Help Photon Turning off by itself, battery removal required to turn on?

[doneve141]

Been very busy. All the problems have come back. I have had the close down that required the battery pull as well as the random reboots. I love this phone but watching it reboot and going to check for messages and finding it off where it crashed and have to pull the battery is annoying. No Voice and still on performance mode.

 

[bad1550]

Had to pull battery 5 times yesterday

Ughh

 

[CzechPleez]

Sleep of death. I have it too, not as frequent, no pattern that makes sense.

I am a Sprint employee and device advocate. I too have experienced the "sleep of death". We are working with Moto on cause and fix ASAP. Thanks for being a Sprint customer and sticking with us.

 

[mitchedo]

I was visiting my parents' cabin last week. My Photon was receiving a very weak "domestic roaming" signal. It suffered the "sleep of death" on at least 4 occasions in 3 days. It has never done so before. It has not done so since I got home to a strong signal two days ago.

It wasn't running the battery down. In all cases, I was able to restart it by removing the battery.

[edit: Aug 24]. My Photon has not suffered a single episode of Sleep of Death since returning home to a strong Sprint signal. It's gotta be related.

 

[KoukiFC3S]

Same issue. No reboots for a week, then lots of reboots.

 

[j0sh1130]

I've only had the phone a couple days so far. I have the alarm set for weekday mornings. Each morning I wake up I have to pull the battery to turn the phone on AFTER I have missed my alarm. This morning I set an alarm on my old Evo for 30 minutes before my Photon alarm. It went off, I got up, I checked the Photon and it was fully charged and working. I took it off the charger and let it sit there. I expected the alarm on the photon to go off as set, but instead, after the alarm was scheduled I went to check the Photon and found it was in the sleep of death again. It only does it once per day for me, but it does it when the alarm is supposed to go off, apparently.

 

[jdefgts]

I have had the problem of the Photon "sleep of death" with a complete battery drain occur on two different phones (one returned because of the problem). The problem occurred at least a dozen times. I tried many different solutions (battery settings, app uninstalls, battery pulls and resets) without success. Then I realized that when most (if not all) of these events occurred, my phone was in a leather belt pouch with a magnetic clasp. I have stopped using the pouch and the problem has stopped occurring (for the last 48 hours). I hope this is the solution for me and may help others.

 

[doneve141]

I like the theory of the blet clip with the magnet causing it but I have had mine set on the desk or a table infront of me and seen it do the reboots. I have got them to go away for a few days but they always come back.

 

[cwachs]

Why wait? Just upgrade the leaked MR yourself:

MoPho MR3 address sound issues and more!!! MIRRORS FIXED - xda-developers

I did it last night right after I picked up my new Photon. Didn't take very long at all.

I have a brand new Photon that came out of the box with MR-1 (but the new "padded" back cover to keep the battery in). It would either shut off or go into the death sleep every 10 minutes or so. It does it so often, I have to keep the back of my phone off since I pull the battery so frequently.

I factory reset the phone and installed MR-5. Install went fine and the build is now 4.5.1A-1_SUN-154_5 It was reported that this build fixes this shutdown / sleep problem in addition to other issues. I've only experienced the random shut down / sleep of death problem.

After upgrading, I updated the PRL and did a second factory reset to be safe. I entered my Google credentials and stopped customizing at that point.

It still shuts off just as frequently as it ever did. No change. I can't tell if it is a full shut down or a sleep that it can't wake up from. The phone does get hot so I am guessing it is/was doing something that crashed everything.

If the phone is on the charger, it never dies. As soon as I take it off charger and put it in my pocket, moments later, I can't wake it up and have to remove the battery - again.

 

[originalnew2]

Here is an odd coincidence that happened to me with the photon. I have had it shut down and the battery completely drain in seconds five times. However for some reason two of the time it was on my laptop and three times it was up against a metal plate. It seems that somehow those two drain the battery out of it. It does not do it anywhere else and there is no other pattern to it.

 

[cwachs]

I have a brand new Photon that came out of the box with MR-1 (but the new "padded" back cover to keep the battery in). It would either shut off or go into the death sleep every 10 minutes or so. It does it so often, I have to keep the back of my phone off since I pull the battery so frequently.

I factory reset the phone and installed MR-5. Install went fine and the build is now 4.5.1A-1_SUN-154_5 It was reported that this build fixes this shutdown / sleep problem in addition to other issues. I've only experienced the random shut down / sleep of death problem.

After upgrading, I updated the PRL and did a second factory reset to be safe. I entered my Google credentials and stopped customizing at that point.

It still shuts off just as frequently as it ever did. No change. I can't tell if it is a full shut down or a sleep that it can't wake up from. The phone does get hot so I am guessing it is/was doing something that crashed everything.

If the phone is on the charger, it never dies. As soon as I take it off charger and put it in my pocket, moments later, I can't wake it up and have to remove the battery - again.

I think I may be on to a possible cause. I've factory reset the device to start fresh. It seems to work fine UNTIL I turn on GPS. As soon as the GPS radio is activated, the next time the phone powers down the display, it won't wake back up again and it gets very hot.

This is with no 3rd party apps installed and no customization of the phone. I've now started adding my apps back one by one to see if any of them trigger the sleep of death as well but so far, it seems to be GPS radio related. If I fire up an application that uses GPS, problem comes back (Maps for example, or the local feature in Google in the browser).

Anyone else out there with the sleep of death problem, try turning off the GPS radio and don't use any apps that access GPS and see if the problem goes away.

 

[nlarson]

Had phone lock up five times yesterday. I installed latest OTA update on thursday. I can't get it to do it with any regularity though. All but once the gps was off. Not sure that is it. The only regularity I do have it's that most of my lockups have come on Saturdays??? Very frustrating,was hoping that OTA would fixthat! EVO worked great.

 

[konocti]

I've been having the shutdown problem too, even after the recent update.

I posted about it here:

http://androidforums.com/motorola-p...5-update-discussion-thread-3.html#post3129496

I'm trying one more factory reset tonight, and if this doesn't work I'll probably go back to the Sprint store on Monday for a replacement Photon.

 

[mph82]

I am on my second photon. Ive got to wonder if the power down and lock issue wasnt my own doing. Its odd. When at work I have a painted metal stand for my monitor and then te keyboard sits near that. I was sitting there a few days ago with my NEW photon, and I set it down on this metal stand thing and keeps it in view that way if I am doing something. After about 30 seconds... POOF! Phone goes off. Popped out battery... turned back on and then let it for about 2 hours... between being on me and sitting on the desk it stayed on. For the hell of it, I placed the phone back on the stand... POOF!! Off again! Took out battery... back on.. and phone has been up for 26 hours now.

What would cause this to do that on that stand?? Is it possible I am getting some type of interefence that is making the phone trip out. The phone is flawless unless I place it on that stand.

 

[viperx100]

Tired of the "sleep of death" and reboots. Getting the Galaxy S2 on the 9th. I tried to give it a chance. Loved the phone, but Motorola needs to test their products before they release them. No wonder noone heard much about the Photon prior to it's release. Even now you still see the HTC Evo 3D commercials but nothing about the photon. I realize that S2 might have its own share of problems once it is released, but it's been out in Europe for a few months now and it still regarded by many as the top smartphone out there. So long MoPho. :'(

 

[simcha]

Damn my MoPho has this issue even after getting the most recent update. This sucks!

 

[drexappeal]

Tired of the "sleep of death" and reboots. Getting the Galaxy S2 on the 9th. I tried to give it a chance. Loved the phone, but Motorola needs to test their products before they release them. No wonder noone heard much about the Photon prior to it's release. Even now you still see the HTC Evo 3D commercials but nothing about the photon. I realize that S2 might have its own share of problems once it is released, but it's been out in Europe for a few months now and it still regarded by many as the top smartphone out there. So long MoPho. :'(

Just FYI, it was the same with the original Samsung Galaxy's as well...but the US versions didn't get anywhere near as much support as the European products.

As far as MoPho advertising is concerned, they're gearing it towards a different demographic than the EVO 3D. The EVO 3D is the flagship device, so no reason for Sprint to dump more money into MoPho advertising right now. The ads that I've seen by Sprint with the MoPho have all been in promotion of accomplishing one's business needs, all through Sprint. Motorola has done ads specifically for the MoPho (especially with the lightning promotion giveaway that they had the entire month of August).

For your sake, and many others that are going to get the SGS2, I hope Samsung improves on their mobile support domestically (in the US) because their reputation has been awful for the past few years (from the Instinct all the way to the Epic). I have the Epic on one of my secondary lines and the person that uses it already told me they want a new phone because of battery drain issues.

 

[doneve141]

I get a couple of good days but it just won't go away. I was hoping the update would help but it didn't. I've been playing with a paper shim on the battery but that isn't working either. If anyone finds the fix please post. I know I will.

 

[Drop Knowledge]

Just got the Photon yesterday. Everything was going fine, fully charged the battery before leaving the house. While at a cookout w/ my friends I went to look at my phone and it was dead. Had to pull out the battery to get it going again.

This single instance has been the only time I've seen it so far, but I've only owned the phone four 24 hours. Hopefully the issue doesn't persist, or Sprint/Moto can find a solution quickly. At least I have the option to switch to the SG II if need be.

 

[simcha]

I'm on my second day after my exchange. So far it hasn't happened on this MoPho. My recommendation to anyone who is experiencing this issue is to exchange it. I strongly suspect that this is a hardware issue. Maybe if enough people exchange their MoPhos Motorola will investigate and pull the MoPhos with the faulty hardware. If all of us with this issue exchange our MoPhos, that may get their attention since it will affect their bottom line.

 

[Draiko]

I'm on my second day after my exchange. So far it hasn't happened on this MoPho. My recommendation to anyone who is experiencing this issue is to exchange it. I strongly suspect that this is a hardware issue. Maybe if enough people exchange their MoPhos Motorola will investigate and pull the MoPhos with the faulty hardware. If all of us with this issue exchange our MoPhos, that may get their attention since it will affect their bottom line.

Moto is most likely doing a silent recall and allowing the users to filter out the bad units. That's why I'm not recommending the Photon to EVERYONE yet.

 

[408SandShark]

Answer to the Moto Photon Sleep of DEATH!

The Sleep of DEATH is related to the battery itself, not b/c it isn't charged. The battery moves and the connection to the terminals are separated. Take of the battery cover face the battery side down and you will be able to see the battery moves slightly. do this while it's in sleep mode and sleep of death happens. The only fix I can come up with is that you use something to shim between the battery and the back phone cover... a simple piece of 1/16 or 1/8 tape..(insulated cushioned tape.. IDK what else to call it) make a strip half the length of battery away from the kick stand.. and closet to the top of the battery... DON'T PUT TAPE ON BATTERY, PUT ON PHONE COVER. After that I haven't seen the Sleep of Death from my phone in weeks!!!! So it does work.. Or you could exchange it for another one.. hopefully this helps peace out!

 

[Citizen Coyote]

Answer to the Moto Photon Sleep of DEATH!

The Sleep of DEATH is related to the battery itself, not b/c it isn't charged. The battery moves and the connection to the terminals are separated. Take of the battery cover face the battery side down and you will be able to see the battery moves slightly. do this while it's in sleep mode and sleep of death happens. The only fix I can come up with is that you use something to shim between the battery and the back phone cover... a simple piece of 1/16 or 1/8 tape..(insulated cushioned tape.. IDK what else to call it) make a strip half the length of battery away from the kick stand.. and closet to the top of the battery... DON'T PUT TAPE ON BATTERY, PUT ON PHONE COVER. After that I haven't seen the Sleep of Death from my phone in weeks!!!! So it does work.. Or you could exchange it for another one.. hopefully this helps peace out!

I've read this before, that the sleep of death is often related to a battery that doesn't seat in the phone correctly. Has anyone else suffering from this problem seen any success with this option?

 

[mkvoran]

And do we think this is what has been causing the random reboots as well? I have not been experiencing 'sleep of death' but have been getting the random reboot......

 

[Damar1979]

The only time i've experience the "sleep of death" is when my phone is in a dead roaming zone. So when I know that im about to enter one (there are several where I work), I switch to airplane mode. Haven't experienced it since.