How does one troubleshoot random reboots?

[bartgrefte]

Hi y'all

Let's start with that I did not place this topic in the subforum for the phone in question because I would like to ask this without actually specifying a phone:

How does one troubleshoot random reboots of an Android phone?

The story:
My phone is a 6 month old Galaxy 551 that started doing that about 1

 

[Mad_Sunday]

This may be simply dirty battery contacts, remove the battery and using a penknife or similar carefully scrape the contacts clean. Also do this to the phone contacts and if they seem to have lost there spring tension you can pull them a little to increase it.. Try that before you delve in further.

Pete

 

[takeshi]

Already did a factory reset, after that reinstalling the few apps I use, did not help.

This is standard troubleshooting practice:

After wiping/resetting you should have a "known good" state. In other words, this is as clean as your device can be and the best your device will ever operate. Use the device without loading anything for a while. If the issue persists then it's probably not software.

Load one item at a time. If your problem is an app then it should be apparent which app caused the problem.

 

[bartgrefte]

This may be simply dirty battery contacts, remove the battery and using a penknife or similar carefully scrape the contacts clean. Also do this to the phone contacts and if they seem to have lost there spring tension you can pull them a little to increase it.. Try that before you delve in further.

Pete

Check, just done that.

This is standard troubleshooting practice:

After wiping/resetting you should have a "known good" state. In other words, this is as clean as your device can be and the best your device will ever operate. Use the device without loading anything for a while. If the issue persists then it's probably not software.

Load one item at a time. If your problem is an app then it should be apparent which app caused the problem.

Ow okay. If the above (battery) did not help, I'll try a factory-reset again and then not install anything.

Don't have much apps though:
SMS Backup+ (did not install it till just before the factory reset), aWARemote, AndFTP, PDF Viewer, QR Droid, StreamFurious, ShuffleTone 2.0, Opera Mobile, aLogcat (also installed after the reboots where already there) and WhatsApp.

 

[MyNamesTooLong]

It's a samsung...every samsung I have owned, from my flip phone to my vibrant would randomly reboot.

 

[007shark]

I had a Motorola Devour that would randomly reboot due to poor design of the battery holder. The battery went in from the side and was prone to movement. I had to take folded paper to wedge under the battery to make a tighter fit. I had also seen cases of random reboots due to lack of signal.

 

[bartgrefte]

Well, after the battery tip few posts above the reboots didn't stop so did a factory-reset again without changing/installing anything after that accept cleaning up the desktop (homescreen?) a bit. Now waiting to see if that helps.

007shark: I did noticed a little movement possible in the battery compartment, however, when wiggling/moving the battery a bit the phone stayed on. So I don't thing that's the cause.

edit: And another reboot, that rules out all the apps. Any idea's? Is there any way I can have it continuously save the log somehow to find out why it's rebooting?

 

[arnold22]

What version of Android are you running?
I know my phone randomly reboots after I updated the firmware to Froyo (2.2) and also freezes a lot. It is not as bad as you but I would say my phone reboots once every two or three days for no reason.

 

[bartgrefte]

What version of Android are you running?
I know my phone randomly reboots after I updated the firmware to Froyo (2.2) and also freezes a lot. It is not as bad as you but I would say my phone reboots once every two or three days for no reason.

2.2 (came with the phone), build FROYO-XWKD4, kernel 2.6.32.9-perf

Change all your settings to default in all your programs. The installation file of the app that you are talking about might still be residing at some place. try to get rid of it and if nothing works try reinstalling your OS altogether (but keep the backup of all important files). Hope it helps ..

Kinda late for that since a factory-reset without installing and changing anything after that doesn't help

Anyway, this afternoon I hooked it up to my computer and had Samsung "Kies" (the Dutch software for synchronization with a computer, god what sluggish crap) upgrade the firmware since there was a newer version, see if that does any good.

 

[bartgrefte]

Update: the firmware update did not solve it.
However, I ran into an app that saves the log with a 1 line interval instead of a time interval. So every time a new line appears in the log, it is immediately saved.

Lets start with the weird thing I noticed.

The reboot that happened about 25min a go was at 13:02, the last time the log file was updated was 2h after that according to my phone.

After? Yes, after. As in the freaking future

Here's the log: http://www.ravenslair.nl/files/2011-07-16-09-54-36.txt
Does this show anything related to the reboots?

 

[guyver_dio]

Is it still under warranty?

After everything you've tried I'd probably give up and demand a replacement. If factory reset didn't fix it, sounds like hardware to me.

 

[bartgrefte]

Is it still under warranty?

After everything you've tried I'd probably give up and demand a replacement. If factory reset didn't fix it, sounds like hardware to me.

Yes, but the (internet)store is on the other side of the country + they would probably send it to a Samsung service point so it will be gone for weeks, so I'm trying to find the cause myself so they don't have to look for it so long.


Anyway, at 14:13 (about 20min a go) another reboot with the same weird 2h in the future saved log.
Here's todays log: http://www.ravenslair.nl/files/2011-07-17-09-23-28.txt
edit: 15:03 again, this time without the last modification being made in the future, time is correct: http://www.ravenslair.nl/files/2011-07-17-14-38-34.txt

 

[bartgrefte]

An update:

The Samsung service point that actually offered support through e-mail (the one in this town turned out to be closed down) might have given me a fix, my phone has worked without spontaneous reboots for 5