Help Problem with my bolt: deal with it or do something about it?

[CaptainObvious]

Up until this happened my bolt has been perfect. So to have this happen after a few months of worry free fun sucks.

When i take video, it will periodically skip/drop frames. Let's just say i take a 1 minute video. at the 17 second mark, the audio will still be going but the picture will freeze on that point for 2-3 seconds and then return to normal. Then maybe 20 seconds later it'll do the same thing. Just noticed this the other day while taking video of my daughter. Just happened out of nowhere.

I tried clearing out the ram as much as i could by killing every app that would let me, restarting the phone and even unchecking autofocus/facetracking but it still happens.

I'd hope the big GB update would fix this for me, but i've never heard of this being a problem for anyone else so how would htc know to fix something that hasn't been complained about extensively?

What should i do? I don't take much video, but it's the fact of the matter that bugs me. Knowing that if i take the video, there'll be something wrong with it. And calling verizon and possibly getting myself stuck in refurb hell with possibly an even worse phone is enough to make me rethink asking them for help too.

Should i wait until gb and see if it gets fixed? Is there something i could do to fix it myself? Should i call verizon? Or deal with it until my upgrade in april. Gahhhhh i don't know!

 

[Yeahha]

Try going to manage applications in settings and clearing cache and data under camera. It shouldn't touch any of your recordings but may fix the issue you are having.

 

[TxGoat]

You could always tell your daughter to stop momentarily 17 seconds and then 20 seconds into the recording...


Clearing the cache and the data might help, but you can also try to reboot your phone and try to immediately film something to see if maybe an app running in the background caused your video to freeze. If you're experiencing the skipped frames around the same time then it would seem to be app related and not environment related (something running in the background).

I doubt you'd be able to run the camera in Safe mode, else that would be another suggestion. Does anyone know if the Android O/S allows you to run a selective safe mode where you can load the video camera app to test it out without any other app possibly running in the background?

Oh and finally, another test you can try is putting the phone in airplane mode and seeing if your video is choppy to rule out radio interference.

 

[Yeahha]

I know stock you can run in safe mode, dont remember how to get in it or what is allowed. I think it has something to do with pressing volume down at the second splash screen.

Good idea with the radio possibly causing the issue.

 

[CharlzO]

Also can try dropping the quality down a little, just to see if it records seamlessly that way. I did notice I had that issue once or twice a while back. But I haven't had it lately. I couldn't narrow down what fixed it (I reboot my phone fairly often).

 

[CaptainObvious]

Also can try dropping the quality down a little, just to see if it records seamlessly that way. I did notice I had that issue once or twice a while back. But I haven't had it lately. I couldn't narrow down what fixed it (I reboot my phone fairly often).

^this

Bumped the quality down a notch and uploaded a couple test vids to YouTube directly from the phone and not a single hiccup. Video at lower res was perfect. Moved it right on back up to 720 and its nothing but a slideshow.

Why is it messing with me like this? Is it because I put a new black skin on my phone and it doesn't like the color? My phone is a jackass

 

[scotty85]

are you rooted? you could try the newest GB leak and see if that helps.

word of warning,tho... unless you root with revolutionary you wont be able to go backwards in firmware versions if you decide you dont want to stay on that leak.

you could go to a store and take a test video with a demo phone. if it has no issues,show the folks what yours is doing and let them order you another one. thats risky tho,you got a good chance of a refurb just moving your issue to something else

 

[CharlzO]

The only other thing I could think, would be to make sure nothing else is running in the background, or anything like that. Just for kicks, could try putting it in Airplane mode, and trying again, to eliminate it being a data thing causing it by pinging for status updates or whatnot. It really does sound like it's a process thing, like something's "using" the power at the time and the camera isn't catching up completely. But you said you've killed what you could, so that's hard to say. Would have to agree though, might want to have someone check it. I just did a 1 minute 720 clip on mine, and no hiccups on any part of it.

I'm still trying to think of other things to try...

 

[CaptainObvious]

I don't want to risk getting lost in refurb hell and exchanging this problem for a potentially bigger one. So let's see if we can fix it

I'm leaning towards too many background apps sucking up the bolt's resources. To gauge just how bad it might be, i restarted my phone and let it sit for a few minutes so everything that was going to load in the background was fully loaded. Then i checked what's running automatically in "running applications" and my jaw dropped. I had no idea that many apps were running without me even starting them every time i started up my phone. I had 110mb ram free and all these apps were what were running:

whpollingservice (whitehouse app)
widgetlocker
airmailservice from taptap revenge game
calllog service from google voice
yim service (yahoo messenger)
yahoo messenger voice and video plugin
battery widget
appservice for golauncherex
facebook upload manager
batterynotifier service
statusbar service(for go launcher ex)
tweetcaster pro
switch service (i don't know what this is)
notification service (golauncher ex app)
sdm service (don't know)
conntect to pc service
google messenger service
sync service
pvmptp service start
htcdm service
traggic app widget (google maps? i'm not using a google maps widget though)
network location (google maps)
pending notifications
dm service app
htcmim service
touch input


When i look at "running apps" through golauncher ex, it displays even more apps running. This is freaking insane. I didn't set most of these to run in the background and going through the settings in apps like the white house app, there's no setting i can change to make it so it doesn't run in the background on startup. And if i stop the app from running, it pops back up a minute later. So the only way to really stop them is to uninstall them.

Is having this many apps open and running normal?