New info on the silent bug

[Peter123]

So, today I went to the local VZW store determined to get a phone exchange. The predhistory is that ~10 days ago I called the tech line complaining about the issue and then I was adviced to restart the phone every day and if the problem persists I'll get an exchange.

Today I was told: "This is a software issue and and HTC is working on it and we will be getting an update to fix it.". The tech person swore to it that it is a software issue not a hardware and recommended daily battery pull for 90 seconds. She says it is not the same as the power off. (This maybe true.)

I asked the person that she was absolutely positive that HTC is working on it as a software problem and she said yes.

I asked another tech in the store about 2.2 and I was told that Eris is not likely a candidate for it.
Peter

 

[ACD168]

I never thought that it was a hardware issue no matter how many people disagreed/

 

[thenestor]

So, today I went to the local VZW store determined to get a phone exchange. The predhistory is that ~10 days ago I called the tech line complaining about the issue and then I was adviced to restart the phone every day and if the problem persists I'll get an exchange.

Today I was told: "This is a software issue and and HTC is working on it and we will be getting an update to fix it.". The tech person swore to it that it is a software issue not a hardware and recommended daily battery pull for 90 seconds. She says it is not the same as the power off. (This maybe true.)

I asked the person that she was absolutely positive that HTC is working on it as a software problem and she said yes.

I asked another tech in the store about 2.2 and I was told that Eris is not likely a candidate for it.
Peter

Ok. So why doesn't my refurb phone have the problem, if I'm still using it the same way and have the same apps and the same software as my previous phone?

 

[Demache]

I never thought that it was a hardware issue no matter how many people disagreed/

Same. Although the build quality can be questionable (with the trackball problem), I don't think the silent call problem is a hardware related one. It just seems hard to believe that a hardware problem would show up because of a software update.

 

[Demache]

Ok. So why doesn't my refurb phone have the problem, if I'm still using it the same way and have the same apps and the same software as my previous phone?

That's why it is an odd problem. It happened on my phone the first day I got the OTA. And then it never happened again. It seems very elusive and since it happens at random, its really hard to pinpoint a cause or a workaround.

 

[varkie]

i finally (i've had my phone since december) had the dreaded silent call problem happen to me yesterday on every call i got. my phone wouldn't ring, which it has done in the past many times, but when i finally noticed i had a missed call and went to return it the phone wouldn't dial out, i had to restart the phone to call them back.

i called tech support and she immediately said we will give you another phone. no questions, no try this or that, just how do you want to get your replacement phone? we'll either send you another phone by fed ex or you can pick one up at the local store. i think its just who you get and what mood they are in as to what type of service they want to offer.

i was on leak version 3, since march, and did the ruu update last night and that seems to have fixed the problem for now though i didn't reinstall any apps as i'm going to flash it again anyways when i send it back in on wednesday when the new phone arrives.

 

[laurentypo]

So, today I went to the local VZW store determined to get a phone exchange. The predhistory is that ~10 days ago I called the tech line complaining about the issue and then I was adviced to restart the phone every day and if the problem persists I'll get an exchange.

Today I was told: "This is a software issue and and HTC is working on it and we will be getting an update to fix it.". The tech person swore to it that it is a software issue not a hardware and recommended daily battery pull for 90 seconds. She says it is not the same as the power off. (This maybe true.)

I asked the person that she was absolutely positive that HTC is working on it as a software problem and she said yes.

I asked another tech in the store about 2.2 and I was told that Eris is not likely a candidate for it.
Peter

Verizon called me the other day for a dialing lag issue I am having, and the lady told me that they have absolutely no idea if HTC is going to be putting out an update to fix the Eris problems.

 

[piccolo775]

So, today I went to the local VZW store determined to get a phone exchange. The predhistory is that ~10 days ago I called the tech line complaining about the issue and then I was adviced to restart the phone every day and if the problem persists I'll get an exchange.

Today I was told: "This is a software issue and and HTC is working on it and we will be getting an update to fix it.". The tech person swore to it that it is a software issue not a hardware and recommended daily battery pull for 90 seconds. She says it is not the same as the power off. (This maybe true.)

I asked the person that she was absolutely positive that HTC is working on it as a software problem and she said yes.

I asked another tech in the store about 2.2 and I was told that Eris is not likely a candidate for it.
Peter

I have yet to get the same information from two reps on any given issue.

 

[doogald]

There was a news story last week that HTC was working on an update to the 2.1 build. They mentioned specifically the issue with the weather widget, but I can't believe that they are not trying to fix the silent phone bug. I can't believe that HTC and Verizon are all that happy about doing warranty exchanges right now.

 

[bsutton1]

I asked another tech in the store about 2.2 and I was told that Eris is not likely a candidate for it.
Peter

We heard the same thing about 2.1. I think we will get 2.2.

 

[jfkerekes]

We heard the same thing about 2.1. I think we will get 2.2.

Personally I think 2.2 is a pipe dream unless you are prepared to install a ported rom.

As far as the silent call issue, I had my phone replaced about a month ago for the silent call issue. I had been running Leak V3 for about 2 weeks and before that V2. I never had the issue until about a week before I got my phone replaced and I for one am not convinced that this could NOT be a hardware issue. Look at all the other pore craftsmanship issues with this phone we see reported here. With that in mind you CAN't deny the possibility that this could be hardware related. Maybe in conjunction with the 2.1 release but hardware all the same.

 

[astrostrat89]

Ok. So why doesn't my refurb phone have the problem, if I'm still using it the same way and have the same apps and the same software as my previous phone?

I see what you are saying but even the tiniest differences in two phones could trigger an issue by the same "driver" (for lack of a better turn). Lest say that they got two batches of audio chips (just for arguments sake here) for the phones and there was a slight difference in a capacitor. The software is expecting back a response from the chip in x amount of mico seconds. chip a always reports back in that time, but chip b under certain circumstances does not because of that one part.

I understand that this is far fetched but I've seen things like that before. Phones have millions of lines of code pulsating though multiple cpus. When you really start to break it down it's amazing it works at all. It normally comes down to +3v vs -3v.

 

[thenestor]

Personally I think 2.2 is a pipe dream unless you are prepared to install a ported rom.

As far as the silent call issue, I had my phone replaced about a month ago for the silent call issue. I had been running Leak V3 for about 2 weeks and before that V2. I never had the issue until about a week before I got my phone replaced and I for one am not convinced that this could NOT be a hardware issue. Look at all the other pore craftsmanship issues with this phone we see reported here. With that in mind you CAN't deny the possibility that this could be hardware related. Maybe in conjunction with the 2.1 release but hardware all the same.

Well, and I should clarify my own position: Obviously since we're seeing a specific error in the log, it's a software issue on the surface. The phone can't access its own audio output, so it keeps trying to reset the audio drivers in an endless loop. In addition to a lack of sound, that causes serious lag and 100% uptime. In 1.5, I think there was an additional symptom: random reboot (which of course solved the problem for the time being).

However, the error in the log isn't the cause of the problem. It's a symptom of the fact that the phone can't access audio output. The unanswered question is: Why can't the phone access audio output?

Since some phones get the bug at least once a week and some never get it, and since a factory reset does not solve the problem, I'm inclined to believe that the phones were manufactured using two (or more) different audio chipsets. Either some of them are faulty, or some of them are incompatible with the software. If the latter is true, it may be possible to "solve" the problem with a software update. However, the immediate solution is to replace the hardware.

 

[thenestor]

I see what you are saying but even the tiniest differences in two phones could trigger an issue by the same "driver" (for lack of a better turn). Lest say that they got two batches of audio chips (just for arguments sake here) for the phones and there was a slight difference in a capacitor. The software is expecting back a response from the chip in x amount of mico seconds. chip a always reports back in that time, but chip b under certain circumstances does not because of that one part.

I understand that this is far fetched but I've seen things like that before. Phones have millions of lines of code pulsating though multiple cpus. When you really start to break it down it's amazing it works at all. It normally comes down to +3v vs -3v.

You and I are in agreement.

 

[thenestor]

Ooh! I thought of a good analogy to explain a "hardware problem" that could potentially have a "software solution": Bad sector on a hard drive. You can scan the drive for errors, identify the bad sector, and the drive won't use that sector anymore. Problem "solved," even though the hard drive still has a bad sector.

 

[Peter123]

I see what you are saying but even the tiniest differences in two phones could trigger an issue by the same "driver" (for lack of a better turn). Lest say that they got two batches of audio chips (just for arguments sake here) for the phones and there was a slight difference in a capacitor. The software is expecting back a response from the chip in x amount of mico seconds. chip a always reports back in that time, but chip b under certain circumstances does not because of that one part.

I understand that this is far fetched but I've seen things like that before. Phones have millions of lines of code pulsating though multiple cpus. When you really start to break it down it's amazing it works at all. It normally comes down to +3v vs -3v.

astrostrat89 you are right. It is quite possible that some of the 1.5 SW was more "tolerant" to some marginal HW issue. I say "marginal", because the character of the error (random apprearance) shows in this direction.
Software updates can make some critcal weaknesses emerging resulting in unpredictable behavior. Remeber Vista, what a flop it was (vs. XP) - it did created behavior that suggested hardware problem while in fact it was the result of poor sofrware.
Peter

 

[astrostrat89]

of course it's all speculation at this point. My point was only that there is just some weird stuff out there.

My hope is that it is fixable and that they are taking the time to fix it.

side note I've been trying like heck to get this bug to trigger today so I can take in for them to look at. I'm headed to Bonnaroo on wed and would really like to not have to worry about this issue during the trip.

 

[thenestor]

of course it's all speculation at this point. My point was only that there is just some weird stuff out there.

My hope is that it is fixable and that they are taking the time to fix it.

side note I've been trying like heck to get this bug to trigger today so I can take in for them to look at. I'm headed to Bonnaroo on wed and would really like to not have to worry about this issue during the trip.

The most frustrating thing about the bug was that it seemed impossible to replicate when I wanted to, so in the end I had to call Verizon to get a replacement because I knew the store rep would say "show me."

 

[Peter123]

of course it's all speculation at this point. My point was only that there is just some weird stuff out there.

My hope is that it is fixable and that they are taking the time to fix it.

side note I've been trying like heck to get this bug to trigger today so I can take in for them to look at. I'm headed to Bonnaroo on wed and would really like to not have to worry about this issue during the trip.

The vzw rep said do a battery pull for 90 sec every day till the fix from HTC comes out.
She also said the battery pull is not the same as the power cycle method (perhaps with battery pull some capacitor will discharge that is not affected by the power off button press).
Please let us know what you learn.
Peter

 

[cableguynoe]

@ Thenestor

Back to back to back posts! (13,14,15)

Well done!!!!