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Basic Problems & Solutions

I want to manage my music on my phone through windows media player and would select USB mode Samsung Kies ( i also downloaded the Kies program on my PC) but now all of a sudden i get a flashing initializing... screen alternating with my home screen. my computer recognizes it but doesn't show up anywhere... How do i fix it?
 
Its a longshot but, I've installed and deleted kies on vista 64 and now when I try to reinstall nothing happens when I execute the installer.
 
First of all, wow! Thank you loco leeep. I love the phone, but I have been sooo annoyed that I couldn't change the bottom icons.

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Jofaba, for the question about if you need to install a driver to use the USB, you definitely do not. I just plugged 'er in and mounted the drive. Worked like a charm.

Also, regarding the brightness question:
Under settings -> sound and display -> brightness, there is a box where you can check/uncheck automatic brightness adjustment. One quick disclaimer: even though I have unchecked automatic brightness adjusting, my phones brightness does occasionally changes from what I've set it to. Rather annoying.

Germanguy, this may not be what you are looking for, but if you put an event in the calander you can repeat the event (and the alarm). Also using the clock you can set a daily, weekly, or some combination alarm.

For quick profile changes I just use the samsung widget that comes with the phone (long tap home-> android widgets -> Power control). I love being able to tap that little guy to turn on/off bluetooth/wireless/gps/auto-refresh/toggle brightness. Or alternately, you can pull down the notification bar (long tap on the top of home) to quickly turn the phone on silent/vibration.

kamots, I had the exact same issue. Sometimes things just won't shut down that way. I downloaded the free 'task killer' app. Lot's of people recommended it to me. It works great for me to shuts down things when the built in app manager can't do it.

I'm sorry if these solutions are incredibly obvious and not the answers anyone was looking. I just know I would have loved to have known these things a few days ago (first android phone ~looove it).
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I have a few questions I'm hoping someone can answer ~

Does anyone know how (or if it's even possible) to put the date into the notifications bar?

Is there a way to disable 3g? I've turned off automatic syncing for all my applications, but I still notice that pesky little bugger lighting up like it's downloading things. I set up a fake access point name so it would just try to connect to that one whenever it was sneaking online, but it seems to know what I'm up to. Even when I've selected my fake access point instead of 3G I can still get online.

Has anyone figured out a way to either delete all sim contacts or to modify the displayed contacts when accessed from messaging? Because I've copied my contacts from sim to phone, I now have duplicate copies. I've set up my contact list to only display phone contacts, so the duplicates are hidden there, but if you compose a message and click the contacts option, you still see all copies of contacts.

One issue I keep seeing, and had myself was how to upload contacts to Google. Getting contacts from Google to my phone was easy, but the reverse doesn't seem to be an option. I had to export contacts onto my sd card as a vcf file, transfer the vcf file to my computer, then upload to google. Does anyone know if there is some trick to upload directly?
 
Chromag said:
New to Android but I had my first strange issue tonight. While my phone was on the table tonight I suddenly heard music. I knew I didn't have a music ringtone. Turns out my SiriusXM app turned itself on (yes I rooted it this morning).

When I checked and closed the app suddenly my home screen started rotating and the backlit home button at the bottom was blinking. I brushed a finger over it and it stopped.

Not sure what that was about.
Click to expand...

That is a small isolated flaw with some Captivates, mine was my home button flashing. Return your phone for a new one asap within the 30 day window.

I did so today and my new one has not had this glitch even once.
 
I had the same problem as Jofaba, "PC connection only available in idle screen..." when connecting phone to PC to connect to Samsung Kies and it wouldn't recognize the phone... fixed it by switching from Launcher Pro to TouchWiz (easy to change launchers), reconnected phone to PC, now Kies on my PC recognizes it.

Jofaba said:
Okay so I decided to do a factory reboot because I had changed so many things the phone was starting to sludge along. I started right off with Launcher pro, and when I tried to connect to my laptop via usb I get the following message:

PC connection only available in idle screen. Close running applications

I know this sounds like a stupid question but what does that mean? The only open applications I have right now are widgets and your standard run of the mill programs being accessed by the OS. Is this a launcher pro issue?

I'm trying to see if we can rule out the driver installation for connecting the phone. Sunday I was able to connect without a driver once I understood that you have to mount the drive. But I'm not even being given the option right now.
Click to expand...
 
Problem: I can't seem to find a way to change the notification ringtone for calendar events. Has anyone found a way to do this? It doesn't even use the default notification ringtone for the phone!
 
MassacrMan said:
That is a small isolated flaw with some Captivates, mine was my home button flashing. Return your phone for a new one asap within the 30 day window.

I did so today and my new one has not had this glitch even once.
Click to expand...

I have this problem too. Hopefully Radio Shack won't give me a hard time. Any suggestions on what to tell them, other than my phone has a mind of it's own?
 
snowbarr said:
Is there a way to disable 3g? I've turned off automatic syncing for all my applications, but I still notice that pesky little bugger lighting up like it's downloading things. I set up a fake access point name so it would just try to connect to that one whenever it was sneaking online, but it seems to know what I'm up to. Even when I've selected my fake access point instead of 3G I can still get online.

Has anyone figured out a way to either delete all sim contacts or to modify the displayed contacts when accessed from messaging? Because I've copied my contacts from sim to phone, I now have duplicate copies. I've set up my contact list to only display phone contacts, so the duplicates are hidden there, but if you compose a message and click the contacts option, you still see all copies of contacts.
Click to expand...

To disable 3G you can use APNdroid, but for some reason that requires a reboot on the phone to make the new settings take effect on Captivates. Annoying, but simple. The slightly more involved but still free (requires JuiceDefender) and more convenient method can be found in this thread: http://androidforums.com/samsung-ca...able-disable-3g-your-captivate-one-click.html.

You can choose which contacts sources to display by going to Contacts > Settings > Display and selecting which accounts and / or hardware sources to include.

Germanguy said:
Have a simple question. How do I set repeat reminders for events, e.g., missed calls, calender alerts, MMS etc? Also what is a good program to change profiles? (e.g automatic switching airplane mode, Bluetooth etc.)
Click to expand...

For reminders, I think you might be looking for a signal beyond the initial audio alert? So if you miss the tone when you get an email or a calendar reminder goes off, you don't have to turn your screen on to see the status bar? If so, try noled in the Market. It's free and it turns on a few pixels at the top of your screen to signal you've missed an alert.

For setting up profiles, Tasker is the best thing I've found. You can set up timed profile changes or create your own toggle widgets. Really powerful program, but it takes a while (and a lot of trolling forums and example profiles) to figure out how to get it to do what you want. It's paid, but worth it if you're into custom widget design.
 
tychadwell said:
I'm finding the lag to be pretty extreme so far.

I've spent a few weeks with an HTC EVO and it has run quite fast. I assumed with the same CPU speed this phone would be just as fast, but that's not the case.

running last.fm, for instance, is a chore. 3 seconds to load. 2 seconds to respond to a keypress. It's not like there are that many apps open either; I make sure to advanced task kill apps when I'm testing speed but it still remains slow.

anyone else having lag issues? I'm assuming this is a software issue that hopefully can get fixed.
Click to expand...
I notice them too, but I don't think it's anything more extreme than what I experienced on my Nexus One.

Honestly, Samsung's 2.1 has a good number of issues, but I let them slide because 2.2 is around the corner.

Also, Android apps share resources. This means that when they are task-killed, resources have to be redistributed. This adds extra steps for the system and actually can cause additional battery drain and slowness.
 
Tsquare said:
Ok, here is what is happening:
In my fiances phone, she has me as a contact. My number is put in there as #-###-###-####
When she goes to send me a text message and selects me from the list, it puts my number in as ###-#### (removes the area code) which of course sends back an invalid number.

Now, if she sends it by typing my number (###-###-####) it goes through, but as soon as she leaves the messaging program, I reply, and she tries to reply back to me, it defaults the number back to ###-#### (removing the area code again).

ANYONE???
Click to expand...

me too. still can't fix it. :(
 
theneklawy said:
So that works, but the bigger problem is that I can't seem to link contacts when one of the contacts is off the sim card. Other contacts, such as my gmail contacts, which were automatically synched when I added my gmail account, must be saved to the phone's memory and can't be moved or copied. Also if you create a group, it's automatically saved on the phone's memory as well and can't be done on the sim card. I don't know anything about rooting, but maybe rooting would allow one to move contacts around more freely?

In any case, I think I'm just going to use the SIM card to back up my mobile contacts for the time being.
Click to expand...


You can sinc all of your contacts to the AT&T address book which stores them online in a place that you have for safekeeping and you can access them whenever you want online. Here are the steps for syncing:
click on contacts and when your contact list loads, click on the menu button and a screen will pop up in the bottom of the screen choose the option for more. Then choos settings and when that screen loads click on AT&T Address Book and it will then guide you through the process. I hope this helps.
 
dknight524 said:
I have this problem too. Hopefully Radio Shack won't give me a hard time. Any suggestions on what to tell them, other than my phone has a mind of it's own?
Click to expand...

Tell them the phone is defective, I told the AT&T guy I spoke to that "it makes my phone unusable at times because it exits out of what ever I am doing and back to the home screen" and that was enough for him to do what I wanted and get me a new one.

Honestly I didn't lie, I told the truth.
 
I have an LG Ally and it has messenger which I think is google, came with the phone and is the default txt program. A family member took a pic of his kids and sent it to me in a text to my phone. I can see it and it has options to delete it rotate it and reply. No forward or save option or anything that I can see to send it on or get it off my phone to my PC or any where for that matter.

Any help would be greatly appreciated :confused:
 
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