webOS Hardware

[#1]

First let me say I got a Palm Pre and loved it, but since the 1.3.5 update and Jan 1st this phone is crap, and it seems to just be going from bad to worse.About noon on Jan 1st my phone started to go offline, I tried a dozen different things, eventually doing webOS Doctor 1.3.5, doing the partial erase, full erase, webOS doctor again, reading this forum and the EAS fix with the dates, even went to Sprint, they gave me a new phone and I updated to 1.3.5.1, no choice (oh and I let the 1.3.5.1 update happen at work and 5 hours later same phone offline) and with 30 minutes phone offline.I am now backing my self to 1.3.1 in hopes that it will allow me to use my phone as a phone.Anyone having this issue, I don't use exchange for mail, but I do use gmail for mail, contacts, and Google for Calendaring. My phone is stock, no preware or homebrew. If I can't get a stable connection for ph calls then I will have to say goodbye to Palm and embrace Android or HTC WinMo. It's pretty sad as this phone has so much promise, but I need a phone I can depend on, this is my home/organizational for for rescue work.Any tips will be tried and thanked.

Post relates to: Pre p100eww (Sprint)

Post relates to: Pre p100eww (Sprint)

[#2]

Yep, I'm seeing the same thing!  The phone goes offline for long stretches or short, bars go to 5 and 2 and none and back....  It's a crazy pogo stick of connectivity...I can set it next to my old Treo 650 and see that the Treo is getting a constant 5 bars, so it's really nothing to do with signal strength...

I got the phone over Christmas, upgraded to 1.3.1, then (foolishly I guess) went to 1.3.5 when it came out...

I DO use Exchange EAS, so I got nailed by the Calendar bug, but I can't imagine this being related to that..

I've done resets, shutdowns, removed battery, gone to airplane mode and back, etc. etc. etc...

Also no "weird" apps at all running, no homebrew, etc...

Very frustrating.  I was going to go swap for a new phone (since I'm inside 30 day window) tomorrow, but now you're leading me to believe that it's not going to help at all... 

Oh well, I'm going to swap anyway and hope you just got 2 bum hardware's in a row (which I only believe 0.5%)...

MEM

[#3]

Well I back dated to 1.3.1 and it seems solid, I then went ahead and let the update run to 1.3.5.1 and it barfed on me in about an hour. This is pretty sad. I will limp along for the next update and then let my Pre get updated, but if that still fails I will give Google's Android a shot, sort of sucks since I invested some $$ in apps and in Touchstone chargers.

Be nice if Palm actually acknowledged the issue and would contact us about the phone offline issue. If one of us is posting it, you can bet 100 aren't because they have no idea about this forum. I refuse to spend hours on hold to do all the same things I have done. So Palm, email me, ask me what you need to know and lets fix these phones. They have so much potential. 

[#4]

Hey dthurman, I'm having the same issue too! I thought it was just a connectivity issue due to the cold front where I'm at (Washington, D.C.), but it's been happening for the last week ever since the 1.3.5 upgrade. How did you go about back dating to the 1.3.1?

I called Sprint and they couldn't resolve the issue. They told me to take the phone to a Sprint store. I might just sell the darn thing and get another phone. Maybe a Blackberry.

[#5]

Hmmm, if Palm doesn't resolve the problem with the 1.4 update, then I may just exchange the phone out.

Anyway here is where I found webOS Doctor 1.3.1

http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/Webos_Doctor_Versions

Be aware that Palm will pester the crap out of you to update, if you don't catch it in time, it will update your phone. I was going to see if 1.3.5.1 would be different now that I dumped all my synergy accounts, FB, LinkedIn, and my Yahoo and additional Google Accounts. Sad I can't use my phone the way it was designed. (MAJOR PALM FAIL) 

Hope the link helps 

[#6]

I used the webOS Doctor but for some reason it gets stuck on the screen where it says to plug in the USB. The "Next" button is disabled. I tried unplugging and replugging the USB, the computer detects the phone but the "Next" button is still disabled.

[#7]

Plug the usb in, and just charge, then restart your phone, and when it restarts, hold the vol up button until you see a USB icon fill the pre's screen.

[#8]

Hello!

Could you guys go into Device Info app, tap on the Preferences button on the top left and select Quick Test, and let it run.  Does the Memory test pass?  Keep us posted. 

[#9]

Memory test runs fine, but...  On mine it came back with a Code 25 error related to the WiFi!  Hmmmm....

In any case, I saw in a different forum (precentral maybe?) that dthurman got over his problems, he thinks, by totally blowing away the profile and restarting...  The theory is that something is corrupt in the profile (or perhaps during the 1.3.5 update) and that: Stopping backup, waiting a bit, blowing away the profile (saying "lost my phone" to the online profile mgt page, waiting until that completes, then doing a full erase of the pre, and starting over is a solution....

So that's what I'm in the middle of trying myself...  From what I can gather from reading every scrap of info I could find with people complaining about the "phone offline" problem, it seems that there isn't going to ever be one fix, but rather this is a symptom of some part of the software tanking repeatedly, and that can be triggered from various different things...  Based on what various people have been able to do to fix themselves (but hasn't worked for others) the solutions can be simple:

* Airplane mode and back

* Network and/or roaming update

* Full shutdown, battery out, restart

More complicated:

* Turn down the email sync/update frequency and/or the amount of email/calendar data being synched

* Remove Exchange EAS

* Don't install Google Calendar

* Don't sync Facebook

* etc...

To very burdonsome:

* Swap to a new phone

* Use WebDoctor to rollback to 1.3.1

* Rollback then upgrade

* Totally blow away profile and start from scratch

I've run through EVERY one of the above including taking phone for service,where they just gave me a new (older actually) phone, EXCEPT rollback.  And rollback isn't a longer term option and the phone will autoupdate again anyway, so...

I'm doing the final brutal get restarted from scratch approach.

Though now that quicktest failed, I wonder if the wifi failure points to something else I need to worry about, or whether it's just a symptom of the other problems of phone radio at least going offline all the time...

I'll post again tomorrow hopefully after waiting for my phone to auto-wipe...  Actually, I'm not sure that there isn't some other magical step to delete the profile, and since the "I lost my phone" hasn't triggered an auto-wipe in the past hour I'm just going to jump to "full erase" from the phone and see where I get from there...

Cheers,

MEM

[#10]

Error code 25 was the wifi not able to get an IP address, dont worry about that one.  I will PM people on this forum posting for instructions to send the log file from their devices to us so we can see whats going on.