Ask me anything about the Motorola DROID Ultra!

[ogwilson]

As per my official DROID Ultra review on Phandroid.com, anyone curious about anything in regards to the DROID Ultra can ask here, and their question shall be answered. Don't be shy!

 

[dan409]

Hi and thanks !

How is the rear speaker volume when watching youtube or on a phone call ?

 

[Vorlonken]

I just got my Droid Ultra 9 days ago and it's also my first smartphone - but otherwise I'm a big ol' nerd so technology doesn't mystify me.

My wallpaper suddenly blinked out of existence. It came from an app called "Forest HD wallpapers." I thought I'd just uninstall the app to clear up the problem and then I could reload it later (they are nice forest scenes). These are not Live Wallpapers.

I told the app to uninstall and then went back to the desktop. Forgive me if I use any PC terms in place of Android terms... That's when the phone seemed to freeze for brief periods and the task list wouldn't come up no matter how many times I tapped it. I thought I'd fix it with a reboot so I shut down the phone. Turning it back on yielded a phone that is now behaving very badly, lots of freezes and the screen occasionally flashes "SIM Toolkit" and then goes back to the screen that was there.

Things are running, very slowly, because I heard the gmail announce new emails. I fear that the "Forest HD wallpapers" has not fully uninstalled. I can't get to the Settings because the phone is pretty much unusable. It doesn't seem to register most of my taps and gestures.

Does anyone know what's going on and how I might recover from it? I hope I gave enough info for people to formulate possible courses of action!

Thanks,
Ken

P.S. I can start a new thread if that is preferred.

 

[doogald]

I just got my Droid Ultra 9 days ago and it's also my first smartphone - but otherwise I'm a big ol' nerd so technology doesn't mystify me.

My wallpaper suddenly blinked out of existence. It came from an app called "Forest HD wallpapers." I thought I'd just uninstall the app to clear up the problem and then I could reload it later (they are nice forest scenes). These are not Live Wallpapers.

I told the app to uninstall and then went back to the desktop. Forgive me if I use any PC terms in place of Android terms... That's when the phone seemed to freeze for brief periods and the task list wouldn't come up no matter how many times I tapped it. I thought I'd fix it with a reboot so I shut down the phone. Turning it back on yielded a phone that is now behaving very badly, lots of freezes and the screen occasionally flashes "SIM Toolkit" and then goes back to the screen that was there.

Things are running, very slowly, because I heard the gmail announce new emails. I fear that the "Forest HD wallpapers" has not fully uninstalled. I can't get to the Settings because the phone is pretty much unusable. It doesn't seem to register most of my taps and gestures.

Does anyone know what's going on and how I might recover from it? I hope I gave enough info for people to formulate possible courses of action!

I think that I would try to start in safe mode.

See Safe Mode - DROID Mini / DROID Ultra / DROID Maxx by Motorola for instructions. See the note that says that you may have to reenable some accounts in settings->accounts after starting in safe mode.

I wonder if the phone is still trying to use the wallpaper that you set, and can't find it? If safe mode restarts the phone, I'd long-press on a blank area of the home screen and set the wallpaper to something that can be seen. Then maybe restart the phone.

I really don't know anything about that app Forest HD Wallpapers, but that's where I would start.

 

[Vorlonken]

Thanks, I accidentally started my phone in safe mode because I had read somewhere about powering up with the vol-down button pressed. While in safe mode I uninstalled a number of apps, including the Forest HD Wallpaper and the Transparent Clock and Weather.

When I restarted the phone was acting just as bad so I figured I'd have to pay a visit to the Verizon store today. I powered it down.

Late today, after a marathon sleep-in, I powered it up just to see what would happen and it was running fine! :hmmmm2: I reinstalled most of the apps I had trashed, including the Forest HD Wallpaper with no problems. Then I reinstalled the Transparent Clock. So far so good. As I started to change settings for the clock the problem reappeared! :dalek:

It appears that one of the settings I chose causes the clock app to behave very badly. I've deleted it but I think I'll reinstall it and verify exactly which setting seems to screw things up - then I'll notify the app author so he can fix it. :viking:

Thank you for your answer. I'm glad I found this forum. :shakehands:

-Ken

 

[Thom]

Great.

You are the first person to ever report uninstalling or installing an app while in Safe Mode. The result is unpredictable.

The object with Safe Mode is to temporarily disable all apps you added to verify that none of them is the culprit.

The approach is ...

Enter Safe Mode
Run without modification
Return to Normal
Make adjustments if needed

You may have introduced a problem that will crop up in the future. There is really no way to predict the answer to that one.

... Thom

 

[Vorlonken]

Hi Thom, I'll tell you what. It was very, very late, I was very tired, I was pretty frustrated and I did lots and lots of fiddling. It's possible that I didn't uninstall apps while in safe mode, but since I had no idea that I wasn't supposed to until you just told me :ahhhhh:it's just as possible that I did. So far the phone seems to be OK so perhaps I got lucky!

I also emailed the developer a few minutes ago to report the bug. I liked the app so I hope he will fix it.

-Ken

 

[Thom]

I don't know that it is a problem. It is an unknown.

I just played with it a little. While in Safe Mode while in Play Store I installed an app and started it. When I left Play Store it was not in the App Drawer. I reloaded normally. It appeared in Play Store and after running it I uninstalling it.

It is curious that they do not disable Play Store while in Safe Mode.

(I'm testing on a Droid Maxx.)

... Thom

 

[Jus10]

I have a question, how do I get the battery percentage next to the battery icon in the status bar? My RAZR Maxx had the option but I can't find it anywhere in the Ultra settings.

 

[doogald]

I have a question, how do I get the battery percentage next to the battery icon in the status bar? My RAZR Maxx had the option but I can't find it anywhere in the Ultra settings.

That is not a setting that is available.

What you can do is install a battery monitoring app that has notification options and has a persistent notification in the status bar (though not next to the battery icon n the right side.) Battery Bot Pro is good, GSAM is good, and I know that there are others.

 

[Jus10]

Thats what I figured.

 

[Robin450]

As per my official DROID Ultra review on Phandroid.com, anyone curious about anything in regards to the DROID Ultra can ask here, and their question shall be answered. Don't be shy!

Maybe this question has already been addressed but I have been looking and don't see it, anyway, I have the Droid Ultra and want to send videos, but from what I am reading it doesn't look like I can, the resolution is too high. There has to be a way to send a video through text or email, I have tried both and both say the files are too large.

 

[doogald]

Maybe this question has already been addressed but I have been looking and don't see it, anyway, I have the Droid Ultra and want to send videos, but from what I am reading it doesn't look like I can, the resolution is too high. There has to be a way to send a video through text or email, I have tried both and both say the files are too large.

This is maddeningly idiotic to me on the Droid Maxx - that you can choose to share something to messaging but it spits out an error, with no way to fix it.

Gmail sharing should be fine. You should be able to share to YouTube and share with people that way. You may also want to look on the Play Store for an app that will allow you to shrink the size of the video (some do so by reducing the frames per second) and see if that works for MMS. Messaging, however, is crippled by the fact that you can only share small media files.

One thing I have not tried that you may want to try is to install the Verizon Messaging app and see if that allows you to send video files.

 

[Jus10]

I want to know why KK on the droid Maxx and Droid ultra does not look like KK. No transparent status bar, no smart dialer, and no white icon in status bar. It looks just like jelly bean.

Originally the only difference between the Moto X and the Droid Maxx was screen size and capacitive touch buttons, but now the two phones are worlds apart.

I knew I should of gone with the moto x.

 

[doogald]

The official answer from Motorola is that Verizon requested that it be that way.

 

[Thom]

The transparent notification bar on the Droid Maxx is partially supported by Nova Launcher under Kit Kat. It is not absolutely transparent but a move in the right direction. The icons are still blue.

You have to request it in Nova Launcher by setting a check mark. It was not there in Jelly Bean.

I don't use it. If it was totally transparent I might.

I use the Nova Launcher option and simply toggle off the notification bar and toggle it on (double-tap on the screen) when I want to see it.

The only time I leave it on is when I am testing something.

... Thom

 

[Metallman56]

hello all

I went from a droid razr maxx to this ultra. I really love everything about it, except 2 things.

1. no smart actions.

yeah I know its got assist but it does not have nearly the options smart actions had. the 2 I miss the most are sleep and work. the sleep I had set up only when the phone was charging. that's the last thing I do before I go to bed. also there is no work setting so my phone doesn't automatically go to vib with only calls from my wife and boss ringing.

2. motocast. what the hell? that was a super cool app on the razr maxx, every pic I took auto backed up to my pc. freaking awesome. that's gone too I see

so my question is are there any apps that will do what smart actions and motocast did for me? I found a couple of smart action like apps, but none had the sleep only when charging option.

thanks for the help in advance guys.

 

[doogald]

1. no smart actions.

yeah I know its got assist but it does not have nearly the options smart actions had. the 2 I miss the most are sleep and work. the sleep I had set up only when the phone was charging. that's the last thing I do before I go to bed. also there is no work setting so my phone doesn't automatically go to vib with only calls from my wife and boss ringing.

There is a meeting mode in Assist that will only ring through calls for people in your favorites (if you select that option) while you are in a meeting. Set your calendar to have a meeting during your work hours and that should do it.

2. motocast. what the hell? that was a super cool app on the razr maxx, every pic I took auto backed up to my pc. freaking awesome. that's gone too I see

I'm not exactly sure what Motocast did, but there are many, many ways to do this. Dropbox has autosync of all photos, which would then sync with your PC. So does SugarSync. I'm not sure about the other cloud services like Box, but I suspect that they do. Of course what's great about these is that the photos will sync to all computers that you sync with Dropbox, etc. Plus Dropbox, Sugarsync, etc., hold deleted files for a period of time (30 days for Dropbox) so you can recover anything accidentally erased.

so my question is are there any apps that will do what smart actions and motocast did for me? I found a couple of smart action like apps, but none had the sleep only when charging option.

I believe that Tasker could be set up to do that - Tasker can be set up to do just about anything. For a free app, Llama should be able to be set with criteria like that (change the profile to silent while charging and when the time is from 11 pm to 6 am, for example - that's something Llama can bet set up to do, as I recall - I used Llama on my old phone but have switched to Assist on the Maxx.)

In fact, that should solve your at work profile problem, as Llama is location-aware and can be set to a particular profile (i.e., vibrate only, no ring, with a list of contacts that are exceptions) based on where you are.

I'd try out Llama.

 

[techguy20165015]

Hey i have the option of getting a ultra and moto x for my lg g2 and im stuck if i should do it or not and if i do which should i use?

 

[Jus10]

I wouldn't. I have both and prefer highly the G2 over anything at the moment.

 

[techguy20165015]

Ive really liked motorola though and i liked the moto x just not enough space and its just really tough for me

 

[rgammon51]

My Droid Ultra is about 2 month old.

1 comment and 1 question

The Android release on this phone is 4.4, not 4.2 as shown in the specs

Will the phone recognize an external usb flash drive to read and write files to the drive?? I ask this question as there does not appear to be any way to expand the 16gb of internal Flash memory!

 

[doogald]

My Droid Ultra is about 2 month old.

1 comment and 1 question

The Android release on this phone is 4.4, not 4.2 as shown in the specs

Will the phone recognize an external usb flash drive to read and write files to the drive?? I ask this question as there does not appear to be any way to expand the 16gb of internal Flash memory!

When the phone was first released you could access USB storage using an OTG cable. That capability was lost with the 4.4 update. However, there is an app or two that allows you to access files on USB storage.

See https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.homeysoft.nexususb.importer

The only issue is that you can't access the storage from other apps. So, if you're looking to play music from external, you'd have to use the app to move some media on, after deleting other from storage - pretty kludgy.

Maybe this was an unintentional bug and support will come back with another OTA? At this point, we don't know.

 

[1slowhonduh]

Does anyone know how to name a group that you text frequently so that you don't have to put all their names on the "to" line every time they want to send a text to those people? I just want to be able to click on "to" and type in group and all the people in the group would be there so I can text them. Its more for convenient than anything else but I get frustrated when I have to type in all their names when I want to send them a text. Thanks in advance.

 

[Jus10]

I don't know any way for what you're describing specifically, but I use an app called EvolveSMS that allows you to rename your group messages and toggle back and forth quickly between conversions or slide through them as well. Pretty convenient for me.