Android Crash n Stability Issue

[Nas Lo]

So I bought a new unlocked Motorola Moto G Play 2021 about 6-7 weeks ago as I had to upgrade to a new phone due to my carrier requirements. Previously I had a Moto E4+, which was an awesome and stable phone. Initial impression of G Play was good, but very soon I started having two issues. First issue that it kept having problems with the MicroSD card. I would format the card in the phone's setting and use it as portable storage, but once a day the system would crash, mark the SD card as bad and force me to reformat it. I put in a different card and it had the same issue. When I put a 3rd card that I had formatted with my Canon camera the phone did not ask me to reformat it, used it as portable storage and issue went away. So I formatted the original MicroSD card, which was much larger in my Canon, put it in my phone and the problem never came back.
The second problem was that the system would crash periodically, after some trials I "think" I narrowed the problem to NoRoot firewall, which I absolutely love. I stopped using it for 2 weeks and the phone did not crash, I think, but can't be sure (will explain in a minute). I really like NoRoot FW so after two weeks I started it up again. Now the phone crashes about every 2-3 days. I like the FW so I will continue to use it and have been using it on all my other devices without any issues for years. I really like to know how often the phone crashes, but I can't and have come to believe Android 10 is worst than even Window 95 when it comes to crashing. BTW, I'm running the latest updates to the OS and check it regularly.
First of all Android which is based on Linux (not Linux, just based on it) so I would hope it would be more stable than allowing an app that sets up only a loop back VPN to control traffic to crash it regularly. But that's a different discussion. What annoys me even more is that there are times when I can see the phone rebooting right in front of me as I see the Moto logo and hear the "Hello Moto" greeting I then have to login with the pin as right after a reboot biometrics won't work until you login once with a pin, but then when I go to the settings and check the uptime I see it in hundreds of hours. At least when Win 95 crashed it knew it crashed. Apparently Android crashes, but it never knows or at least never admits to the user that it crashed. Pretty sorry if you ask me.

 

[Unforgiven]

I moved this to the Moto G Play forum so other device owners can lend a hand. Good luck!!

 

[svim]

I'd suggest you remove NoRoot Firewall and use NetGuard instead.
NoRoot
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.greyshirts.firewall&hl=en_US&gl=US
NetGuard
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.faircode.netguard&hl=en_US&gl=US
The NoRoot Firewall app gets a lot of mentions in the press for whatever reason but it's support and development over the past several years has been sporadic and undependable. Currently the last app update was in early 2020 and before that there was dry spell of five years or so. The issue being, networking in general is not static and fixed, it's a messy and continuously changing technology. Using an outdated, loosely supported firewall app to secure your phone isn't optimal. Read through NoRoot Firewall's page in the Play Store (also referenced in a link above), the update date is an issue but there's still a blurb referring to the app having questionable issues supporting LTE and IPv6.
Anyway, there are of course a lot of other, viable firewall apps available, I'm just suggesting NetGuard instead as it is has a bigger feature set and it's actively developed and supported. It's also a no root required firewall and works the same, using an internal, local-only VPN service to route data packets through to do its filtering. (almost all the no root required firewall and ad-blocking apps so the same). Functionally NetGuard works the same as NoRoot so in principle you won't see a big difference, the user interface is though. Can't say if switching firewall apps will have any effect on your phone's stability issues but a few things that 'might' be related:
-- In order to fully remove the NoRoot Firewall app, you need to be sure it's completely wiped. Do not assume just tapping on the Uninstall button does this. So tap on the Force stop button, find and tap on the Clear data button, then tap on the Uninstall button, and restart the phone. Using Clear data should remove all of the app's settings and config files, along with the app's cache, and the restart necessary to remove the NoRoot background process if it's still in RAM.
-- If you're also using a VPN service, even though that will be working through external, online servers it's still a matter where only one VPN service can be running on your phone. Conflicts with trying to force to VPN services will create stability issues.
-- Be sure to go into the firewall app's Settings menu when you first set it up and play close attention to whatever options your alter/add, and be sure to delve into all its options, and any other contextual or sub-menus too. Initially configuring a firewall is an involved task, don't assume and be sure to go online to look up options that you're not sure about.

Side note regarding your Android - Linux correlation it's important to note that the actual link between the two is mostly just media fascination. Android does rely upon a Linux kernel but that's the end of the tie-in.
-- Android's kernel is highly modified, altered, and unique. Using it in a desktop install would be just failure to boot up at all.
-- The file structure in an Android device is its own arrangement. It has similarities to what you might find in a desktop Linux box but each is so different from the other you can do the same when comparing the file tree in a Windows or a Mac.
-- There are some 'Android' phones out there that run Linux but that's the whole point.They're not running the Android OS, nor is the infrastructure they run on top of the same.

 

[joe71]

I got this phone to use with my Google Fi phone service, I was slightly ticked off when I learned it wasn't getting android 12 but then I thought do I really care, I only use it maybe once a month (it's basically a back up phone in case I am somewhere were Verizon doesn't have service
Not a bad phone