Help Phone Shutting off randomly?

[Jack45]

After this happened to me (once so far) I did a ton of homework in addition to removing a few apps that I thought might be less than stable. The research opened my eyes to the fact that it is an issue that's widespread, across the Android spectrum, and one that also affects iPhone users. Unless there's an identified fix for this in an upcoming OS upgrade, the only way I would feel comfortoble with the phone staying on continuously would be to revert back to my trusty Nokia dumb phone.

We all have our own reasons for staying - or not staying - with the Captivate, but one thing's for sure...the random shutdown issue is not isolated to the Captivate. If you jump ship to another Android, or even an iPhone you may wind up banging your head against the wall in frustration because the issue has once again reared its ugly head. And the only thing you get from banging your head against the wall is a headache.

 

[johnnydangerx2]

I did two things different last night and my phone did not turn off in the middle of the night. Actually, three things. The first was during the day I removed a bunch of apps, including the Weather and Clock widget that I like so much and any downloaded live wallpapers (which I doubt was the problem). The second thing I did is set the wifi to never sleep as I thought that maybe this was triggering something else in the phone causing it to turn off. I dont know why I thought that might effect it, but I thought I would try it. The third thing I did was after it was fully charged I turned off my phone and then back on again. I normally use advance task killer to kill any running apps right when I turn it on, but this time I left all start up apps on.

Well this morning I was awaken by my phone alarm clock. I dont know if it could have been an app that was causing the problem, the wifi sleep or a background app that I shouldnt have closed, but either way, it seems to be working. I will try it for a few more nights and if it continues to work then I guess its all good.

 

[Jack45]

...during the day I removed a bunch of apps, including the Weather and Clock widget...

What else did you remove?

 

[johnnydangerx2]

Most everything I removed was skins for the weather and clock widget, but I also removed Solitaire (Free), Personal Finance by Pageonce, GPS Status, Compass, Two Craigslist Notification Apps, NES (rom player), Adobe PDF Viewer, TuneWiki, Movies, and a Mario Bros memory game. Thats all I can think of right now, but if I remember any others I will post them.

 

[mikaru]

The first captivate I had turned off constantly without any apps installed. My replacement hasnt done it even one time and I have installed all kinds of apps and games. I have had the replacement phone for about a week and a half. My new phone came with firmware 2.1-update 1 if that makes a difference. I'm not sure what my first one had. I'm not sure the power off issue is tied to any app.

 

[CaCHooKa Man]

my phone randomly shut off while i was listening to music today. im thinking it has to do with setcpu. i have it set to 400/200 mhz when the screen is off and that may be too low.

 

[ranman]

I bought my Captivate on 7/24. My first shutdown didn't happen until this past Saturday. Since then I have had at least 2-3 random shutdowns per day, usually in the morning. Typically it happens soon after taking it off the charger, then once or twice more in the next 60-90 minutes. Then it's fine till the next morning.

I did not root my phone, and yesterday I removed EVERY app I had installed on it. It still shut down on it's own this morning three times.

 

[jtborg]

When I use the phone in the morning the phone does not power down.

Only at night do the phone power down.
it's
the wifi.
When I turn off the wifi at night my phone did not power down.
Po
What do you thing?

 

[Jirv311]

I may have jumped the gun on the Beautiful Widgets causing my problem because it did end up happening to me with Fancy Widget as well. Although, I removed Advanced Task Killer and my problem went away. Instead I installed Task Manager and problem came back. Removed Task Manager, no problem since. Maybe the Captivate just doesn't want any other software managing it's apps for it?

 

[pinbak]

Mine shut off for the first time since I bought on 18jul10 last night, it was plugged into the charger at the time but I did install the beta tweetdeck via the one button installer too from androidcentral or whatever, but it never turned off after that and was on the charger still, I'm thinking maybe it just got hot or something on the charger but I have left it on a charger all night. I do have another phone that wakes me so I'm good for now. I did root mine and remove all the att apps and some others but my phone isn't messed up by them. removed the daily briefing and diary app along with the widgets that go with them. My phone acts fine without the stuff though and its been fine for weeks since removing. I'm thinking it just got hot on the charger. Have to test it again but people keep texting tonight so I can't now LOL!!!

 

[kkel19]

damn it...so we still have no idea thats causing this? this is so lame how people are deleting all their apps to see where its coming from...we shouldn't have to do this crap...have a phone with no apps? wtf samsung.

 

[usermike]

I don't think it's app related. I had reflashed the stock firmware and used the reset instructions listed in this thread and without installing any apps it would still shutdown at random.

 

[johnnydangerx2]

Does anyone know why my previous post on this topic was deleted?

Like jtborg stated, I feel it is the wifi. I had posted a reply asking anyone who is using wifi to try something.

When I set the Wi-Fi sleep policy in the WiFi advanced settings to Never I have not had another shut off at night. I wanted to ask people to try that if they are on WiFi. For some reason my post was deleted. I started installing my apps one by one again, but while leaving the WiFi sleep policy to never and I still have had no shutdowns. I think tonight will be the true test since it seems to only happen at night.

So, has anyone tried this to see if it works for them?

 

[kkel19]

johnny keep us posted !

 

[Corran Horn]

I had my Wifi Settings set to never and still had it shutoff on me plenty of times. I never needed to take the battery out though. Just had to turn it back on.

I just wonder if there is some sort of defect. I exchanged my phone today for a different one. Hopefully this one will be fine. But I didnt see the first random turn offs until like 2 weeks after I got my phone so we will have to see.

 

[jtborg]

Why don't we power off the wifi and see if the phone power down by itself.

I think the wifi software have a problem.

At work I don't have wifi and I am o.k. for the whole day.

When I am at home with wifi turn from 10pm to 3am the phone power down.

Try turn the wifi off and the phone did not power down.

Try it and see what happen , and post back.

James

 

[Droopie28]

Hey guys, I was having this problem as well. I called the Samsung Galaxy S premier support line and the tech suggested a factory reset by typing in the following on the dial pad:

*2767 *3855 #

Since doing this a week ago I haven't had my phone shutdown on it's own. FYI, it WILL RESET EVERYTHING so please remove your sim and SD card before doing so and backup anything you have stored on the internal flash memory. ALSO, I highly suggest doing this with a fully charged battery just in case.

Let me know if this helps anyone else.

Id also like to know if tht works, my first captivate never had a battery issue, but this one that replaced my bricked one... dies every morning

 

[abc2000]

I've had my phone since 8/9 and have fancy widgets installed and haven't had a single shutoff.

 

[johnnydangerx2]

Im still going with no shut offs. Now I have another issue where my battery seems not to be charging and my phone wont connect to Kies, but I will address that later.

When I have another day off Im going to change the wifi settings to see if my phone shuts off.

 

[ace35]

ok after 3 weeks of no problems other than the 1-2 mins to get a gps lock, i have had my phone appear to shut off and could only get it back by removing the battery.

but i am thinking that it may have locked up as i held the power button down for about 10 seconds thinking i needed to power it up, and it gave a vibration instead of booting.

which make me think it was locked up instead of powered off, has anyone tried to call there phone or send it a msg to see if it would respond in some way?

as far as apps go, the last things i did was load some cell monitoring software yesterday, tried them and then uninstalled the ones i didnt like an hr before it failed.

from a pctech point of view it sounds like a software issue, so i guess i would want to see a event log of some sort and see what it is doing, any idea where to find something like that?

 

[aperture]

I've had this problem a few times, two of those times it got stuck in the power on sequence (att boot screen, 3g screen, galaxy s screen over and over and over).

 

[kamots]

Well, I hate to say it, but I am glad that I am not the only one this is hapening to. It started yesterday for me, and today my phone shut down arleast 4 times by itself. This is my second captivate, the first one had a loose charging port. I will take it back to at&t tomorrow and see if they will replace it for me since I have only had the second phone for a little over a week. I am going to get rid of my task killers and do a factory reset,and see if that works before I take it back though. I like this phone and I think it has the potential to be great, its just a little buggy. Will have to see what happens

 

[Droopie28]

I got a question, I already exchanged once, So am I stuck with this powering off phone?

 

[jblaze5779]

Mine used to shut off but I did a full factory reset and I haven't had a problem in almost 4 days now. Also, my gps works way better.

 

[Droopie28]

I have just done the factory reset, and will follow up with my results

edit: very interesting: my phone is still rooted...