Anybody else's Photon locking up and rebooting?

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Motorola PHOTON 4G

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groovechicken August 26, 2011

Anybody else's Photon locking up and rebooting?

Well, either no one else who I discussed this phone with is bothered by random lock-ups and reboots, or I got a lemon and will have to retrun it for another. I'm hoping the latter, since I want to keep the Photon. It will make me sad if I have to switch to a Nexus S over a major bug.

I am not sure what is causing this, but the first 2 times it happened were within a few minutes of taking it off of charging. The phone could not be woken from sleep and I had to pull the battery. Then, after it was done booting, it mysteriously rebooted after 1 or 2 minutes. After the first 2 times, it has happened more randomly. Today, while sitting in a coffee shop where I had an extremely weak signal, it went into an infinite lock / reboot cycle that lasted until it killed the battery, leaving me with no usable phone for several hours. When it is locked up, the phone is warmer than usual, so it might be an overheating-related issue. This is an absolute deal-breaker for me, so I am going to have to call Sprint to see about getting a replacement shipped out ASAP.

I did the software / profile / PRL updates before I even added my Google account to it, so everything is up-to-date. After it booted back up to the point of working (being plugged in when I returned home), I checked the list of running apps and there is not much that starts up automatically at boot. The one thing in the list that I could see possibly causing an issue is Skype (why is that running if I haven't even opened it or logged in?). When it happens again, I will uninstall Skype to see if that helps.

Any other thoughts?

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groovechicken 2011-08-27 09:32:12

I guess I should have researched a little more. Had I known about this before buying it, it would not have been on my radar at all. I know my brother-in-law's Verizon Droid Pro also randomly reboots, so this tells me that Motorola apparently can't make a working ROM to save their lives. Which sucks because I was really digging the docking features of this phone and no other phone has these features.

When my phone was done activating, it downloaded a software update. Is that the one you are referring to or is there another coming? The end of the month is almost here, so either that was it or they are probably going to miss their release date for that.

Sigh... can any company make a bug-free Android ROM? I'm getting so sick of this crap. The quest for a reliable Android phone is almost enough to make me give up and go back to the iPhone.

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rmcvey 2011-08-30 02:05:02

I got the push update last night, I haven't seen it reboot today, however mine didn't really do it to begin with. Did it fix yours, or has it been pushed to you yet.

groovechicken 2011-08-30 09:53:22

No updates available yet since the one that cam in right after I activated it last week. My build # is 4.5.1A-1_SUN-154_5. I tried dealing with it last night but got stuck on hold waiting for a supervisor for 30 minutes and had to bail out on the call to leave for something. I guess they are busy with all the hurricane aftermath. Maybe I will wait until late today to call again to see if maybe the software update shows up (assuming that wasn't already it that I installed).

groovechicken 2011-08-30 10:34:25

I checked the Sprint site and the latest update mentioned is the one I already have. It was released on the 23rd. Unless they just haven't bothered to update their site, this is the one you just received.

support.sprint.com/support/article/Find_and_update...

I guess it's time to get back on the phone.

rmcvey 2011-08-30 10:58:50

Yeah thats actually the one I have, so I guess I'm just late in getting the push.

groovechicken 2011-08-30 11:09:54

Crud. I will be calling them later this afternoon, so please reply here if you have any lockups or reboots. It is possible that the update is causing the problem. It took about 8 hours after the update before I had my first lockup. If this happens to you, I will know that they really messed something up and will be forced to return this and try a different phone. I love the Photon, especially the docking features, but I need something that actually works that I can rely on. If my boss is calling me for tech support and my phone is dead in my pocket from a lockup, the first time will annoy him, the 2nd time will anger him, the 3rd time he would probably fire me and ask why I hadn't replaced it with something that works.

rmcvey 2011-08-26 23:46:03

I've not really had this problem, my phone has rebooted a couple times, since I got it, but nothing that's really been a problem. However it is a known issue, apparently sometimes it locks completely up and the battery has to be pulled to fix, it also will sometimes completely drain a battery by doing this. Motorola and Sprint both know about this and some other issues in the phone, and they are all software problems. They are supposed to be pushing out an update to fix this sometime between the Middle to End of this Month.

Not everyone's phones are doing it however, so just to be certain, I'd still exchange it.

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