Help Can't get Infuse to update to GB

[shannonz]

Sorry for the duplication, originally posted in the wrong area.

About at the end of my rope here: I've tried more than 10 times to get the gingerbread update. I have Samsung Kies mini on my PC. All the drivers have been downloaded. Chose Kies (firmware update) in USB settings. Connect the phone, launch Kies - shows an update is available. I download the update files and then it says "firmware updating" and there it sits. No progress is ever shown even after 4+ hours. I tried turning off my firewall and anti-virus on the PC and Lookout on the phone thinking maybe that had something to do with it...nope. I can't find anyone else that's had any similar issues and I'm about ready to give up - unless you guys can help!

 

[jerofld]

No problem if you accidentially post something in the wrong area. You can click the

button and explain that you posted in a wrong area and we can move the thread for you or you can contact any of the Guides (the users with the green usernames and the Guide badge) and they can also move it for you.

Good luck on getting an answer!

 

[mam1955]

I had the same problems last night. I spoke with a tech from Samsung this morning. He told me Kies Mini is not compatable with a 64 bit OS.

I brought out my older PC with XP installed, and was able to download the uupdate without a problem.

 

[andyinmichigan]

honestly you probably don't want it. I was pretty exited about it too, but after seeing what the release offered it's almost a downgrade from the current FROYO.

The best bet is to stixk with what you have, boring as it may seem for 99% of infuse users it seems to be the best bet. Also, many people who have been trying custom roms, etc, do flash back to stock realizing iy really is one of the best options.

at this point, if you want GB or ICS yore better off getting a new phone if possible.

 

[shannonz]

I had the same problems last night. I spoke with a tech from Samsung this morning. He told me Kies Mini is not compatable with a 64 bit OS.

I brought out my older PC with XP installed, and was able to download the uupdate without a problem.

I may call Samsung myself. I'm running Vista (32 bit) on a 5 year old computer. It downloads the updates fine, just wont install the firmware.

 

[yohannie]

honestly you probably don't want it. I was pretty exited about it too, but after seeing what the release offered it's almost a downgrade from the current FROYO.

The best bet is to stixk with what you have, boring as it may seem for 99% of infuse users it seems to be the best bet. Also, many people who have been trying custom roms, etc, do flash back to stock realizing iy really is one of the best options.

at this point, if you want GB or ICS yore better off getting a new phone if possible.

I completely agree. Aside from minimal battery life gain, the "official" Gingerbread was basically an unfinished beta version that the developers at AT&T decided to just toss out into the world as the "update". The stock Froyo that comes with the phone is much better and is the better option, unless you are interested in rooting and flashing custom ROMs.

 

[DesElms]

I've been saying, since back when I had a Samsung Captivate and the 2.3 Gingerbread update for it was finally released, that no update should be applied unless the phone has first been backed-up and then factory reset. And by "factory reset," I mean the most rigorous of the three reset methods: The "GSM Reset."

The Infuse (which is what I use now) is no different.

The logic is simple (and when I express these opinions, remember that they're coming from a 55-year-old man who's been in IT for 35+ years, and who has managed entire departments of software developers and testers): There is no way that the Samsung/AT&T engineers could possibly anticipate all the various conditions in which a 2.2 Froyo phone could be immediately pre-Gingerbread update, and so when they tested said update, they most assuredly did it using factory-fresh 2.2 Froyo phones... in either fresh-out-of-the-box condition, or in post-GSM-Reset condition.

When I posted this elsewhere, people told me I was nuts; that it shouldn't matter, yadda, yadda, yadda. Fine.

So I called a buddy at AT&T and after he spent two days calling around and trying to find with whom I could talk, I finally had a conference call with an AT&T engineer (who was kinda' useless, for my purposes), and a Samsung engineer (who was a techno-god). They confirmed that I was completely correct; that every single test they did on the 2.3 Gingerbread update for pretty much every phone -- including both the Captivate and the Infuse -- were on either factory-new-out-of-the-box phones; or such phones, but immediately after doing a GSM Reset on them. Every single test.

They also confirmed my statement in my various postings that, indeed, the only way to ensure that the about-to-be-updated-to-Gingerbread Froyo phone was in substantially the same condition as the phones on which they tested said update was to do a GSM Reset on it... after backing-up everything to a PC, of course.

I love being right.

But I still wanted to test it myself. If I was going to say "I told you so" to everyone, I wanted to have more than just the word of the engineers.

So I updated to Gingerbread my old Froyo Captivate with some serious miles on it. And I got predictably crappy results... just like pretty much everyone else who simply updated a Froyo phone to Gingerbread without first Froyo factory-resetting it.

To prove to myself it wasn't the phone, though, I wanted to re-try the Gingerbread update on the old Captivate after factory resetting it. The problem was that the Gingerbread update flashes the phone's ROM to 2.3 Gingerbread; and if the phone wasn't pre-Gingerbread-update Froyo factory reset, then the Gingerbread on said ROM is squirrely. So I drove the phone to the nearest AT&T support center and had 'em flash it back to 2.2 Froyo. Then I drove back home.

Then, just for grins, when I got it home I did my own GSM Reset on it; then immediately plugged it in to my PC and launched KIES and did the Gingerbread update.

The result was a PERFECT Captivate with 2.3 Gingerbread on it. Not a glitch to be found...

...exactly as I had been telling, and telling, and telling people would be the case, if they'd just listen to me.

But even that wasn't good enough. I then backed-up my wife's 2.2 Froyo Captivate to her Windows notebook's hard drive, did a GSM reset on it, and then updated it to 2.3 Gingebread. Once again, a perfect update... not a flaw in sight.

But, oh, no, even that wasn't good enough for me. Again, before I went into the various forums and saying "I told you so," I wanted to bygod be able to say that I had tested and tested. And so I repeated on my Infuse the test I did on my old Captivate: I backed it up, and then applied the Gingerbread update to it without having first Froyo GSM Resetting it. And it was a predictably freakin' mess! In fact, the update paused for a while and I wasn't sure it was even gonna' finish. Once it was finished and I tried to use it, it got into some kind of weird boot loop which I finally got stopped; but then it was just weird and unstable and flakey in about four different ways.

So, fine, I knew I needed to, once again, drive the phone back to the AT&T support center. Then I got it flashed back to Froyo. Then I went back home. Then I did another GSM Reset. Then I immediately applied the Gingerbread update...

...and, voila!, I now have an Infuse that's running 2.3 Gingerbread perfectly. And it's faster. And it's easier on the battery. And... well... I could go on and on.

I've known, instictively, all along, that none of these phones -- no matter the brand or model, frankly -- should ever be updated to a higher OS level without first resetting them back to the way they originally shipped from the factory. Had I been in charge at Samsung and/or AT&T, I'd have tested on no other types of phones. Such just makes good common sense...

...and I'm a little irritated, frankly, that so many people just blew me off when I said it in various forums months ago.

Now it's six months after the Captivate's 2.3 Gingerbread release, and two months after the Infuse's 2.3 Gingerbread release, and I keep finding these kinds of threads in various forums wherein people claim the Gingerbread update just made things worse, or that it just isn't as good as Froyo, or that one shouldn't even bother updating, yadda, yadda, yadda.

And so, here it is: I TOLD YOU (ALL) SO! (whew! that felt good)

Plug the phone into a PC and back everything up. Then unplug the phone from the PC, and then reboot the phone (you can reboot the PC, too, for all I care; but at least reboot the phone).

If the phone has been updated to (a faulty, squirrely) Gingerbread, then find the nearest AT&T support center and take the phone to it. There, get it flashed back to 2.2 Froyo. Then take it home. (If the phone was never Gingerbread updated, then just go to the next step.)

Once home, do a GSM Reset on it. Technically, flashing it back to 2.2 Froyo is all that's necessary as long as you haven't since used the phone for anything, but what the heck, do the GSM Reset anyway. Can't hurt.

Then immediately apply the Gingerbread update.

Trust me, the result will be a pretty much perfect 2.3 Gingerbread phone. Totally stable. Works as advertised. No troubles. Perfect.

Some caveats...

If you intend to put a larger (than came from the factory) externnal SD card into the phone, then be sure said larger card is installed in the phone's external SD cardslot both when you do the GSM Reset, and also when you apply the Gingerbread update.

Make sure you have installed on your PC the absolutely latest KIES MINI as found on the phone's support page on the Samsung web site; however...

...before installing the latest KIES MINI, make sure that all earlier KIES MINI (or -- actually, especially -- KIES full version) software is fully uninstalled from the computer. Be sure to also look on the list of installed software for any Samsung drivers, and uninstall those as well. Then reboot the PC. Then, and only then, install the latest KIES MINI on the PC. Then reboot said PC yet again.

Follow, to the letter, the instructions on the Samsung web site for how to perform the Gingerbread update. Deviate not (or at your peril, your choice).

Do these things, and you'll not have a problem in the world with your 2.3 Gingerbread update. Fail to do it, and you'll be just another one of the gazillions of people who decry the Gingerbread update, and hate their phones; and who give bad advice like "don't even bother to update" and stuff like that.

The 2.3 Gingerbread update is good. It's an improvement. It should be done. But it must be done right, or there's no point. What I've herein described is how to do it right.

Hope that helps!


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[yohannie]

Very insightful post, DesElms. Thanks for such a thorough explanation and input. This might sound like a stupid question, but by GSM reset, do you mean the factory reset option that's available in he phone's options?

Sounds like it makes sense to me. I had only thought about doing the factory reset after upgrading to Gingerbread, but I never thought about doing one before upgrading. It seems like Android phones do have a tendency of accumulating various issues as stuff is done to them and various things installed, with a factory reset often times solving most issues, so the same would totally make sense for upgrading.

 

[DesElms]

Worry not. There are no stupid questions.

There are three ways to reset the Captivate and the Infuse... each more rigorous/destructive than the last.

The most basic is the one accessible from the Settings menu... that's the one most people know about because it's a menu item in the phone.

The next (second) and more serious method is where you begin with the phone off, and then you hold down, simultaneously, the up/down volume rockers as you press-and-hold the power button until the AT&T logo appears, then you release only the power button and continue holding the volume rockers until you see the system recovery screen, then you release the volume rockers. Then you use the volume rockers to move the highlight to the right thing, then press the power button to select. Most who've ever done any kind of reset are fairly familiar with that one, too.

The third "GSM Reset" method is the most rigorous/destructive. If done with the SIM card in the phone it will not only reset the phone back to factory state in a manner unlike all other methods, but it will also send-out a special reset signal to the AT&T network from both the phone (by its IMEI number) and its phone number (via the SIM card). If the SIM card's not in the phone when the GSM Reset is done, then it's just a signal to the network based on the phone's IMEI number. In either case, it wipes everything clean, reformats everything, resets everything, and reinstalls all stock apps, putting the phone to exactly the way it shipped from the factory.

I recommend doing it with the SIM card in the phone. It's more thorough, and systematically helpful. The signal sent out by the GSM Reset to the network is much the same as is sent out when/if one wants to sort of "reintroduce" the phone to the network after weird stuff has been going on (usually only technicians use it). For example, sometimes, if a phone is left on too long -- too many days or weeks -- without ever powering it off and then back up again (in other words, without a reboot), then the system and the phone will sometimes get a bit out of sync. When that happens, one may still call out as normal, but sometimes incoming calls and texts just stop... ostensibly because the system can't "find" the phone anymore, even though the phone thinks everything's fine. It's rare, but it sometimes happens. The GSM Reset signal sent by the phone to the AT&T network sort of resets everything so the phone is seen as an almost new member on said network. All towers treat it as a new player at the table... a player which the system recognizes, of course, but which the system treats as though it has never before used said system. You'd be amazed what an interesting list of weirdnesses such a reset can mysteriously fix!

To do a GSM Reset, one simply uses the dialpad (dialer keypad)... just exactly the same as if one were going to make a phone call.

One simply fires-up the phone, and lets it fully boot-up and settle down (so that it's not still doing things... media scans and whatnot).

Then one presses the green "Phone" icon as if to make a phone call.

Then, from the dialer keypad, one dials *2767*3855# and then just sits back and watches the show. Once that last # key is pressed, there's no more waiting... nothing else to press... it begins, then, immediately.

One then simply waits for the phone to do all its wiping and formatting and resetting and whatnot; then there's an automatic reboot of the phone...

...and, trust me, when it boots fully back up after that, it's exactly the way it originally came out of the box. Asks the user all the same setup questions, etc. And nothing on either the internal or external SD survives... so do a backup to a PC first.

The GSM Reset is the reset of choice if you're going to sell the phone to someone. Actually, I, personally, even manually reformat both SD cards first, and then I do the GSM Reset on phones to be sold or given away.

As to the need for or wisdom of it: Phones are just way too weird -- and way too much oddball stuff can both happen to them, and get on them -- to not bring them to a known starting point before doing something as major as applying a whole new OS version. That's major. Before doing such a thing, one wants to remove as much variability from the process as possible, and the best way to do that is to do exactly the same thing which those who wrote and tested the update did: A GSM Reset.

So doing also removes from the mix the whole silly wondering of what might hopefully survive the update. By starting over from factory state, one knows exactly where one is when one fires-up the phone again. It's a whole new beginning... the best place to (re)start.

And the 2.3 Gingerbread update loves starting there because everything it needs to copy over or replace or reinitialize is in a predictable both place and state. It's win-win for everyone!

Hope that helps.


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[yohannie]

Wow, thank you so much for such valuable information! This is great to know, not just for the Infuse, but in general. I'm actually on the Galaxy SII and the ICS update is supposed to be released soon. I'll definitely do a GSM reset before upgrading.

I just had one more question. Will doing it cause any issues with AT&T? Will they be upset or anything like that for me having done it? I know for rooting and other forms of tinkering, they get very upset, so just wanted to confirm.

I'm excited to try this out since I also use a 32 GB external, and I needed a good way to format it

 

[DesElms]

Wow, thank you so much for such valuable information! This is great to know, not just for the Infuse, but in general. I'm actually on the Galaxy SII and the ICS update is supposed to be released soon. I'll definitely do a GSM reset before upgrading.

Good!

I just had one more question. Will doing it cause any issues with AT&T? Will they be upset or anything like that for me having done it? I know for rooting and other forms of tinkering, they get very upset, so just wanted to confirm.

Actually, neither AT&T nor Samsung get THAT upset when you root... in largest measure because by your so having done, you've released them from any further warranty liability to you. [grin] For them, that's actually a good thing. So, "upset" is not really the right word. But they definitely don't want you to do it because it really does screw-up their ability to support your use of the phone.

Personally, I never recommend rooting, in any case. Of course I know how to do it, and get really geeky about it. But for what? In the end, all rooting does is make the phone more of a support nightmare... for you, the user. Rooting is for geeks who like to tinker with stuff; who still get a thrill from tearing stuff apart, figuring it out, making it work differently than intended, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I remember when I was maybe 12 -- over 40 years ago -- my ol' man coming home from work and finding me sitting in the middle of the living room floor with every last bit of the big console TV all torn apart and surrounding me. He thought he'd have to buy a new one. But I had it back together and working in no time. And though I got in trouble for it, I learned a lot about TVs. But by starting that young, my point is that I was pretty muchh over the need to tear stuff apart, and see how it works, and make stuff inside work in newer and cooler ways, etc., by the time I was... I dunno... maybe 22 or thereabouts.

So, rooting is just about the last thing I want to do to a phone. Why in the world would I want to add the nightmare of supporting a rooted phone to my already-long list of stuff I can barely keep-up with now? It's just silly. Plus, regular, everyday, non-technical/non-geeky should never attempt to root a phone. It's just stupid! The vast majority of the requests for help from people in the root sections of the various forums are from people who had no business even attempting it in the first place. And the reason they ultimately did is because all the techno-geeks in said forums talked about it like it was no big deal; and the non-technical people weren't sufficiently experienced to realize that they shouldn't have even ventured into such forums.

Rooting a phone just adds to the problems. There's virtually no reason to do it. The biggest reason it got so popular in the first place was because AT&T overreached by not only making the phone so that certain things could not be done to it unless it was rooted, but they also did stupid stuff like limiting where a person could obtain apps to just the Google Play Store (or, more accurately, back then, the Android Market). People wanting to install from more than just there is kinda' what got even non-technical people interested in rooting. AT&T, in that sense, then, made its own troubles. If it had allowed people to install from anywhere right from the outset, then rooting might have remained the purview of just the geeks... where it belongs.

Another thing AT&T did which it shouldn't have done, and which also drew non-techies to the wholly-technical thing called rooting was not allow stock apps to be removed.

If the desktop computer industry has taught us anything since it began in the late '70s, it's that whenever a vendor tries to shove stuff down its products' users' throats, they end-up getting nothing but trouble from said users, who will always resist. Of course, the reason the vendors do it is so that their support burden will be reduced. If the user is allowed to do just anything to his/her computerized device, then said doing could be what causes support problems. It's a vicious circle.

But now I'm digressing. Sorry.

AT&T cares not one whit about "GSM Resets." They're a common part of the everyday use of the system. Don't worry about it one bit.

The real value of the GSM Reset, to the end user, in any case, is not the signal it sends to AT&T. That's just extra niceness; and it may actually not do a single helpful thing regarding the phone's relationship with the AT&T network. It's only really useful if said relationship had somehow gotten weird, thereby necessitating at least some kind of reset.

The real value of the GSM Reset, to the end user, is how it so completely returns the phone to true factory state... better than any other of the reset methods. That's the only reason I recommend it. If one is going to "reset," then why *****foot around, I always say. If one wants to reset, then s/he should bygod RESET. Don't do it only halfway. That's my philosophy... hence the reason I pretty much only use the GSM Reset method. But, hey... that's just me.

I'm excited to try this out since I also use a 32 GB external, and I needed a good way to format it

Actually, the best way to format a 32GB external SD card is, at least at first, in your PC.

Remove the card from the phone, and put it into some kind of adapter that will allow it to plug directly into your Windows PC; and then format the card that way... likely using 32K-sized sectors. And don't do the "quick" method. Go for it. And if you do, plan on having time to go get coffee... maybe even stop by the library. It can take up to a couple or three hours.

Then, once that's done, before you unplug the card from the computer, use the freeware "h2testw" app (you'll find it on Softpedia) to test and verify the card... make sure it's in good shape, that it's really a 32GB card (there are a lot of fakes out there), etc. That, too, takes a while... an hour to two hours.

Then, unplug the card from the PC and put it into the phone and start-up the phone again; and once the phone has settled down (isn't media or virus scanning or anything like that), simply unmount the card and reformat it. Formatting in the phone like that puts the requisite folders on it, and also does some other little internal things so that the phone starts "seeing" the card as something which belongs in it.

Now, that having been said, I must tell you that even if you do it that way, the phone may still somehow become confused about a whoping big 32GB card. Even though Samsung says its phones can handle big 32GB SDHC cards, the truth is that they're most comfortable if the card is 16GB or smaller. Oh, don't get me wrong, they can handle the 32GB cards... but just barely. They become easily confused by them... or at least some phone models do... including the Infuse.

And that, right there, is the reason that I recommend that whatever SD card is gonna' be in that external slot is present during a ROM OS flash (an upgrade to Gingerbread or ICS or whatever). By having the big card in the phone when the ROM is flashed, the phone is initialized with said card being part of said initialization...

...and you wouldn't believe how doing that small and simple thing can make the phone and the 32GB card "play nice" together better over time. It's not foolproof, but it can really help.

So it is not as a means of reformatting the 32GB card that the GSM Reset should be used. The GSM Reset is for resetting the phone to factory state, and sending some interesting reset signals out to the AT&T network along the way. Including the 32GB card in the external slot when you do it is simply so that the phone, when the new OS is flashed to the ROM, will "see" the big 32GB card as something "native" to it, and will play nicer with it over time.

But if all you want to do is format the 32GB card, you may certainly do that without completely GSM Resetting the phone. In fact, I don't recommed GSM resetting the phone just for that purpose. Instead, if all you want to do is properly format the 32GB card, just do it as I've herein earlier described, in your PC first (formatteing to FAT32, with 32K sectors) and then, after that, to make the card so that the phone "sees" it properly, unmount and reformat it again inside the phone. That's all you need to do if all you want to do is format the 32GB card.

Using the "h2testw" utility while the card's still in the PC simply verifies that it's in good shape, that it's in fact the size you think it is (again, the fakes), and it also helps you to see the card's actual read/write speed.

Hope that helps!


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[andyinmichigan]

^^^ wow! now that's a great poster right there, Lots of useful knowledge, clear, and concise info. wow! I did have to read some of the sentences twice to wrap my head around it. I'm not a tech newbie, but this guy is wayyy above me in experience, that's for sure.

So DesElms, i was one of those people that told others not to bother with the upgrade, mostly based on what other have posted, but by reading your posts I understand that most of these people probably didn't do the correct preparation and were not careful to take the steps that you did.

So that being the case, many people complaining about screen lag, and whatever else i cannot remember, were those problems a result of bad preparation and installations? And in your opinion I should definately update then?

One thing i do like that i've hrad the 2.3 update doesn't do is scrolling wallpapers, is that so? I guess it's not super important, but I think it's neat.


Also, is it correct that the "silent" icon is replaced with the flight mode instead? I find that kind of odd, it seems that the silent would be used wayyy more than flight mode, as it seems to me people don't use flight mode all that much.

Anyway, thanks for the excellent writeups!

 

[yohannie]

^^^ wow! now that's a great poster right there, Lots of useful knowledge, clear, and concise info. wow! I did have to read some of the sentences twice to wrap my head around it. I'm not a tech newbie, but this guy is wayyy above me in experience, that's for sure.

So DesElms, i was one of those people that told others not to bother with the upgrade, mostly based on what other have posted, but by reading your posts I understand that most of these people probably didn't do the correct preparation and were not careful to take the steps that you did.

So that being the case, many people complaining about screen lag, and whatever else i cannot remember, were those problems a result of bad preparation and installations? And in your opinion I should definately update then?

One thing i do like that i've hrad the 2.3 update doesn't do is scrolling wallpapers, is that so? I guess it's not super important, but I think it's neat.


Also, is it correct that the "silent" icon is replaced with the flight mode instead? I find that kind of odd, it seems that the silent would be used wayyy more than flight mode, as it seems to me people don't use flight mode all that much.

Anyway, thanks for the excellent writeups!

I'm going to let DesElms answer your other questions, but as for the flight mode toggle, yes, indeed the silent mode icon toggle has been replaced with flight mode (it's also this way on the Galaxy SII, so it wasn't a development mistake for the Infuse update). I at first found it very strange as well, but now I use the power button (holding it brings up a menu) in order to go back and forth between silent and regular modes.

 

[andyinmichigan]

I'm going to let DesElms answer your other questions, but as for the flight mode toggle, yes, indeed the silent mode icon toggle has been replaced with flight mode (it's also this way on the Galaxy SII, so it wasn't a development mistake for the Infuse update). I at first found it very strange as well, but now I use the power button (holding it brings up a menu) in order to go back and forth between silent and regular modes.

Thanks. Like i said i feel like it's an odd swap out, but who knows. I've seen widgets that toggle silent too, so I could always do that i suppose.

 

[andyrockstar]

I've been putting off the "upgrade" to GB because of all the fuss being made here, but DesElms' advice makes complete sense. I've been running stock Froyo since I got the Infuse 6 months ago, and it's served me well so far.

When I have some free time again I'll have to try this out.

 

[DesElms]

So DesElms, i was one of those people that told others not to bother with the upgrade, mostly based on what other have posted, but by reading your posts I understand that most of these people probably didn't do the correct preparation and were not careful to take the steps that you did.

So that being the case, many people complaining about screen lag, and whatever else i cannot remember, were those problems a result of bad preparation and installations? And in your opinion I should definately update then?

I'm so sorry it has taken me so long to reply. I got tied-up on a project... busy, busy, busy. [grin]

If one does the steps I prescribe, the 2.3 Gingerbread-updated phone is actually a bit faster and better performing... just as Samsung promised.

But remember that lagginess, generally, can have many causes having nothing to do with the 2.3 Gingerbread upgrade. I was fairly easily able to make my Infuse (and my Captivate, before it) laggy even when it was using the 2.2 Froyo OS version that came on it from the factory.

If the complainant's phone wasn't laggy before the 2.3 update, but was after, then, yes, I would say it was because they didn't do it the way I prescribe. It's rather remarkable how weird and bad-behaving the phone is if one doesn't do my prescribed steps. I was stunned by just how unstable it became. There's no question in my mind that doing anything short of a GSM Reset just moments before doing the update is just asking for trouble.

One thing i do like that i've hrad the 2.3 update doesn't do is scrolling wallpapers, is that so? I guess it's not super important, but I think it's neat.

To be candid, I don't mess with wallpapers, at all. A completely black screen is better on the battery... and I, personally, think it looks better. For starters, I've never been big on wallpapers -- be they for phones, or desktop/notebook Windows computers -- which are actual sharply-focused pictures of things. I think it's too distracting. I like wallpapers that are abstruct and a little blurry, even, so that icons and things on which the eye should actually be focusing are more front-and-center. But, hey... that's just me.

Personally, one of the first things I install when I'm either doing a new phone (or re-doing a factory-reset one) is a thing called "No Wallpaper" by Mihai Preda. Find it in the Google Play Store. It simply adds a "No Wallpaper" option on the wallpaper menu that you may access whenever you long-press a homescreen. But unlike other "no wallpaper" apps, this one simply causes no wallpaper to be displayed. Some of the other ones cause a black wallpaper to be displayed, and technically there's a difference. Having absolutely no wallpaper being displayed -- not even a black one -- is actually the easiest on the battery. They look the same, I realize, but even when the phone's displaying a graphic of all-black pixels, it's still using battery to display a graphic. So that's why I like Preda's "No Wallpaper" app best, because there's literally no wallpaper displaying at all. It's just blackness... easiest on the battery.

As for scrolling wallpapers, though, whether or not any Samsung phone comes out of an OS upgrade with or without scrolling wallpapers kinda' depends on whether Samsung goofed-up said upgrade, as it sometimes does. Samsung Galaxy Skyrocket owners noticed that the 2.3.6 Gingerbread update broke scrolling wallpapers. Others report similar problems, and still others say they don't know what those who say it stopped working are even talking about.

Weird, I know. That's why I always suggest that one get a little app called "Wallpaper Wizardrii" by Twisted Apps. No matter what wallpaper weirdness exists on a 2.3-Gingerbread-updated phone, that app will give back any and all Wallpaper-related features that anyone could possible want.

Also, is it correct that the "silent" icon is replaced with the flight mode instead? I find that kind of odd, it seems that the silent would be used wayyy more than flight mode, as it seems to me people don't use flight mode all that much.

What you're referring to is what one sees when one pulls down the notification shade (or, from any homescreen, presses the hardware "Menu" button, and then presses "Notifications"). And the answer is yes, what was, in 2.2 Froyo, the "Silent Mode" button is, in 2.3 Gingerbread, the "Flight Mode" button.

However, with 2.3 Gingerbread, you can also just long-press the hardware power button to make pop-up the little dialog that one normally uses to either put the phone in "Flight mode," or power it down. The third choice on that pop-up dialog is "Silent mode." So you can still fairly quickly and easily get to something that will put the phone in "Silent mode", though I agree that having it among the buttons one sees across the top of the screen whenever one pulls down the notification shade is easier/faster/better. Remember, though, that once the phone's in Flight Mode, all radio waves to/from the phone are stopped, so no texts can arrive, no phone calls... nothing that makes noise. Only if things like calendar alarms, or timer alarms, etc., occur during intended silent times would the phone make a noise during "Flight Mode." So, in a sense, "Flight mode" could almost be used instead of "Silent mode," but I wouldn't recommend it. True "Silent Mode" is better.

But, honestly, there's no shortage of cool freeware apps out there that will put widgets or shortcut icons or whatever, pretty much wherever you want them, so that you can easily put the phone into "Silent mode." Some of them toggle into silent mode with vibration on one press, then silent mode without vibration on the second press, and then back into non-silent mode on the third press... and just about every other possible other way of doing it that you can imagine.

There's even a cool app which senses when you put the phone in silent mode, and then it pops-up a dialog asking for how long... the point being that by specifying that the phone should be in silent mode for only as long as, say, for example, a church service lasts (about an hour), one needn't remember to take it back out of silent mode after church. How many times have you put the phone in silent mode for a meeting or something, and then forgot to take it out of silent mode afterward; and so no one can reach you for however long it takes you to realize your phone's silent?!?

Anyway, thanks for the excellent writeups!

My pleasure. Glad I could help.

 

[togethersjg]

Just wanted to say thanks for the time you put into responding and the thoroughness of your answers. I've had my Infuse since May 2011 and one of the features I thought had value was the ability to update the operating system to the latest and the greatest. Since that time, numerous cries for help in this forum have pointed out the downside to doing so for the naive, uninformed or technically less proficient. Since that included me and the stock setup did everything I wanted and the phone operated flawlessly, I decided there really never was a substantial reason for taking that next step. Nonetheless, the detail you've provided convinces me that, for first time, the risks to the process can be managed. Thanks again.

 

[andyrockstar]

Plug the phone into a PC and back everything up. Then unplug the phone from the PC, and then reboot the phone (you can reboot the PC, too, for all I care; but at least reboot the phone).

If the phone has been updated to (a faulty, squirrely) Gingerbread, then find the nearest AT&T support center and take the phone to it. There, get it flashed back to 2.2 Froyo. Then take it home. (If the phone was never Gingerbread updated, then just go to the next step.)

Once home, do a GSM Reset on it. Technically, flashing it back to 2.2 Froyo is all that's necessary as long as you haven't since used the phone for anything, but what the heck, do the GSM Reset anyway. Can't hurt.

Then immediately apply the Gingerbread update.

Trust me, the result will be a pretty much perfect 2.3 Gingerbread phone. Totally stable. Works as advertised. No troubles. Perfect.

Some caveats...

If you intend to put a larger (than came from the factory) externnal SD card into the phone, then be sure said larger card is installed in the phone's external SD cardslot both when you do the GSM Reset, and also when you apply the Gingerbread update.

Make sure you have installed on your PC the absolutely latest KIES MINI as found on the phone's support page on the Samsung web site; however...

...before installing the latest KIES MINI, make sure that all earlier KIES MINI (or -- actually, especially -- KIES full version) software is fully uninstalled from the computer. Be sure to also look on the list of installed software for any Samsung drivers, and uninstall those as well. Then reboot the PC. Then, and only then, install the latest KIES MINI on the PC. Then reboot said PC yet again.

Follow, to the letter, the instructions on the Samsung web site for how to perform the Gingerbread update. Deviate not (or at your peril, your choice).

Do these things, and you'll not have a problem in the world with your 2.3 Gingerbread update. Fail to do it, and you'll be just another one of the gazillions of people who decry the Gingerbread update, and hate their phones; and who give bad advice like "don't even bother to update" and stuff like that.

The 2.3 Gingerbread update is good. It's an improvement. It should be done. But it must be done right, or there's no point. What I've herein described is how to do it right.

Hope that helps!

I've had the Infuse for 6 months, using stock Froyo the entire time, and finally decided to try to upgrade to Gingerbread. I thought I'd followed these instructions to a T, but somehow the upgrade still didn't go through. Everything was going smoothly until I got the famous "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again" message. I tried to do the emergency recovery and it didn't work...still stuck on the same error message. I tried a different cable (as has been recommended here) and still no progress.

Looks like I'm headed to Best Buy today to see if they or AT&T can reset the phone. Worst case scenario is the phone is fubar and they give me an SII, although I'd rather have this phone working.

 

[nhsebas]

I've been saying, since back when I had a Samsung Captivate and the 2.3 Gingerbread update for it was finally released, that no update should be applied unless the phone has first been backed-up and then factory reset. And by "factory reset," I mean the most rigorous of the three reset methods: The "GSM Reset."

The Infuse (which is what I use now) is no different.

The logic is simple (and when I express these opinions, remember that they're coming from a 55-year-old man who's been in IT for 35+ years, and who has managed entire departments of software developers and testers): There is no way that the Samsung/AT&T engineers could possibly anticipate all the various conditions in which a 2.2 Froyo phone could be immediately pre-Gingerbread update, and so when they tested said update, they most assuredly did it using factory-fresh 2.2 Froyo phones... in either fresh-out-of-the-box condition, or in post-GSM-Reset condition.

When I posted this elsewhere, people told me I was nuts; that it shouldn't matter, yadda, yadda, yadda. Fine.

So I called a buddy at AT&T and after he spent two days calling around and trying to find with whom I could talk, I finally had a conference call with an AT&T engineer (who was kinda' useless, for my purposes), and a Samsung engineer (who was a techno-god). They confirmed that I was completely correct; that every single test they did on the 2.3 Gingerbread update for pretty much every phone -- including both the Captivate and the Infuse -- were on either factory-new-out-of-the-box phones; or such phones, but immediately after doing a GSM Reset on them. Every single test.

They also confirmed my statement in my various postings that, indeed, the only way to ensure that the about-to-be-updated-to-Gingerbread Froyo phone was in substantially the same condition as the phones on which they tested said update was to do a GSM Reset on it... after backing-up everything to a PC, of course.

I love being right.

But I still wanted to test it myself. If I was going to say "I told you so" to everyone, I wanted to have more than just the word of the engineers.

So I updated to Gingerbread my old Froyo Captivate with some serious miles on it. And I got predictably crappy results... just like pretty much everyone else who simply updated a Froyo phone to Gingerbread without first Froyo factory-resetting it.

To prove to myself it wasn't the phone, though, I wanted to re-try the Gingerbread update on the old Captivate after factory resetting it. The problem was that the Gingerbread update flashes the phone's ROM to 2.3 Gingerbread; and if the phone wasn't pre-Gingerbread-update Froyo factory reset, then the Gingerbread on said ROM is squirrely. So I drove the phone to the nearest AT&T support center and had 'em flash it back to 2.2 Froyo. Then I drove back home.

Then, just for grins, when I got it home I did my own GSM Reset on it; then immediately plugged it in to my PC and launched KIES and did the Gingerbread update.

The result was a PERFECT Captivate with 2.3 Gingerbread on it. Not a glitch to be found...

...exactly as I had been telling, and telling, and telling people would be the case, if they'd just listen to me.

But even that wasn't good enough. I then backed-up my wife's 2.2 Froyo Captivate to her Windows notebook's hard drive, did a GSM reset on it, and then updated it to 2.3 Gingebread. Once again, a perfect update... not a flaw in sight.

But, oh, no, even that wasn't good enough for me. Again, before I went into the various forums and saying "I told you so," I wanted to bygod be able to say that I had tested and tested. And so I repeated on my Infuse the test I did on my old Captivate: I backed it up, and then applied the Gingerbread update to it without having first Froyo GSM Resetting it. And it was a predictably freakin' mess! In fact, the update paused for a while and I wasn't sure it was even gonna' finish. Once it was finished and I tried to use it, it got into some kind of weird boot loop which I finally got stopped; but then it was just weird and unstable and flakey in about four different ways.

So, fine, I knew I needed to, once again, drive the phone back to the AT&T support center. Then I got it flashed back to Froyo. Then I went back home. Then I did another GSM Reset. Then I immediately applied the Gingerbread update...

...and, voila!, I now have an Infuse that's running 2.3 Gingerbread perfectly. And it's faster. And it's easier on the battery. And... well... I could go on and on.

I've known, instictively, all along, that none of these phones -- no matter the brand or model, frankly -- should ever be updated to a higher OS level without first resetting them back to the way they originally shipped from the factory. Had I been in charge at Samsung and/or AT&T, I'd have tested on no other types of phones. Such just makes good common sense...

...and I'm a little irritated, frankly, that so many people just blew me off when I said it in various forums months ago.

Now it's six months after the Captivate's 2.3 Gingerbread release, and two months after the Infuse's 2.3 Gingerbread release, and I keep finding these kinds of threads in various forums wherein people claim the Gingerbread update just made things worse, or that it just isn't as good as Froyo, or that one shouldn't even bother updating, yadda, yadda, yadda.

And so, here it is: I TOLD YOU (ALL) SO! (whew! that felt good)

Plug the phone into a PC and back everything up. Then unplug the phone from the PC, and then reboot the phone (you can reboot the PC, too, for all I care; but at least reboot the phone).

If the phone has been updated to (a faulty, squirrely) Gingerbread, then find the nearest AT&T support center and take the phone to it. There, get it flashed back to 2.2 Froyo. Then take it home. (If the phone was never Gingerbread updated, then just go to the next step.)

Once home, do a GSM Reset on it. Technically, flashing it back to 2.2 Froyo is all that's necessary as long as you haven't since used the phone for anything, but what the heck, do the GSM Reset anyway. Can't hurt.

Then immediately apply the Gingerbread update.

Trust me, the result will be a pretty much perfect 2.3 Gingerbread phone. Totally stable. Works as advertised. No troubles. Perfect.

Some caveats...

If you intend to put a larger (than came from the factory) externnal SD card into the phone, then be sure said larger card is installed in the phone's external SD cardslot both when you do the GSM Reset, and also when you apply the Gingerbread update.

Make sure you have installed on your PC the absolutely latest KIES MINI as found on the phone's support page on the Samsung web site; however...

...before installing the latest KIES MINI, make sure that all earlier KIES MINI (or -- actually, especially -- KIES full version) software is fully uninstalled from the computer. Be sure to also look on the list of installed software for any Samsung drivers, and uninstall those as well. Then reboot the PC. Then, and only then, install the latest KIES MINI on the PC. Then reboot said PC yet again.

Follow, to the letter, the instructions on the Samsung web site for how to perform the Gingerbread update. Deviate not (or at your peril, your choice).

Do these things, and you'll not have a problem in the world with your 2.3 Gingerbread update. Fail to do it, and you'll be just another one of the gazillions of people who decry the Gingerbread update, and hate their phones; and who give bad advice like "don't even bother to update" and stuff like that.

The 2.3 Gingerbread update is good. It's an improvement. It should be done. But it must be done right, or there's no point. What I've herein described is how to do it right.

Hope that helps!


_____________________________
Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com

Thank you...do you have instructions for upgrading to Gingerbread on Samsung Infuse 4G owners, who use Mac/OS, i.e., me?

 

[Justinsaneok]

I "heard" the update won't work on 64 bit Win 7 ultimate? Any truth to this?

 

[porksoda]

Awesome information!
Very Very helpful!

Thank you!

 

[porksoda]

I did as DesElms said to update our Infuse 4g to Gingerbread. The phone works flawlessly. I cant vouch for it working different as if I were to update it with out doing a factory reset. I just bought this phone from an ebay seller that unlocked it and did a GSM reset before shipment.
So far this phone is awesome!
Thanks again for the help!

 

[DesElms]

I did as DesElms said to update our Infuse 4g to Gingerbread. The phone works flawlessly. I cant vouch for it working different as if I were to update it with out doing a factory reset. I just bought this phone from an ebay seller that unlocked it and did a GSM reset before shipment.
So far this phone is awesome! Thanks again for the help!

Cool! Glad I could help. And it really is a pretty awesome phone. Of course, its most salient feature -- the large screen -- is becoming more commonplace; and the new models which sport it have faster/better processors. But, still, the Infuse 4G is surprisingly cool, indeed.

Thanks for the info.

 

[adfutballer071]

Ok, so I have tried the reset under Privacy, as well as the GSM reset and still no luck. I'm running Kies Mini under Admin Privileges and it will download the update but it always stops after the phone tries to download it. Any ideas?

 

[DesElms]

Ok, so I have tried the reset under Privacy, as well as the GSM reset and still no luck. I'm running Kies Mini under Admin Privileges and it will download the update but it always stops after the phone tries to download it. Any ideas?

Without knowing precisely what is your procedure, it's hard to know what to suggest. A few thoughts...

Make sure you're using the USB cable that came with the phone; or, if you are, then somehow make sure that it's working okay. If you have to drive to an AT&T service center to purchase a new USB cable expressly intended for use with the Infuse 4G, then do so. Not all USB cables for Samsung phones, even if they all look the same, are, in fact, the same. And it's easy for one of the pins to go dead or develop a short or something.

Make sure that doing the GB update is the very first thing you do after completing the GSM reset; don't use or configure the phone when it reboots from immediately post-GSM reset.

If you've upgraded the external memory card to something larger than the 2GB card that comes with the phone, try putting the original 2GB card into the phone immediately before the GSM reset, and then do the GB update with that 2GB card still in the phone; upgrade it back only after the GB update is successful.

If you've tried the GB update more than once, it's possible that what you now have on the phone is a hybrid of 2.2 Froyo and 2.3 Gingerbread; and, if so, then it's possible that the GSM reset is actually restoring the phone to an essentially broken state; and so the GB update is failing. I'm not saying that that's it, but I've seen it happen. If that's it, then you may need to go to an AT&T center and have the phone forcibly restored to a pristine copy of 2.2 Froyo, and then you'd drive home; once home, do the GSM reset and then immediately try the GB update.

Some people have claimed that Kies Mini and some 64-bit versions of Windows just don't seem to work very well. There's also a possibility of something on your machine that's interfering with Kies and/or its ability to properly communicate with the USB port. Both things suggest that maybe another approach is to try to do the GB update on another machine. I know it sounds crazy, but if you have a friend with a 32-bit Vista machine, you might find that all of a sudden it works. It shouldn't be necessary to go through all that, of course, but I'm just saying that sometimes something like that is what it takes to make it happen.

The bottom line with this sort of situation is to remember what they say about the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting something to change. The first thing that troubleshooters are taught is that whenever one is in a situation like you describe, something has to change. All that I've herein suggested are changes; and one of them may be what it takes to make it work. You could try them one-by-one, but who has the time? Also, who cares which thing it is. Were I you, I'd try them all, and see if it just finally works.

Assuming the phone's not damaged or something, it should work; it's just a question of figuring out what's ultimately impeding it. Of course, discounting that there's something wrong with the phone may be a dumb idea, 'cause maybe there is. That's yet another reason to go to any AT&T Service Center and have 'em first forcibly restore it to pristine 2.2 Froyo, and then have 'em run all their magic tests on the phone and make sure its' operating at normal factory specs. You might find that the phone's somehow broken. I doubt it, but I'm just sayin'.

I'm sure there's other stuff I can think of, but see if any of that will help.

Let us know what happens. If none of that works, I'm sure I can come-up with something; though, at that point, I may need for you to describe, in painstaking detail -- with stress on the word detail -- exactly what you're doing. Maybe there's a procedural step you're missing. Be absolutely certain that you're following the correct steps for using Kies Mini. They may all seem stupid, but if you miss one, it can really matter. Kies Mini (which is the only thing that works, by the way; not Kies, but, rather Kies Mini is the only thing that works) can be persnickety. For example, if there's an earlier version of Kies Mini on the machine, or a copy of full Kies, that could squirrel everything.

Download the freeware version of REVO UNINSTALLER and use it, with all its strongest and most aggressive settings, to uninstall Kies Mini from the Windows machine... all copies and versions; reboot between versions if more than one is there; and reboot again after finally getting all traces of Kies off the machine. Then redownload and install Kies Mini, then reboot again. Then, and only then, immediately after you've done the GSM reset, and using a USB cable that you know is right and works, and following the Kies Mini instructions from the AT&T website TO THE LETTER, try again.

Again, I'm sure if I can come-up with more stuff, but somewhere in there I'll bet is the solution; or combinations of things is the solution.

It's persnickety, so make sure you get it right.

Hope that helps.