ressu

Since Samsung has a reputation of having a crappy customer relations. Lets all try and make an effort to change it. I'm pretty sure that they are forced to change their ways if enough customers voice the need. This is how it works:

If you are affected by any bug, minor or major, contact Samsung customer service or Helpdesk (or whatever they call it in your area) and tell them about it. It is very important that you remain calm and collected during this process, venting to the customer service doesn't help anyone.

Start by flashing the latest official firmware to your phone and do a wipe on your phone. This is important so that they cannot claim that the firmware is not supported or that it's a problem with settings. Next reproduce the bug with a clean installation or with minimal third party applications. This is done to ensure that they cannot claim that it's a third party problem. Write down the steps to reproduce, including possible software versions.

When you contact support, remember to emphasize that the problem is a known issue amongst the user community (assuming it is, don't lie ) and describe the problem with as much detail as you can. Include the information about Firmware version, mention when the problem started, that have you reproduced the problem without any third party apps and, of course, details on how to reproduce the problem in the first place. It doesn't matter if you can't remember all the details, but include everything you can. Please make sure you make it clear what has been tested and proven and what is guesswork, this makes it a lot easier for them to solve the problem.

Ask them to forward the information to the developers. It might seem obvious that they should do this, but it's not. Customer service is usually overworked so reminding them to forward is a good idea. Also, ask to be kept informed on the progress of the issue. This way you make it known that it's important for you to get it solved. Also, keeping you informed means that they have to relay the information forward.

As a bonus point, ask if they have a place where you can report such problems directly, assuming you don't need any support for the issue. They don't have one, but this puts a bit of pressure in to creating such a place.

This way we at least make all the problems known to samsung and hopefully on the long run make them more responsive to bug reports. I've already done this for the current issues on my phone and even though I was slapped in the face with some bad-customer-service[tm], I'm confident that on a long run this will make a difference.

Some places to start from:
Terrible battery life, firmware issue?
Problem: i7500 Randomly Shutting Itself Off

Last edited by ressu; September 29th, 2009 at 04:53 AM. Reason: Note about firmware version

pegasus21

Battery life problems aren't really pressing since around IHX firmwares. Restarting wasn't an issue for me.

Just itsy bitsy problem with the temperature sensor reporting like 6-9 degree celsius when room temp is around 20.

ressu

Yeah, battery life has gotten a whole lot better with the IHx releases, but the camera button power hog issue in that thread is something worth reporting.

Rebooting was reported by me to the customer service, but in light of these new instructions (i just wrote :P ) I think I'll make another call and follow my own guide.

hippy

Thing is, you are talking about firmware that Samsung hasn't even released to us in the UK!
We should be complaining (I have already emailed them) that the bundled software included with the phone or downloaded from their site isn't even compatible!! That, quick frankly, is a totally ridiculous situation.

pegasus21

True that but I don't fancy installing NPS because it is bloatware. I prefer to just backup the stuff myself or just rely on google's services.

ressu

Added a note about using an official firmware. It shouldn't matter which official firmware you use as long as it's available from samsung and is unmodified.

And if you wish, you can do the same support call round for NPS too. As long as people start contacting them and voicing their concern, it should help the cause.

KlaymenDK

In light of the recent statement, we might have to flash the phones back to whatever version was on it when we first received it, rather than the latest version.
Any idea where to get hold of a G6 version? This is especially dire, since there is no official firmware available from Samsung; at least not from their web site, and we have to rely on what we can get via NPS (which, at the time of writing, is H4).

__________________

Last edited by KlaymenDK; September 29th, 2009 at 06:40 AM.

tisti

Eh? Mind copy-pasting the section that gave you that idea?

ressu

I think you are safe to report any firmware which is supported by NPS. they cannot claim that you are out of warranty if you update your firmware with the tools provided by samsung.

KlaymenDK

"Downloading unauthorised software may also result in invalidation of your warranty." That's what I read.
Yah I sure hope so, because, I whole-heartedly agree with Cougar and hippy here:
I'm having plenty trouble just getting the point of sale and their preferred service partner to accept my phone for warranty replacement/repair without having to worry about what firmware is on it.

tisti

Oh, that part. I read unauthorized as in custom roms and use of odin.
But if you take it into repair I doubt they'll check out if its loaded with a custom rom and I also doubt that they can know how the firmware was flashed to the phone.

kam187

Its only O2 UK users that would have a problem, since we have CSC files and H4 firmware for the other main regions. H4 was released in every region through NPS afaik. So you could always use Odin to go back to H4 with your region CSC and how would they know!

Anyway as soon as we get a single update for O2 uk, those users will be covered too. I personally don't think samsung care if you update or not, but are letting people know if all of a sudden lots of devices become bricked because of some dodgy un-official update, they might just refuse to waranty repair them.

carthesis

I've just spoken to a very nice, and very helpful, girl at the Samsung UK tech support desk, who tells me that apparently you shouldn't be able to update the phone through NPS, as NPS shouldn't have been shipped with the phone in the first place.

I've tried any number of times to get NPS to either recognise or update my Galaxy, to no avail, hence i'm stuck with the H7 firmware it came with.

Apparently the only 'official' way to get it updated is to go to a repair centre. I'm going to try this at lunch as theres one over the road from my office.

Povester

Can you let us know how you get on at the service centre please.

It's interesting that Samsung UK support haven't said they are working on a home solution as they can't expect everyone to be able to visit a service centre for a firmware upgrade.

Rastaman-FB

odd that, as other countries are updating via nps fine from software samsung have uploaded and encrypted for use by nps.
while she maybe very nice, shes wrong

samsung have no uk firmware past g8 available to nps, not alot of us have access to a repair centre. if this is what they are claiming then maybe we should go to watchdog about it and force o2uk to communicate with samsung to get the same treatment as o2germany as they seem to be getting things regularly

carthesis

Well, this is what I'm told.

I might try a newer version of NPS tonight when I get home, but the fact of the matter is every time i've tried to update it through NPS, I've failed. Whether that's the update not being available, or the software, or what, I don't know. I've even tried foriegn language versions of NPS - I've currently got 1.3.0 H4 installed, and that doesn't work.

There was a RUMOUR that some of the very very early O2UK versions MIGHT be non-English spec that came from elsewhere and reflashed into English. I know mine is on H7, and others who got theirs a few days later from O2 Online or in-store got either I3 or I4.

I know the drivers that came with the bloody thing don't work properly.

Samsung are apparently working on software to work with Android, but it might just be a case of C/S monkeys not knowing the story. I called before only to be told by some other bod that Samsung might not be releasing any new firmware for this phone at all - a blatant lie.

Get in touch by calling 0870 MSAMSUNG (0870 67267864), and just tell 'em the facts. You need to get them to put you in the call list for the Product Specialist, who will call you back, apparently.

As for the repair centres, it seems that Carphone Warehouse are a Samsung accredited repair centre. If they can't sort the update for you, then they'll send it back off to Samsung for you and they will.

carthesis

Well.

Having just got back from CPW, the story is:

1) The CPW computer says 'no' - their systems don't recognise the phone, hence nothing can be done to it in-store by the engineer, even though there's technically nothing wrong with it.

2) They CAN do something - send it back to Samsung - but that'll take 28 days. Presumably, they're sending it to Samsung on Mars.

3) Tried the O2 shop - much the same story. A firmware flash will take them upto 3 weeks to accomplish.

A minimum of 3 weeks to flash firmware on a working pone, a task that would take approximately 25 mins if the software that came with the phone worked with that phone in the first BLOODY place!

My current plan is to phone up O2 customer service and pester, bother and otherwise abuse them until I get any kind of result. I shall be starting with the approach of "I'm paying a lot of money for a feature phone with features that I can't use for as long as I need to use them, because using the features causes the device to power down too quickly."

Hopefully, I'll be able to convince them that the rumour I alluded to previously is correct, and get them to send out a new, fully-flashed phone to replace my current one.

carthesis

Shocker.

O2UK basically just passed the buck - it's Samsung's fault.

mrqs

let us know what pestering, bothering and otherwise abusing samsung turns up

carthesis

O2UK - it's outside the 28-day cooling off period, so they'll only repair it under warranty, despite it being not fit for purpose, and despite the fact I'm not trying to wriggle out of the contract, only get it fixed in something approaching a timely manner!

Called Samsung. Finally got a customer reference number. Told bloke on the phone in quite terse tones what I'd been through. He's given me an RMI number and an address to send the phone to a 'regional repair centre' where they'll do whatever I tell them to in an inclosed note and send it back in sub-10 days.

Not an ideal solution, but the best so far.

I'd much prefer if Samsung either:

a) made bloody NPS work with this phone

or

b) made the bloody update available through NPS in the UK like they appear to have everywhere else.

ressu

Good, this is exactly what I wanted from this thread. Unless people start pestering and Samsung and voicing their concern and demanding better support, there will never be better support.

it looks like the UK is in the worst spot at the moment with NO support from Samsung. Lets get that changed...

mrqs

well i sent them a message too - this is what i wrote:
and this is what they replied:
i'm not feeling exactly reassured...

Last edited by mrqs; October 5th, 2009 at 10:06 AM.

mr_boogie

I have the Samsung i7500 for the TW market, version I7500ZWIH7 as it came from Samsung. No can work with NPS, no new updates on website. Battery life good for 1 day, wifi goes does too oftenly, and I don't know if I can get a CSC file for the local market as I need the local tools (specially fonts and keyboard, otherwise trying to type anything in Chinese will be impossible).

Rastaman-FB

ROFL wtf is that

ressu

Oof, looks like i'm not the only one to get unreadable replies from Samsung. I'm a bit curious to see what the reply to my latest contact attempt is. This time i provided the bug report in Finnish and in English, in hopes that they would forward the information inside the organization.

carthesis

Well, I finally got to talk to one of the tech bods at Samsung, who basically told me everything that everyone else told me - YOU SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO GET UPDATES THROUGH NPS AT THIS TIME.

The discussions I had with them centered around them starting out by saying "It's a high-end device with a big battery draw" to which I responded "Yes, but my N95 8Gb had a higher-power draw screen, 3 CPUs and a battery 2/3rds the size, and that lasted 3 days under fairly heavy use."

They then moved on to "It might be a faulty battery - we can send a new one" to which I replied "That's fine, but if you check the interwebs, you'll find it's more than just me having battery life problems, so either the battery manufacturing process is fundamentally flawed, or it's a firmware fault."

I mentioned some people have had the new firmware which seemed to fix it, and the guy then said my repair options are:

a) take it to a Carphone Warehouse or other authorised repair centre and get them to look it over - although there's no guarantee that they'll have even heard about the phone. The bloke I just spoke to, a mobile phone salesman nonetheless, responded with "A what? Never heard of it..."

b) post it off to some repair partner company and let them do it, but this could take 10 working days to do.

So, some progress, but still not great. I can't believe it's THAT HARD to get software to work with the thing for updates. Don't know why they don't push them out OTA, unless it's a licensing issue or something.

I don't fancy having to mess about like this again when Donut/Eclair/other sweet pastry named OS update comes out.

Samsung - SORT IT OUT!

carthesis

Just heard back from CPW - the Galaxy still isn't on their system, even though they're an approved Samsung repair partner - so they can't do anything, which means your only option is to post it to this other firm.

To do that, you need to call Samsung UK on 08456 7267864 and get them to book it in and give you a reference number.

The company is called 'Regenersis', and they have a few repair centres over the UK.

Hope this helps someone!

Still not sure why some countries can get updates through NPS and we in the UK can't though. Seems ridiculous. If it's something to do with language file settings, and there's an English ROM out, why not make it available??

Cougar

Apethy?

Rastaman-FB

Samsung are chatting naff as facts are devices are getting updated by nps for other countries, the galaxy fairy godmother didn't put them up for download so some on samsungs dev team put them there. I also know they are chatting naff as I'm in correspondence with someone quite high up on the foodchain between o2 and samsungmobile uk.

kam187

Hmm I just noticed the G8 version for O2 was posted here:

http://androidforums.com/samsung-i7500/9663-firmware-versions-2.html#post56326

So you could use odin to go to I5 - technically voiding your waranty - and if you ever needed to go back to a valid O2 build you could use odin with that file. They would never know that you had updated unofficially.

If NPS ever started working, you could just odin back to the G8 build and update from there. Previously there was no CSC for O2 so there was no way back to an official O2 build, but with this file we now have one.

Having said that the rapidshare link is dead, so maybe someone could re-upload it.

Rastaman-FB

odin and g8 are here Index of /files/i7500/

although if/when o2/samsung do sort out the downloads then im sure sephail will help us out and get hold of it from the site and decrypt it

siralos

In order to install firmaware update I5 using official samsung PCStudio, it was actually pretty simple. I did a fresh install in another XP machine, but during installation I chose Germany as the country for server (after choosing English (UK) as language). Then when I tried to update, I was able to automagically update to I5. Ofcourse don't know if the CPS files were altered, etc.. Give this a try.

ressu

Wow, i finally got a reply from Samsung to my bug report. To my surprise they said that the information had been forwarded inside Samsung.

Still no promise on keeping me up to date on the issue, but at least it wasn't a broken cut&paste of some standard answer. Time will tell if the bug is fixed in an upcoming release or not.

carthesis

I'm currently on H6 firmware, and I'm pretty much unable to do ANYTHING with regard to updating/rooting/flashing/whatever-ing the phone, as the drivers I have installed don't seem to work.

See my post here:

http://androidforums.com/samsung-i7500/10109-modaco-custom-rom-based-ih8.html#post61387

for a full description.

If any of the super-users here can point me in the right direction with getting the PC connected to the phone in FASTBOOT mode, I'm gonna just put the MoDoCo ROM on for now.

Cheers.

Povester

Just made the most pointless phone call to Samsung to discuss the Galaxy and it's problems. Basically spoke to a guy who knew nothing and just made things up.

He told me it was Androids fault and I should speak to the developers of that - So I asked who developed it and he told me he didn't know (That's what we are working against)

I asked why can German phones be updated using NPS, but not UK phones and again that's Androids fault (???)

I pushed him to answer if Samsung were working on a fix and he just said it would appear on the site if/when there was an update.

Totally pointless speaking to them.

Breaker1-9

After speaking to Samsung support, apparently a download will be made available in the coming weeks (before end of Oct), which will enable the Galaxy handset to be updated to the lastest firmware.

Following this update the handset will be recognised by NPS.

Any further updates will then be made via NPS.

Lets hope this is all true.

For the time being, keep a check on the samsung website.

steelskin

p, li { white-space: pre-wrap; } What follows is my email complaining about the I7500 (firmware V1.5) If and when I get a response I'll post the reply.



This problem relates to the Samsung Galaxy and NOT the Gt-I8000. Why did I select GT-I8000 ? Because.... the I7500 is not available in your pull list on your website. So the following problems I am about to describe relate to the Samsung Galaxy GT-I7500 !



First I would like to say that this phone would be absolutely wonderful if it wasn't for a few bugs which are making the phone really irritating to use for it's primary role as a phone.

The bugs are ...


1. Auto lock screen function is erratic.
An example .. even though the lock screen is set to 1 minute when you unlock it it will within a couple of seconds the phone will blank & lock itself again. This happens about 50% of the time, the other 50% of the time it works ok. A workaround is to completely disable auto screen lock in the settings. This definitely makes things better, however I now have to remember to manually lock the screen to preserve battery charge.



2. Intermittent Phone calls end within seconds of being answered even when there is maximum signal strength.
An example .. phone rings, hold it up to my ear, can't hear anything, look back at screen. Call ended. This has happened at least 20 times in the week I have had this phone.



3. Intermittently when I dial a call it will also end immediately. I'm not 100% sure but if I avoid moving or touching the phone, then it workings ok. This has happened at least 10 times during the week I have had the phone.



4. Using 'speakerphone' option in a call ie resulted in the tab that allows you to type numbers being unresponsive. This has happened once during the week I have had it.



5. The phone has rebooted by itself twice while using it in the week I have had it.



Out of all these problems the biggest problem is related to the call problem and screen locking problems with the phone. I have a lot of patience however most people would probably return there phones if they had these two problems.



These all seem to be firmware problems rather than hardware problems. Is there a firmware update coming soon, that will resolve some of these problems ?



Other features of the phone seem to work fine for me, however the most important feature, it's ability to be used reliably as a phone is a big problem for me as I use it constantly for work.



So in summary can you tell me when the new firmware for this phone will be available for download.



Regards

jthreads

Good luck with this

Bomberman

Amusing that - given no support whatsoever and being virtually impossible to find on the website full stop - they use the galaxy in one of their front page banner ads! Samsung Mobile - Home < gone in 60 minutes ad. Insult to injury IMO.

Last edited by Bomberman; December 2nd, 2009 at 11:43 AM.

MichaelW

What firmware version is your phone on?

jthreads

Update must be in its way
IMO

steelskin

As taken from settings-About Phone ..

Firmware version 1.5
Baseband version I7500XXII4
Kernel version 2.6.27 (hudson@andy #1)
Build number 76XXCSDCBALUM6375

I see other people talk about firmware H8 and I5, so from the above info does that mean I'm on I4 ? and that there is a firmware update available called I7500XXII5 that may help.

Bomberman

I'm on I4 and was having the phone shut off at least twice a day. I updated all my apps and over a period of a couple of days of ensuring the apps were updated, the issue went away.

steelskin

I haven't had it reboot all by itself for a couple of days, I've updated any apps I installed. So I'll see whether I get a re-occurrence of the auto reboot problem over the coming week.