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

Latest Android 4.3 firmware releases, fix bugs

It's really grinding my gears this with Samsung. I had an excellent phone with tremendous battery life, such an improvement over my HTC Desire HD.

I wanted to go Samsung, as I was impressed with my fiancees S2 and a few guys on my team have the S3, so when my contract was due for renewal, the S4 was my only choice.

Perfect phone for me when running 4.2, with the Battery Widget Reborn app advising a battery life of around 19/20 hours, and sometimes if I didn't use the phone regularly in the morning (i.e. at the weekend) I would get a 1 day battery life, updated to 4.3 when I heard it was available and since then the battery performance has been really really poor. Averaging now 12-13 hours from the widget. It's not what I expect from a flagship device.

I get to use the phone unplugged from the mains at 07.15 for basic web browsing and texting during the day, maybe 1 gaming session and then expect good use in the evening and it will be dead by 8/9pm.

Previously my phone would be unplugged at the same time and last until 11pm/1am
 
2badmice said:
Been running 4.3 for a fair few weeks now, updated this latest fix last night, after about an hour.

Still having the same battery issues.

EDIT: I have an unbranded S4.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear then... you are in the UK on Vodafone but on a non carrier branded handset. As per #1.2 and #1.3 of the 18 Galaxy S4 models - know yours?, could you give your phone model and stock Samsung firmware details.
 
It's really beginning to grind me even more.

Today my phone was unplugged from the charger @ 07:09, by 16:30 Battery Widget Reborn told me I had 2 hours left, this update has made things worse!!!!

Samsung, you're in risk of losing a very very loyal customer.
 
2badmice said:
It's really beginning to grind me even more.

Today my phone was unplugged from the charger @ 07:09, by 16:30 Battery Widget Reborn told me I had 2 hours left, this update has made things worse!!!!

Samsung, you're in risk of losing a very very loyal customer.
Click to expand...

Well, I can assure you it is not the fault of the MK8 firmware itself as it has been very well received and universally praised on the All Things Root section of the International forum where it is regarded as being very battery friendly. If there is a problem it lies either with the firmware download, the update process or the interaction with the apps as explained in this post, here.

Whilst I am not suggesting a Factory Data Reset in the first instance, you could however, try booting into Recovery Mode by pressing and holding the following buttons... Volume Up +Home (centre hard key) + (lastly) Power. Continue to hold these buttons until your phone boots into the Recovery screen. See video, here, and select, "Wipe cache partition", from the Recovery menu to remove any detritus from your previous firmware, as this may help and does not affect your phone's setup, data or apps and can be carried out safely and quickly on un-rooted phones.
 
I am trying to get the phone into recovery, but every time the message appears in the top left corner and I let go of the buttons, the phone just boots normally, am I letting go of the buttons too soon or not holding them long enough?


I appreciate your time with this
 
2badmice said:
I am trying to get the phone into recovery, but every time the message appears in the top left corner and I let go of the buttons, the phone just boots normally, am I letting go of the buttons too soon or not holding them long enough?
Click to expand...

It is tricky to to boot into Recovery mode sometimes. On a lot of firmwares you can also boot into it by just holding Volume Up + Power until the blue writing appears, top left of the screen. Both methods work on my phone.


2badmice said:
I've opted for a factory reset
Click to expand...

The Full Monty! The key thing is to check that everything is OK with the firmware after a FDR and before any apps are loaded, to rule out a corrupted firmware download. This can happen, particularly with OTA updates.
 
I keep getting "software update interrupted" when I check for updates. Same thing is happening with my sisters S3...

And Kies is saying my firmware isn't supported...my phone has always been completely stock and I purchased it directly from ATT.
 
So it seems the battery issues look better after the FDR however I still get wifi dropouts, however that could me my router, as it's the first superhub from Virgin media
 
2badmice said:
So it seems the battery issues look better after the FDR
Click to expand...

So, you've checked that it is not the firmware itself causing any problems. Give it 3 or 4 days and see how your battery use pans out. You can always install BetterBatteryStats from the Play Store. This is a very useful, professional, tool for tracking down exactly what is using your battery and can pinpoint what is causing drainage and wakelocks. Not for the faint hearted though as it does require careful reading and searching on their forum, here. You can also use...

Settings > More > Battery... for a limited breakdown of usage. Tapping on the grey graph at the top brings up another screen of info; showing Network signal, GPS on, Wi-Fi, Awake, Screen on and Charging.

however I still get wifi dropouts, however that could me my router, as it's the first superhub from Virgin media
Click to expand...

Say no more!!! My cheapo Belkin Wi-Fi router performed better than that. ;)

I find that the majority of time I am within some sort of Wi-Fi range and therefore I set my Wi-Fi on the phone to Always...

Settings > Connections > Wi-Fi > Menu > Advanced > Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep > Always
 
Judging from this morning, although my usage is different it seems to be lasting longer than last week. I'll know more on Monday when I'm back at work. The wifi has just dropped as I started typing this reply. Again as I said earlier I believe this is my router.

Seriously thanks for your help and input in this thread it's been appreciated and hopefully have my phone back to how I wanted it when I bought it.
 
I decided to bite the bullet and update to 4.3 on my i337 yesterday. Yep, an update was available so I plugged it in and left it downloading while I went about my business. (I did take SShots of all my screens just in case I have to FDR).

After a while, I came back and took a look. No messages or any indication that the update completed. Checking my phone, it's still on 4.2.2.

Maybe I dodged a bullet rather than bit one. ;)
 
Just to give credit where credit is due, the AT&T MK2 OTA did resolve the intermittent Bluetooth issues I was having as a result of the first 4.3 update. I noticed something new today though - MK2 killed the Samsung SBrowser. It loads, and everything looks normal, but no page will render
 
Back to that bullet thing.. I got 4.3 tonight. All looks good, camera updated. The only issue is that I cannot find Task Manager.. or I think that's what it's called.

Did MK2 get rid of that or am I just lucky?

Edit: I can find it by doing a long press of the home button and choosing the left soft key. But it used to be an app or widget I could drag to a screen.

Edit 2: after the update, this morning I noticed this... useless... notification. If you're not going to tell me what app is the culprit, then this information is useless to me.

7kSriXe.png
 
speedlever said:
http://i.imgur.com/7kSriXe.png[/IMG]
Click to expand...

I think that may be part of Knox, but just hit the update policy box and you probably won't get the message again.

You're right though that the notice doesn't give you enough information. It sort of reminds me of what my wife tells me when she's having computer problems. :D
 
Right, today's the day of a proper test, let's see how it performs with regular texting and usage whilst I am at work.

At 16:30 I will check what battery remaining time I have and then I can compare. If it's more than 2/4 hours then we're winning.
 
Right, so I've just got home and am left with an hour use. I have played a game twice today on break and text and not even used social media.
 
I've has enough, I think a phone call to Samsung is on the cards. I've gone back two years to how it was on my HTC Desire HD.

One fed up Samsung customer
 
Mr. Lucky;[URL="tel:6297612" said:
6297612[/URL]]Have you had any luck subequent to this post? This was a releatively small download, and shouldn't haven taken anywhere near that amount of time. Maybe you have/had wifi connection issues, or maybe there was network congestion when you last tried?
Click to expand...

No luck. My down load was over 700 MB. I did force the update by checking for updates first, but when the update got interrupted, I had to force the update by change the date on my phone. (I did this like four times). Needless to say, I decided to just wait for the official notification of the update.
 
2badmice said:
I've has enough, I think a phone call to Samsung is on the cards. I've gone back two years to how it was on my HTC Desire HD.

One fed up Samsung customer
Click to expand...

So, you've checked that the firmware is OK after your FDR. That leaves apps and settings. As per post #61, what are the highest battery users after a day at work?

ironass said:
Settings > More > Battery... for a limited breakdown of usage.
Click to expand...
 
Google Play Services @ 35%
Device Idle @ 18%
Screen @ 15%
Android OS @ 10%, however this is usually 39% by the end of the day, that's how it is currently @ 09:00.


I'll post another after 17:00
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom