Hello, This is my first Android phone, and I don't know anyone else that has the Prevail yet. I do have a cousin that wants to get one, but I told her to wait for the new Android being released by Boost. Reason being, mine freezes up and frustrates me, and now I wish I had waited for the new Android. Is it normal for it to freeze up? I used Odin on it, EE14 rooted with CWM. Beyond that I use Link2SD to have apps automatically save to the SD card, and both partitions on the SD card are FAT32. I also have Titanium Backup on it. The freezing issues... sometimes, when trying to go to the browser, it will vibrate once, pause and then vibrate 2 or 3 times more before going back to the homescreen. I think it's because it's not getting a 3G signal at that time, but I'm not sure. Turning it off and on usually helps. It'll sometimes just freeze when first starting a level on Angry Birds as well. Apps that I used earlier in the day will just open to a black screen later. It's also just shut itself down out of nowhere. Recently, I was just going to the next homescreen over, not by swiping but my pushing in the lower right corner of the screen (on the dots) and suddenly it went blank and I got the Samsung logo. I usually try to go to the task manager and make sure apps are closed, and then I go under the RAM manager, hit level 2 and clear memory. I figured that should help it run better, but is it possible that is causing issues? Before I contact Samsung, I'd love to find out more about this. Is this just how this phone can be, or did I get a dud? Any tips on optimizing it even more, or how to make it run better? Thanks for any help, sorry this post is so long.
you might try rebooting into recovery and clearing your cache. Especially if it's done this since you rooted. If so, it may be a bad flash. If it's started doing this over time, maybe doing a hard reset.
Thanks for the reply. So, I know I'll sound like a noob but... how do I reboot into recovery? And how do I do a hard reset?
Reboot into recovery by powering off then powering back on while holding the volume up and down at the same time. Use the volume rockers to navigate to wipe cache and either your power key or camera to select it. Wipe the cache, back out using the capacity back key (it may not be lit up) and then select reboot now. Reset, settings> privacy> factory data reset. This will wipe all your Apps and contacts, so make sure you back up to sd and Google first.
Recovery: while phone is off Hold Vol+, Camera, & power button at the same time and continue to hold them till you see the samsung logo Navagation in recovery: move up-- Vol+ move down-- Vol- go Back-- power button make selection-- Camera button I agree, sounds like a bad ROM flash... my wife and I both have the prevail and ours never do any of the thing you describe. factory reset it. there are threads in here on just how to do this. i'd avdise you to read before you do this...
So, I'm still having the same problems and I'm starting to wonder if it's just defective. I cleared the cache and did a hard reset, still having that same vibration, pause, two more vibrations and then the app closes issue. So, I used Odin again and went back to ED13 stock, let the system download the OTA update, only downloaded one little game. It's still doing the same thing. The phone is not rooted or anything, I wanted to see if it would have the same issues before rooting it. I can't tell what is causing the problems. I called Samsung and they had told me to do a hard reset, which I knew wouldn't help but I did it anyway. They also sent me a UPS label to send it back to them. Does anyone know if they'll be able to tell that the phone was previously rooted? It's now at EE14 stock, but I was worried it would leave some sort of trace behind of what was done to it before, which would void the warranty and I'd have to pay for the repair. I did read around and find other people with Samsung phones, different models like the Galaxy S, having this same problem. They were thinking it was due to the update to Froyo 2.2, but that can't be since we are all using that version and no one else is really reporting this problem. It must be a hardware defect of some sort. I hope I'm not messing it up further by using Odin to completely reset it multiple times.
I seroiusy doubt that it was anything you did... the vibration, pause, two more vibrations.... is called a "force close" all androids do this SOMETIMES. NOT like you are describing.. that only happens when the system gets over-run with process eg. too manny apps running or something like that. I'm pretty sure what you have is defective hardware. I would exchange it. just to be sure they dont try and say you broke it by rooting it I would do as follows in these steps: you said you used odin to unroot the phone? if so your good there.. Turn phone off.. remove the sd card.. put it the computer and reformat it as fat32 windows... (start/computer/ right click on the sd and click reformat) after your done "safely remove" and replace in the phone now.... reboot into recovery.. 1. (hold Vol up + Camera while holding power button till you see the first samsung logo and release) 2. use vol down to get to "factory reset" and press the camera button 3. scroll down again to "factory reset" and hit the camera button again after it is done... 4. "reboot phone" should be highlighted.. choose it. now your phone is just like it was when you first opened it out of the box. Just my thoughts: I Build custom desktop computers and i deal with A LOT of RMAs and most of the time they dont even check all that they just replace it. NOT saying that samsung won't but just giving you my experiance with RMAs... reformatting the sd gets rid of any folders that night have been saved to the phone from rooting it eg. busybox, init.d, superuser, those sort of things.. As long as its not rooted and you do this you should be just fine. I would do this anyways because it will erase anything that was in the phone like email acc. text messages and so on... i wouldn't hand over my phone to anyone with all my private info on it.
I'm hoping they replace the phone and not just "repair" it. I had planned on doing another factory reset before sending it back in. Do you think I'd need to reformat the SD card even though they want me to send the phone back in without it? They said to just send the phone in, not the battery, SD card or battery cover even. Also, what is the normal temperature for the battery in this phone? I downloaded this app called AndroSensor which shows the battery temp, and it's at 99.5 F right now. I've seen it up to 101, is it overheating? If it is, I'm going to have to call Samsung again and have them add possible overheating to the RMA, and then I'd have to send the battery and charger back in.
if they told you you didn't have to send a sd card in then don't worry about reformatting but it might be a good idea to anyway because when you get a new phone you gonna wanna have a new sd card nice and fresh
I think if I bought a defective phone I would be a little pissed about it and I would want everything new just cause you really don't know what exactly is wrong with it. and if it is overheating that could cause damage to any part of the phone and some of those parts might be the working fine now but in 6 months it'll break and then you're back in the same boat.. honestly if it were me I wouldn't take no for an answer I'd pretty much demand a new phone. you paid $170+ for a working phone I think that's what you should get.
Yeah, I am more than a little pissed, though I didn't buy it new. I paid $120 for it on ebay, and it was already rooted and had been factory reset. The bloatware was already removed, it worked very well when I got it. I had link2sd going and apps were going to the partioned SD card, I had quite a lot of apps and always made sure I closed out of everything before opening up something else. But then I decided that I wanted to start it all from scratch and used Odin to go to EE14 rooted with CWM and that special kernel. Then I tried shabbymod but didn't really like it, so I used Odin again to go back to EE14 rooted. That all shouldn't have caused my issue, but who knows, maybe it did. Or maybe the battery really is overheating. I called Samsung and made sure all the problems I am having are noted so that they know what they are looking for when they get the phone in for repair. I also told them it is possibly overheating, so now I am sending back the battery as well as the charger. I'm hoping I just get a new phone, and I asked what exactly they do when they get a phone back in for repair, but the phone rep wasn't sure. It's going to suck going back to my old phone (a Sanyo Incognito) while waiting for this one to get fixed/hopefully replaced. Oh, and I don't blame the seller, he's been really nice. Sent me the original receipt when I asked, just in case I needed it. He also said he didn't have the problems I am having. As it turns out, Samsung didn't even want the receipt. Thanks for all the help and suggestions. I've bought phones (not smartphones though) off ebay in the past and never had a problem. Never doing that again.
i totaly bought mine brand new from ebay for $139 so i'm not blaming the seller at all. good luck with samsung hope you get a new phone out of it..
Here is a question. You said you changed kernels. Could that be the culprit? I would consider trying to find a stock kernel, if you haven't already.
I thought that using Odin to go back to unrooted stock would also change the kernel? What I had done was download the Odin file with EE14 rooted that comes with ClockworkModRecovery and Hroarkernerl from the forum here. When that was having problems I went back to ED13 stock and let it do the OTA update to EE14. And then when I was still having issues I used Odin again to go to EE14 stock. The only time, that I know of, that the kernels would have been changed was during the first time I used Odin. Wouldn't using Odin again to a completely different version change the kernel back to stock? If not, that might be the problem, but also I don't want to send it back to Samsung with a different kernel on it in case they see that and say I voided the warranty. How can I check which kernel is on the phone now?
Only if the stock kernel was included in the rom. You can check by going to settings, about phone and scrolling down to where your kernel is. I would Google 'stock kernel samsung prevail ee14' and seecwhat you come up with to make sure they match.
From what I read in the Odin forum, I think the kernel file is inside one of the .tar files. I used all 3 .tar files each time I used Odin. Mine says Kernel version 2.6.32.9 which I the stock kernel, I believe. So, no luck in fixing it there, but at least that makes me feel better about Samsung seeing that I messed with this phone.
Me too, I'm not going to mess with it anymore and I'm just going to factory reset it and send it back in to them. At least the shipping is free. I'll come back here and update this thread when I get the phone back.
