with an extremely common usage configuration - that it has actually become funny again.

Following assorted tinkering, I can report that it is sufficient to merely 'eject' the card in software (Settings -> Storage) which you should usually have time to do following a reboot. This reduces the possibility of the SD getting GENUINELY damaged during physical removal.

Following.

 

[cazza157]

So my Cat Phone S41 is barely 4 days out of the box. Before updating was uploading phones to WhatsApp fine. Then updated and suddenly it would start restarting everytime I would go into the camera or try to attach something to a WhatsApp message. So naturally I was not happy at all, especially as had already had oversensitivity issues.
Found this thread and tried taking out the SD card. Turns out that was the issue. So I can confirm same issue here with a brand new device. Just waiting for them to push an update, hoping it's pretty soon as so far even though I've already had issues with the phone I really love it.

 

[Rukbat]

I have experienced the same issues as described. I find that response so dismissive and insulting - especially since it's obvious that they didn't in any way test this alleged 'update' with an extremely common usage configuration - that it has actually become funny again.

It's a lot better than Samsung's response when an S3 update caused the phone to corrupt the SD card. There was no response, until SanDisk had already started selling cards with a fix to them to stop them from being corrupted by the S3 bug. And the "response" was just an update - no announcement, no apology.

When you're dealing with probably (I haven't looked at recent Android releases) tens or hundreds of thousands of lines of code written by someone else [Google], you can easily write a bug that interacts with that code in some bad way without realizing it. Put an SD card into the phone, format it and you see the LOST folder and you assume that everything is fine. If they checked every single function, you'd see an update every few years. At least they almost immediately accepted responsibility - most companies don't. Ever.

 

[Arniels]

Still no fix ?!

 

[JSaunders80]

I decided to ditch the Cat S41 and get a proper phone instead. I am very pleased with my Huawei Mate 10 Pro