Help Questions About System Updates

[PhonerSapien]

In the About Phone section of Settings there is a System Updates menu, in which there are 4 functions: Update Firmware, Update Profile, Update PRL, and Update Android. It's not clear to me what each of these specifically do, and whether (or when) I should run them. Also, it's not clear what relationship these updates have to the ones I hear mentioned that are "pushed" to the phone automatically. So, what do these updates do? When should they be run? What are the specific benefits of running them? What are the potential detriments/problems of running them?

 

[Stoney62]

In the About Phone section of Settings there is a System Updates menu, in which there are 4 functions: Update Firmware, Update Profile, Update PRL, and Update Android. It's not clear to me what each of these specifically do, and whether (or when) I should run them. Also, it's not clear what relationship these updates have to the ones I hear mentioned that are "pushed" to the phone automatically. So, what do these updates do? When should they be run? What are the specific benefits of running them? What are the potential detriments/problems of running them?

Update Profile resets your data account. Update PRL updates your roaming priority list and resets the radio (so does toggling Airplane Mode). Update firmware is if there was a OTA sent that didn't get to your phone or you inadvertently canceled it before it had a chance to run completely (This happened on my Moment once). Update Android has never done anything for me.

 

[PhonerSapien]

Update Profile resets your data account. Update PRL updates your roaming priority list and resets the radio (so does toggling Airplane Mode). Update firmware is if there was a OTA sent that didn't get to your phone or you inadvertently canceled it before it had a chance to run completely (This happened on my Moment once). Update Android has never done anything for me.

I don't know what my "data account" is and what it means to "reset" it. I assume that updating my "roaming priority list" has no effect unless I'm in an area where there is no Sprint signal, but I'm just guessing at that. I take it from your response that, under normal circumstances, there is no advantage to running any of these - unlike, say, Windows updates when you get a new PC.