My brother and I both got S4s almost 2 weeks ago. He upgraded from an S3. Me from a Rezound. He also has a work phone that is a Verizon Note 2.
We were out at our parents' house over the weekend. Our dad has a RAZR Maxx and a 4G Verizon MiFi for his house. All 5 of these phones/devices are on Verizon.
Both of Dad's devices and my brother's Note 2 were maintaining a steady 4G LTE connection. The Note 2 only showed about 2 bars, but it held it steady and never dropped back to 3G at any time while we were there.
But, both my and my brother's S4s would not hold 4G. We played around with network settings. Changed them from CDMA/LTE to Global, and then back. They would both occasionally switch to 4G for a minute or so, then always switch back to 3G.
I called Verizon tech support and they walked us through things including turning off the phones, pulling the SIMs and letting him push a new PRL to us. Nothing helped, so he told us to go get new SIMs. I did that yesterday and went back out to my dad's and it's still the same. My dad's phone and his MiFi maintain a steady 4G LTE signal and my S4 mostly just stays on 3G.
I also noticed that I went to the movies yesterday and when I was in the theater lobby, which is right in the middle of town, where there is strong 4G signal, my phone had dropped back to 3G there, too.
I'm still within my 14 day return period and I am seriously thinking of returning the S4 and getting a Note 2.
Does anybody have any better suggestions?
I found a thread on the AC forums where a guy reported the same issue I'm having. He took the SIM out of his Rezound, cut it down, plugged it in, and he said that fixed his 4G reception problem.
I'm going to VZW after work and trying a 3rd SIM. This time, one of the old style, that doesn't support NFC.
I went to Verizon after work yesterday and got a new non-NFC SIM. Then went back to my dad's house. The SIM does not appear to make any difference. My phone still wanted to switch to 3G and stay there.
But, I did figure out one encouraging thing. I used Battery Monitor Widget to get into the Testing screen. There, I was able to change the phone from "CDMA/LTE (Auto PRL)" to "LTE Only".
After doing that, the phone went into 4G mode and stayed there, and actually worked fine. I turned on my hotspot and connected to it with my tablet and surfed for a while, with no issues.
This tells me that the phone's LTE reception is pretty much just as good as the Note 2 and other devices I mentioned before. It's just a software issue that is switching it to 3G mode when it doesn't need to.
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I am having a reception issue. My Motorola Atrix shows 3 or 4 bars and suddenly drops to 1 or no service for a second and goes back up to 3 or 4 bars.
I live in NYC and never had this problem when I had my Samsung Captivate. Most of the time the phone does not even show the full bars, mostly 3 or 4 and occasionally 5. I have replaced the sim card and still having the same problem. Do you think it has anything to do with the phone being 4g and ATT not having the 4G turned on yet? Is it constantly searching for a service. I really dont think it is the phone because I have heard of people exchanging the phone and still have the same problem. Any ideas
jchamp922 said:
I am having a reception issue. My Motorola Atrix shows 3 or 4 bars and suddenly drops to 1 or no service for a second and goes back up to 3 or 4 bars.
I live in NYC and never had this problem when I had my Samsung Captivate. Most of the time the phone does not even show the full bars, mostly 3 or 4 and occasionally 5. I have replaced the sim card and still having the same problem. Do you think it has anything to do with the phone being 4g and ATT not having the 4G turned on yet? Is it constantly searching for a service. I really dont think it is the phone because I have heard of people exchanging the phone and still have the same problem. Any ideas
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Please do not post redundant questions all over the forum. When someone can answer your original post then they will.
Yes I am having the identical issue. I've got an AT&T Atrix unlocked and on Fido in Canada
Hello everyone.
I just got my phone back from Samsung after it wouldn't power on, then had trouble getting it to stay connected long enough to activate. So, I brought it in to town, hooked in to wifi, and had no issues. Got the phone activated, waited for a while, updated the PRL and Profile, and waited around to see if it would start working for me. Unfortunately, it was still not working very well. Put on the 1x/3g mod to see if it was actually getting 3g. Found that it was not... Finally, I contacted sprint to see if they could help on tech support. He said he would contact the network people...
I was like, hmm... at different location now, checked at the sprint store, updated one of their phones PRLs, and it seemed to start running slowly too... so I downgraded my PRL to see if that would help, it did not. Finally, I put on the 00001 PRL really quickly to see if I could get 3g... seems it didn't leave sprint or the 1x.
So, put it back to the original... was wondering if anyone has some advice?
Thanks much.
UPDATE: So, the radio has been flickering on and off for data reception, went up to Green Bay today and it went into 4g, then 3g, then nothing for a while, then back again...
Right now it is on 4g again.
Is there any way to check if the radios may have something not working? I would say maybe it is just network upgrades, (really, really hoping this is the case), but then I would think that Sprint would have said something when I contacted them about there being upgrades....
Thanks.
Take it to a store and ask them to test the radios. They could be faulty.
Mines been acting the exact same way...altho mine has not had problems before needing to be sent to Samsung.
2 weeks ago it just started not going into 4g as much as it used to...and RANDOMLY totally dropping any data connection 10x a day. Literally no 3g/4g for 2+ minutes at a time..no amount of airplaine mode/restarts fixes it......its like im back to the SgS2 days.. ****im sick of Sprint/samsung
Snazarian said:
Mines been acting the exact same way...altho mine has not had problems before needing to be sent to Samsung.
2 weeks ago it just started not going into 4g as much as it used to...and RANDOMLY totally dropping any data connection 10x a day. Literally no 3g/4g for 2+ minutes at a time..no amount of airplaine mode/restarts fixes it......its like im back to the SgS2 days.. ****im sick of Sprint/samsung
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It's sprints fault, not samsung. I have the same data drop problems, especially around NYC/NJ. I've had the same issue on my previous S3. My GF has no such issues on her S4 or her previous S3, but she has AT&T. Chances are Sprint is doing something with the network in your area currently.
Try this
1 - update profile
2 - update prl
3 - open the dialer and enter ##72786#
Your phone will reboot and go thru the activation process
If that does not help, call sprint and find out if there are any network vision enhancements in progress for your area. Unfortunately when Sprint does their updates it gets REALLY BAD until they are done
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda app-developers app
I am desperately in need for some help with my phone.
The issue i have been having is bad cell reception. I used to have reception nearly everywhere and now, not so much. I know there is a problem because i used to have no bars to maybe max of 2 bars in church. And yes its not much, but at least it was something. A few months ago, idk what happened, but i noticed that i had no bars at all. And then a few other places where i go on regular basis started to show no signal at all.
My phone was rooted for a long time prior to that and i cant think of anything that i could have done to create this problem. So since i noticed it, i have tried numerous things to fix it. I have done full reset of my phone, i did activation reset. Tried different roms, updated URL, profile a few times. Nothing helped. Then i have decided to take it back to Sprint store thinking maybe they can help, but i would have to return it back to stock rom, so i did that, still didn't work. Same crappy cell reception, even tmobile on SGS4 works better side by side.
I even tried fully updating my phone since its what sprint representative will do anyways in their attempt to fix the problem and still no effect.
I am going to take this phone to sprint store in a few days, but i was really hoping someone here could help me out.
Its probably sprint "upgrading" the towers in your area. Especially since you said it began a few months back. Trust me it sucks for a few months but it will get better. You have to ride it out. And T-Mobile runs on a different network GSM so its not a good comparison.
What you could do and get another sprint phone and go to the same places and compare signal strength.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk
I don't think so. My dad has lg optimus g from sprint and when icompare them side but side like right now he has 5 to full 6 bars while i got zero.
The downs can't be that big even though he has different phone.
I too have the same problem. My daughter has a S3 with full bars and 4G. I have no bars and 3G. What gives.
So after waiting in the sprint store for two hours the tech guy told me that he does not have equipment to check if its my phone's fault, but when he looked up data usage of my phone at some specific towers near by, he did see that my phone had more drops then the marketed value. Which means that my phone has a on average worse cell reception then it should. But then again, he can not confirm it for sure because they dont have the appropriate equipment. Which is retarded, i went to a corporate store.
The best option he could do is replace the phone for 75$ (since i dont have sprint warranty). So now i am thinking about calling samsung to see if they will replace it fr free. The only downside of that is that i wont have a phone for a week or even more.
So I checked the PRL file on my daughters phone and installed in the same PRL file on my phone. No changes. I grabbed my son's S4 and he too has a crappy signal level. It must be the hardware.
:crying:
Yea this sucks. My friend has S3 t-mobile (i believe), and in his basement he gets 3 bars 4G while i got no service.
My Verizon Note 3 is suffering from roaming in areas that it should have a solid 4G connection.
I live and work in the city of Port Huron Michigan 48060 and when I'm at home I get a strong consistent 4G signal but when I'm at work I'm stuck roaming about 90% of the day.
I've had the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Note 2 as well in these locations and never had this issue. I'm assuming this has to be some kind of hardware issue but I'm not sure.
When I called Verizon Customer Service they tried to tell me it was because I'm so close to Canada and offered to disable roaming on my account. This didn't work at all.
When I do pick up a Canadian tower I get at least 3 text messages warning me about international charges. This daily roaming issue I'm having does not appear to be connecting to Canadian towers though because I'm not getting that warning message. It just simply has the roaming icon on the task bar and won't connect to any data services (I have data roaming disabled)
I called Verizon again and again and finally they sent me a replacement device and it worked flawlessly for one week then it started roaming in the exact same way as the first phone....
I'm kind of at my wits end with this phone. I love everything about it until I get to my workplace and have to deal with this roaming all day long.
Anybody else having these issues or know a fix? Should I just keep calling back and getting replacement devices until one works right?
My phone's manufacturing date is 10-14-2013.
scodoublet said:
My Verizon Note 3 is suffering from roaming in areas that it should have a solid 4G connection.
I live and work in the city of Port Huron Michigan 48060 and when I'm at home I get a strong consistent 4G signal but when I'm at work I'm stuck roaming about 90% of the day.
I've had the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Note 2 as well in these locations and never had this issue. I'm assuming this has to be some kind of hardware issue but I'm not sure.
When I called Verizon Customer Service they tried to tell me it was because I'm so close to Canada and offered to disable roaming on my account. This didn't work at all.
When I do pick up a Canadian tower I get at least 3 text messages warning me about international charges. This daily roaming issue I'm having does not appear to be connecting to Canadian towers though because I'm not getting that warning message. It just simply has the roaming icon on the task bar and won't connect to any data services (I have data roaming disabled)
I called Verizon again and again and finally they sent me a replacement device and it worked flawlessly for one week then it started roaming in the exact same way as the first phone....
I'm kind of at my wits end with this phone. I love everything about it until I get to my workplace and have to deal with this roaming all day long.
Anybody else having these issues or know a fix? Should I just keep calling back and getting replacement devices until one works right?
My phone's manufacturing date is 10-14-2013.
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Same with my note 3. The antennas are horrible in my experience
Sent from my SM-P600 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
The antennas are disappointing in this device but the fact that even the nexus worked tells me it has something to do with the Note 3 and towers in that area. I had a similar problem on the Nexus where it would only not pick up 4G at home, where the tower is almost in my backyard and every other device like the Thunderbolt, RAZR, etc. worked fine. They finally checked it out and said it was a tower configuration issue.
Keep going for replacements. Why? This is the only way they will take notice and eventually when the S5 comes out, you can get one of those as a warranty replacement if you have replaced over like 5 Note 3s. That's how I got my Note 2 anyway. It was a pain but in the end worth it.
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk
Hi all, I am having a heck of a problem with my S5. When I first got my S5, it worked great, and sometime around September, my phone got an update, and since than, my phone is not working on 4G. I have went through all the steps of factory resets, full data resets, checked CDMA/LTE settings, new SIM cards, etc. Everything I can think of, even contacting Verizon. No matter where I am, even in the middle of town next to a tower, the phone will not go to 4G. Just sticks on 3G. Even after airplane mode, still no go. I can have full signal, and the phone will drop the 3G like it is trying to hand off to 4G, but something in the phone won't allow it to cross over to 4G. Verizon and Samsung claim this is not a common issue, but if you Google it, you will find otherwise. I hate to get a new phone because this phone was brand new, out of the box, and not even 6 months old. If anyone has any ideas, PLEASE HELP ME GET MY PHONE BACK!
Also, battery life is horrible as well.
jdailey1981 said:
Hi all, I am having a heck of a problem with my S5. When I first got my S5, it worked great, and sometime around September, my phone got an update, and since than, my phone is not working on 4G. I have went through all the steps of factory resets, full data resets, checked CDMA/LTE settings, new SIM cards, etc. Everything I can think of, even contacting Verizon. No matter where I am, even in the middle of town next to a tower, the phone will not go to 4G. Just sticks on 3G. Even after airplane mode, still no go. I can have full signal, and the phone will drop the 3G like it is trying to hand off to 4G, but something in the phone won't allow it to cross over to 4G. Verizon and Samsung claim this is not a common issue, but if you Google it, you will find otherwise. I hate to get a new phone because this phone was brand new, out of the box, and not even 6 months old. If anyone has any ideas, PLEASE HELP ME GET MY PHONE BACK!
Also, battery life is horrible as well.
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Take it back!
Yep. If a new SIM card didn't resolve the issue, it's a defective unit.