With Rogers, have the Samsung Galaxy S7 and 2 weekends ago, noticed a couple of strange things happening... Didn't think they were all related but decided to check to see if there was an update recently and saw that the Kernel updated Nov 18th, and read that the Kernel is "responsible for helping your applications communicate with your hardware. It manages the system resources, communicates with external devices when needed, and so on". Made sense, since the timeline and the issues coincide...
So here is a Coles notes version, copied from my original post at Rogers Community Forums.
- Auto screen brightness does not work properly anymore, if auto is selected, sometimes the screen will go very dark, less than 1/4 brightness, no matter if I shine a light right on the phone or if I am in the dark. If I click and unclick the auto, does nothing to fix it. As well, my Always on screen is hardly visible, cannot see the clock etc in lock screen. ANNOYING - (*#0*# in phone dialer, brings up diagnostics, and if I check the sensors, the light sensor shows 0 lux, and will not change)
- Phone battery life is definitely worse. Before I could leave the phone off the charger, and if I did nothing with it, lost very little over time. Now, I am losing percentage rapidly, if I check my battery status, 100% charged, just off the charger, shows anywhere from 10 to 14 hours use, CRAZY!
- Phone runs hot, sometimes very hot, like there is a ton of stuff running in the background (I thought that was why battery life had changed)
- Phone randomly reboots - a couple of times now, I have taken my phone off the charger in the morning, and go to use my fingerprint and it says I have to use the pin for the first time after restarting (I didn't restart), and in checking the phone status, it shows that the phone up time is very fresh (this morning less than 2 hours)
- WIFI constantly cycles. I will watch the wifi signal indicator light up and turn off, constantly, go into settings and wifi and you can watch the little toggle slider go back and forth, turning off before it even has a change to see nearby wifi signals. Eventually I can get it to lock on and find wifi. (On the ROGERS forum, a recent suggestion was just posted to reset the network settings - Settings > Backup and Reset > Reset network settings)
- Charge times have increased, wireless fast charging (Samsung OEM wireless fast charger) seems slower than before, wired charging I haven't tried so much.
Nothing on my phone has changed, no new apps, etc... I have done a backup and will most likely try a reset, as suggested by a store employee, but there is a post on REDDIT with people experiencing the same issues, some altogether, some have only some symptoms. They have also said they can send it back to Samsung to be checked/fixed, but then I am without the phone a week or 2, and if they determine no problem, I am no further ahead. Am waiting on an update to see if that fixes things or not.
I see on the ROGERS update schedule post that the S7 and S7 Edge were supposed to get a security and bug fix update yesterday (November 29th) but nothing has changed on mine. Hoping a KERNEL update is in the works and see if that fixes things.
I have posted all of my issues, whether all interrelated or not, so that people with similar issues, or one issue can investigate to see if they have other symptoms or issues as well. Every issue (battery life can be relative I know), such as running hot, auto brightening not working, wifi toggle, started at the same time.
So here is a Coles notes version, copied from my original post at Rogers Community Forums.
- Auto screen brightness does not work properly anymore, if auto is selected, sometimes the screen will go very dark, less than 1/4 brightness, no matter if I shine a light right on the phone or if I am in the dark. If I click and unclick the auto, does nothing to fix it. As well, my Always on screen is hardly visible, cannot see the clock etc in lock screen. ANNOYING - (*#0*# in phone dialer, brings up diagnostics, and if I check the sensors, the light sensor shows 0 lux, and will not change)
- Phone battery life is definitely worse. Before I could leave the phone off the charger, and if I did nothing with it, lost very little over time. Now, I am losing percentage rapidly, if I check my battery status, 100% charged, just off the charger, shows anywhere from 10 to 14 hours use, CRAZY!
- Phone runs hot, sometimes very hot, like there is a ton of stuff running in the background (I thought that was why battery life had changed)
- Phone randomly reboots - a couple of times now, I have taken my phone off the charger in the morning, and go to use my fingerprint and it says I have to use the pin for the first time after restarting (I didn't restart), and in checking the phone status, it shows that the phone up time is very fresh (this morning less than 2 hours)
- WIFI constantly cycles. I will watch the wifi signal indicator light up and turn off, constantly, go into settings and wifi and you can watch the little toggle slider go back and forth, turning off before it even has a change to see nearby wifi signals. Eventually I can get it to lock on and find wifi. (On the ROGERS forum, a recent suggestion was just posted to reset the network settings - Settings > Backup and Reset > Reset network settings)
- Charge times have increased, wireless fast charging (Samsung OEM wireless fast charger) seems slower than before, wired charging I haven't tried so much.
Nothing on my phone has changed, no new apps, etc... I have done a backup and will most likely try a reset, as suggested by a store employee, but there is a post on REDDIT with people experiencing the same issues, some altogether, some have only some symptoms. They have also said they can send it back to Samsung to be checked/fixed, but then I am without the phone a week or 2, and if they determine no problem, I am no further ahead. Am waiting on an update to see if that fixes things or not.
I see on the ROGERS update schedule post that the S7 and S7 Edge were supposed to get a security and bug fix update yesterday (November 29th) but nothing has changed on mine. Hoping a KERNEL update is in the works and see if that fixes things.
I have posted all of my issues, whether all interrelated or not, so that people with similar issues, or one issue can investigate to see if they have other symptoms or issues as well. Every issue (battery life can be relative I know), such as running hot, auto brightening not working, wifi toggle, started at the same time.