Help Desire Z boots up twice

[oj88]

Ok, I just noticed this recently. When I reboot the phone (either power off then power on or restart), it goes through the whole boot-up process normally up until it asks for my SIM card PIN. After entering the correct PIN, I can use the phone for only a few seconds before it appears to freeze and reboots a second time. This is consistent.

After the second reboot, everything seems to be working fine. BUT, I don't want that as I know something's wrong. Maybe it's trying to auto-run a problematic app or service.

My phone is all-stock and all apps came from the Market. Although, being a noob and all, I installed a Task Killer earlier but have soon uninstalled it after I discovered that it did more harm than good.

Here's what I've done so far:
1. Backed up my SMS using SMS Backup and Recovery
2. Backed up the SD card's content to my computer (I did NOT re-format it nor did I remove it from the phone)
3. Performed a factory reset

When the dust settled, I was surprised that it froze again while I was in the middle of filling up the initial setup screens, then it rebooted a second time. I also found out that the apps on the SD card were automatically reinstalled (!).

Now, before I do another factory reset (without the SD card this time), is there a way to find out which is the offending app? Is there like a bootup log I can review?

 

[Slug]

Is there like a bootup log I can review?

Yup, but you can't easily see it. However install something like Log Collector or aLogcat from the Market and run it after the reboot; the log can then be reviewed.

aLogcat:

​

Log Collector:

Disclaimer: I've never had a reboot issue (that needed diagnosis) myself so I'm not sure if the log will actually reveal anything useful. It's worth a try though. Good luck!

 

[oj88]

That's swell. Try it out later. Thanks!

 

[oj88]

Ran the logging programs and maybe due to my lack of programming skills, I can't find any key word that would suggest that it requires to reboot or if a program crashed or whatnot.

So, I did what I should've done before I came whining here... remove the SD card and try to boot the phone. It worked! The problem disappeared when I booted up the phone without the SD card and it returned when I inserted it. Getting warmer.

Next step, back up the data on the SD card to my computer and reformat it.

I'll post later what will happen next.

 

[oj88]

Ureka! I found the offending file. Of all things, I never expected it to be an HD video clip of my son (300+MB WMV) I made using Movie Maker. It's stored in the SD card under media\video. Removed it and restored everything else and the phone no longer crashes.

This begs the question, though; how could a harmless video file (which I haven't even started playing) could bring a phone to its knees?

 

[Slug]

how could a harmless video file (which I haven't even started playing) could bring a phone to its knees?

WMV is a supported format, so this sounds like a bug tbh. Is the version of MM you used current? According to what scant info I can find the Z supports .wmv files as defined by WM9.

p.s. Nice troubleshooting!

 

[oj88]

Well, it's like this. A few nights ago, I made two versions of a short video clip in Movie Maker, one is in HD, the other in standard definition, both WMV. I copied both files in media\video as a portable copy. However, when I open up Gallery, it only shows one of the WMV files. So I "guessed" that the phone has issues reading HD videos or maybe it's just too big at 330MB. Nevertheless, I ignored it as nothing serious. I meant to play the HD version on a PC anyway.

It's only later that I noticed the symptoms immediately appear after the "Initializing SD card..." message on the task bar. That lead me to focus on the SD card.