Help Kitt Katt 4.4.4 Issues

[Native NYer]

Since AT&T updated my S5 to Kitt Katt 4.4.4, I have had issues. First and foremost, I drop WIFi constantly and it reappears. Second, I get notification beeps when there aren't any notifications. Third, it changed the color scheme on some screens to green, I hate green. How can I correct these issues?

AT&T told me this is a Samsung issue but the update came from them, not Samsung, so they should be responsible, in my opinion, to fix the fix. Samsung told me these issues will be fixed in Lollipop but what if I don;t want to upgrade to Lollipop? I don't want to go through the hassle of rooting my phone (tried with an S2 and failed) but I want my 4.4 back and have it be just left alone.

I would love to be able to get a class-action law suit against stuff like this because not only did I not want an update, but it didn't ask me if I wanted it and shoved it down my throat but it didn't even tell me what was updated or why. I can understand if I didn't own the device but I do, it's mine. I should have a say what goes on it and what doesn't.

Can anyone help me out with these issues other than quick fixes? AT&T told me to uncheck the 'Smart Switch' box under WiFi to fix my WiFi drop issue but that's a quick fix. I bought the S5 outright, no plan, no deal, I paid full $650 for it and they messed it up on me. I hear a lot of people are mad about this and AT&T isn't doing anything from what I see to fix the issue.

 

[Hadron]

Do you not have options to control whether updates are downloaded and installed or not? I'd expect them to be in Settings > About > Software Updates, though I'm not so familiar with the S5. If the settings were there but had been set to automatically download and install that would IMO be a bit poor, but is pretty standard practice in the computing industry these days (usually justified on grounds of security, as the simplest way of getting people to keep software up to date).

Without root I doubt you can roll the software back, but I'm not a Samsung expert. Might be best if we moved this thread to the S5 forum, as other S5 owners will be the people who know best.

Notification beeps without notifications will be some app set to alert about something, but will be hard to work out which (I once inadvertently set a battery temperature alert in a monitoring app which did this, and it took me weeks to work out what it was). Again, best chance is if someone else has encountered it and can suggest where to look, so the device forum is your best bet.

 

[systemofadown]

I too am no expert, but have you tried clearing the cache? Just like a good battery pull, this is always a great first step in solving update problems
Granted it may not fix any of your issues but you never know


Power down your phone, now press & hold the power button, volume up & the home button until your phone boots into Recovery. Now use the volume rocker to select Wipe Cache. Hit the power button to make it happen - give it a sec to clear the cache. Now use the volume rocker to select Reboot System - hit the power button & run you phone for a bit. See if this helps some
If not just report back here

 

[Native NYer]

Do you not have options to control whether updates are downloaded and installed or not? I'd expect them to be in Settings > About > Software Updates, though I'm not so familiar with the S5. If the settings were there but had been set to automatically download and install that would IMO be a bit poor, but is pretty standard practice in the computing industry these days (usually justified on grounds of security, as the simplest way of getting people to keep software up to date).

Without root I doubt you can roll the software back, but I'm not a Samsung expert. Might be best if we moved this thread to the S5 forum, as other S5 owners will be the people who know best.

Notification beeps without notifications will be some app set to alert about something, but will be hard to work out which (I once inadvertently set a battery temperature alert in a monitoring app which did this, and it took me weeks to work out what it was). Again, best chance is if someone else has encountered it and can suggest where to look, so the device forum is your best bet.

No, there is no choice to turn off automatic updates there, just to check for updates. These were not 'security updates' to 4.4.4.

I did not have all these notification updates prior to the update to 4.4.4. The AT&T tech support rep I spoke to acknowledged this is a known issue with the update and no way to as of yet to fix the issue. t got so annoying I had to turn off all notifications other than SMS, Calendar and Phone/Voice Mail notifications. I would get them every 20 minutes t a half hour. I don't have anything on my phone that should alert me that often.

And thanks for moving the thread to here. I'm a newbie and wasn't sure the best place to put it. I had no idea there was a thread just for S5s.

 

[Native NYer]

I too am no expert, but have you tried clearing the cache? Just like a good battery pull, this is always a great first step in solving update problems
Granted it may not fix any of your issues but you never know


Power down your phone, now press & hold the power button, volume up & the home button until your phone boots into Recovery. Now use the volume rocker to select Wipe Cache. Hit the power button to make it happen - give it a sec to clear the cache. Now use the volume rocker to select Reboot System - hit the power button & run you phone for a bit. See if this helps some
If not just report back here

I just tried what you said and we'll see if it works. I did see an error though just prior to rebooting it. It didn't say what the error was, just that there was an error.

 

[systemofadown]

good luck and do let us know how it turns out
there's no harm in clearing the cache so you'll be OK

 

[Native NYer]

Nope, didn't work. I still get notifications where none exist and wifi drops and reconnects.

 

[systemofadown]

it shouldn't be too much longer before AT&T pushes their 5.0 version. hopefully it will run solid and smooth and take care of your issues here. until then you might want to just drop by an AT&T store and let them have a look at it

 

[Native NYer]

There's a Best Buy near me that has Samsung reps on site and they told me sometime in April Samsung will update their devices to Lollipop. All I have to do is bring it by and they'll update it. You might want to think about doing the same thing. Hopefully they'll put their own Android on it instead of AT&T's.

 

[ironass]

There's a Best Buy near me that has Samsung reps on site and they told me sometime in April Samsung will update their devices to Lollipop.

Strange!

Samsung have nothing to do with AT&T firmware releases. See #1.6 of 40 Galaxy S5 models - Dummies Guide

All I have to do is bring it by and they'll update it. You might want to think about doing the same thing. Hopefully they'll put their own Android on it instead of AT&T's.

Not possible for them to flash any stock firmware other than AT&T firmware to the G900A.

 

[Native NYer]

Well, I was hoping. Thanks for giving me the bad news. At least they said they'd do it in the store for anyone that shows up for the update to Lollipop. It beats waiting for AT&T to get around to sending it over the air.

 

[G2Smooth]

After I updated my AT&T Galaxy S5 (Model #SM-G900A) to Android 4.4.4, I no longer get a tone (yes volume is high and not on silent) alert while the stock message app is open in a conversation. A new message just appears with no alert or vibration. I have to exit out of text message or go to home screen to get an alert to sound. A trip to the AT&T store and to Best Buy for the AT&T Technicians and Samsung Technicians respectively to fix this issue, I left with it unresolved.
It looks like its a software issue that Google needs to fix. Solutions anyone?

 

[AZgl1500]

After I updated my AT&T Galaxy S5 (Model #SM-G900A) to Android 4.4.4, I no longer get a tone (yes volume is high and not on silent) alert while the stock message app is open in a conversation. A new message just appears with no alert or vibration. I have to exit out of text message or go to home screen to get an alert to sound. A trip to the AT&T store and to Best Buy for the AT&T Technicians and Samsung Technicians respectively to fix this issue, I left with it unresolved.
It looks like its a software issue that Google needs to fix. Solutions anyone?

I'm afraid that is part of 4.4.4
My S5 is the same way. If the message app is open, the phone will Vibrate, but will NOT sound a tone.

close the message app, and you can hear the Notification tones.

I have played around a bit, but have not been able to get the tones to sound while the message app is open.

I'm using Textra and there isn't an option labeled "use sound when app open" or other words to that effect.

I think it is part of the message app, not the phone... that is causing the problem... but, some times, I over think things.

 

[G2Smooth]

Well, after upgrading to Lollipop, I still have the same issues with the stock messenger. No tone alert when the app is open. Anybody with a non Samsung phone with this issue?

 

[AZgl1500]

hey all, I have owned the Blue Parrot Bluetooth trucker headsets for years... they are the cat's meow when it comes to going hands free and being able to type on a full size keyboard and take dictation, etc....

a few days ago, I was looking at their website and noticed that they now have an app that will convert all incoming text messages to speech. boy howdy does it ever work good!!! The audio is a female with terrific pronunciation. It only works when the BT is connected, which for me is a good thing.

IF you happen to have the Blue Parrot headsets, you won't need to worry about missing any notifications, you will hear the messages as they come in.

Now, when I am driving my truck down the highway, I can hear SMS messages and never look at the phone!!

 

[MikeC01]

The AT&T S5 upgrade to 4.4.4 was definitely very buggy. I had a number of issues with my phone after that update. The most annoying was anytime I unlocked my phone I would get the message that reminds you to check to make sure the back of the phone is correctly attached even though I hadn't touched it in at least a month. The phone ran very slow after this update and battery life seemed to be severely reduced as well.

Now that I've updated my phone to 5.0 it's like a new phone. It's so much faster and seems to just work so much better.