Help sense keeps restarting!

Just a quick update, i took my second faulty phone back to phones 4 u today to be told they have no more XE's in the country and I would have to send it off to be fixed or pay to get a different handset i.e. google nexus.

I have also emailed HTC again and awaiting another reply.

a new update new phone again, on my third now and guess what, whilst setting up press the home button and sense resets itself. Getting annoyed now and looking at getting a S2 or nexus

This isn't a hardware issue - unless you consider equipping a Sense 3.0 phone with less than 1GB of RAM a hardware problem - it's simply that the Sense 3.0 launcher is so big that Android can't keep the whole thing in RAM all the time; occasionally Android has to eject it to make room for the Market app, or some other; and then when you return to the Home screen, the launcher has to be reloaded.

Sending it back to the supplier and getting a replacement won't help, once you've set up the new phone and been using it for a few days.

All recent HTC Sense 3.0 phones have the same problem, because they all have only 768MB of RAM, which isn't quite enough. My Desire S never had a restart problem with Sense 2.1, but it happens a lot with 3.0.

Other 3rd-party launchers:
1. Usually have an option to keep them resident in memory.
2. Are smaller, so are less likely to be swapped out anyway
3. Are smaller, so if swapped out, they take less time to reload.

(I realise I've repeated myself a little in that list, but the launcher size is so important, it's worth repeating).

It is possible to build the HTC launcher with a flag to stay resident, and the people over at xda-developers have already done it for those with rooted phones; I'm surprised HTC hasn't done this itself in an official update yet - actually no I'm not - they probably hope it'll encourage people to upgrade to the newer 1GB devices being announced at MWC this month.

The only way around this is either to root your phone and use a custom Sense build configured so the launcher stays in memory; or to keep your stock ROM and use a different, smaller launcher.

I've dabbled with Launcher Pro, but have settled on GO Launcher Ex, because the free app has more features. It's a little slower than Launcher Pro, but both are faster than Sense, and I now suffer no launcher restarts.

The only downside is that I cannot use the Sense weather/clock widget, but there are free alternatives which are nearly as good.

I am not sure I agree with njd's analysis. If it was correct all Sensations would suffer, to a greater or lesser extent, with it, and yet mine has never done it (that I can recall). And I have plenty of apps that run both in the background and foreground that are real memory hogs.

For example I often run my sat nav programme (with on-board maps) in the foreground, along with an entirely separate speed camera alert app in the background, whilst still having all the usual emails and weather updates also syncing. And I swap between them, takes calls, play music and let them run while checking Google Maps or play music at the same time. And I have never had the white screen whilst doing so.

It may be hardware or it may not, I am not sure. It could be one or more poorly written apps causing it that I just don't happen to use. Some people have blamed it on the phone swapping between 3G and H, or other problems associated with the mobile signal, or even wifi. This is not the only thread on this forum about this problem.

So I suppose I am saying that I do not believe it is that simple, or even that there is one common cause. But we may never know.

is there the chance that these issues could be fixed or improved with the launch of ICS?

Sense restarted once for me on the first day. Since thenI have had no problems whatsoever. Even playing GTA3 hasn't had any effect.

My phone started rebooting yesterday. At first every five minutes when sitting idle but its beginning to do it almost every two minutes idle or in use.however I've noticed its completely fine when i'm listening to music or when it is on charge. I've reset factory settings and it still reboots by itself so its not anything that I have downloaded. Sometimes when i'm texting really fast it freezea, vibrates continuously then shuts down. No software update is available for it yet either. I spoke to t-mobile who are sending me a new battery as apart from sending it in for fixing or replacing I have tried everything else. Removed the sim and memory card and it still reboots. As for my beats headphones , the remote stopped working for about a day a couple weeks ago but began working again I think it may have just been a glitch. Sorry not much more help than most posts here but may be worth trying a new battery before going for weeks without a phone waiting for repairs

Okay tried the new battery, same problem. Completely wiped my memory card and reformatted it, same problem. Installed new launcher, deleted friend stream and factory reset all over same problem. Run out of ideas, will just have to wait for the new software update as I refuse to send it off and be stuck with a sub standard nokia for 2-3 weeks. Any solutions yet? Thanks

dywayne said:

Okay tried the new battery, same problem. Completely wiped my memory card and reformatted it, same problem. Installed new launcher, deleted friend stream and factory reset all over same problem. Run out of ideas, will just have to wait for the new software update as I refuse to send it off and be stuck with a sub standard nokia for 2-3 weeks. Any solutions yet? Thanks

Click to expand...

i've just learnt to live with it now
it can go days without a problem, or it can happen 3 or 4 times in an evening, there doesn't seem to be any pattern to it.

the random rebooting of the handset is also an issue.

the other annoying occurance is getting the black screen. the phone is still on (as the LED flashes when there's an alert), but there's no way accessing the home screen (usually pressing the power button on the top of the handset). the only way around it is a battery pull.

i'm hoping ICS brings some answers, as the issue must be around memory or something - i've read these things happen to owners before they've loaded any apps, rooted, etc. so it happens on 'clean' handsets.

if it's still an issue with ICS, I think I'll have to return it and hope a new handset does the trick

I love this phone and don't want to change it!

Received the notification today that the new android software was available for my sensation xe. Finished the download and it rebooted once there after and has been okay so far. Fingers crossed. Will report again Thursday 05/04/12 was worth holding onto it after all )

One week after the update, Sense 3.6 did it first (and not it last ?) restart

Harry

So far so good, no reboots plus got a free battery out of t-mobile

Skype was the issue with me... logged out and the phone stopped rebooting

My sense doesnt restart on my phone, my phone just randomly reboots all the time.

Yesterday the phone rebooted 6 times in a row without hitting the lock screen. Got a replacement phone on the way tomorow so hopefully i wont have a dodgey rebooting one.

Another thread suggests that problem may be caused by battery not making contact sometimes. It was solved by putting small piece of plastic behind the battery to pack it out a bit so it made a tighter fit.

phil99 said:

Mine has only done it a few time mainly on GLU games and the internet, is there any way to find out what batch number this affects, so i dont swap it for one with the same problem.

Maybe its the kernel

Click to expand...

Take the back off your phone and on the back it tells you a date.

Mine says 2011/09

Having a replacement today around 6-10PM and i hope mine is not off the same batch well as long as it works without rebooting all the time i aint fussed.

Did anyone get to the bottom of this ? I've had mine for 18 months, it was hassle free until I updated the OS to the release that improved the GUI from what was rather basic, to the newer slicker style (around a year ago). Since then both phones in the family randomly reboot (completely shutdown). It will be when using text, email, built in browser, so seems app independent.

I think it is kernel related as it used to be fine. I have applied the latest updates today so it will be interesting to see if the issue goes away. It is a nuisance.

gomad said:

Did anyone get to the bottom of this ? I've had mine for 18 months, it was hassle free until I updated the OS to the release that improved the GUI from what was rather basic, to the newer slicker style (around a year ago). Since then both phones in the family randomly reboot (completely shutdown). It will be when using text, email, built in browser, so seems app independent.

I think it is kernel related as it used to be fine. I have applied the latest updates today so it will be interesting to see if the issue goes away. It is a nuisance.

Click to expand...

i had this in about April, tried everything to fix it - the only solution was to take it back, under warranty, to my network provider (O2 in the UK) and they replaced it for free. never had the issue again with the new handset.