My Expletive Deleted Cell Phone Again

[Griffin NoName]

New technology sucks.

My phone failed to give its usual warning the battery was low so I didn't notice and ran down to flat.

Enormous trouble getting it to recharge but eventually many hours later managed it. Nice little green light.

Switch phone on. Gets as far as displaying Sony then Xperia, but gets no further, continues in loop displaying Sony then Xperia for ever until remove battery.

I spent hours on the internet reading forum posts etc about what to do, and it seems only a factory reset will work.

I think losing all settings, alarms, and contacts with phone numbers is ridiculous. I haven't saved them since Nov 2013. I have no idea what numbers I have added since.

I fail to see why factory resets should wipe all this out; they should be stored on the SD card and they should ask if we want them restored. AND there should be recovery options other than a factory reset.

I am completely **********d off with this phone. I never really needed a smart phone.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

If you have an Android phone, the default is to store all your really important stuff on the "cloud" (i.e. google's servers, under your required gmail ID).

That is automatic, unless you searched around and disabled it--possible, but not particularly easy.

Have you tried a "soft reset"?  Easy:  power on the phone-- then, regardless of where it's at in the power-cycle, pull the battery.

Supposedly that does more than a simple power-button push.  I dunno--it's worth a try, right?

Good luck!

[Griffin NoName]

The battery had to be taken out every time I pressed power button as it set off the endlesss loop I described.

Plus I tried stuff like press and hold power button at same time as Volume Up, Volume Down and even all three together - actions which various helpful posters on various forums swore would work. Nada.

Bacckup to Google cloud seems to be default off. I was going to switch it on, but I was poking around Google and it seemed to be saying anything we store with them means they own the copyright.

Sony were helpful and I did the factory reset which they said was the only way. Their support blurb also said don't re-install apps, introduce one at a time to see wich if any cause the fault........... but in fact the apps all re-installed themselves once I logged into Google, very quickly and without asking.

Factory resets are insane if not backing up constantly. I can't remember where I read about the Googlecopywrite - I didn't read it very carefully, which I suppose I should as I probably have got it wrong.

It's all taking for ever. It's two days now in which I have done nothing except fix my phone. Utter B*ll***S

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Hmm... the backups to the cloud were automatic in my Samsung phones.  Perhaps it's a Sony vs Samsung difference?  That seems quite likely.

You can choose which data to backup, I only backup the contact list, and the calendar events.  I find having those available on my desktop as well as my phone, with automagic sync between the two, to be of immense value.  Since everything in there is pretty much public anyhow, I don't care either way about who really owns it.

Good luck again--these things can be very frustrating.

I have also found, that after 2-ish years of constant use, most smart phones begin to degrade in performance.  Something about the way the FLASH memory works-- if you google the tech stuff on this non-volatile memory, it appears to be self-destructive every time you write to it.   This is a well known phenomena.

[Griffin NoName]

Interesting. My phone is about 18 months old. I have been thinking about an upgrade as I am fed up with running out of space every time there are any app updates. I can get a free upgrade on my pay monthly a/c but not necessarily one I like. Need to check it out.

Meanwhile I've managed to re-instate most stuff, excluding any phone numbers added since last Nov. but still have the screens to sort out - I had the app icons arranged and of course now they are not.

[Aggie]

I'm still holding out on getting a phart smone, but as a result of rejecting the more-profitable-to-the-carrier option, I'm stuck with the most gawdawful, surly, intentionally useless piece of flip-phone crap I've ever used. For example, when I'm entering text by T9, it insists that the most likely work for "2 3" is "af", not "be", and requires manual adjustment every time. 

I'm tempted to put my old Motorola flip back in service, if it would work on today's networks, and provided I can find a new battery for it. I'd still rather have a QWERTY slider, but short of ordering one by some dodgy brand online, getting it unlocked, and then trying to hook it up to my network, it's not a option.

[Griffin NoName]

My old flip phone did 3G so I could still be using it. Trouble is how dependent I've become on the functionality of the smart phone. Much of it is a kind of laziness. Like I can just see what the weather's like at a glance without having to get onto the internet on my laptop or waiting for the news program to come on TV.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I know *exactly* what you mean, Griffin.  I so like having *all* my contact list, categorized and grouped, on the desktop computer for easy editing and access-- and then, having any changes automatically go onto my smart phone.

I would never willingly go back to the old, number-by-painful-number data entry my old flip phone required.  In fact?  Back when I did have a flip-- I only had 5 emergency numbers in it-- the rest were on my Palm Pilot (which also used the desktop computer to enter data).

First world problems?  Yep...