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Help Need lots of help with 4.4.2

S

Smokescreen17

Newbie
Hi all:

First of all, does Google do any market research or beta testing before releasing stuff? Here are just 3 of many problems introduced by 4.4.2, and clearly the bugs and problems with it are very widespread. Just googling any of these will get you endless hits. Here are my top 3 bothering me currently, and I was wondering if anyone has any insight as to what I can do.

1) Full screen album art on lock screen when music is playing.
There isn't much to say about this - there are a lot of people praising this on tech sites, but that is a real head-scratcher. The art isn't formatted to fit the screen, and the album art typically isn't high-res, so it looks like trash. Furthermore, I like my custom lockscreen I made, as well as the old widget which had more functionality. I saw a suggestion to use the home button after starting it and then turning off the screen, but it didn't work. This literally took any sane individual less than 30 seconds of testing to see that this was a bad idea to force this and not make it a choice. Anyone know what can be done?

2) S Voice is a mess now. First, it no longer recognizes the saved locations like "work" or "home" that I set up in both Google Now and the location services settings for Android. If you ask it to navigate to work, I get utterly random locations.

3) S Voice now has a robotic voice, and refuses to use the Google TTS settings I specified in the Android TTS settings. It used to until 4.4.2. I love the Google American English female voice, and Google Now, Google Maps, Google Navigation, etc. ALL use and and work perfectly. It is just S Voice. There is no way to force it to use the proper TTS that I can see. Even if you temporarily change the TTS to Samsung for testing, the "female american english" voice is just the robotic voice again, so even the Samsung TTS isn't functioning properly. The only reason I haven't just dumped S Voice like an empty soda can is I actually use driving mode. Can I use Google Now with driving mode? Or does anyone know how to fix S Voice?

Thanks!
 
Thank you for your post Smokescreen17.

There are currently 28 different models of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and over 1,000 different stock Samsung firmware versions, worldwide, covering 3 different Android platforms. Not all issues will affect all models or firmware releases and your answers to the following questions will help in the forum's answers to your specific query.

#1 Could you post your Model number and Android version...

To locate these, go to...

Settings > More > About device > Model number and Android version

This will give you the model of Samsung Galaxy S4 that you have and which Android version you are on.


#2. Your current Firmware, (not just Baseband), version .

To locate your current firmware version, go to the stock, Samsung, dial pad and type in...

*#1234#

This will give you your, "Version", details in full, usually 3 lines of information, AP: CP: CSC:, which may all be relevant.

*** If code *#1234# has been disabled on your firmware, you can download and install, free from the Play Store, Phone Info and it will give you, under Firmware Info... PDA, Baseband, CSC, versions.


#3. Also helpful would be your carrier, (service provider), location, (UK, India, Russia, USA, etc: ), and if your phone is rooted or not and running a custom ROM, (give details).


Thanks. The above helps us to help you and hopefully someone will be able to reply to you shortly. :)


For more information, see, http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s4/760098-23-galaxy-s4-models-know-yours.html#post6099681

(Tip: You can go to the green bar at the top of this forum and click on, "User CP", which will take you to your User Control Panel and then select, "Edit your details", under the heading, "Your profile", on the left hand side. Here you can fill in your model and firmware under, "Current devices", in, "Additional Information". This ensures that your device details are shown under your user name on the left, in every post you make. You can update this as often as you like and will help other users immediately identify your current phone and firmware details.)
 
Model #: Samsung-SGH-I337
Android Version 4.4.2
AP: I337UCUFNC1
CP: I337UCUFNC1
CSC: I337ATTFNC1

Not rooted, no custom ROM.
Location: California, US
Carrier: AT&T

Thanks for the reply!! Love this phone, love android, and for the first time am frustrated with it.
 
Also noticing some other issues now:

While playing music, if you use voice to text to send a text message, the music no longer pauses automatically until you are done speaking. It stops for a split second, then plays again.

The android OS is using much more battery power than before also.
 
Smokescreen17;[URL="tel:6587180" said:
6587180[/URL]]Also noticing some other issues now:

While playing music, if you use voice to text to send a text message, the music no longer pauses automatically until you are done speaking. It stops for a split second, then plays again.

The android OS is using much more battery power than before also.
Click to expand...

Hi Smokescreen17 and welcome to the android forums. I just upgraded to KK as well a few days ago. I noticed this issue with speech to text as well. But for me, it was doing it before the update. (Depending on which app I was using and if I used the mic from the keyboard or the mic from with in the apps.)

I noticed Android OS using more battery then before as well after the update. (I saw a 3rd party app that I've been using for about 3yrs now, using as much battery as my on screen time too.) What I did was power off/on my phone and then would use the stock apps manager and end all apps. I noticed that there are as much as 50 apps running in the background after updating to KK. Before the update, I usually had around 32 apps running in the background.

So, right now, my battery usage is getting better as the days go by. So its improved with the update.
 
I have tried most suggestions I can find on forums and google searches. I have also wiped the cache partition. I won't do a factory reset however (that is my stopping point), because a user shouldn't have to spend 3 days re-configuring a phone because ATT/Samsung/Google can't do beta testing before releasing updates. These problems are widespread as you will see with a google search. A phone that I was very much in love with the entire time I have owned it (it always had 4.3), has now become a royal pain with 4.4.2. It is my understanding you cannot go back to 4.3 without factory reset, is that correct? Is my only other option to trade in my much loved S4 since it isn't even my S4 anymore, and ask that ATT give me an S5 since they can't provide working updates for this device or release the 4.4.3 patches or other fixes?
 
Smokescreen17 said:
I have tried most suggestions I can find on forums and google searches. I have also wiped the cache partition. I won't do a factory reset however (that is my stopping point), because a user shouldn't have to spend 3 days re-configuring a phone....
Click to expand...

Amen brother.
 
Anyone have any insights yet? Still can't resolve this and still no updates from ATT/Samsung/Google. I heard there was a 4.4.3, but it isn't being released on this carrer/device thus far (as far as I know).
 
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