Help DROID Incredible random restart/reboot problem

[WarnerYoung]

Well, that answers my question. I just ran into this, and now almost every app force closes. I was hoping there was a way to solve it, maybe by doing a factory reset or something. But it sounds like it's probably a bad phone? Should I try the factory reset first anyway, or should I assume it's bad and get a replacement?

 

[patrick64]

Well, that answers my question. I just ran into this, and now almost every app force closes. I was hoping there was a way to solve it, maybe by doing a factory reset or something. But it sounds like it's probably a bad phone? Should I try the factory reset first anyway, or should I assume it's bad and get a replacement?

I started to have this problem about a 2 weeks ago where the phone kept rebooting itself. Then just last week a lot my apps stopped working and were being force closed. I did a factory reset, started installing apps again, then all of a sudden, constant reboots! Can't even get the darn phone to work now. Went down to Verizon and they are getting a replacement to me.

 

[WarnerYoung]

So far, every app that I uninstall and then re-install seems to be working fine. And working on the theory that it was overheating while I charged AND used the phone, I've made sure I only charge the phone when it's off or I'm not actively using it. So far, that seems to be working for me.

I do have a silicone case on the phone, as well as InvisibleShield, so I'm guessing that contributes to the overheating.

 

[KennyC]

This has been happening to me too, especially recently. I also suspect heat, as it usually happens when I'm using Navigation, Pandora, or playing a game, and the phone is pretty warm. But other times it seems completely random and the phone isn't hot at all. Factory resets have not helped. I do have the HTC extended battery, not sure if the larger size might contribute to more heat.

I received a warranty replacement yesterday from Verizon because of the issue, but unfortunately that unit's screen was burned in, so another one should arrive tomorrow. Fingers crossed that this one is ok.

 

[WarnerYoung]

I thought it was heat, but it doesn't look like it anymore. It rebooted on me a few days ago when it wasn't charging, and I wasn't doing anything CPU or battery intensive, and the surrounding environment was cool. And last night, it rebooted while I was powering down the phone!

Unfortunately, Verizon tech support refuses to do a replacement until I've at least gone through a factory reset and the problem still happens! How did everyone else get their replacements? Directly at a store, or through phone support?

 

[WarnerYoung]

Okay, it's the phone and not the battery. I swapped batteries with a friend, and his phone is okay but mine still has the reboot problem.

The good news is that, although Verizon phone support were unhelpful, as soon as I walked into a store and described my problem, they didn't ask any more questions but put me down for a replacement phone; the store didn't have stock on hand, but it's supposed to be shipped next-day. I'll have to see if the new phone is any better when I get it.

 

[euph_22]

Okay, it's the phone and not the battery. I swapped batteries with a friend, and his phone is okay but mine still has the reboot problem.

The good news is that, although Verizon phone support were unhelpful, as soon as I walked into a store and described my problem, they didn't ask any more questions but put me down for a replacement phone; the store didn't have stock on hand, but it's supposed to be shipped next-day. I'll have to see if the new phone is any better when I get it.

I just got mine replaced for the same reason. Walked into the store last Thursday, 15 minutes later I walked out (only reason it took that long is the first CSR didn't know about this problem, made me do the ATK dance. A second CSR overhead my problem asked a couple questions a told my guy to give me the replacement.) Got the phone the next day.

So far it seems to be running cooler, but I haven't really tried to crash it yet. The last one I was able to get it to go down with 10 minutes of internet browsing while plugged in, with Bluetooth, wifi, screen brightness, GPS all blaring.

I can tell you that it seems more solid, then my June Incredible. the dustcap on the camera seems secure, and the back doesn't have that wiggle to it. The replacement also looks flawless (AMOLED Certified like new).

 

[bwt51]

Just got my DINC a few days ago and it has been randomly restarting daily. It seems worse here at work in downtown Winston-Salem but it has restarted at home too. I've read through most of these reboot related threads and have yet to discover a definitive solution to the problem. Is there one?

I can't believe it's tower related since my HTC Eris never rebooted here at work and coverage was the same. Surely it isn't heat related b/c my INC isn't hot or even warm to the touch, even with the back off and touching the battery pack. I'm not a heavy/power user like many of you guys so I don't have a ton of apps running at once. What I do use simultaneously though is Bluetooth and Wi-fi. I keep my screen brightness on the lowest settting. I do not have any third party task killers installed since Astro is installed.

I got this phone through the independent VZW rep at Costco so they had to ship it to me. IF I ask for a replacement phone, would they honor the request at the VZW stores? I'd really like to forgo having to wait for it to ship. The other thing that irritates me if it has to be replaced is that I'll lose my $20 InvisibleShield. Now that sucks!! I do have insurance on my plan so I shouldn't have any problem getting a new phone as opposed to a refurb, right?

 

[cgrella]

My DINC (which is not rooted and has been running Froyo since the over-the-air update a few months back) started randomly rebooting a month or so ago (but only once, not in a loop), usually while using the Facebook app or Google Maps (or a standalone GPS tester, both of which now consistently lose the GPS signal a few minutes into a trip and it never comes back until I reboot the phone. But that's another matter...)

About a week ago the phone went into "death loops" three evenings in a row (battery pull for 10 minutes brought it back). After reading this and some other threads, I got this to stop (it has only randomly rebooted once in the 6 days since the last death loop) by:

• Uninstalling all task killers including Watchdog
• Uninstalling a few other CPU-hungry apps I didn't need, particularly news apps that want to run in the background to feed you alerts
• I did not uninstall Weatherbug Elite though, I love that app!
• I did not do a hard/factory reset or go to the VzW store since that didn't seem to help most other people
• Backing up the contents of my SD card and reformatting it (on the phone using Settings | SD & phone settings | Utilities). I then selectively copied back my pictures and some other things, but not the entire contents of the drive.
• Getting rid of the extra cover I had put on the phone (so heat can dissipate more easily)
• I no longer use the Wal-Mart car charger I had bought for the phone, I use only the HTC charger that came with it and the PC-USB cables to charge this phone now
• I now use FB Mobile (m.facebook.com) instead of the Facebook for Android app (which sucks anyway). The one time the phone has rebooted since, I was using FB for Android.
• When the phone reboots, I crack the case open and pull the battery while it's still in the initial white "HTC Incredible" screen, and put the phone and battery (separately) in a refrigerator for 10 minutes, pull back out, reassemble and reboot and I'm good to go.

Not sure which thing did the trick, or which combination. This is definitely temperature-related, but I think it's a CPU core overheat problem and not an ambient temperature problem (although refrigerating the phone will cool the CPU). I've had the phone get warm to the touch and not reboot. Heck, I've had this phone mounted on a dashboard plugged into the car charger running Google Maps Navigation for over an hour with major ambient heat and no problems for over an hour at a stretch

 

[cgrella]

My original, non-refurbished DINC which had been running fine since July started doing this a week and a half ago. See my post here.

 

[WarnerYoung]

Although it's possible that some people's problems with random reboots is caused by apps, I don't think that's the case for everyone. Heat or some other defect is more likely, at least in my case. For one thing, my old DInc turned itself ON after I had it turned off at one point, but this was while I was having problems with the random reboots. I'm reasonably sure no app will make your phone turn ON.

btw51: I'm not sure what to say, but your symptoms sound like mine. On my old phone, the temperatures didn't always get very high, and the phone sometimes wasn't that warm, even when it hit the reboot problem. So I'm not sure that's a good indication. I'd say your best bet is to try what I did: go into a Verizon store if you can, and tell them your problem, and see if they'll replace it for you.

I also ended up losing my InvisibleShield, but I haven't replaced it. Since getting a new phone, I've been using a cheap regular screen protector and I've realized something: the InvisibleShield, while nice, has a slightly "sticky" feel that was sometimes causing me to have trouble swyping on screen. With a cheap cover, I'm not having that problem anymore. Plus, I'm going to wait until I'm really sure the new phone is problem free, then think about getting a new IShield.

 

[pakman134]

I had problems with my phone's camera lens cover so called customer service and they offered a replacement. Here is when I began having similar reboot problems that everyone else here seems to have. I agree with WarnerYoung that this issue is not always caused by apps.

The certified like new replacement boots up fine. I go to start activating my device and then the phone goes into a constant reboot cycle. Sometimes it would get to the lock screen, other times it would only get to the initial white screen that says "HTC Incredible". There was no way to turn the phone off (or stop the cycle) except to bull the battery.

So I called Verizon, they asked me to pull the battery out for a few minutes and try again. I do this, and again it looks like it is working fine, but a few minutes later as I try to activate it, the phone goes into another reboot loop. They are not sure what is wrong and send out another replacement.

My second replacement activated fine, and everything seemed to be going okay. Content with this replacement, I pack up my two other phones, my original and the first replacement, and send them back to Verizon. I come home, start setting up my phone. Everything goes okay for a little while, but soon my device starts restarting. At this point I had not installed any apps. I call up Verizon again, spend half an hour while the representative "researches" the problem. She has me try a few things to get out of the boot cycle. Nothing works so she sends me over to tech support who sends me out another replacement device.

After getting off the phone with VZW, I pull out my battery for 5-10 minutes, put the battery back in, and again I can get the phone to boot fine. Now if I don't do anything it seems that my phone stays booted and can receive calls, but as soon as I get on the web for a few minutes, the boot cycle begins once again. Sometimes I am even able to get a call out. I suppose I will just have to wait for the replacement device.

At this point I wish I just put up with my pushed in camera lens. It was solid and I never had a reboot issue in months (not even non-cycling reboots). I'm now onto my third replacement in the past week, and fourth overall (my very first device had to be replaced after having 3g radio problems a few months ago).

Sorry bout the long post but just thought I'd let everyone know that there are other people who are facing similar problems. From personal experience (my first and second incredible), I know that there are devices out there that do not have this issue. Hopefully I will get lucky with this fourth one and everything will work out.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

are all of you recent posters with the reboot issue, using the same sd card you had in the original phone? That could be the source of your problem, if you are using the same card, I'd try a new sd card or reformatting the one you have, or even use the phone without an sd card just to eliminate that as a possible root cause. Just taking a shot in the dark here because as far as I know the reboot issue because of low signal has been fixed since they released 2.2. At least that's when the issue was fixed on my phone.

 

[pakman134]

are all of you recent posters with the reboot issue, using the same sd card you had in the original phone? That could be the source of your problem, if you are using the same card, I'd try a new sd card or reformatting the one you have, or even use the phone without an sd card just to eliminate that as a possible root cause. Just taking a shot in the dark here because as far as I know the reboot issue because of low signal has been fixed since they released 2.2. At least that's when the issue was fixed on my phone.

Thanks for the suggestion. I did try completely removing the SD card and still ran into the reboot loop problem.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

the next step would be to try running the RUU on the phone, just to verify you have a clean install of the OS:
http://dougpiston.com/files/RUU/RUU...4k_NV_1.70_PRL58006_release_152016_signed.exe

Needs to be ran from a windows computer and htc sync has to be installed:
HTC Mobile Phone Support - DROID INCREDIBLE by HTC (Verizon) - Downloads

If you don't have access to a windows computer or run into problems there is a manual way of reloading the OS but is a little more complicated.

PS, running the RUU will completely wipe the phone of all data.

 

[pakman134]

the next step would be to try running the RUU on the phone, just to verify you have a clean install of the OS:
http://dougpiston.com/files/RUU/RUU...4k_NV_1.70_PRL58006_release_152016_signed.exe

Needs to be ran from a windows computer and htc sync has to be installed:
HTC Mobile Phone Support - DROID INCREDIBLE by HTC (Verizon) - Downloads

If you don't have access to a windows computer or run into problems there is a manual way of reloading the OS but is a little more complicated.

PS, running the RUU will completely wipe the phone of all data.

Appreciate the help, but received my replacement today and so far it is reboot free, so I won't be needing to do this clean install. Hopefully it will help solve other peoples' reboot issues. Thanks!

 

[bwt51]

are all of you recent posters with the reboot issue, using the same sd card you had in the original phone? That could be the source of your problem, if you are using the same card, I'd try a new sd card or reformatting the one you have, or even use the phone without an sd card just to eliminate that as a possible root cause. Just taking a shot in the dark here because as far as I know the reboot issue because of low signal has been fixed since they released 2.2. At least that's when the issue was fixed on my phone.

I would really like to think the fix for my phone is that simple. What's the basis for assuming it might be the SD card? Hell, I'm going to try it anyway since all I have on there right now is my music and pix. Stay tuned and I'll report back because I really don't want to have to re-install all of my apps and set my home screens up all over again.

I did check just to make sure I had 2.2 of the OS installed and I do. It's good to hear that 2.2 fixed a known reboot problem but there's obviously something else going on that didn't get fixed. For this to be such a pervasive problem I'm disappointed that HTC hasn't posted something from their own technical support office on this forum, or did I miss that somehow?

 

[bwt51]

After several more random restarts I finally relented and called VZW tech support. After reading everything on this forum I was interested in hearing how they approach this old/known problem and what solutions were being recommended. Needless to say, after we talked for about 10 minutes she suggested the 'factory reset' solution. After a brief period of disapproval and skepticism I was lulled into submission by her siren-like mid-west accent - Minnesota. ;-) I figured that I was heading for a clean wipe anyway if I replace it. It's clean, and boot free after 10 minutes. I'll wait 2 days before I start adding apps back on if it's reboot free over that period. If it reboots even once during those 2 days, it's going back to the store. Considering all the people on this and other forums that have this same problem, I would think that if it were app related, many of us would have already discovered the offending app and posted something about it. The saga continues...

 

[bwt51]

DINC rebooted this a.m. with no new apps downloaded so it's going back to VZW for a replacement.

 

[DWasilew]

I'm in the same boat. I went down to Verizon yesterday and they did a factory reset, even though I already did one, to put on record. If it reboots anytime whatsoever I will be taking it back.

 

[bwt51]

I was just looking through similar posts on both the HTC and VZW websites. There are literally thousands of posts about this issue and any VZW representative who can honestly deny that this problem exists must still be in training.

Fortuitously, while I was scanning through all these posts on the VZW website, a VZW corporate rep called me to survey how I was treated during an earlier call to tech support. Needless to say, I told her that no one has solved my problem and informed her of the huge number of complaints on this phone. To make a long story short, she's sending me a Droid 2 Global free of charge. I was offered the X also but I like the form factor of the DINC better, which she said was like the Droid 2. We'll see.

Now I'm off to the D2 forums to see what issues they have.

 

[chenzales]

Hello all, been having a BLAST with all the issues my phone has had lately. Just hoping somebody can help answer a few questions:

I need help getting my phone back into s-on. I didn't really understand the instructions on the unrevoked website. I tried to copy the s-on tool .zip file into the root directory of my sd card and nothing happened when I restarted into recovery.
The real issue, though, is that my phone has started rebooting just minutes after i turn it on. Sometimes it won't even finish turning on and just get stuck in a reboot loop.

Also, I want to take my phone back so I can switch it out for another, hopefully less defective one, but I got my phone all the way back in May or June, and I'm wondering what my options are with Verizon? I don't have insurance, or anything. Is there a warranty against defective products?

Thanks!

 

[sdrawkcab25]

To turn s-on, boot into clockwork, choose install zip from sd card, and locate the s-on file and install it.

Your phone is still covered under warranty.

If you already unrooted and don't have clockwork anymore you will need to reflash it, rename this file to PB31IMG.zip and install through h-boot:
http://dougpiston.com/files/Recovery/PB31IMG_cwm_mod.zip
Then you can flash the s-on file, then unroot again.

 

[tzoller]

I've had me Dinc since the first week of issue. It has randomly rebooted several times. It has forced me to do a hard reset 2 or 3 times (great way to clean out junk). The first time happened when using GPS on the road. Last time was yesterday. Reading a bunch of news items in the dentist office. Finally coming to the conclusion that it had to do with battery heat. Monitoring temp of battery, I go from 28C ti mid 30'sC. The reboot will put into a constant mode of rebooting forcing me to remove battery and wait and then turn it on again.

I suspect I am too late for VZW to replace but I do have Square Trade insurance on the phone. Anyone have experience at getting a replacement so late in the game?

Also, is this an HTC or VZW problem? I see that the new Nexus G-2 is having a reboot issue and they are trying to issue a fix for it in the next few weeks.

 

[euph_22]

You have a 1 year mfg warranty through verizon. Take it to verizon.