Help Radio Band Changed while trip abroad

[Julian1981]

Hi,

my girlfriend runs an German Sony Xperia X Compact on Android 8.0.0.

She traveled for three months in the US and now her phone worked well until it suddenly stoped. Now its stuck on "radio band USA" (A guy at a reapair shop found that out with using *#*#4636#*#*) and she can't get back to the German network.

I tried the factory reset already but that didn't solve the problem.

Is there any other way?

I realy appreciate any help.

Cheers,
Julian

 

[mikedt]

Hi,

my girlfriend runs an German Sony Xperia X Compact on Android 8.0.0.

She traveled for three months in the US and now her phone worked well until it suddenly stoped. Now its stuck on "radio band USA" (A guy at a reapair shop found that out with using *#*#4636#*#*) and she can't get back to the German network.

I tried the factory reset already but that didn't solve the problem.

Is there any other way?

I realy appreciate any help.

Cheers,
Julian

Quite frankly I've never heard of that one before, certainly not with any modern smart-phone. So no ideas, apart from what you've already tried. Maybe Sony Service can reset it?


The only phone I had that had a specific USA radio made was a Motorola flip-phone about 20 years ago. That you could toggle its bands between "World mode" and "USA mode".

 

[Julian1981]

Quite frankly I've never heard of that one before, certainly not with any modern smart-phone. So no ideas, apart from what you've already tried. Maybe Sony Service can reset it?


The only phone I had that had a specific USA radio made was a Motorola flip-phone about 20 years ago. That you could toggle its bands between 'World mode' and 'USA mode'.

Thanks for the fast reply.

Yes, I was stunned with the behavior of the phone myself. Do you think the adb code

adb reboot bootloader

fastboot erase modemst1

fastboot erase modemst2

fastboot erase chache

fastboot reboot

might help?

 

[Hadron]

I've seen that posted as a suggestion and people claim that it works, though it wasn't clear whether any of those were for Sony phones. I've also seen a few reports of people having problems after doing that (though these didn't seem to be Sony phones). I don't know what is stored in those partitions, so can't promise that erasing them is safe. Has she tried speaking to Sony support?

It seems there are quite a few phones where the "testing" menu (the *#*#4636#*#* thing) lets you change the radio bands but only has one setting (USA), and so people who do this can't change back. Mostly this happens because someone is fiddling with that menu rather than spontaneously. The funny thing is that my Pixel offers a full range of options:

 

[Julian1981]

I've seen that posted as a suggestion and people claim that it works, though it wasn't clear whether any of those were for Sony phones. I've also seen a few reports of people having problems after doing that (though these didn't seem to be Sony phones). I don't know what is stored in those partitions, so can't promise that erasing them is safe. Has she tried speaking to Sony support?

It seems there are quite a few phones where the 'testing' menu (the *#*#4636#*#* thing) lets you change the radio bands but only has one setting (USA), and so people who do this can't change back. Mostly this happens because someone is fiddling with that menu rather than spontaneously. The funny thing is that my Pixel offers a full range of options:
View attachment 144625

I chatted with the Sony support team and they recommended to use the Xperia companion to do a software repair... I did that but no positive result.

It is definitely strange!

 

[Julian1981]

I chatted with the Sony support team and they recommended to use the Xperia companion to do a software repair... I did that but no positive result.

It is definitely strange!

Now I have another idea but no solution. It seems that the 'mobile radio power' is off permanently. I can see that in the phone information.

Is there a way to get this working again?

 

[Hadron]

On my phone that has a toggle button - is that unavailable on yours?

This sounds a mess. I'd be tempted at this point to either try the fastboot solution or reflash the phone software completely. Unfortunately it sounds like the Sony support solution was just something read from a script (like service providers always say "factory reset" for everything) rather than knowledge of the specific problem.