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Enraging problems on a phone I love: Lag, video glitches, more.

SdoggaMan

Lurker
May 27, 2017
4
0
Hello there! I hope you're all doing great. I posted on the Motorola forums recently and have had absolutely no response, and the reply to my support ticket was simply to say that they had replied to my ticket and to let me know that I can call if I have any further problems (apart from the fact that the primary problem wasn't solved, I'm not really keen to spend a fortune calling from Australia to the US) though nothing else was existent. I'm repasting my original post below; I hope it is descriptive enough and humerus enough whilst carries the point nicely. I'm growing so increasingly frustrated here that I'm about ready to slam my phone against a wall, something I don't easily do. To top it off, though it isn't really relevant, the Motorola support site is a real hair-puller.

I do hope someone out there takes the time to read my little post and knows how to help. You're the best if you do. I can assure you this is getting beyond a joke, and far beyond even my technically-inclined experience. The last thing I want to do is yet another fresh install (my fifth, now) and even more to return the phone, but each of my points below are getting worse. Anyway, i've talked enough; thank you for your time.



"I did my research and took home a new Moto G4 Plus late last year and I can safely say it's fantastic for the price I paid for it. As a huge Lenovo fanboy (A relative of mine still has the original IBM Lenovo T60 thinkpad from 2001 and it runs to this day - slow, but it runs nonetheless, while the rest of us have the successively newer Lenovo thinkpads in the line) I've always found Lenovo to provide great tech done smart and done right for good prices. Still, I digress from my real point. Apart from the lack of support for bigger SD cards and a seemingly pre-existing vulnerability to randomly disconnect the SD and SIM cards on hard knocks, I have several big problems that don't make sense even to a tech lover such as myself. I'll dot-point them below:

> Screen burn. It's a small point and my Lenovo Yoga has the same issue to the same level of intensity, but it seems the G4 Plus is susceptible to screen burn after showing the same visuals for a long time. Unless anyone knows a fix, worry not about this point.

> Videos. This one is pretty obscure but gosh dang darn dagnabit annoying. When playing video, internally stored or streamed from any platform you care to pick, videos will randomly pause. The screen will refresh itself and reshape the video as though the status bar and menu buttons had been pulled into view, and the playback will skip backwards several seconds. This was getting so bad that the phone was pulling up the keyboard and notifications panel completely on its own during playback without any interaction from myself. I reimaged the device and the problem returned to its initial state - occasional pauses, infrequent. If this goes anything like it did before, in a few months' time I'll be reimaging again as my hair lands in clumps on the carpet.
And, yes, I tried different playback tools. Twitch, YouTube, iView all do it, while ES Explorer, VLC and the built in google playback tools all do it too. I had no bluetooth connections and was connected to WiFi, though this still performed this way both when using bluetooth controllers and when not.

> Earphone jack. Okay, so as a music lover this one really gets my fists clenching. Recently, just like that, my G4 Plus stopped registering earphones. I'm not talking about needing to push them in, nor do I have a thick case that's holding them out of the jack proper. No, every set I have tried, including AUX cables, simply doesn't exist. The phone plays all audio out of the speaker as though there's nothing in the top, despite me furiously crushing my fingers against the sides of my poor headphone jack. I do hear a microscopic crackle as the earphones receive power for a split second DURING insertion, but that's it. Audio continues playing unhindered while plugging in and removing headphones, so the phone isn't even realizing they're there and stopping playback upon removal. One other set of headphones I tried worked, but only occasionally - like a hard drive boot looping over and over until it loads. Like I said, completely random and was just there one day. I have checked for dust and cleaned the jack and the headphones for good scientific practice to no avail.

> Lag. Another brand new fist clencher, this one nearly killing my experience! So this seems to have only started after the latest security fix update for Android, though I can't tell you for sure if it's the update that caused it since I can't roll back any updates. The phone just hangs. Pressing the volume buttons, turning it on and off, changing screens, haptic feedback, finger-print scanning, typing, you name it. Today, I typed a text message on the keyboard, complete with realtime haptic feedback and the cursor happily blinking on the screen, without a single character appearing. I put the phone down and went to the toilet and came back to see the text appearing just as I'd typed it as though a ghost of me was repeating my exact keystrokes, just about a minute later. Playing music sucks - over bluetooth, of course, since the jack jacked off - because turning the volume up and down only happens some thirty seconds after pressing the keys, massively overshooting the mark and more or less ruining the moment. Bluetooth controllers seem to fair slightly better, getting reactions a few seconds later rather than 10-20+ for me, but I haven't tested it too fully.

I think it's important I note that I have Trend Micro security on the phone and show no problems with it. Though the whole video point seemed very sus before the reimage, I don't see how this is so bad after a brand new setup. I would absolutely wipe and reimage the phone if that was possible from my PC, but I don't know if that's a thing. I've only found that safe mode is lag-free, and my primary suspects - Trend and ES file explorer and all my games - all prove false leads. The lagging continues after removal.

Additionally to the lag point, I find my home screen always takes forever to load even after being in an app for a few seconds, slowly rebuilding my apps and placing my clock and google's everpresent search bar. I can appreciate the relatively slow processor and its heat issues combined with limited RAM, but this wasn't such a big problem a few months ago. App switching seems draggy, and when actively switching between two apps, the app not in focus seems to almost always refresh itself when I switch back, which is horrifyingly annoying when watching a YouTube video while texting someone. It takes longer to reload YouTube and re-find the video than it does to watch some before needing to change apps again, and this point is relevant because some apps like Discord and ES Explorer are just not feasible on split screen. ES only plays video while in focus and Discord needs the keyboard, similar to any typing app, which either slides neatly up over the lower screened app or pushes them both up if the type-requiring app is in the lower half. This, though I hate to say it, seems like a poor implementation of split screen, since I just can't get it to work without it being more trouble than good. It also refreshes both apps whenever split-screen is closed, which is, again, useless for video playback.

I have plenty of other smaller points, like my alarms volume continuously resetting itself down to near-muted levels and the sheer lack of any Do Not Disturb options other than basic "on or off" and no real choice to pick vibration or audio or custom versions of these. However, these points I realize are minor and perhaps not a Lenovo/Moto problem but rather Android itself, and besides, I've done the text equivalent of shot your ear off enough in the one post.

I do hope someone can help me out with all of these problems, because I love this phone as much as I love all my Lenovo experiences so far and I would be mortified to have to return it, but as it is it's really starting to become very, very frustrating, and I just can't deal with that on a device I, like so many people, practically run my life off. I appreciate any and all help in advance and hope that you are having a fantastic day."

As I said, I hope you can help, and I hope you're having a great day.
 
Es file explorer, remove it as it calls China with your info constantly... No need to use Trend, a memory hog... Try doing a factory reset, that will clear up most anything... Have you tried SD maid?
Use a good video player, such as MX player pro, and install the latest codecs, that should fix your video problem. Honestly, though, I'd do a factory reset first...but the earphone jack, that sounds like a hardware issue.
 
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Es file explorer, remove it as it calls China with your info constantly... No need to use Trend, a memory hog... Try doing a factory reset, that will clear up most anything... Have you tried SD maid?
Use a good video player, such as MX player pro, and install the latest codecs, that should fix your video problem. Honestly, though, I'd do a factory reset first...but the earphone jack, that sounds like a hardware issue.

I'm alright with losing ES if it's a problem. Trend is my internet security; that stays. What's SD maid good for? A replacement file browser for ES?

I'm using VLC primarily as my video player. It doesn't matter WHAT the video is, though, streamed, or internally stored - the problem persists.

I'd like to add that recently the hangs have developed into full one or two minute long freezes. I've also found that whilst playing games or running a landscape app, the phone will, after/during a hang period, not take input in the bottom half of the screen - as though the keyboard is in the way, which it isn't. I can't help but wonder if this is what a smokescreen program looks like when it thinks the keyboard is open... Makes me somewhat worried.
I'm pretty annoyed all in all, and I'd hate to have to return the phone. I love the little guy, but.....
 
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