• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help DROID Incredible random restart/reboot problem

aair said:
Another here with the random reboot & continuous reboot problem on the HTC Incredible. Purchased mine when they first came out and from day 1 it had the random reboot problem. It would reboot even just sitting on the desk not being used. At first the reboot was every now and then, but eventually got up to having a dozen or more (noticed) each day. Last week it fell into the continuous reboot loop with the only way to stop it was pull the battery. Then sometimes it would recover, but would fall into the reboot loop within an hour. Took phone into the Verizon Store while it was in the loop and they did a factory reset (I already had tried that, but procedures
Click to expand...
 
Hope the new, new phone fixes it for ya.

Mine replacement is the later screen. I don't know if that fixed it, but I've never had an issue with it (knock on wood). And I've been doing more and more strenuous things on it . . .
 
My new (working) phone is hardware rev 0002 (so still AMOLED I believe), it just doesn't have the grid of dots over the surface that my old (rebooting) phone had. Never checked the hardware rev on my old phone so I don't know what it was. Again, not sure if that's actually a factor or not.

Of course my old phone worked perfectly from when I got it in July (ordered from vzw website) until around December, when it would start rebooting periodically after heavy use (but only once, not in a loop), then the GPS started losing satellite signal a few minutes into every trip, then the rebooting loop problem started, couldn't use it above 32
 
I have this problem. It started to happen a lot the past 2 weeks. I previously had a Droid 1 bought in 12/2009. In 7/2010 it started to have a lot of problems (not syncing, reboots), received 2 DOA replacements until I received a working Droid. Worked until 9/2010 when it started to reboot A LOT and randomly.

Received an Incredible 10/2010 after talking to a supervisor at VZW. The incredible worked until a couple of weeks ago..noticed a lot of random restarts and reboot loops. Called up Verizon, sent a replacement phone (#1)..still the same problem. Heck, the rep said the phones were having issues because of my body chemistry! WHAT? Anyway, received the replacement (#1) Incredible..still rebooted after a few hours. I should note reboots are ridiculous..sometimes it will reboot during the reboot... So I thought it was my battery, but I tried it with my friend's DInc battery (he just purchased a brand new Dinc 2 months ago) and still had the same problem. Called them up on Wednesday night and today/Friday received it (#2). Worked for a little bit, but still happened. The battery/back seems to overheat.

I don't know what the deal is. I followed their instructions of removing the SD card and only downloading Google and Verizon apps from the market. But this crap still occurs. Anytime I do something (from not intensive to intensive) it reboots. Setting aside the fact they're demands make owning a smartphone useless -- it's getting beyond frustrating. I can't do much of anything on the phone for fear of it randomly rebooting. Today it rebooted while I was on the phone with a graduate school!

Other notable errors are: Twice when it's returned from a reboot, all my texts and pictures are gone from the phone storage, the home screen is back to the default factory settings.

I called VZW and again aired my grievance. They said all they could do for now is to send a 3rd Dinc replacement. And I believe these are SLCD devices, not AMOLEDs. I am an Android fan, but this is stupid. The Droid 1 had a similar problem and that was stock!

If this next device has ANY problem, what should I do or ask for?
 
Alright, I'm new to this but here is my similar situation but an interesting twist. I have had my original Incredible for a while, but still under factory warranty. 3 weeks ago the phone started to do some weird things, but no reboots. Then it started rebooting when using the internet or something on line. Since the speaker on the outside was shot and still under factory warranty, I took it to the Verizon store by me for a replacement. The staff member ordered one on line and it came in 2 days later. I started the phone with a fully charged battery but it never got past the final screen, just boot and loop, boot and loop, boot and loop. I took it back to the store and showed them. They ordered the 2nd phone. It arrived and it seemed better but as I started to use the phone, once again it boot and looped, only stopped by a battery pull. I even wiped the phone clean, started from scratch and it still did it. I went back to the store and in the store, the manager put me on the phone with tech support. I requested that I speak with a manager of tech support and move the level of the call up a notch to the next level. After a minor amount of arguing, we agreed that she would exchange my replacement with a different manufacturer of the phone with a similar program. It ends up that I am getting a Samsung Galaxy Fascinate which should arrive in 2 days. We agreed that I would reactivate my previous phone, which was a Blackberry Storm (Yes I know, I said the storm, but I never had problems with mine)

HERE IS WHERE THE PROBLEM IS REALLY FRICKEN GOOFY****

My Storm was still operational but was not activated. I followed the instructions from the store to dial *228 but the activation from Incredible to Storm would not be accepted until I enlisted the help of Tech Support. I called the 800 number and he proceeded to "flip the switch". I then dialed *228 to activate the storm.

ALL RIGHT GET READY NOW..........

I truly appreciate everyone's input and it goes without saying (but I am) that
the 2 phones involved are 2 totally and no where near the same operating systems with the only identical part of the phones being the "on" button.

MY BLACKBERRY NOW FRICKEN BOOTS AND LOOPS!!!!!!!!!!!

I had to take the Storm to the Verizon store to get it to stop. The manager attached their computer to reinstall fresh programming to the Storm. After 20 minutes of download, he was able to get the phone to work and make calls.

SUCCESS YOU SAY?........

On the way home which is a 10 min ride to the house, I made 3 calls all perfect. By the time I pulled in the driveway of my house (wait for it.......wait for it......pause for effect......) MY STORM WAS.......BOOT AND LOOPING AND WOULD NOT STOP UNTIL I PULLED THE BATTERY!!!!

Needless to say, I returned to the store with the box of parts. My 2nd replacement Incredible, my Storm, batteries, covers, etc..... I walked up to the manager, let me add with my frustration, couldn't be any nicer, and shoved the entire box
in his hands and told him the Storm is now having the "boot and loop" problem like the incredible. "Here is the box of parts. I will return tomorrow when you are here. You now have all my forms for communication...YOU FIGURE IT OUT!!!" I then turned around with everyone looking, and walked out of the store.

Based on everyone's experience, I would have to believe it is the Incredible or it's software. My experience now throws in an interesting mix. 2 different phones, operating systems and programs. The only constant to this issue, from what I see is, my number activated to a different phone. I am putting out there, which I will find out today when I go back to the store, that the problem is with Verizon and it's signal. It is not weak where I live, work, play, etc. I think something is pushing too much info to the phone on the internet side or it is attempting to download, update something and it gets choked up and says "I quit" and goes to "boot and loop"

I'm sure everyone is really eager to leave comments and I would even post my number to you to call me with you latest fix but.........I DONT HAVE A PHONE!!!
I hope to pick up a phone today that works. Until now, just give me your best guess.

As far as the Samsung Galaxy Fascinate coming in on Tuesday as a "replacement" for the Incredible👍 Rebooting Wonder, I am putting my money on that phone (to boot and loop like all the other tries that Verizon has had)

I WILL KEEP YOU POSTED AFTER TUESDAY!!!
Thanks for any great comments or questions..........bmwgnome
 
Wow that is some ROUGH luck right there. Seems impossible that they'd be related though being android vs blackberry. Fingers crossed for the Samsung! I have no best guess. It all seems totally and radically random.
 
My refurb replacement is on it's way due to this issue. The first Verizon store I went to the manager was an idiot. He played with my phone for 10 minutes and then returned it to me saying "I installed a task killer on your phone, that will fix the issue". When I said that's unacceptable I want a replacement phone he said if HTC deemed it to no be broken when they returned it I would have to pay for my replacement phone. Yea, right that was going to happen. What a fool. I left the store and went to another. At the second store the guy said "OH yea I have seen that issue before, lets order you a replacement." Couldn't be easier with the second place. You really need to find the right person to resolve such issues.

I am a little concerned about the number of posts on this thread about replacements also having the issue. I am wondering what percentage of refurb's are turning up with the issue vs without. I think the problem is folks that get it fixed the first time don't bother to post their success and those with multiple issues come here to complain so it make the issue seem worse than it is. Fingers crossed that my replacement will work correctly. If you had success let us know. I will report back with my results as well.
 
Thanks for the heartfelt feelings of "rough luck". Here's how everything went down: The manager for the store worked on the blackberry at his house that night and was unable to get it to boot and loop. I met him at the store and he told me it looked fine. I was not convinced and started to work with the blackberry at the store. Within 10 min I had it boot and looping. Another associate took over and worked with the phone because I was not leaving with out some form of communication. She tried a new battery and that did the trick. I used the borrowed battery for 3 days until the Samsung Fascinate arrived. My disappointment with the Fascinate was it did not have the programming that the incredible had. Everything else was great and ......It worked. I still was disappointed with the new phone because it was slower and did not have some of the functions that the Incredible had. I had planned to go back to the store on Saturday to complain but the new 2.2 programming for the Samsung came out Friday Night.....SUCCESS!! I now have a phone that works better than the Incredible and has the updated programming.

My conclusion: Blackberry - was a freeeeeaaakky fluke of a snowball's chance in hell...Just a battery. Chalk that up to the guess work of the employee at the store.

Boot and Loop Incredible: with all the phone complaints in this thread and my own experience, it boils down for me to faulty programming. I have all the same programs, and settings on the Fascinate as I did with the Incredible but it became an Incredible Fail. Too bad, I really liked the phone. Knock wood, so far so good! Bmwgnome
 
Hey guys. I reviewed this thread and this is EXACTLY what has been happening to my phone. Random restarts and reboot loops.

I took my phone into the store last weekend and the manager there told me that he has never heard of this problem, and that it probably has to do with an applications that is incompatible with my phone. I personally did a factory reset right before this and had NOTHING on the phone and it was still rebooting, so I know this is crap. He also told me that it could do that i've been keeping it in my pocket and that would degrade the quality of the phone to handle intensive applications.

He refused to replace my phone for me even though I bought it less than a year ago. Does anyone know how to weasel around these weasels and make them replace my defective DInc?
 
ByteCrawler said:
This thread appears to be dead. Has anyone found a solution to this? Some of what I'm experiencing sounds like what everyone else here has seen. But the difference is that my phone only reboots randomly (and often) in only one place - the airport in Calgary. I travel a lot and have never had a problem with reboots. In Calgary, the phone will reboot randomly but on average every 5 minutes or so; more often if I use anything data related. The only way to stop it is to turn off 3G, Wireless, and all location services. Then at least I can make calls. I think 3G might be enough, but I haven't had the time or inclination to sit around the airport and experiment.
Click to expand...

This just happened to me at Calgary... here is my story.

Flew to Calgary via Seattle, when I got to Seattle turned the incredible on and had no issues, turned the phone off when boarding the plane to Calgary.

After landing in Calgary I turned the phone on and it just kept rebooting. I let it go for a while, then pulled the sdcard which seemed to fix it. Once I left the airport and got to the hotel a few miles away I put the sdcard back in and everything is fine with the phone.

So today I had to fly home with the same stop in Seattle. Everything had been working fine with the phone for a few days, I even rebooted this morning to see if I was going to have problem, no issues at all.

Here is where it gets spooky, I had my phone on my lap and as we drove up the ramp to departures the phone just restarted by itself, and kept doing it like it was in a reboot loop. I pulled the battery while I was going through customs. tried starting the phone again while at the gate and still had same problem. Tried it again after boarding and same problem. I decided to leave the sdcard and see what happens in Seattle.

When I landed in Seattle I turned the phone on, starts normally and stays on, receiving emails and making phone calls without a problem. So.... whats the deal with Calgary airport ? Anyone else besides me and ByteCrawler seen this happen ?
 
Leudast said:
Hey guys. I reviewed this thread and this is EXACTLY what has been happening to my phone. Random restarts and reboot loops.

I took my phone into the store last weekend and the manager there told me that he has never heard of this problem, and that it probably has to do with an applications that is incompatible with my phone. I personally did a factory reset right before this and had NOTHING on the phone and it was still rebooting, so I know this is crap. He also told me that it could do that i've been keeping it in my pocket and that would degrade the quality of the phone to handle intensive applications.

He refused to replace my phone for me even though I bought it less than a year ago. Does anyone know how to weasel around these weasels and make them replace my defective DInc?
Click to expand...

Same thing happened to my. My verizon guy spent 20min playing with my phone then handed it back to me saying that he installed a task killer which would fix the problem for me. I told him that was rediculous, task killers are useless on Android for the most part so I insisted he return it anyway. He insisted that if he did and HTC deamed my phone to be in working order I would be charged $500. I knew this was a lie but I told him he was an idiot and I didn't like his attitude and I left the store and visited another store about 1 mile away. There the guy was very nice, said he heard of the problem before and promply ordered a new phone for me. The next day my new phone arrived by fedex and I was up and running again.

Moral of the story, just go back to the store when there is a more intelligent manager working or visit another store. If you have to resort to calling their phone support that could work also. Just try again, eventually you will get someone with a brain that can handle the issue. Even if you order a replacement in the store, they just mail the refurbished model to your home and you return your phone in the box anyway so phone support is just as good as the store if you get someone on the line who can understand your issue.

Why does verizon think we would want to return a working phone to risk getting a broken refurbished model? I have no clue. If they replaced with new models I would understand their resistance but they don't.
 
Ozz666 said:
This just happened to me at Calgary... here is my story.

Flew to Calgary via Seattle, when I got to Seattle turned the incredible on and had no issues, turned the phone off when boarding the plane to Calgary.

After landing in Calgary I turned the phone on and it just kept rebooting. I let it go for a while, then pulled the sdcard which seemed to fix it. Once I left the airport and got to the hotel a few miles away I put the sdcard back in and everything is fine with the phone.

So today I had to fly home with the same stop in Seattle. Everything had been working fine with the phone for a few days, I even rebooted this morning to see if I was going to have problem, no issues at all.

Here is where it gets spooky, I had my phone on my lap and as we drove up the ramp to departures the phone just restarted by itself, and kept doing it like it was in a reboot loop. I pulled the battery while I was going through customs. tried starting the phone again while at the gate and still had same problem. Tried it again after boarding and same problem. I decided to leave the sdcard and see what happens in Seattle.

When I landed in Seattle I turned the phone on, starts normally and stays on, receiving emails and making phone calls without a problem. So.... whats the deal with Calgary airport ? Anyone else besides me and ByteCrawler seen this happen ?
Click to expand...


Same problem here. The only way to stop it from rebooting is to disable data roaming while at the airport. But it is a consistent problem when there.
 
It took me 4 nights of working ALL night (until the sun came up) to research and test and test and I finally found out what's going on -

It is a MAIL issue having to do with Verizon, NOT your hardware. No hard reset or replacement phone will solve this. Verizon MUST solve this.

In the meantime - Go to your mail app (mail or K-9 in my case) and erase the cache. That was ALL it took! Now the phone charges and holds a charge!

The resets were due to a Verizon problem where the phone constantly polls for new mail. That overheats it, causes the battery to drain super fast and not recharge...

Also, and this is something to do every few months no matter what - Recondition your battery! Here are the steps (below) and be certain to follow them exactly. You won't harm anything if you don't but you also won't get the reconditioning you're after. So print these out and check them off as you go if you want to be sure to know which step you are on as it does take time and it is easy to lose track of where you're at in the process if you don't.

1 With phone turned on, charge until the LED light turns green.

2 Unplug your charger from the phone

3 Turn the phone off.

4 Plug it back in, see a red light, leave off, charging, until green 20-30 mins.

5 When its green again - unplug

6 Turn it on

7 Turn it off

8 Plug in again, when it's green again you're good to go.
 
I have read through this thread and didn't see this, but has anyone considered part of the problem could be the shield put over the screen to prevent scratches, etc. ?

I haven't taken mine off yet because I truly need it due to the fact that my phone spends alot of time in my pocket.

If not, then I am headed to verizon for an exchange next week because the rebooting is becoming a big problem for me.
 
It's a scratch-resistant screen, I've never used a protecting film and have never gotten scratches on the screen despite it being in my pocket all the time.

I haven't been in an airport since owning this phone. I also don't use the native Mail app and tried several factory resets on the old phone which wipes the entire cache so I wonder about that theory.

Old phone: Tried everything and got to the point where I was barely using it anymore and couldn't get it to stop rebooting to save my life.

Refurb: I use it all the time, all the same apps I used to use including Google Maps Navigation. No reboots, no battery drains. Current uptime: 1026:37:50. That's almost 43 days.

Just call Verizon or go to a store and get your phone replaced already.
 
FYI, I have never installed a task killer on my new phone, they are unnecessary. There are threads out there that explain why.
 
TGIX said:
It took me 4 nights of working ALL night (until the sun came up) to research and test and test and I finally found out what's going on -

It is a MAIL issue having to do with Verizon, NOT your hardware. No hard reset or replacement phone will solve this. Verizon MUST solve this.

In the meantime - Go to your mail app (mail or K-9 in my case) and erase the cache. That was ALL it took! Now the phone charges and holds a charge!

The resets were due to a Verizon problem where the phone constantly polls for new mail. That overheats it, causes the battery to drain super fast and not recharge...

Also, and this is something to do every few months no matter what - Recondition your battery! Here are the steps (below) and be certain to follow them exactly. You won't harm anything if you don't but you also won't get the reconditioning you're after. So print these out and check them off as you go if you want to be sure to know which step you are on as it does take time and it is easy to lose track of where you're at in the process if you don't.

1 With phone turned on, charge until the LED light turns green.

2 Unplug your charger from the phone

3 Turn the phone off.

4 Plug it back in, see a red light, leave off, charging, until green 20-30 mins.

5 When its green again - unplug

6 Turn it on

7 Turn it off

8 Plug in again, when it's green again you're good to go.
Click to expand...

This doesn't really make any sense to me, why wouldn't a hard reset fix this issue if erasing the cache does. A hard reset sets your phone back to stock with no configuration of email at all and not cache. In addition how do you expect verizon to fix your problem which was due to the cache in K-9 Mail which is a 3rd party app?

Perhaps you had a different issue which was resolved by this clearing your email cache but I can assure you that the random reboot issue is a hardware issue for many people.

I wiped my phone back to out of the box configuration when this started happening and it kept happening. I had a new SD card installed and my phone was completely wiped back to stock by unrooting. The hardware was bad or this would have fixed the issue.

In addition I had a full nandroid backup of the phone that wasn't working and I installed that on my new replacement phone and it works fine. That means I am using the exact state of my failing phone when I had everything installed including my caches and I was using the original SD card with all it's data. Essentially my new phone is a mirror of the old failing phone and it works great now.

If you are having this problem, backup the phone, reset the phone to stock and test. If it's still happening you have bad hardware. If it's not then re-install your apps slowly until you find the offending app. That's my advice to solve this regardless of the cause. Hope it helps folks.
 
GARY24NASCAR said:
Unfortunately, I am another victim of this constant reboot loop. Usually occurs when GPS navigation is on or Pandora app. Sometimes with nothing extra running I'll notice it occurring on it's own.

No task killers. No much for other apps to try and keep processor working less...doesn't matter.

This thread needs to keep open. I will be heading to the Verizon store this week. The features I like about the phone I am afraid to use because of this problem. I usually just yank the battery and, naturally, the cycle stops. All ready tried factory reset with no luck. It does appear that some chip is over used and over heating but just my 2 cents.

Should have gotten the Droid X or Iphone. I don't have time for fighting Verizon or go through 5 phones. Actually, I am out of warranty (bought in July 10 with no extended warranty). I hate when encountering these types of situations where the company (Verizon in this case) refuses to admit a defect or flaw in a product they sell. They should own up to the issue, do a recall, provide comporable replacements...then take their losses to HTC and bill them. Rediculous! Customer service and employee run around of "We don't know of any issues with that type of problem you are describing" is unacceptable.
Click to expand...

I probably would have written this if I'd spotted this thread prior to posting below.

Got my phone in July, 2010. My problems started about six weeks ago while using the GPS. They got progressively worse until I got stuck in the death loop earlier this week. From there, the degradation was quick and painful, and I lost many of my contacts along with a bunch of apps.

I got my refurb in the mail yesterday but having read this thread, I'm not at all confident that it will be any better. I suppose my plan is to use the hell out of it over the next 90 days while the weather is scorching hot.

I've gone from being a die-hard Incredible supporter to thinking it's a piece of junk. Complete equipment fail on this broad a level is absurd, particularly given what we paid for it. My next phone will be an iPhone.

One question for anyone still reading this thread: has anyone managed to negotiate an early upgrade based upon the Incredible's problems? If this one dies, I'm going to tell Verizon I want the iPhone now. I'll gladly re-up my contract for another two years, although I don't necessarily expect Verizon to let me do this.:rolleyes:
 
I live in upstate NY and just got the Droid Incredible 2 yesterday...activated it today and its rebooted on me 5 times already. Always when its just sitting on my desk. Why does this keep happening? I don't have any advanced kill tasker. This is seriously annoying now. I had the Droid Incredible 1 and NEVER had this issue.

should I return it to verizon?
 
mpr126 said:
I live in upstate NY and just got the Droid Incredible 2 yesterday...activated it today and its rebooted on me 5 times already. Always when its just sitting on my desk. Why does this keep happening? I don't have any advanced kill tasker. This is seriously annoying now. I had the Droid Incredible 1 and NEVER had this issue.

should I return it to verizon?
Click to expand...

I'd exchange that sucker in a heartbeat.
 
ok, went to verizon and got them to send me a new phone, got the new phone and activated it. within 10 minutes I was able to reproduce the problem. Called verizon and spoke with two different tech service people. Both claimed no knowledge of reboot problem, screen problem possible being the problem, etc. The wanted me to call from a landline so that they can connect to phone and possibly find the problem. I was in car at time so could not do that, but said I would when I got home.

On way home, passed verizon store and decided to stop in there first. Tech there seems to think that it is a problem with the battery. I told him that this was the original battery as I had to put in my new phone. He is sending me a new battery free of charge that I should get on monday. Will let you know how that works out.
 
mike146 said:
ok, went to verizon and got them to send me a new phone, got the new phone and activated it. within 10 minutes I was able to reproduce the problem. Called verizon and spoke with two different tech service people. Both claimed no knowledge of reboot problem, screen problem possible being the problem, etc. The wanted me to call from a landline so that they can connect to phone and possibly find the problem. I was in car at time so could not do that, but said I would when I got home.

On way home, passed verizon store and decided to stop in there first. Tech there seems to think that it is a problem with the battery. I told him that this was the original battery as I had to put in my new phone. He is sending me a new battery free of charge that I should get on monday. Will let you know how that works out.
Click to expand...

Been there, done that, won't work.

Sorry for my curtness, but from my experience, a new battery didn't help my rebooting problem. What did? Rooting. I'm running the Cyanogen ROM now and so far, so good. I was running the Virtuous ROM for a while, but it was starting to act pretty buggy at the end. I think that was because I was out of space on the system partition though.
 
I was lead here by another user (thanks FishDoctor), and I really wish I came across this earlier. I bought my g/f a DInc on it's release day, and the rest of the story is the same. Was mostly fine for a while, reboot here and there, but no biggie. But it became progressively worse and worse. Now, I experience all the same reboot and boot loop probs you'se have all mentioned, during all the same tasks.

But now, I'm outside the one year warranty. I can make an insurance claim, but it's simply not worth it for me. I have a family plan of 5 lines (two of which are DIncs). I have two upgrades ready to go right now, and a third coming up next month (for my OG Droid). With 4G coming to my area soon and tiered data looming, I have every intention on using all three upgrades before that time comes. It's simply not worth the $99 when I'm going to spend $200 on it's replacement very soon.

But I'm def glad to see that it's a very recognized issue, and that I'm not just incompetent. I always forget about the Support and Troubleshooting subforums, so at least I can say I've learned something today. AF is truly a great site because of great users.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom