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

Help Phone Shutting off randomly?

my phone had no issues since the day i picked it up (one day after launch) then i had the same powering off issues everyone else is talking about. i ordered a new oem samsung battery and will see if swapping out the battery has anything to do with it.

i only had the powering off problem for one day and only until the battery died (which went from 90% to 10% in the span of a couple of hours?!) after i recharged it the phone has not powered itself off once.

i'm thinking maybe the battery longevity and power issues are because of a bad batch of batteries?
 
After I swapped my phone, no issues. Had to work with the ATT rep as he said they need to "see" the issue. Of cousre it wasn't happening in the store, but they finally did the swap. No issues and the was a couple of weeks ago.
 
It happened to me, too, but it's too soon to tell if my replacement will stay asleep rather than turn off. I know that many of us have researched this trying to find the culprit, but all the theories I've read are just that - theories - and they consistently come up empty. Moreover, it's not a problem limited to the Captivate. Other Android owners have also complained as have iPhone users. If my Googling would have found a smart phone that has never had random shutdown issues I would have seriously considered it.
 
i've had my phone for about 3 weeks, and this issue has happened about once/day for the past week. my phone has not been rooted, and i haven't installed much software at all. also, i always have wifi turned off. i guess i could go exchange it, but it seems like it will be the same hardware running the same software...
 
isharted said:
i've had my phone for about 3 weeks, and this issue has happened about once/day for the past week. my phone has not been rooted, and i haven't installed much software at all. also, i always have wifi turned off. i guess i could go exchange it, but it seems like it will be the same hardware running the same software...
Click to expand...

It has occurred to some once or twice, to others several times a day, and to others never. Some have reported that it happened with only the software that came with the phone, effectively eliminating a third-party installed solution that's at fault. So, an exchange may or may not be of benefit. It's a roll of the dice.

Trust me, if random shutdowns happened to everyone, we'd be hearing a lot more about it. I just think it's an anomaly that lurks somewhere in all Captivates that rises up from its depths whenever the planets line up in a certain way. There has been no common thread to point to the cause.

To add to the frustration, it may begin to occur weeks after the phone was purchased rather than immediately. Having fun yet?
 
I have been having this problem everyday. I get home late every night and when I wake the phone is off. I woke up today at 4 am and the phone was fully charged. By 5 am the phone had turned off by itself.

I had advised att about the problem yesterday and I called them again this morning. They are advising me to call the warranty department.

They performed a re-activation as a possible temporary fix. The rep advised that it probably wouldn't do anything.

I also have USB problems.

Other than that, I love this phone.
 
This may be a little more technical for just the general section, but here is what I found. I used logcat to look at the event log for the phone and found that the power management was shutting down the phone completely. I also used cat to dump the kmsg file from the kernel messages and verified that it was indeed looking for a WakeLock and not finding one. It looks like the Android 2.1 update 1 kernel is a little more thorough in power management than it needs to be. Since this is also happening to the Vibrant, Droid, and the Nexus it is definitely not a hardware issue.

As I don't have the kernel code yet for this phone I can't make the modifications there and attempt to apply a more permanent fix, however there is a work around.

1. Search in the market for Load Monitor Version 1.4.2 (Khad Mobile App) and install it
2. Run it and hit the menu button => preferences
3. Check the following:
- Add Notification
- Only notify high load
- Auto start
- Wake lock (the important one)
- Also you can change the update interval to 5 minutes to make it less frequent

Hopefully this will relieve some of the issues until the Froyo release, in the hopes that the next revision will handle power management a little better.
 
Just adding my two cents - I have the same problem! No strange apps... just Google Goggles, Kayak, Adobe Reader, Barcode Scanner and Facebook. I am trying the method by RaistM75 which looks promising! I like this phone but having random shutdowns is absolutely terrible.. and could even be dangerous in certain situations.
 
RaistM75 said:
This may be a little more technical for just the general section, but here is what I found. I used logcat to look at the event log for the phone and found that the power management was shutting down the phone completely. I also used cat to dump the kmsg file from the kernel messages and verified that it was indeed looking for a WakeLock and not finding one. It looks like the Android 2.1 update 1 kernel is a little more thorough in power management than it needs to be. Since this is also happening to the Vibrant, Droid, and the Nexus it is definitely not a hardware issue.

As I don't have the kernel code yet for this phone I can't make the modifications there and attempt to apply a more permanent fix, however there is a work around.

1. Search in the market for Load Monitor Version 1.4.2 (Khad Mobile App) and install it
2. Run it and hit the menu button => preferences
3. Check the following:
- Add Notification
- Only notify high load
- Auto start
- Wake lock (the important one)
- Also you can change the update interval to 5 minutes to make it less frequent

Hopefully this will relieve some of the issues until the Froyo release, in the hopes that the next revision will handle power management a little better.
Click to expand...

As a follow-up to RaistM75's fine post, I communicated with the developer of Load Monitor to get his take on using the wake lock switch to help avoid random shutdowns. He wrote that although wake lock was only tested to fix an alarm bug in the Motorola Milestone, it could theoretically prevent the cpu or wifi from a deep sleep, which may be the cause of shutdowns / reboots.

P.S. The Load Monitor FAQs reference wake lock this way: "It will prevent your phone from deep sleep. Which may be useful if you want to prevent wifi from turning off. May fix alarm bug. Also if you want to get acurate (sic) load average when screen off."

Definitive? No, but the best news so far. Thanks again, RaistM75.

= = = = =

Addendum. A poster on XDA wrote that it didn't work for his device. A sample of one, but noteworthy nonetheless.
 
Very sorry to say but I applied this fix last night and this morning my phone was off when I went to get it. I had not started any apps since last turning the phone on.. and the battery was almost fully charged.
 
I had advanced task killer on and the phone shutoff at night.
Yesterday, I put advanced task killer on manual and my phone did not shutoff and the alarm went off.
Also I stil have wifi turn off.

James.
 
I have yet to have any shut offs since my last couple of posts. I reinstalled just about every app that I had and it seems to be working great. The only thing that I have not reverted back yet is the WiFi sleep option. I still have it set to never and no shutdowns still. Dont know if this has actually helped, but Im not switching that option to any other since my phone is working perfect.
 
cheezwzl said:
I have been having this problem everyday. I get home late every night and when I wake the phone is off. I woke up today at 4 am and the phone was fully charged. By 5 am the phone had turned off by itself.

I had advised att about the problem yesterday and I called them again this morning. They are advising me to call the warranty department.

They performed a re-activation as a possible temporary fix. The rep advised that it probably wouldn't do anything.

I also have USB problems.

Other than that, I love this phone.
Click to expand...

It worked. No shutoff and the USB is resolved. I can now use Samsung Kies. Your mileage may vary.
 
ace35 said:
ok after 3 weeks of no problems other than the 1-2 mins to get a gps lock, i have had my phone appear to shut off and could only get it back by removing the battery.

but i am thinking that it may have locked up as i held the power button down for about 10 seconds thinking i needed to power it up, and it gave a vibration instead of booting.

which make me think it was locked up instead of powered off, has anyone tried to call there phone or send it a msg to see if it would respond in some way?

as far as apps go, the last things i did was load some cell monitoring software yesterday, tried them and then uninstalled the ones i didnt like an hr before it failed.

from a pctech point of view it sounds like a software issue, so i guess i would want to see a event log of some sort and see what it is doing, any idea where to find something like that?
Click to expand...

Here is what I found as far as logs:

Install the android sdk first or BusyBox and Terminal Emulator from the market.

If you are using the sdk, you can use the following:

- type "adb logcat -v time" and you will get the output from the connected device
- type "ddms" will open the Dalvik Debug Monitor Server with the log displayed at the bottom.

Since my problem didn't occur while the device was plugged in to the pc, I used the sdk for the following:

- type "adb logcat -v time > /sdcard/lgct.txt" and you will get the output from the connected device to the sdcard that will continue until the next restart or shut down. Then you can copy the file off and look at it in your favorite text editor.

You can do a similar thing for the kmsg (kernel messages) without the sdk on the terminal emulator application with the following:

su
cat /proc/kmsg > /sdcard/kmsg.txt


Hopefully this helps for those that are looking for log information.
 
RaistM75 said:
This may be a little more technical for just the general section, but here is what I found. I used logcat to look at the event log for the phone and found that the power management was shutting down the phone completely. I also used cat to dump the kmsg file from the kernel messages and verified that it was indeed looking for a WakeLock and not finding one. It looks like the Android 2.1 update 1 kernel is a little more thorough in power management than it needs to be. Since this is also happening to the Vibrant, Droid, and the Nexus it is definitely not a hardware issue.

As I don't have the kernel code yet for this phone I can't make the modifications there and attempt to apply a more permanent fix, however there is a work around.

1. Search in the market for Load Monitor Version 1.4.2 (Khad Mobile App) and install it
2. Run it and hit the menu button => preferences
3. Check the following:
- Add Notification
- Only notify high load
- Auto start
- Wake lock (the important one)
- Also you can change the update interval to 5 minutes to make it less frequent

Hopefully this will relieve some of the issues until the Froyo release, in the hopes that the next revision will handle power management a little better.
Click to expand...

yeah it still turned off on me on day 3 of applying this
 
cheezwzl said:
It worked. No shutoff and the USB is resolved. I can now use Samsung Kies. Your mileage may vary.
Click to expand...

Back to square one. The phone turned off this afternoon and the USB that worked before is now glitching.
 
My phone shut off 4 or 5 times on me today. It is really getting annoying. I called up AT&T and the friendly customer service agent offered me a replacement but said that they have not heard of the issue yet. Is there a Samsung forum where we can post? This issue needs to be resolved...
 
Im actually thinking my phone has a power button problem, my first captivate, which i thought i bricked, and is why i returned it, the power button was clickier, i think this one is jamming... just a thought, maybe it gets stuck when i press it to go to sleep
 
keystroke said:
My phone shut off 4 or 5 times on me today. It is really getting annoying. I called up AT&T and the friendly customer service agent offered me a replacement but said that they have not heard of the issue yet. Is there a Samsung forum where we can post? This issue needs to be resolved...
Click to expand...

Did they offer one??? Id jump on that, but mine is rooted as hell
 
I've had this happen to me a few times. I've noticed that it only seems to happen if I have an alarm set, have just finished charging it, and leave it sitting alone.

The first week I had the phone I was using it as an alarm, and when it was left alone after charging it would shut off. Did a factory reset and never turned the alarm back on, didn't have the problem again. A few days ago I set an alarm (left it plugged in over night so the alarm went off) but when I woke up and unplugged it before my shower, it was off when I got back. Also shut off again later that day. Since I deleted all of my alarms, I haven't had it shut off again.

How many of you that are having the phone shut off are actually using an alarm in the stock clock app? I'm doubtful that this is the actual cause of the problem, and thinking maybe it is just a coincidence but I thought I'd ask.
 
Droopie28 said:
Did they offer one??? Id jump on that, but mine is rooted as hell
Click to expand...

Just use the Odin one click to return it to factory defaults, I returned my first Captivate on Wednesday after using this process. My original device was totally rooted, running Unleash the Beast and the battery's icon was custom. It worked and I am sending this from my two day old new and rooted and totally pimped Captivate. I have another 30 day window for exchange so if this one starts to act up I'll swap it too. Once a month if i have to until they update the software for the buggies.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom