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Help Keeps dropping data?

S

starfox221

Newbie
Hi, I just got the thunderbolt a couple of days ago, and I've noticed that at my home, every one and awhile, it will completely drop 3G (and data all together). Let me repeat that--I am getting NO data at all when the signal drops, not even 1X. It will eventually pick the data back up and then drop it periodically, every ten minutes or so.

Obviously the area I live in does not have 4G LTE, as I live in a rural area. If I go into town, I have 4G and it works just fine.

Before you say it's just the area I live in, I had a Droid Eris prior to this with no signal issues at all, inside the home or not, and almost always had 3G service with it. Now, the signal is very intermittent, and I very rarely have any coverage at all.

Some of the things I've tried:

1) The ##778# method. This improved things for about five minutes before I lost signal strength again.

2) Taking the Sim Card out and replacing the battery, to get a "cell tower" refresh. *228 as you're all well aware does not work on the TB.

3) Making sure that the battery cover is completely flush. The battery cover IS the antenna, so if it's not completely joined obviously this can cause some issues.

I have not tried a factory reset; I seriously doubt that's it's necessary considering I just literally bought the phone.

Now, I have decent signal strength--about 2-3 bars. It's just for some reason the data will not connect properly.

I am hoping that the radio band update that was allegedly pushed out yesterday (and is now delayed from what I hear) fixes this, but is there anyway to grab a manual update without rooting? I like the software as it is right now, and I'd hate to brick a brand new phone in case something goes wrong.

Also, is anyone aware that if I shut off the 3G signal, and switch to Wifi only--will I be able to receive phone calls and texts? I am only doing this as a temporary fix.

EDIT: Well I tried wifi only. That didn't go so well. So to be clear--.....wifi only will not fix this problem if others have it.

Thoughts?
 
So yours completely drops data too? Because right now as I type I just have a signal strength indicator on mine. And it just picked up 3G. Keeps dropping and picking up, lol, very frustrating.
 
I am having the exact same problem since about 5 days ago. I am in NYC, and had excellent 4G/3G coverage for a over a month, but starting this week, 95% of the time I do NOT get any data connection, just voice. I will occasionally connect to 1X or 3G for a few minutes, but will soon disconnect and go back to voice signal only. I thought it might have had to do wiht Juice Defender i had recently installed, but even after uninstalling this, I still have the problem. Even if i boot the phone in Safe Mode. I currently have an on-going case with Verizon's tech support team. I will keep you updated once I find out more.
 
Awesome. So you're getting voice? That means you can make and receive phone calls, and get texts?

Whenever my 3G indicator drops off the map, and it's just the signal strength indicator, I've tried calling the phone, and it's not receiving anything at all. I always thought that if you have no data connection at all, you can't receive calls, either.
 
Yes, even though I don't get any data connection, I can still receive phone calls as well as texts. Data and voice are separate.
 
i think there is a good majority of us that have this problem. drives me up a wall. they really need to fix these issues to say they have the largest fastest network.
 
Having similar problems here too, except when I loose 3g it doesn't come back unless I remove the sim card, and I had to remove it 3 times today:mad: I called verizion twice and got two different stories as of why 3g keeps going down. Reason 1. was network problems, and reason 2. was bad sim cards. And tech support was suppose to call me back at 6:00pm central time and go through all my phones settings, but he's already an hour and a half late. But I did manage to get a $29.95 credit this morning after raising hell about having to pay for a data package that was very unreliable. And I tried to get them to send me a new battery cover because I was afraid mine would wear out if I kept having to remove it every time I lost 3g:D
 
Mine did that until i installed the leaked radio, the wifes phone bought the same day has no issues at all. After the leak I have a random reboot but few and far between so it was a good trade off.
 
this is beginning to drive me nuts, I received a 15$ credit for my Data plan so I advise you guys to do the same. I'm waiting for the update to see if it corrects the issue but this HAS to be related to the outage, something happened because I had no issues with the phone prior to
 
yep, same here. usually a reboot fixes it for me. but it happens more often than it should...like every other day
 
Saw this on another thread. I was going through the entire week without any data connection for 99% of the time. I tried the steps below and it's working now. No 4G for now, but still better than no connection at all.

http://androidforums.com/htc-thunderbolt/330935-temporary-fix-dropping-data-issue.html

"He said the issues resulting from the outage have not been completely fixed, so we have to turn off the 4g on the phone.

The phone is constantly looking for 4g signals (Roughly every 30 minutes) which can result in the loss of data we have been experiencing, heres what I did:

- On the dialer, press *#*#4636#*#*
- This should bring up a menu
- Click phone information
- Scroll down to "SET PREFERRED NETWORK TYPE"
- Click the drop down
- Set the phone to CDMA auto (PRL)
- Exit out and your problem should be solved

"
 
griller said:
Saw this on another thread. I was going through the entire week without any data connection for 99% of the time. I tried the steps below and it's working now. No 4G for now, but still better than no connection at all.

http://androidforums.com/htc-thunderbolt/330935-temporary-fix-dropping-data-issue.html

"He said the issues resulting from the outage have not been completely fixed, so we have to turn off the 4g on the phone.

The phone is constantly looking for 4g signals (Roughly every 30 minutes) which can result in the loss of data we have been experiencing, heres what I did:

- On the dialer, press *#*#4636#*#*
- This should bring up a menu
- Click phone information
- Scroll down to "SET PREFERRED NETWORK TYPE"
- Click the drop down
- Set the phone to CDMA auto (PRL)
- Exit out and your problem should be solved

"
Click to expand...

Pretty sad that this is the only "fix". I got this phone on the Tuesday before the LTE outage then all the 3G connection issues are killing me.
Verizon delayed the update that is supposed to fix this and I wonder when that will be.
 
This should help for now, this was not happening before so until the issues are completely resolved this is the best thing we can do. It sucks because you pay 250-300 for a phone and it should work the way you paid for it to work, but I am still happy with the phone and I love it.
 
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