MetroPCS PSA: Look to see if your phone's affected

[Gman9831]

Look and see if your phone will be affected by this

This morning, UPS delivered a letter from Metro. I imagine these are being sent to all the area stores/dealers:
"Due to the LTE network integration between MetroPCS and T-Mobile some phone models may experience an incompatibility issue that causes them to lose 4G LTE data connectivity. These phones will need a free software update in order to maintain optimum performance."

"Customers who do not have the latest software version may experience loss of 4G LTE data after July 31st, 2013."

Inside was a microSD card for installing onto phones that can't be updated via OTA.

I immediately updated the store's demo phone, which had been experiencing intermittent connectivity issues for several days which, of course, was taking a toll on the battery, as well as making the phone feel hot.

Since then, data connectivity has been consistent, the phone doesn't feel hot, and the battery isn't draining so quickly.

If you have a Coolpad Quattro, Huawei Activa, LG Connect, LG Esteem, Samsung Craft, Samsung Galaxy Indulge, Samsung Galaxy Attain, or Samsung Galaxy S Lightray, your phone may be affected and may need to be updated.

Correct.

Here's the list of affected models and the latest SW version:
Coolpad Quattro: Coolpad-5860E-AA083
Huawei Activa: M920V100R001C177B324SP01
LG Connect: MS840ZVA
LG Connect (VoLTE): MS840VVE
LG Esteem: MS910ZVE
Samsung Craft: S/W V. R900.DJ07 | LTE S/W V. R900.EF23A
Samsung Galaxy Attain: CDMA: R920.03 M.FG02 | LTE: SCH-R920.GE01
Samsung Galaxy Indulge: CDMA: R910.0.4M.GE06 | LTE: SCH-R910.GE01
Samsung Galaxy S Lightray: CDMA: R940.0.4MGE01 | LTE: SCH-R940.GE01

 

[berian]

I actually received a voicemail from them about the update. Looks like I need to go to the store to do it.

 

[HParra97]

has anyone got a chance to look at this new update to see if it's possible to root?

 

[john1701]

I got the voice mail last week. Heads up if your phone is over 1 year old. Metro PCS will not update it they consider it outdated as I found out the hard way after visiting the local store.

Also first post shows:
Samsung Galaxy Attain: CDMA: R920.03 M.FG02 | LTE: SCH-R920.GE01

MINE:
Samsung Galaxy Attain: CDMA: R920.03 M.FG02 | LTE: SCH-R920.FF01

I am also running the updated root.

 

[berian]

John if they won't update it, did they offer to replace it?

I haven't had the chance to get mine updated, but like yours, it's more than a year old. There has been a noticeable drop in service and battery life, which began before I received the voicemail. I'm going to be extremely unhappy if they refuse to fix this issue.

 

[Gman9831]

I got the voice mail last week. Heads up if your phone is over 1 year old. Metro PCS will not update it they consider it outdated as I found out the hard way after visiting the local store.

Also first post shows:
Samsung Galaxy Attain: CDMA: R920.03 M.FG02 | LTE: SCH-R920.GE01

MINE:
Samsung Galaxy Attain: CDMA: R920.03 M.FG02 | LTE: SCH-R920.FF01

I am also running the updated root.

I would suggest a different store but if you dont update soon you probably wont be able to get service

 

[john1701]

John if they won't update it, did they offer to replace it?

I haven't had the chance to get mine updated, but like yours, it's more than a year old. There has been a noticeable drop in service and battery life, which began before I received the voicemail. I'm going to be extremely unhappy if they refuse to fix this issue.

they actually suggest to buy a new phone. I did ask why should I when your offering an update for my phone and they could not answer that. I even talked with the manager (erik) that's how his name tag was spelled. He said metropcs sent the message out to millions of people and my phone is over a year old and they could not do anything about it. His exact words.

Now on August 1 my phone did receive an update and now shows GE01. I can still connect, however it stays on 4G for about an hour then drops to EV with a message about service could not connect.

I have been testing this since then. If I reboot phone it goes back to 4G. If I DO NOT use the phone, just have it laying around, it will drop to EV in about an hour.

If I use the phone (like now with pdanet) and keep using it all day with my laptop, it stays connected to 4G with no issues with speed. If if connect when it shows EV, I have EV speeds.

But metropcs basically wants me to buy a new phone since my phone is 1 month out of warranty. They will not do the upgrade on my phone.

@GMan9831: I have not tried another metropcs store, I went to the main store here. I really don't want to drive all over to all the stores just to get the same answer. But I will try that today or tomorrow.

 

[john1701]

Update: Went to another metropcs store today and they had no issues updating my phone and it took only about 5 minutes. Before I went there I redid the firmware with Samsung file so when they got it (like at the main store) it was not rooted.

Now MINE:
Samsung Galaxy Attain: CDMA: R920.03 M.FG02 | LTE: SCH-R920.GE01

They used the sd card they had with the paperwork to do it. However, after about an hour (still not rooted) the phone showed the message "could not connect to service and dropped to evdo. I took the phone back and showed them. They actually spent another hour working on it and they tried full reset then OTA then sd card. I was even able to work with them to follow the steps just to make sure it was done correctly. So far 2 hours past since they did all that it has not dropped service (knock on wood). I not going to root until tomorrow just to make sure. They also said if it does it again theres really nothing they can do about it. I'm just happy they really made the effort compared to the corp store. Yes I did tell them about the experience at the corp store.

So far it is working now. Kudos to the small metropcs store. I did tell them if it does drop after all the effort they did, i'm really not going to worry about it. Just need to reboot phone each time it drops.

 

[Loey Lee]

Some time in late July I went to a corporate store and they said that they couldn't update my phone because my phone was rooted hence out of warranty. To be honest, I'd rather put up with the EV speeds then unroot my phone especially since doing so isn't guaranteed to preserve 4G anyways as indicated in the above post. Btw, Mine is as follows:

CDMA: R920.03 M.EL03 | LTE: SCH-R920.EL01

Don't really know what that means with regards to the update compatibility.

 

[KageBeast]

Is there anyway to force metro to send an update to your phone? I missed the update and have been constantly rebooting my phone to see if it receives the update again. I also don't live close to a metro store.

 

[saberleo]

I missed the update too, but I was able to receive it only after I kept my phone in 4g for a minute. At that point an update message appeared and restarted my phone. I then had the new update, no root and worst of all "services denied by network" continues to appear.

 

[nchag]

This happened to my attain also.they sent me the voice message that I HAD to get the upgrade or my service would not work!i did the upgrade And lost some functions.
Phone is constantly saying it is not able to connect to carrier or network.
This was not a doc in my opinion it was a way to guarantee we get new phones!

 

[berian]

So I had gone to a corporate store on the 3rd and they updated it (I did not check the versions, I'm not sure if their update worked). Last night around 4am I checked my phone and it was updating itself. Several hours later my phone has the message "FOTA error, please visit your closest metropcs store". Any idea whats going on?

 

[saberleo]

I believe that your phone had an error in updating itself Over the Air, so I suggest taking it back to the store saying that it updated itself again and they need to fix it.

 

[KageBeast]

So does this update solve anything for anybody? I only ran the update because I thought I would lose 4g if I didn't flash it and I also thought it would fix the services denied by network problem that's been recently popping up but I'm still getting it.

 

[berian]

I haven't gotten the "services denied by network" in a day or two, but my battery drains so quickly now.

 

[saberleo]

Check what's draining your battery, chances are it is the dialer app that is open in the background constantly draining your battery as if it were on call. What I do is just force close dialer when it starts getting warm.

 

[Frozin]

Phone worked great prior to this update. Now I'm lucky to get any 4g connection and I constantly get service denied errors.

 

[BRAINZ2013]

What kind of device

 

[KageBeast]

Phone worked great prior to this update. Now I'm lucky to get any 4g connection and I constantly get service denied errors.

Yeah I only updated because I thought it would fix the services denied error. I might just root my phone again because that update did nothing.

 

[Liscab]

i think the problem is solved, 3 days without getting the error, Metro did something on its end

 

[saberleo]

Just letting anyone out there that's left or maybe comes across this through google, it is safe to root using the Attain Rooted Update and then the Transparent.md5 also on these forums. It will retain the updated band signal and will continue to be rooted.

If one has not yet gotten the Over the Air update, then I suggest running Superuser's OTA survival mode and placing the phone someplace that it can receive 4g signal for at least 2 minutes.