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do android phones suffer "glitches"?

guy48065

Member
Jan 12, 2014
80
5
My wife and I both have Galaxy S3 phones. Last week my morning alarm didn't go off and I found the setting had changed to Friday only...instead of M-F. On her phone she claimed to have lost mobile data one day and when I checked I found her Net10 APN was gone and the default old AT&T APN restored.

How do these changes happen?
 
Every device suffers glitches every now and then from a simple lever to global cluster of supercomputers. The more complex the device, the more likely a glitch will rear it's ugly head. Android devices are no different.

Now, to explain your particular glitches (and I can only guess here) for the alarm change, these interfaces make it too easy to change settings without much confirmation. I am constantly moving appointment times by swiping through my calendar widget. I would guess that you inadvertently switch the day to Friday only. Now, it is possible that the setting became corrupted or changed during an app update ... say for example the dev said instead of selecting m-f, it now said "weekdays" and goofed up the way the settings update, or that there was simply a hiccup while updating and it read the setting incorectly, but those are less likely.

As for the APN change, it might also be that the Net10 APN was unavailable but it could find the AT&T APN so it switched to it. Until you manually change it back or the phone reboots with the Net10 APN available, it would stick to AT&T, even though the account might not be active.

Once it's a glitch, if it repeats then it's a problem.
 
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Indeed. It's worse if you take matters into your own hands & go the root / custom rom option. I say the devs take these roms to 97 - 99% perfection then move on to the next big thing. I've gone upgraded & downgraded & finally settled (touch wood) on something near perfect.

My original stock rom was what promted me to upgrade myself, problems with the alarm while plugged in, could not stop the alarm. You don't expect problems with stock roms but android keeps updating, so.....
 
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My wife and I both have Galaxy S3 phones. Last week my morning alarm didn't go off and I found the setting had changed to Friday only...instead of M-F. On her phone she claimed to have lost mobile data one day and when I checked I found her Net10 APN was gone and the default old AT&T APN restored.

How do these changes happen?

Those changes should not have occurred unless someone changed them. Are you ABSOLULTY sure that some third person didn't change them?

If the answer is yes I would be standing in my carrier's store getting them to explain what was happening.

You could try running in Safe Mode (disabling all apps you added without uninstalling them) and if the problems disappear then the cause(s) is a app(s) that you added.

... Thom
 
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You can't lump all of "android" together in a question like this. Sadly, it isnt that simple. Because android is open for manufacturers to make changes, not every "version" of android is equal.

There are so many variables that may apply that android as a whole has no control over - manufacturers make their own changes to android- which may introduce bugs, new OTA updates from the manufactures may introduce bugs, apps may have their own bugs, ect.
 
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Yeah, pretty much, though I would just add that I think it's a good thing we have a lot of options when choosing our devices and/or ROMs, and apps, and largely it's rather surprising that Android devices work as well as they do.

That being said, OEMs having as much leeway as they do is one of the main reasons I prefer Nexus devices. In my opinion, they're primarily Android as it was meant to be.
 
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An app called notification toggle caused major headaches with my s3. I had used it on my transform ultra, mainly for the flashlight. I didn't even realize that it's unnecessary on this device. But my alarm wouldn't work, I was late to work a couple times. Not exactly the same problem you're seeing, but I'm just giving an example of how third-party apps can cause things to go haywire.
 
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You could try running in Safe Mode (disabling all apps you added without uninstalling them) and if the problems disappear then the cause(s) is a app(s) that you added.

About your calendar issue ... I had something odd that I will pass on ... I was playing with a calendar entry to test a Tasker function ... I needed to put a word in the description ... test ... take the word out of the description ... test again.

When I deleted the word in the description and saved the updated entry it was accepted and I assumed it was set. When I checked the word that I deleted was back again. I had to delete the word and insert a space for it to be actually deleted.

So ... for yours ... did you edit the calendar entry? After you did did you examine the result to see that it actually changed?

... Thom
 
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Indeed. It's worse if you take matters into your own hands & go the root / custom rom option. I say the devs take these roms to 97 - 99% perfection then move on to the next big thing. I've gone upgraded & downgraded & finally settled (touch wood) on something near perfect.

My original stock rom was what promted me to upgrade myself, problems with the alarm while plugged in, could not stop the alarm. You don't expect problems with stock roms but android keeps updating, so.....

Stock ROM on which device? I found most of my glitches I've ever had have been related to the manufacturer's "custom" Android version on their device. Acer, Samsung, HTC, etc.
 
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This is freaking me out. I just checked again and now it's TWThF.
I'm positive I didn't alter it. You should be able to lock an alarm setting :-/

I only have one alarm set and that's on the standard Clock. I would hope that any notifications I might get from calendar entries (S Calendar) wouldn't interfere. I haven't made any February calendar entries yet so I'll wait & see if the alarm settings change again in the next few days.

Could you provide us with a screenshot? Again, as I said before, it's far too easy from some of these apps to inadvertently change the selection without realizing it.
 
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In answer to the original question; yes all devices 'glitch'.

Aside from the aforementioned software/firmware issues and inadvertent changes made whilst operating your device; much more magical things can go wrong from a physics standpoint-- ambient background noise (in the electromagnetic spectrum), aging components and materials, corrosion, and (my personal favorite) cosmic rays can all contribute to changes and modifications to your firmware, software, and data.
 
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Stock ROM on which device? I found most of my glitches I've ever had have been related to the manufacturer's "custom" Android version on their device. Acer, Samsung, HTC, etc.

I meant the firmware it shipped with (Moto Defy, 2.1).

I took the next available upgrade which fixed it. If the OP can find any firmware upgrades then that might solve their problem.

Android can't be perfect if they need to roll out new versions all the time! Not all of it is to add new features or streamlining, some of it is surely to iron out bugs in original firmwares. I think I was a bit hasty to point the finger at devs making custom roms, most of them are improvements on stock.
 
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I meant the firmware it shipped with (Moto Defy, 2.1).

I took the next available upgrade which fixed it. If the OP can find any firmware upgrades then that might solve their problem.

Android can't be perfect if they need to roll out new versions all the time! Not all of it is to add new features or streamlining, some of it is surely to iron out bugs in original firmwares. I think I was a bit hasty to point the finger at devs making custom roms, most of them are improvements on stock.

Android's nowhere near perfect, no. :p

I just recall a security report that found that Samsung/LG/etc introduced more bugs than existed in the base OS :p
 
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