Bug silences Samsung Galaxy Nexus It looks like Vodafone was right to hold off on the release of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone, which went on sale last week, is infuriating punters with a particularly annoying bug. The glitch sees the handset drop the audio volume of its own accord. The phone goes suddenly silent, without …
This post has been deleted by its author
The Droid Charge has the exact same problems in the US, or at least mine does. Seems like suddenly either the volume will quit working or vibrate will quit working. I also have problems with the power button being unresponsive or having a huge delay. I also seem to have a ghost in my phone, because my keyboard likes to type on its own (although it can't spell). Turning the screen off and back on fixes it, so I don't think there's a problem with the screen.
This happens on 3 different ROMs, stock, GummyCharged, and Humble (All Gingerbread, which to be fair hasn't been released officially yet. The audio thing happens on Froyo too).
I notice that the Android fans who attacked iOS 5 with such vitriol are remarkably quiet.
Software bugs happen to every platform. Wait for the update, like the iOS boys did.
No flash in ICS either it seems... The Story isn't on El Reg yet, but elsewhere, some people are getting their knickers in a real twist.
Hadn't spotted that - certainly naughty of them to release it without mentioning the lack of Flash. Okay, they don't need to list every feature that isn't present but most people would take Flash on Android as a given - especially as it is often provided as an example of a differentiator.
A quick Google suggests it IS coming soon though;
Adobe issued the following statement on the matter: “Adobe will release one more version of the Flash Player for mobile browsing, which will provide support for Android 4.0 — expected to be released before the end of this year.”
... but they modify the OTA update handler so that it listens only to Vodafone. I had a Nexus One from them, as well as one straight from Google. Every time Google pushed an update, the Vodafone device didn't get it. Eventually I rooted it and installed a vanilla copy of Android - problem fixed, all the updates came through.
Other than that specific point, Vodafone didn't change anything in the device and even left tethering available.
I've had the phone since Friday, and only once seen it drop, and almost "at ramdom" so I thought I had accidentally hit the button
so far I've not noticed any major problems with the phone
@MattW, what is it doing to me? nothing of note as I was using the phone (not on a call) when the volume dropped, so not much effect on what I was doing at all
for usage of the GN though, the face-unlock is brilliant (especially to show off), the panoramic photos are A-MA-ZING!, the multi-tasking is superb (got to be seen to be believed), the new diary/calendar widget is brilliant, but I'm yet to try the video rental (mostly because rip & copy), overall though I can't fault the phone
for people who say "bought an iPhone", enjoy it, because I prefer having the additional functionality that truly is bleeding edge rather than Apple's "2 years behind everybody else" OS...
Galaxy Nexus delivered on Friday, sent back on Saturday!
@ 50% charge it shut itself down and refused to respond to any input.
Charged for another 2 hours and still no response.
Plug into laptop via USB and eventually got back to the front screen, still would not accept charge.
No ICS apps available and notifications were somewhat lacking.
Build quality left me doubting it would last the 24month contract.
Will stick with my current phone a while longer.
The big difference is that with Apple it is supposed to "just work" and is the entire platform. This is just one phone of many that run Android. I'd like to see the engineers at Apple pull off the multi platform functionality that the Android does, as well as the Windows world. My guess is, it would be a huge fail....
Its still possible that it is a software issue whereby a hardware reciever such as nfc is passing recieved data into a software buffer that is overflowing, or otherwise causing a software controlled volume control response.
But if this is a hardware issue surely then it becomes an FCC issue whereby a device should accept interference without consequence, which this clearly does not.
"For a fact it is known that majority of Galaxy Nexus phones seem to suffer from a 'SAV Ghost' or 'Volume Bug', where the device volume is automatically adjusted (usually lowered, but not always) when it gets radio interference from itself or a nearby device, that is transmitting on 2G and GSM 900 (900Mhz).
It is very common for the device to lower its volume during phone calls on 2G network or when using 2G data. While it does not only happen during data connection, one can detect phone itself causing interference When the phone itself is using 2G data by the icon E (for Edge) or G (for GPRS) and volume rapidly changes while that happens.
Problem is worse when the phone is on low-signal area and thus uses the radio more frequently to find or hold on to the signal.
2G networks working on GSM 900 are majority of Europe, Africa, Australia, Middle East and large part of Asia. GSM 900 however is not existent on US and Korea networks, where the device might have gotten majority of its testing. In UK, the GSM 900 is used by O2, Vodafone, giffgaff, Tesco Mobile.
This problem happens even if the radios of the Galaxy Nexus smartphone are turned off and even when the device is not running Android 4.0 itself, so the problem is not in Google's software. Device is known to have this problem even while in bootloader, the lowest environment it has been detected in.
While the problem exists, device is often unresponsive for a short time, dealing with a lot of 'input' at the same time.
The above reasons mean that the problem exists in hardware level of Galaxy Nexus smartphone and if you suffer from this problem, then you have a faulty device.
It is still unclear if all Galaxy Nexus smartphones suffer from this issue. A lot of users do not use 2G networks or have used them so rarely, that the problem as possibly slipped by unnoticed as nothing more than a inconvenience.
Samsung UK definitely released a large number of affected phones in UK last week, these devices are the ones that users are reporting problems with. Replacements of the device so far haven't worked for most users.
Pre-release phones however did not report this issue. This may be because pre-release phones did not have this issue and Samsung released - possibly unknowingly - a faulty batch of handsets in UK. It is also possible that pre-release phones simply did not look out for the existence of the bug and did not test the 2G network, instead testing the device on WiFi or non-GSM-900 networks.
Some sellers report that Samsung has conducted additional testing on devices that were delivered to SIM-free sellers for this week. Whether this means they detected the problem in previous batch or not, is unclear. So far Clove and Handtec haven't been able to reproduce the problem on phones that were delivered to them.
Whether Galaxy Nexus is flawed by design and all devices are affected, or this was a result of a broken batch, will be clear within the next few days as SIM-free phones are being delivered to fulfil pre-orders.
If new SIM-free deliveries are not affected by the problem, then the only affected phones were the ones released in UK, and Samsung will likely simply have to replace the problematic handsets in the market.
If new SIM-free deliveries are also affected, then it is likely that all Galaxy Nexus phones manufactured so far are affected by this issue. This might lead to mass-recall of the devices and further postponement when it comes to the handsets release.
One alternative is that Samsung might release a software update that does not fix the hardware problem - as this is not possible - but will alleviate or ignore the issue so it does not affect general use of the phone. Problem will still exist, but it would be less noticable or get in the users way less.
We will see what the next few days tell us."
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
