Help Droid - So promising , yet so frustrating

[ucguy]

Let me start this rant off by saying I have been using smartphones and PDAs since the Newton and palm - and the droid so far has the most promise of any device I have ever used - thats the good news

now the bad...
IMHO, it also fails to live up to Google's normally high standards


I have had two droids and both have shown the exact same quickly/annoying/frustrating behaviors ( the first one was replaced because if was dropped and the screen shattered when it fell out of my belt case- but thats not what im complaining about)

Both phones I have owned have shown the below behaviors and its driving me nuts!!
I am an IT pro and troubleshoot for a living and have spent too much time trying to figure out what is going on - with so many issues I have to believe these are unpatched bugs

for comparison when I got my "new" phone - I left it basically "stock" until recently adding touchdown) the problems have been occurring with no clue as to what apps could cause it - unless its the built in ones!!

• 5x a week I cant open a folder on the desktop
• 5-10x week the phone reboots by itself and comes back with no network access and requires another reboot
• at seemingly random times - the phone will not return from sleep mode ( must remove battery)
• several times a week when turning off wifi via the settings , the phone gets stuck in "turning off wifi..." ( reboot needed)
• frequently while having both wifi and 3g service I will be unable to browse anywhere ( reboot required - even tho both icons show great signal)
• all streaming apps (Pandora, slacker,sticher,etc) exhibit the same symptoms - inconsistent audio quality , dropouts , disconnects, failure to connect etc)
• handset mode is basically unusable ( BT required at all times)
• every app I have ever used has force closed on me multiple times

I have seem all of the above problems in various forums and most have no real solution ( or one that is not applicable to my installed apps

I find it hard to believe that I have 2 bad phones and am convinced these must be OS issues

Even tho this is "open source" its not like I can recompile the sw and os for the hardware like I could 'regular *nix

While I am not sure that verizon even cares about these problems ( their only solution is to re-init the phone - then replace it - basically I did that already ) doesn't motorola care ??????

While I didnt think that a new android phone would be "set it and forget it" I was not prepared for this level of heartaches

put it this way - based on google's past history I believe this will be fixed sometime soon , if this was windows mobile , Id have thrown this thing in the trash already!!

Does anyone out there feel the same frustrations with this device that shows so much promise , yet seems to perform so poorly??

PS I am a road warrior and see these same issues no matter where I am ( big city, rural areas , hotels ,home etc) - so its not a case of bad service area or router configs)

thanks for reading this far - I am curious to what others think about this device

frustrated, disappointed and angry
UCGUY



​

 

[milrtime83]

• 5x a week I cant open a folder on the desktop
• 5-10x week the phone reboots by itself and comes back with no network access and requires another reboot
• at seemingly random times - the phone will not return from sleep mode ( must remove battery)
• several times a week when turning off wifi via the settings , the phone gets stuck in "turning off wifi..." ( reboot needed)
• frequently while having both wifi and 3g service I will be unable to browse anywhere ( reboot required - even tho both icons show great signal)
• all streaming apps (Pandora, slacker,sticher,etc) exhibit the same symptoms - inconsistent audio quality , dropouts , disconnects, failure to connect etc)
• handset mode is basically unusable ( BT required at all times)
• every app I have ever used has force closed on me multiple times

​

My experience regarding the issues you have:

1 - I do have the problem of not being able to open a folder sometimes. Seems like it has to do with folders being open and either changing from landscape to portrait or opening/closing the keyboard though I can't repeat it every time.
2 - I've only seen 1 or 2 random reboots since I got the phone in december.
3 - Never had the problem of not returning from sleep
4 - I use wifi quite a bit and never had it get stuck
5 - Never had problems browsing on wifi or 3G.
6 - Pandora is the only streaming app I've used consistently and the only time I have a problem with it is when I have a weak signal.
7 - I never use bluetooth, "handset" mode works fine though I do get a random high pitched whistling through the speaker while on a call sometimes.
8 - force closes do happen though it isn't that often for me. It is the same 2 or 3 apps that do it while most rarely or have never FC'd.

 

[ucguy]

well almost 2 weeks and only one reply - I must be totally correct that Droid just isnt ready for primetime

I just installed 2.1 - so hopefully my issues will be cleared up

 

[jamo]

I was going down your list and I really haven't had any of those issues at all. I've had my Droid for about 2 months now, and I've rarely had fc's, no folder issues, my phone's never re-booted by itself, I've never had a problem getting it to return from sleep. I'm not sure why you're having the problems you're having, but I can't agree they're endemic based on my experience and the people I've talked to.

 

[milrtime83]

I must be totally correct that Droid just isnt ready for primetime

I don't follow your logic. I think the fact that no one is replying with similar problems means that you are in the minority and most people's phones are working just fine.

 

[ucguy]

I don't follow your logic. I think the fact that no one is replying with similar problems means that you are in the minority and most people's phones are working just fine.

hmmm... lets see

try googling - droid reboots itself - and youll find 429,000 hits - that doesnt sound like a minority to me - and 2 people replying "i havent seen that happen" isnt exactly an overwhelming rejection of my observations

My guess is - for those that dont want ( or cant have) an Iphone , and want an app-driven, rich multimedia smartphone without heavy handed politics - the droid is the only real game in town - so we have to love it despite its flaws and problems - so people are more inclined to look the other way -
ive seen this countless times in the technology world
people who wanted it adopted VoIP even before you could make intelligible calls reliably due to its flexibility
when cell phones drop 10-15% of calls - we hang up and redial - because we want the mobility

If you want something bad enough ( and it delivers well in certain aspects ) people will look past such "outdated" ideals as "reliability" and "stability"


Believe me - I want my droid to work , but I dont believe in coincidences and now I have had 2 phones that exhibited similar problems

on the plus side ive been running 2.1 for a day and a half and havent seen the issues mentioned in my original post

so well see

 

[milrtime83]

hmmm... lets see

try googling - droid reboots itself - and youll find 429,000 hits - that doesnt sound like a minority to me - and 2 people replying "i havent seen that happen" isnt exactly an overwhelming rejection of my observations

That doesn't mean that 429,000 people have the problem. Only the first 2 pages or so have any meaningful results. After that there is a "palm reboots itself" that also mentions droid somewhere else in the page. Also an "LG dare reboots itself." Quite a few are also talking about rooting and some of the rooting programs intentionally reboot the phone, etc.

Sure, the random rebooting happens to some people. Maybe there is a reason for it. It could be a specific program that causes it. I'm assuming that you installed most of the same programs on your second Droid so the fact that it happened to both of yours isn't necessarily a coincidence. But it also doesn't indicate a problem with the Droid specifically without more information.

What kind of trouble shooting have you done? Does it happen with a completely stock phone that has no 3rd party programs installed?

 

[silkchaos]

I would be curious about what sort of trouble shooting you have done as well - Mine, my wifes' and two friends - no issues like you have described. I am the only one that has used a folder on my desktop - but even then, no issue.

The only times i have had issues - was when I have been playing with the ROMs.

My pandora has no issues (only streaming app I use) - but i have great verizon coverage around here. I got compliments on my handset - both in how i sounded to others - and I think it sounds great to hear others (except when talking to my Dad and Brother on their Iphones. Man those things suck as phones.)

And while i am not a fan of coincidences either, I could believe that you got two droids from the same store - made in the same batch, that have a similar issue.

But if 2.1 has fixed it for you? awesome. I haven't run stock much - so dont' have that comparison. (but my wife and friends are stock)

 

[silkchaos]

..and if you compare it to any of the palms- even your description makes it sound good!

 

[ucguy]

so I guess the fact that since my update to 2.1, over a week ago , I have not had ANY of the issues I described, means... that it was "all in my head" ??? WTF?

FWIW- from a troubleshooting perspective , since I had to replace a damaged phone , I purposely did not install ANY apps on the replacement - totally stock, and within a few days , I still had the phone reboot and come back without any service - as well as the folder not opening problem - since I now had this happen with both phones, I dismissed it as OS bugs and went on with my life.. hoping it would be fixed sometime soon - I read too many posts about people replacing their droid multiple times - I have no time for that, especially since it seemed it wouldnt matter anyway

You guys need to drop the fanboi attitude - Droid Rocks , but its got its issues like any other device - pretending that its got no issues issue wont get your chosen device mass acceptance any quicker - and without mass acceptance you'll never have the full suite of apps to make it a viable product

I expected droid to be something of a cross between an open, free-for-all linux platform, and a locked down iphone.

It looks like 2.1 is a step in the right direction

mitch

 

[milrtime83]

Glad to hear your problems are mostly resolved but I thought this was an interesting statement:

You guys need to drop the fanboi attitude - Droid Rocks , but its got its issues like any other device - pretending that its got no issues issue wont get your chosen device mass acceptance any quicker - and without mass acceptance you'll never have the full suite of apps to make it a viable product

I doubt anyone is pretending they don't have issues. It's probably more likely that we actually don't have the issues, at least not to the extent that they happened to you.

 

[silkchaos]

I happen to work in IT, and simply wanted to know what troubleshooting steps you may have taken - as I wanted to help out if the problem was NOT resolved by the 2.1 update. Hence my statement of: "But if 2.1 has fixed it for you? awesome"

It doesn't make me a "fan-boi" - it simply shows that you simply wanted to bitch and moan - and weren't truly looking for any help or input.

I apologize for misunderstanding the reasoning for your post and throwing my hat out there to offer to help you out if needed.

 

[SoDroid]

I've had my Droid since December and have not encountered any of the problems you listed in the OP. I have two friends with Droids as well and I have been helping them set their phones up. Neither of them have expressed any of those problems as well. I do however have a problem with my texts randomly deleting but I back them up every night just in case anyway.

Other than texts randomly deleting (which is still unacceptable), I do not have any of those other problems. Perhaps a back up and factory reset could fix the problems?

I do a lot of tinkering now and I find that if there is ever a consistent or re-appearing problem, I just wipe the phone and restore a backup and its all smooth sailing. I had problems once for about 2 days (given I was messing with Root access stuff) similar to what you described in the OP, a simple factory reset and restore and I have been problem free for 6-8 weeks. I do not suspect those problems will resurface, but if they do, I will just wipe and restore.

 

[riffdex]

[*]5x a week I cant open a folder on the desktop
This has happened to me once, I can't attribute it to any behavior because it's never happened since then

[*]5-10x week the phone reboots by itself and comes back with no network access and requires another reboot
Never happened to me

[*]at seemingly random times - the phone will not return from sleep mode ( must remove battery)
This happened to me one time, last week. It really surprised me. I was sad and pulled my battery and rebooted it I attribute it to my Helix launcher I'm using, my phone was basically 99% stable before. But it's quite stable with Helix nonetheless

[*]several times a week when turning off wifi via the settings , the phone gets stuck in "turning off wifi..." ( reboot needed)
Never happened to me

[*]frequently while having both wifi and 3g service I will be unable to browse anywhere ( reboot required - even tho both icons show great signal)
Never happened to me, though you can't have both wifi and 3g services at the same time as far as I know. If you connect to a wifi network the 3g network automatically turns off.

[*]all streaming apps (Pandora, slacker,sticher,etc) exhibit the same symptoms - inconsistent audio quality , dropouts , disconnects, failure to connect etc)
Don't use streaming apps so I cannot comment

[*]handset mode is basically unusable ( BT required at all times)
Not sure what you mean handset mode, but I use both headphones and BT headphones all the time w/ no problems

[*]every app I have ever used has force closed on me multiple times
Apps force close on me occasionally. I mostly attribute this to my ROM and launcher (using BB 0.9 and Helix Launcher). As far as I was concerned, before I rooted, my phone was completely stable and I never had to deal with FCs. Now I have BB + Helix and I must say they are quite stable still, but I do get the occasional FC.


PS: Don't think that just because I haven't experienced most of those issues I'm "pretending" I don't have issues or whatever. Would you like it if I accuse you of "pretending to have those issues"? >.<

 

[ucguy]

Been over a month now and I can say without a doubt that the majority of the issues I had in my original post are gone. No reboots, wifi issues, or any such nonsense.

only twice since the update I had a folder not open - but thats far better than it was

and before anyone asks I have not added or removed any apps since my original post - merely updated to 2.1

not a coincidence - these issues had to have been addressed in the update

 

[melissab]

I'm glad to hear that. I've had a few quirks with my droid but nothing comparable to what you have described. The droid IS so promising!

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