Question Told you I'm a dolt

[Not Good At This Anymore]

So my Dad developed Dementia, the Alzheimer's variety.

This currently means he has no memory beyond the last 5 minutes and is completely unaware of this and also in denial about it when told. But fortunately that is for the time being the worst of things.

So, to the issue at hand.

He's 83 and to say he was never really any kind of 'silver surfer" is being overly extreme euphemistically speaking.

But who am I to talk when I describe the problem I caused...

So his phone had pages and pages of apps installed. Many being effectively copies of each other. Like half a dozen antivirus, or the same number of clean up apps. And all manner of nonsense and tat that was probably spyware or w/e is used these days to collect data to sell. Pages and pages of drivel. Crazy

Anyway he had hundreds of apps he didn't need when I got hold of his phone. A phone which I am trying to make useful again. In the meantime, although this phone is pretty rubbish it's a drastic improvement on what he has to use at the moment.

Oh he lives in Spain while I live in the UK so I couldn't stay in top of things on a daily/weekly or even monthly basis. He was causing problems but it's nit his fault..


To make matters worse the email addresses he has assigned to the 'owners' account he has no idea about any of them ( there are 3). Passwords? Hahaha but not in a funny way.

So I can't tell the phone to access the internet or w/e might work to possibly make it tell me what is missing because it wants ne to log in to those emails but I have no passwords for any of them.


Part of the benefits of having this phone is so that we can communicate more easily and cheaply because it is a Spanish number currently in the phone I am talking about.

I can also call his solicitor, talk to doctors, the manager of the residential block he lives in and mechanics garages and a bunch of other stuff.

His wife is OK when it comes.to cooking his food and cleaning and giving his medication but hopeless when it comes to red tape and service logistics and thise types of things.


So I am hoping you guys might have some suggestions as to what I might need to re-install to get the phone up and running again. Tomorrow I will ne buying another €10 (which will give me 50GB of data but I still have about 46GB from the last €10. Which is somewhat irritating to say the least.


TL;DR is I deleted dozens and dozens of apps and now I cannot access the Internet using his phone. I did try and pay attention to what the app seemed to involve or relate to. I didn't just select a bunch a delete without any kind of thought. Just not enough attention it seems. Can anyone suggest apps to install that maybundo my mistake/s

Please

Thank

 

[B. Diddy]

Assuming the phone isn't rooted, there's no way you could delete a system app that would make it nonfunctional on the web. Can you tell us what brand and model phone he has, and what Android version it's on?

 

[VidJunky]

And while you have given us a lot of information please also include "how it is not working", because when you say that you are not able to access the internet, do you mean opening the browser, returns a no internet connection page, none of the apps that require internet work, i.e. weather, Facebook, YouTube, etc.?

Does the device still get internet via WiFi?

Does the phone still show bars or symbols for network data? 4G/5G?

Have you visited the quick settings to see what is on and what may be off? This would be the quick way but you can also do this by going to connections and just checking what it says is on, WiFi, WiFi calling, Bluetooth, Mobile data, etc.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Not to be demeaning, but I know that if you have a phone for a kid, that phone can be set up so they have to get approval from their parent's device to install an app. What if you got a new phone, and set it up like that?

 

[Not Good At This Anymore]

Some great questions.

It is Android 12 and updating remains at Android 12.

Wifi works.

Mobile data tells me No internet connection. But can open any browser apps.

Can watch YouTube, use browsers etc via wifi.

 

[B. Diddy]

Ok, that seems to narrow it down to the cell connection. This would probably be a matter to discuss with the carrier. Are you certain the account is in good standing? If it's a pay-as-you-go plan, are you certain the minutes/data allotment aren't depleted?

 

[Not Good At This Anymore]

Yep deffo all is in order. In fact I topped up since starting this thread and had about 46GB left of the 50GB I start with 28days previously.

Another strange thing is that when I first put this Spanish SIM in Iceeated an additional user. There appears to be 3 email accounts associated with the owner (my Dad).

Creating my account on the phone was straightforward. I could use mobile data, make calls etc. Everything was fine for four or five days.

It was during the process of deleting all those apps that my internet access was denied. When I logged out of my account into his Owner's account I realized he too no longer had Internet access.

Thanks.

 

[B. Diddy]

So I guess it might be challenging to contact the Spanish carrier while you're in the UK? If you're fluent in Spanish, it's still worth a try.

At this point, a factory reset might be in order, but is that also too much of a hassle if you're currently in a different country than your father?

 

[Not Good At This Anymore]

Yep deffo all is in order. In fact I topped up since starting this thread and had about 46GB left of the 50GB I start with 28days previously.

Another strange thing is that when I first put this Spanish SIM in Iceeated an additional user. There appears to be 3 email accounts associated with the owner (my Dad).

Creating my account on the phone was straightforward. I could use mobile data, make calls etc. Everything was fine for four or five days.

It was during the process of deleting all those apps that my internet access was denied. When I logged out of my account into his Owner's account I realized he too no longer had Internet access.

Thanks.

So I guess it might be challenging to contact the Spanish carrier while you're in the UK? If you're fluent in Spanish, it's still worth a try.

At this point, a factory reset might be in order, but is that also too much of a hassle if you're currently in a different country than your father?

Hi,

Everyone here had been so patient regarding this issue. I really appreciate that. So thanks to everyone.

The good news is that it is fixed.


The irritating aspect is that I can no longer find the area that the changed was made that fixed it so cannot explain fully.


It was as simple as changing the type of Network the phone was told to use. This is not a 4G phone but was set to use the best available network from 5G/4G/3G etc


I changed that to the setting below which maced out at 4G and magically, not only the owner account but also my account too now has Internet again.


Within Settings I cannot find the list in 'connections & sharing', 'system settings' or anywhere that would be a likely place to find the culprit that was in need of change.

The good news is that it has been fixed.

Once again thanks to everyone for their help and suggestions.

 

[B. Diddy]

Glad to hear it's working again! Settings can differ depending on the phone -- which brand and model is it?

If the system settings menu has a search bar, you can also search for "Preferred Network Type."

 

[Not Good At This Anymore]

Hi

thanks for asking a couple more questions.

It's an Oppo Reno Z 5G (!!!!!! - wtf so it is a 5G??? after all) 8GB RAM Octa-core. It's a few years old but it's worth getting fixed.

Either to give him back as its got stuff of ise to him

Or for me to use to contact Spain while I am in the UK as I manage quite a lot of his life these days. Doctors/medical, banking, solicitors/legal, the residential managementwhere he lives, aduanas/customs, Correos/Post Office, motoring and vehicles it goes on and on. A lot of stuff. WhatsApp isn't the answer for everything but being able to call Spain or Spanish numbers being able to call my Spanish SIM is useful.

Or like I say I may give it/send it back to him once it is problem free.

What does ColorOS version mean? (V12.1 btw)

Android V12 which will not improve with system updates.


Incidentally, I have a new thread to start ciz I have a bunch of other questions.



But for now why can't I use 5G? (I don't need it or want it but I would like to know what the he'll is going on on!)

I just found the area where I made the change btw. It is in mobile data after all. Clicking on SIM , allows to change the SIM name etc, stuff to do with Roaming, etc

The important area in this issue was 'preferred network type'. There are 4 options.

I deselected 5G/4G/3G/2G (Auto) and selected 4G/3G/2G (Auto) and that fixed things. Buy if this is allegedly a 5G or '5G ready' phone, why did it matter?

A question I am adding after the edits below. But why in the SIM section is there a toggle switch that allows to turn 4G calling on and off (on the same way Roaming can be toggled on and off)

What are Access Point Names (memory tells me these were often a reason changing carriers was a problem. Did we have to contact carriers for a code at one time?)

And I used to know what DNS was but that's gone now. Anyway this Oppo is set to Private DNS 'Auto' with 2 other options of 'Off' and 'Designated Private DNS' which requires me to select an email address or poss an IP address. So I have it set to Auto. That's fine I suspect.

NGATAM

*Edit* I may have just screwed ot up again. I have done something by accident tk do with the Carrier and network while holding the Oppo and using thus phone. Fingers crossed.

**Edit ** Yeah everything OK. I panicked coz it's been a tricky situation recently.

 

[B. Diddy]

ColorOS is the name of Oppo's "skin" of Android (like Samsung's One UI and OnePlus's OxygenOS). And it looks like the full name of the phone is the Reno7 Z 5G, correct?

Remind me, which Spanish carrier are you using for that phone?

Just like with 4G, a 5G phone still has to support the 5G bands being used by the carrier. This site shows only a 60-75% overlap with Spain's 5G bands: https://www.frequencycheck.com/comp...al-sim-td-lte-v1-128gb-cph2343-bbk-2343/spain. If the carrier you're using has poor 5G coverage in the area your father lives in, it's possible the phone might be struggling to get a 5G signal and not quite falling back to 4G, thus not connecting properly.