Help A couple problems I face with the Desire Z

[galapogos]

Here's a list of problems I'm facing with my Desire Z after using it for a few weeks. Does anyone else face similar problems, and if so, any workarounds and fixes?

1. Messaging app hung on me once, and subsequently after a phone restart, all messaging history is gone(happens with Desire too)
2. While typing a text message, screen will randomly scroll up and I'll lose focus of the text box. Thankfully the text is still there in the text box, I just have to scroll back down to it, but still annoying(happens with Desire too).
3. News widget suddenly stopped updating since Dec 6, no matter what I do.
4. Random hangs/notifications of an errant process(usually HTC Sense related).

 

[bigiain]

I havn't seen issues 1,3 and 4, but i have encountered issue 2 quite frequently. Hopefully it will get fixed through a firmware update. For me, its more annoying than a critical issue

 

[Stuntman]

2. While typing a text message, screen will randomly scroll up and I'll lose focus of the text box. Thankfully the text is still there in the text box, I just have to scroll back down to it, but still annoying(happens with Desire too).

This has happened to me. I think that it is possible that I the capacitive screen or capacitive direction pad is picking up some movement. This movement may be due to my holding the phone and touching or almost touching the direction pad while typing. It only happened to me a few times, but not lately. I try to be careful not to touch the direction pad.

The capacitive screen takes up much of the front face of the phone. It is possible that holding the phone close to the edge of the screen may cause the screen to register a touch.

3. News widget suddenly stopped updating since Dec 6, no matter what I do.

This has been reported by others as well. Mine failed late November and it appears that others have it failed at the same time. Check the date of the latest story. I think it is late November. It sounds like it is a problem with the source to me. I stopped using that widget and just use the News and Weather widget/app instead.

I haven't experienced any of the other incidents.

 

[justme8800]

The touch pad isn't capacative, it's actually optical. If a bright light shines at your desire/z, funky things happen. I don't know that any software opdate short of disabling it entirely will fix this, unfortunately. If it happens again, see if you can figure out what it is that's shining at your phone.

As for the news widget thing, I dunno. I assume you've tried hard rebooting the phone?

 

[galapogos]

Apparently #1 is a known bug but HTC has yet to issue a fix. If you haven't come across it yet, I recommend using an SMS backup app. Personally I use SMS Backup+. Even htcsense.com doesn't work because the messages gets wiped out from their cloud too.

#3 is also widely known, and can only be fixed by a hardware reset. Not something I wanna do regularly...so I'll just skip the News I guess. I've hard restarting (not hibernating) and it still doesn't sync. Also tried refreshing within the app, doesn't work either.

Nobody else experiences #4?

 

[GlitchZero]

I havn't seen issues 1,3 and 4, but i have encountered issue 2 quite frequently. Hopefully it will get fixed through a firmware update. For me, its more annoying than a critical issue

Same. My clients and I have seen / reported issue number 2, never seen or heard of the other ones excluding issue 4 from one person. :\

 

[Cautian]

1. and 2. has happen to me

 

[galapogos]

Here's a new one I've encountered twice...thought the first one was a fluke, but just encountered it again a minute ago).

When trying to open gtalk, it briefly opens, then brings me back to the home screen. This happens whether I open gtalk with the app icon, or use the application launcher to launch it as a recent app.

Turning it off using the default hibernation mode, and then back on again, doesn't help, since presumably the system state is retained. Only a fresh restart works.

 

[Cautian]

Gtalk one is the worst, because with out it the market place doesn't work. But I had that problem around when i first got the phone. It doesn't happen any more now.

 

[complex]

HTC Desire Z user in Norway here, and I've had all 4 of those problems. Also in the messaging part I've experienced not only losing focus of the text box by it scrolling to the top of the conversation, I also experience the cursor moving around (like, setting focus to the send button), jumping a few chars back, going up a few lines, and other weird stuff witch is pretty annoying when you type pretty fast wich you do after using it a while.
It seems to be really random, sometimes doesn't happen for days, sometimes happen constantly. I'm guessing it has something to do with the trackpad thing being optical as justme8800 said, but I haven't really had much common factors to verify it.

I had the HTC Desire before the Z, and I didn't encounter that problem on it more than once or twice in all the time I had it, but on the Z it's almost each day. It's annoying.

I also have a problem with local letters like

 

[galapogos]

Another problem I've recently encountered:

When attempting to input Chinese characters using Google IME in the default Messaging app(SMS), sometimes I'm unable to do so for certain messages, e.g. I'm replying to contact A and Chinese input is enabled. I start to enter pinyin, and the characters flash for a split second at the bottom of the screen as I type, but never long enough for me to select the characters. However, I exit and try replying to contact B, and it works. Go back to contact A, and it doesn't work. Contact A's most recent message is in Chinese, but I don't know if that matters.

 

[ElectroManiac]

HTC Desire Z user in Norway here, and I've had all 4 of those problems. Also in the messaging part I've experienced not only losing focus of the text box by it scrolling to the top of the conversation, I also experience the cursor moving around (like, setting focus to the send button), jumping a few chars back, going up a few lines, and other weird stuff witch is pretty annoying when you type pretty fast wich you do after using it a while.
It seems to be really random, sometimes doesn't happen for days, sometimes happen constantly. I'm guessing it has something to do with the trackpad thing being optical as justme8800 said, but I haven't really had much common factors to verify it.

I had the HTC Desire before the Z, and I didn't encounter that problem on it more than once or twice in all the time I had it, but on the Z it's almost each day. It's annoying.

I'm having this problem too, and I'm sure is the trackpad that is making the problem. For me, no only happens when I'm texting, it also happens on the homescreen when sudenly it start moving sideways to the other screens. It is weird and it make me scared a litle.

Is there a way to turn off the trackpad? I really don't use it at all, and if turning it off solve this issue, I will like to do it.

This is my first android phone, and I find it amazing, but this little issues shouldn't happen on a quality phone like this.

 

[terencela]

Just had all of my texts erased too. Not checked htcsense.com yet (which doesn't load up in my phone browser for some reason). The annoying scroll issue happens all the time as well, only in the text messaging screen.

Anyone's spacebar acting up? I sometimes get a double space or no space at all.

 

[nonotz]

Just had all of my texts erased too. Not checked htcsense.com yet (which doesn't load up in my phone browser for some reason). The annoying scroll issue happens all the time as well, only in the text messaging screen.

Anyone's spacebar acting up? I sometimes get a double space or no space at all.

i got none ...
atleast maybe not yet

 

[Dipset]

First one happened to me today, randomly went into my inbox and all my messages had gone. Since the 2.2.1 update had a problem with the notification when it comes to text messaging. wont always get a message sound for it, or know i got a text until i go directly in my messages. and then the msg notification sign will stay on the screen even if ive read the message. hope they fix the update bug asap

 

[terencela]

They're gone from htcsense.com as well.

I use my phone a lot, especially the hard keyboard. I've noticed that the bottom row of keys on my keyboard seem to be less functional than the others (eg I can hit the comma button numerous times before a comma is displayed or the spacebar makes either no spaces or two. I had similar issues with my G1.

 

[noc]

I do not own a desire z, but plan on owning one soon. I currently use a captivate, and I have experienced #1 so I can't imagine it being specific to your phone. It happened once over the course of 4 months of use, but even once can be too many...

 

[ChrisBirkett]

I realise this is an old thread, but I'd like to be added to the list of users experiencing this issue. I feel almost as strongly as bigiain - I got the Desire Z with its hardware keyboard because I send a lot of messages, by anyone's standards. Thankfully it doesn't affect emails (since there is no conversation displayed above) which is what most of my messages are, but this answers those who have suggested it is us brushing the optical trackpad - I'm fairly sure that it isn't.

Does anyone know if HTC are aware of this issue? Has anyone reported it using the HTC support ticketing system? It's a bit of a pain, but if nobody else here has, I will.

A smaller issue I've found is writing a comma followed by a space, both in messages and emails - they end up the wrong way round in the message. I've yet to work out if this is me typing too fast and getting it wrong (I can't reproduce it if I slow down, UNLESS I haven't let go of comma by the time I hit space... I may well be doing this when typing normally, I suppose) but it does seem to be happening consistently (so could be a bug) and I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed it.

 

[Stuntman]

A smaller issue I've found is writing a comma followed by a space, both in messages and emails - they end up the wrong way round in the message. I've yet to work out if this is me typing too fast and getting it wrong (I can't reproduce it if I slow down, UNLESS I haven't let go of comma by the time I hit space... I may well be doing this when typing normally, I suppose) but it does seem to be happening consistently (so could be a bug) and I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed it.

I have never ran into this problem where the comma and space are swapped. It is possible you are typing too quickly and are making errors. You can use different thumbs to press each of these keys and perhaps press or release the space bar a split second before the comma.

 

[ddtftw]

Had messages hang yesterday and then every SMS was deleted.
None were backed up via HTC sense because I turned that off ages ago, because it just seemed to constantly sync all day, draining my battery even if sync settings were set to "once a day"

This is the nail in the coffin thats sending me back to BlackBerry or iPhone, unless anyone has any suggestions for SMS Back up tools?

 

[ChrisBirkett]

Had messages hang yesterday and then every SMS was deleted.
None were backed up via HTC sense because I turned that off ages ago, because it just seemed to constantly sync all day, draining my battery even if sync settings were set to "once a day"

This is the nail in the coffin thats sending me back to BlackBerry or iPhone, unless anyone has any suggestions for SMS Back up tools?

By all accounts HTC Sense backup wouldn't have helped you anyway, I'm afraid - lots of people claim their messages are wiped from the cloud too when this happens.

I use "Backup to Gmail" - think I paid about

 

[ddtftw]

ah ok. I figured that because sense backed up a load of texts when I had to do a factory reset in the past that they would be saved in this instance too.
As its been so buggy I havent had sense turned on for months, just tried it again since yesterday and still worthless.

I'll check out the app, thanks.

 

[terencela]

I experience the comma and spacebar issue too. It's like when you hit comma then space, the comma jumps one space forward. I type fast but I don't think this has anything to. DO with it.

"to. DO with it." - a prime example of my keyboard defect.

 

[Slug]

It's like when you hit comma then space, the comma jumps one space forward.

Yup, confirmed here too. I have to be very quick on the keys to replicate the problem though, hence I never notice it.

"to. DO with it." - a prime example of my keyboard defect.

Neg, that's a double-tap on the SPACE giving the ". " end-of-sentence combo. That's by design and is also a feature on HTC software keyboards.

 

[galapogos]

I use SMS Backup+ which is free.

Another issue - it seems that HTC Stocks is using a lot of my data bandwidth, as evidenced from data presented in the PhoneUsage app. The largest chunk of my data is by "Stocks", followed by FriendStream and Plurk. I don't mind Friendstream since I use it, but I never ever use Stocks...how can I disable this?

Can anyone confirm this?