I was curious how long does it take to upgrade to GB?
It's been like almost 20 minutes and stuck at 42%.
I felt something wrong was going to happen.
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Well i waited about an hr and half and it was stuck at 42%. Not sure what could have caused this.
Maybe it was the hardware issue i had been having lately with my phone.
Sometimes hardware breaks, it's true. Maybe that's what's going on with your phone.
You could try the GSM reset again... maybe even do it twice, pulling out the battery and just letting the phone sit for a few minutes inbetween them.
Also try it with and without the SD card inside (a bad SD, card, by the way, can make a phone really nutty).
At this point, you've got little to lose so you can safely experiment a little.
Ultimately, though, to safe yourself a bunch of time and frustration, you probably need to go to an official AT&T wireless support center and have them first make the phone exactly the way it came from the factory. Don't let 'em just do their own GSM reset. Ask them, instead, to plug the phone into one of their machines that forcibly wipes everything clean, and reinitializes everything, and then reinstalls 2.2 Froyo onto the phone, exactly as it came from the factory. Once, when I did it, they actually installed an every-so-slightly older 2.2 Froyo than came on my phone; but the tech insisted that that version was more stable. So these guys really know what they're doing.
Once a clean, good, pristine, AT&T-installed 2.2 Froyo's on the phone, then ask him to test the heck out of it and make sure the hardware's okay.
Then -- this may sound strange -- but then ask him to repeat the process of wiping everying, reinitializing everything, and re-installing a factory-new copy of 2.2 Froyo onto the phone.
While you're there, either talk him into giving you, or buy one if you have to, a new battery. The battery plays a role, believe it or not, in the 2.3 Gingerbread update; if it's squirrely in any way, it can screw-up the update. When you get the phone home, put the new battery in and charge it all the way up, and make sure it's that way when you next try the update.
To learn where is your nearest wireless device support center, go to this web page (click
here) and then scroll down to "Step 3." Don't worry about all the warranty info on the page; just pick your state, download its PDF file, and then open said PDF file, and find the center nearest you. Sadly, some states have only one center, so you may have some driving to do. But it's usually worth it, though, because those guys tend to really know what they're doing.
You might even be able to talk 'em into exchanging the phone for you. I've seen that happen, even with a phone that was way out of warranty, but the customer was an old and long-standing one whose two-year contract was just barely halfway through. So, who knows.
Or, what the heck, maybe it's time to move on to a new phone. Even if your two-year contract isn't over, AT&T will quite often let you sign-up for, in effect, a whole new two year contract, and pick a nice either free, or one-cent, or otherwise super-cheap phone. If you've got the money, you should get a Samsung Note (not necessarily the Note II, though if you want that one, instead, fine; but the regular Note is amazing... huge, better/faster, and so effectively a blurring of the line between a phone and a tablet that you may stop carrying around your tablet (or may not buy one, if you don't already have one). It's a fantastic phone.
Even though our two-year contract still has 8 months left on it, Mary-Anne and I want to move over to the shared data family plan because we can get a net 2GB/month increase over what we have now, but for over $20/month less. While we're at it, I'm thinking very, very seriously of finally pulling the trigger on getting that Note; and giving Mary-Anne the Infuse; and then doing a GSM reset on her Captivate and just putting it in the drawer as a backup phone in case either one of ours craps out. The chances that we'll do that are high, actually. Maybe you should consider something like it.
Or if you don't want the Note, fine... there are others. Click
here. I see that a refurbed Galaxy SIII can be had for only thirty bucks. Never be afraid of the refurbs. They're not merely checked-out by AT&T; they're factory refurbed by Samsung or one of its authorized refurbishers, and, seriously, anything even close to being marginal is replaced, and then everything is thoroughly checked-out. The only thing potentially bad about refurbs is that they've usually got at least a year of usage history on them; and so anything that checked-out during refurb, and so wasn't replace, could finally die just as it would have if the phone had never been refurbed. But, seriously, refurbs, if they're really good deals, like this SIII, are usually a pretty good value; and, in a sense, are far better checked-out and verified than brand new phones. As long as a refurb is
really a refurb, by the factory or one of its authorized centers; and as long as they really did replace things, and not just test, reset, clean-up and rebox, then they're pretty reliable.
There are obviously other phones there...
...including the Note, for $199, on which I've so got my eye.
Start with doing a little experimenting; GSM reset the phone again, and be sure to reboot the Windows machine, too, just before doing the update (and let it fully boot-up... wait 'til the hard drive light settles down). Re-try the update (making sure the battery's fully charged, even though, yes, the phone gets juice from the USB cable). Make sure the USB cable's the one that came with the phone, and that it has no shorts or anything in it.
If it fails again, then repeat it all, but with the SD card out of it. In fact, as long as the SD card's out of it, put said card into the Windows machine and reformat it. Can't hurt.
When you're finally done screwin' around with it (or if you're ready now), find the nearest AT&T support center and go there and do what I earlier herein wrote. Then go home, charge-up the new battery, do your own GSM reset, reboot the Windows machine, connect the phone to it, and try it again.
If that fails, too, then I'm not sure I know what to tell you..
...other than at that point you'd be in the sort of place where I would, were I your official support person, be asking you to box it up and send it to me.
Did you purchase the phone new or used? If used, how did you purchase it... off eBay or something? If so, you know, it could have been dropped in the toilet or something, and be water damaged. If I could look inside it, I could tell you in two seconds. If so, though, that could explain why it's squirrely, and why it might even pass testing at the support center, yet still be squirrely when you got it home. Water damage to integrated circuits can produce all manner of oddities.
It might also have been dropped, and something's shorted inside such that it just happens to test okay at the service center, but gets squirrely elsewhere.
There could be heat issues, too. Sometimes only certain precise conditions of heat, after the phone's been on for a certain amount of time (which maybe couldn't be replicated in the service center) can suddenly make something inside one of the chips or other components, or on one of the tracings or solder joints, open-up a little... become intermittent.
While any of those things, in the hands of someone like me, for example, who's got a whole workshop full of cool tools and test equipment, can find; at some point one has to ask: At what cost? For no more than a new phone costs, you might want to just punt and go get one.
That said, if the service center's close enough to you, it would probably be a trip worth taking. Take the cable with you, too, and have 'em check that out; or buy a brand new one with AT&T labeling (it'll be expensive, but probably worth it).
And don't forget to get a new battery... not an aftermarket one, but, rather, the actual Samsung-brand battery exactly like the one that came with the phone! You wouldn't believe how these advanced batteries, some of which actually have little circuits inside, can goof-up a phone. Truth be told, that could be all that's wrong with it. I'm serious.
Short of sending me the phone or something, I don't know how much more helpful, at this point, I can be. I'm sorry it hasn't worked-out for you. There's obviously something wrong...
...although, having said that, I've seen these things fail, too, because of something wrong on the Windows PC. Maybe a bad USB port; or some USB management software running. Maybe something running downn in the System Tray; or a service that's conflicting with KIES Mini. The list of possibilities on
that score is potentially endless!
Also... oh, yeah... I forgot... this is important: Make sure that no earlier version of KIES Mini -- or, especially, the full version -- is installed on your machine. If more than one KIES Mini is installed, or if an earlier version was on it, but you thought you properly uninstalled it, then use REVO UNINSTALLER's most aggressive mode to bygod get every version, including the most recent one you just tried to use, off that machine. Then reboot. Then reinstall the new KIES Mini. Then reboot. Then do the GSM reset, then try the update.
Whew! I know it's a lot of screwing around, but whoever wrote KIES Mini either at or for Samsung must have been high or somethiing, because that whole family of software products is a freakin' mess.
Anyway... see what part of anything I've just written helps... and let us know.
