Samsung Galaxy Ace Suddenly Not Working

[wishi]

Hi

Last Christmas I bought my husband a Samsung Galaxy Ace as a first pay as you go Android smartphone which has worked fine up until yesterday when it suddenly packed in. I sent him a text from my phone yesterday which he didn't receive and when he tried to send me a text it came up as failed. He's on the Virgin network and can't even call Virgin's 789 number to check his balance or record a fault, it just goes straight to call ended. He's checked and it's registered on the network.

We contacted Virgin who say there isn't an issue with their network. It must be the phone, then, but there have been other odd problems with it. Memory issues, credit disappearing without explanation then suddenly reappearing (he doesn't call or text a lot on it uses apps and internet but even so he didn't use that much credit when he'd just topped it up). He is in credit we checked that, too. Battery issues: recently it kept running low on battery and he had to charge it daily, he set the phone to 2G networks only which solved this. We went through the Virgin phone fix procedure and got to the software update part and when he tried to access Samsung update through his phone it wanted him to log in. It recognised his details but wouldn't accept the password he gave it. On my phone (Samsung SIII mini) I don't have to log in to do an update. Phone Fix via Virgin will email the updates so he has yet to connect the phone to the laptop to try accessing this, also he has yet to contact Virgin by phone (left to him he won't try and resolve this...!)

The only thing he's wondering is he tried to download the HSBC bank app which got stuck and forced a close and maybe corrupted the SIM? Otherwise we're at a loss. He can't call or receive calls, texts or receive texts, his phone has simply stopped working. Also it hasn't been exposed to any water or shock damage.

Any ideas?? I'm more hacked off about this than he is as it was a gift

Thanks

 

[Thom]

Welcome to Android Forums.

I moved this thread from Android Lounge to the forum dedicated to your (his) phone. This will be the best place to find other users of .

... Thom

 

[ayush29k]

Seems like a phone problem, sim card seems fine. This phone has an extremely low internal memory so memory issues cannot be helped, all you can do is remove unnecessary apps and keep cleaning the cache every few days.

Can't say exactly what the problem could be because it looks like a network problem at first then combined with memory issue, its hard to tell. If your interna l memory is full then a lot of network related functions are hampered, like you cannot download/update any app from the play store, you cannot send or receive any text messages because your out of storage space for it.

I would suggest you turn the phone off for a few minutes and turn it back on and see if something works, normal glitches usually get fixed by this.
Otherwise you can try clearing out some space.
As a last resort try a factory reset via the settings menu.

Still if nothing works then take it to the service center and have them reinstall the software.

Good luck.

 

[wishi]

Seems like a phone problem, sim card seems fine. This phone has an extremely low internal memory so memory issues cannot be helped, all you can do is remove unnecessary apps and keep cleaning the cache every few days.

Can't say exactly what the problem could be because it looks like a network problem at first then combined with memory issue, its hard to tell. If your interna l memory is full then a lot of network related functions are hampered, like you cannot download/update any app from the play store, you cannot send or receive any text messages because your out of storage space for it.

I would suggest you turn the phone off for a few minutes and turn it back on and see if something works, normal glitches usually get fixed by this.
Otherwise you can try clearing out some space.
As a last resort try a factory reset via the settings menu.

Still if nothing works then take it to the service center and have them reinstall the software.

Good luck.

Thanks for your reply, ayush. Well, he's tried all sorts today and nothing's worked.

Went through the Virgin Phone Fix and they emailed the software link to him but it was Samsung and Keis and the software on his laptop simply won't recognise his phone. It says there's no SIM detected. He's had problems with Keis before but it's always worked after much mucking about. We tried on my laptop, still no joy. Tried a SIM we know for a fact works from my new Samsung in his phone and it won't recognise that either. We don't think the SIM is the problem, there's no error on the phone. He tried Odin and that wasn't much good, either.

We tried his SIM in my phone but it was asking for an unlock code (I'm on Orange not Virgin) and he tried the unlock code he uses for his phone and it didn't like it.

He's almost convinced it's a software fault caused through the HSBC bank app download going wrong and he'll have to ring Samsung. He can't even do anything through their site.

Will let you know how it goes

 

[PaulS]

Although not directly for your device this fix may help as the principles are the same,

http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-ace/671198-kies-usb-connection-problem.html

You can get rid if Kies.

HTH

 

[ayush29k]

Don't bother with the Kies, its a useless software, there are only a handful of users who have actually reported good reviews about it.
Well if its a software problem then flashing a fresh firmware via Odin should have solved it.
I'd suggest you take the device to the nearest samsung service center, might be a hardware problem with the sim card slot.

 

[wishi]

Don't bother with the Kies, its a useless software, there are only a handful of users who have actually reported good reviews about it.
Well if its a software problem then flashing a fresh firmware via Odin should have solved it.
I'd suggest you take the device to the nearest samsung service center, might be a hardware problem with the sim card slot.

Thanks, ayrush. Just to report today he had some success

He took the phone into the nearest Virgin Media shop today (annoyingly not the Virgin shop I bought it at as it's no longer there) and they managed to pinpoint the fault. It seems the Ace has a known problem which occurred about six months ago with all these phones where the IMEI number mysteriously disappears from the phone and renders it useless. If he dialled *#06# the IMEI number won't appear and it isn't listed in the settings. We can only see it when taking the battery out. The HSBC app was coincidental. The shop was surprised he's managed to use it for a year before the fault occurred! Even resetting it to factory settings didn't help. They are sending him a pre-paid envelope for it to be sent to the Virgin technicians to be repaired and if that doesn't help he will get a new handset as it is under warranty.

So at least we know what the likely problem is and this thread may help anyone else who comes across a similar problem.

Thanks so much for your replies and suggestions. He agrees with you re: Keis!

 

[ayush29k]

I thought that imei loss could be the problem but then i remembered you said that your 3g/2g is still working so i dismissed that, i thought all carrier services stop in case of imei loss, guess i was wrong about that. IMEI loss is a pretty big problem, it cannot be solved by a common user unless you already have already made a backup before the loss.
Mostly i have heard of S5830i rooted users having imei problems, do you own an S5830i or a simple S5830?

 

[wishi]

I thought that imei loss could be the problem but then i remembered you said that your 3g/2g is still working so i dismissed that, i thought all carrier services stop in case of imei loss, guess i was wrong about that. IMEI loss is a pretty big problem, it cannot be solved by a common user unless you already have already made a backup before the loss.
Mostly i have heard of S5830i rooted users having imei problems, do you own an S5830i or a simple S5830?

Hi ayrush, it's S5830i. This is what puzzled me as he can still use the net and receive his work emails - apparently that has nothing to do with the price of fish - but he couldn't call/text or receive them.

He has a backup of his contacts and is happy to reinstall his apps from scratch again. What concerns him is losing his phone number - it's the only one he's ever been able to remember off by heart!

 

[andycharlie]

ha ha welcome to the world of Galaxy Ace. If that is the only problem you have had you are doing well. mine is one year old and it freezes frequently,has shut me out totally twice and regularly charges settings such as auto rotate screen and language for no apparent reason. i bought it because Samsung is an international company so i can take it to a Samsung service centre if i have a problem. Well when i did that I was told that Samsung 'phones in different countries have different software so they could no help me. so i went to a little repair shopand they fixed it in two minutes. So i am finally giving up and buying a much cheaper Chinese that unlike Samsung prioitises reliability over masses of useless gimmicky features.

 

[ayush29k]

ha ha welcome to the world of Galaxy Ace. If that is the only problem you have had you are doing well. mine is one year old and it freezes frequently,has shut me out totally twice and regularly charges settings such as auto rotate screen and language for no apparent reason. i bought it because Samsung is an international company so i can take it to a Samsung service centre if i have a problem. Well when i did that I was told that Samsung 'phones in different countries have different software so they could no help me. so i went to a little repair shopand they fixed it in two minutes. So i am finally giving up and buying a much cheaper Chinese that unlike Samsung prioitises reliability over masses of useless gimmicky features.

Samsung said that they could not fix a problem in the phone they built!! They really need to step up their customer support.
The only thing that varies with region is the modem in the firmware, anyone can solve this problem. Just download the correct firmware and flash it, it takes at most 5 minutes to fix.