Help All of a sudden: no phone calls, no texts on my Motion

[TJayDroid]

Hmmm...

Strangest thing... and this is the first time I've ever had a problem with any phone on MetroPCS.

I'm charging my Motion today when I got home (as I always do). I needed to use it, so I took it off the charger about an hour later. All of a sudden, I received 11 texts all in a row (from the same person). I tried to send some texts back, but all I got was the "Sending..." message on the text bubble.

I decided to call. So I called... when I did, the signal was so lousy, I could barely hear. The lousy signal isn't totally unusual; sometimes it happens on Metro in my area. So I tried to send a few more texts later. Same result ("Sending...",.. then failure). THEN I couldn't call out. I also couldn't receive any calls (goes right to voice mail).

When I say I can't call out, I mean that -- when you dial -- it stays on the dialing screen with the "Dialing..." message. Then after about 1.5 mins of hearing NOTHING (no ring, nada), it just says "Call Ended".

Some notes:

1.) Nothing newly installed on phone.
2.) Phone is pretty much stock except for Nova, standard apps (no root)
3.) Nothing out of the ordinary at all done today with the phone (or any day for that matter).
4.) 4G icon shows clearly.
5.) 3G works as well.
6.) Wi-Fi works.
7.) Can browse net. Access anything online (web, podcasts, Google Play store, Pandora, etc.).
8.) Can't even dial 611!
9.) Can't call own number (voicemail).

Lastly,... I spent over an hour with Metro using a landline to do so. Not very helpful as they basically took me through a script (PRL update, MIN check, blah blah). I got disconnected or transferred or dropped three times during that hour, too, having to repeat the whole episode with a "new" rep each time. Finally, I was told that they were "updating the system" and that I should try calling/texting in an hour or so.

Well.. I waited. No calls/texts working still. Anyone had this happen? I'm in Northern California (San Fran Bay Area).

Total drag. What could be wrong?

 

[sammyz]

What PRL are you on currently?

 

[TJayDroid]

What PRL are you on currently?

sammyz:

Thanks for the reply. I'm currently on 2032.

Let me add to the saga. Last night, I had to go out and get something. Lo and behold... when I was about 150 yards from my house, I could make calls, send texts, etc. No problems.

And when I arrived back home... I made a couple of calls, and then... poof! I couldn't make calls or send/receive texts any more! I decided to wait it out and see if the problem cleared up. Sure enough, today when I woke up, no calls, no texts (very unusual). Couldn't call out. Left for work, worked fine. So Metro must have changed something having to do with signal towers, because the signal in that small zone of a couple of hundred yards is nil.

You should know that up at my house has always been a trouble spot for Metro coverage. I get quite a few dropped calls, lousy reception, but nothing like I experienced last night. For instance, in nearly 7 years, I've never missed a call or text, etc.

But wait... there's more.

I thought to myself: "Maybe I should load one of those 'network booster' apps from the Play store. I decided to do it when I went home for lunch. However, that got me thinking....

Now I *never* have Google Location services enabled and I *never* use the GPS on the phone. I thought to myself... what if I enabled the Google Location services to see if it helps 'find' stronger signal towers? Probably a stupid thought and I don't know any technical details about that stuff, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway.

I got home. Bang! Can't make calls again!

I enabled Google Location services (but had wi-fi disabled) and, 1 minute later. No problem. I've been home for about 1/2 hour with no issues. Perfect reception on phone calls. Texting works instantly. I'm going to leave Google Location services on for the day/night and see what happens. Then, tomorrow, I'll disable it and see if the issue returns.

Does any of this make sense? Why would the Location Services help me out? Is it a fluke? Placebo? I'm anxious to test it with it off to see if the problem returns.

One thing **IS** for certain, though. Metro did, indeed, change something with their signal towers in my home's immediate area.


(p.s.: do you think trying out 3033 might make a difference? I did a *228 to update the PRL while I went out last night to see if that might help, but it simply re-installed 3032 which is what I had before. Regardless, it didn't change anything last night and the problem continued.)

 

[bart2201]

Tjay, I'm interested to know which town you live in. I'm also from the Bay area and have lived all over. R.W.C., E.P.A., Mtn. View. Fremont, S.F., Oakland, Martinez and now in Stockton.

But the absolute worst reception problems I've ever had were in the Silicon Valley area, notably Palo Alto and Mtn. View. Redwood City was also pretty bad many times and service would vary from day to day. In fact when I would go to the Metro store in R.W.C. it would be one of the worst reception points I had.

What i'm saying is that Metro's towers (which are leased from other carriers) do not offer the same reception as the company that actually owns the tower and when anything goes wrong or needs updating or servicing its the Metro side that gets dogged first.

But I agree with you that Metro has obviously done something weird with the tower near your home. I'm glad you found a solution by using location services to zero in on your best tower option. Heres a concern with that, although Metro has unlimited data unless your on one of the newer plans with a high end phone this will cause your bill to go up because always having location services on. Are we looking at what may be the start of a practice of forcing users to enable location options? Sounds far fetched and very weird but stranger and worse things have happened. Considering that Metro is going to be merged with T-mobile are we seeing the beginnings of a plan to increase our monthly billing? Hopefully yours will remain an isolated incident and will be better resolved soon.

 

[OcalaFlGuy]

Heres a concern with that, although Metro has unlimited data unless your on one of the newer plans with a high end phone this will cause your bill to go up because always having location services on.

Unless you have a brazeelyn Apps pushing data constantly to your phone that is simply Not So. (And I'm not even sure auto updates would make that much difference in GPS data usage.)

I am a fairly light user but that shouldn't make a difference itself in my GPS data usage from having it on or not. My GPS stays on. I checked my data usage specifics for the past two months just now. Heck if I know where the GPS for locations would be but my Maps and Google Services were both less than 5 Meg Each @month. Not enough usage to make any $ difference. Nothing else that even looked like it could be related to Location Services was more than 1-5 Meg.

Bruce in Ocala, FL

 

[TJayDroid]

Bart:

I'm at about the Oakland/Berkeley border, sort of a long hillside near the freeway. It's always been less-than-desirable reception up at my house, but (obviously) still eminently usable. The worst times to make a phone call at my house was around 5-6pm. No matter what, I would get (a) lousy reception and (b) call dropoffs. Other than that, it wasn't intolerable and, after all, the reception/signal is pretty strong everywhere I work/travel. That's why this was such a shocker.

Metro phone reps tried to help, but they just defaulted to "it's a handset issue".

Again, I'm anxious to see if the problem occurs again when I'm home for an increased time this evening; or, possibly, if reception problems could have been cured by something as simple as enabling Location Services.

As far as the fear of data rates skyrocketing as a result, I think I'm with Bruce's opinion above. Might not be a big deal unless there's oodles of pushing. However, it would be a drag if Location Services would be *required* in the future; I greatly fear the appearance of unceasing location-based ad-pushing. I know it's coming, though. That's one of the reasons I have never enabled GPS/LocServices; it's my silent protest against things to come.