Help Fascinate Issues - battery and camera

[gadgetmom88]

I've had my Fascinate for a week and am having some trouble - actually, lots of trouble with it. Any suggestions are welcome:

1. At night I close out all running programs except Zeam - which I'm using as a home replacement since LauncherPro doesn't play nicely with the Fascinate (too much lag). When I close down I have about 90% left on my battery, in the morning, the phone is dead, battery drained. I typically wake up to about 5 emails and no other notifications so it's not processing a ton of incoming data. I can plug it in at night, but the standby time is supposed to be 312 hours. Am I doing something wrong?

2. I can't get the camera app to close. I sometimes have to pull the battery in order to get it to close. I try hitting the home key and get no response, the back key yields nothing, and the power key won't turn it off. The camera remains functional as I try each of these keys. Even after hitting the power key I can immediately take a picture.

3. GPS won't get a lock. I know this is a known problem, but is it a problem on every device, or is it hit and miss?

I really love the Fascinate's form factor and gorgeous screen, but I'm struggling with whether or not to trade for the Droid X before my 30 days are up. The home key lights, lack of text editing assistance (via trackball, trackpad, or on screen software), lack of LED notification light, GPS issues, and lag are making me lean towards the X. I had an X when they first came out and I never quite got used to the size of it. It never felt comfortable in my hand. But the phone itself worked great. I'd prefer not to have to root my phone to get it to work properly.

I expect I sound vague - but if I could get some help with the immediate problems mentioned above that would be great. Any thoughts on whether or not the Fascinate's known issues will be addressed in software updates and switching to the Droid X would also be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[OfTheDamned]

#1 Standby time on a smartphone is always misleading. The amount of time that a battery lasts really depends on what the phone is doing. That said, what you are experiencing doesn't sound normal. To test, I would try restarting your phone just before bed and then checking Settings > About Phone > Battery Use in the morning to see what is using the most battery at night. I would also look at Settings > Applications > Running Services to see what, if anything, is running for a long time that shouldn't be. Applications will run no matter what it is the way Android is designed, but sometimes third party apps, like Facebook, will not shut down and drain battery quickly.

You say that you close all running programs before bed, how are you doing this?

I have not used Zeam, but I do use Launcher Pro and I'm not experiencing any lag so the source of this lag me be apart of your problem as well.

#2 Are you using the stock camera or one of the other Camera apps from the market? The stock camera should close by simply pressing the back button. If that isn't working then another app may be conflicting with it somehow or there is a problem in the software. If you can't get it to close there is always the option to go to Settings > Applications > Running Services and close it from there. Long pressing on the Camera app will give you the option to close it.

#3 GPS has been hit or miss for many, but it doesn't appear to be a consistent problem. As an example, I have no problem with GPS itself when turned on, but I will occasionally have a problem with simple location based stuff using either Google's or Verizon's location services. Under Settings > Location & security I typically leave VZW location services unchecked and leave Google location services checked. Others have found that leaving them both checked works better. You can also download GPS status from the market which has helped me test my GPS and I find that I often get faster satellite locks after playing with for a second. The one area the I really have a problem is getting a lock while moving. If I am sitting still for a minute then I can get a lock in about 30 seconds. Right now, it is something that has to be played with and the right configuration has to be found. It is supposed to be corrected in the future update though.

With the camera and battery issues you are having a factory reset may be a solution that will get things running right again. It will wipe everything off the phone and allow you to start over. It would correct any conflicts you might be having with settings or apps. If that doesn't fix it, then you may want to exchange it for a new one before your 30 days are up. It is a great phone though.

 

[gadgetmom88]

I'd love to check the battery status, but it's dead, so when I pop a fresh battery in and turn it on, it won't tell me what's been using the battery. I expect I need to wake up a little earlier and check this out. When I close down my apps, I've used the Samsung task manager. I've also gone into settings > applications > running services to see what's running, and there's really nothing out of the ordinary (except the darned bloatware that runs in the background even though I've never used it - Skype and Blockbuster).

On running LauncherPro with no lag on the Fascinate, how does it do when you go to add widgets, or shortcuts to the screen? Or when you hit the home key to go back to the home screen from inside an app... no lag for you?

When I can't close the stock camera - I mean the phone won't do anything else. It's not lagging because the camera is still active and working, but I can't get any other keys to function. So I can't back out, long press home key, I can't get to settings to kill it - I have to pull the battery to do anything else. Weird. I expect I'll have to exchange the phone to get this problem taken care of, but I'm still evaluating if I want to keep the phone so I'm not ready to do that yet.

Thanks for taking the time to get back with me. Always appreciated!

 

[OfTheDamned]

I'd love to check the battery status, but it's dead, so when I pop a fresh battery in and turn it on, it won't tell me what's been using the battery.

Duh! I didn't even think about that.

I expect I need to wake up a little earlier and check this out. When I close down my apps, I've used the Samsung task manager. I've also gone into settings > applications > running services to see what's running, and there's really nothing out of the ordinary (except the darned bloatware that runs in the background even though I've never used it - Skype and Blockbuster).

You may also want to take a look at Spare Parts (free in market) as it will show you what is running in the background. The bloatware will load, but that stuff really shouldn't be using any battery as most of it should be just sitting in ram and not really running.

On running LauncherPro with no lag on the Fascinate, how does it do when you go to add widgets, or shortcuts to the screen? Or when you hit the home key to go back to the home screen from inside an app... no lag for you?

Adding widgets can take a second every once in a while, but that has been my experience with every phone. The more you have installed, the more the phone has to sort for the widget and shortcut list. Keep in mind that it is compiling that list on the fly so it can take time, especially if you have a lot of apps installed. As far as home and back go, I have zero lag there. I hit the button and it does what it is supposed to do.

When I can't close the stock camera - I mean the phone won't do anything else. It's not lagging because the camera is still active and working, but I can't get any other keys to function. So I can't back out, long press home key, I can't get to settings to kill it - I have to pull the battery to do anything else. Weird. I expect I'll have to exchange the phone to get this problem taken care of, but I'm still evaluating if I want to keep the phone so I'm not ready to do that yet.

Thanks for taking the time to get back with me. Always appreciated!

This is a sign of a pretty big problem, especially on a phone with such a great camera. I would absolutely recommend exchanging your phone for another one as this is in no way normal. I understand that you are still evaluating, but with a problem like that you never know if something you find as a negative or even a positive is a really a result of the problem with the camera.
I would run, don't walk, back to Verizon and get another phone to evaluate.

 

[ktez]

Quick tip on the camera - I discovered that if you hit the power button while the camera is on, this will lock the camera so you can't exit from it. It took me awhile to figure this out but if its locked there will be a little picture of a padlock on the screen - next time check for this and if its there, push the power button again n it should go away. Then you should be able to use the home key or back key. Hope this helps!

 

[OfTheDamned]

Quick tip on the camera - I discovered that if you hit the power button while the camera is on, this will lock the camera so you can't exit from it. It took me awhile to figure this out but if its locked there will be a little picture of a padlock on the screen - next time check for this and if its there, push the power button again n it should go away. Then you should be able to use the home key or back key. Hope this helps!

Interesting, I just tried that and it sure does. So you don't leave it on and burn down the battery, maybe? Odd feature really, IMHO.

Good to know though.

 

[NOsquid]

I've had my Fascinate for a week and am having some trouble - actually, lots of trouble with it. Any suggestions are welcome:

1. At night I close out all running programs except Zeam - which I'm using as a home replacement since LauncherPro doesn't play nicely with the Fascinate (too much lag). When I close down I have about 90% left on my battery, in the morning, the phone is dead, battery drained. I typically wake up to about 5 emails and no other notifications so it's not processing a ton of incoming data. I can plug it in at night, but the standby time is supposed to be 312 hours. Am I doing something wrong?

I think you might be experiencing this known bug

[Q] Why my Galaxy S locks up?! (Comatose Syndrome on going investigation) - xda-developers

I haven't read through the 50-page thread, but some people claim toggling their mobile data helps. You can use an app like Juice Defender to do it.

 

[gadgetmom88]

Figured out what was draining my battery over night. I got an app update for No LED and noticed that it doesn't allow the phone to go to sleep. I uninstalled last night, left everything else the same, and woke up this morning with a battery at 90%. I didn't have the problem during the day because I dismiss the notifications fairly regularly.

 

[OfTheDamned]

Figured out what was draining my battery over night. I got an app update for No LED and noticed that it doesn't allow the phone to go to sleep. I uninstalled last night, left everything else the same, and woke up this morning with a battery at 90%. I didn't have the problem during the day because I dismiss the notifications fairly regularly.

Yea, that would definitely do it.

So that is at least 1 down. Did ktez's camera tip solve th other one?

 

[gadgetmom88]

The camera has fixed itself. Not sure what happened. Did a factory reset and now it seems to work fine when I back out using the back key. I noticed the little lock thing when the camera was on too, thought it was weird. The screen won't time out when the camera is open, but the screen will lock. That seems more like a bug than a feature to me.

Still not sold on the device. I love how it feels, how it looks, but still frustrated with the buginess, lack of GPS, and just little things. Still weighing if I want to have a ginormous, non-ergonomic beast of a phone to replace this one, and if I'd just be trading one set of problems for another.

 

[super_android]

Your posting is so much similar to the issues that I'm having. Good to know why the camera/camcorder feature locked up when I was trying to video shoot last time - I was trying to shoot the same program to compete with the iPhone4 quality and damn, my fascinate locked up on me. Think of all the comments I had to take!

I still love the feel, size, super-duper screen which is just amazing, and its light weight. yet not yet sold on owning it or trade for a droid-x despite its dull screen, size, and physical buttons. Really unable to decide.

 

[super_android]

and, guess what, the camera lock is to avoid any accidental shots when u r using it in the camera mode. so, if u r waiting for the right moment to start the video/photo shooting then u can go to the camera mode, lock it, and wait there for the right moment. cool, isnt it? need to check if droid-x has similar feature.

 

[twister6]

Excellent find with camera lock!!! Drove me crazy today when camera got stuck after my wife pushed power button to turn it off, instead of home/back. Problem solved!