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Root To upgrade or to not upgrade OTA, that is the question.

T

totalrecarl

Well-Known Member
So, I'm looking for some opinions here. I was prompted to update my firmware today. I selected 'install now' knowing it wouldn't install, as I am rooted. If there is a way to reflash the JCASE .tot and retroactively accept the update, should I? Or should I just keep/be happy with the rooted zv4? If I were to reflash the JCASE .tot, would I still even be able to update my firmware?
 
The only difference in the 2 firmwares that I see is the addition of the Quick memo feature and an updated Sprint My Zone account app. There appears to be a radio image update in it but I didn't really see any improvement of signal or speeds. There is also a boot and recovery image update but god knows what they do!

If you want to install you would need to replace all of the stock apps that were removed. This can be by either restoreing them of you made a bnackup or reflashing the tot file. The update will still install if you are rooted but will disable root. If you do install it you will need to re-root your phone with Greatpune's root method. Is it worth the trouble??? To me no but that's just my opinion.

I actually reverted back to zv4 with jcase's tot as the update playing well with me trying to theme stuff.
 
yeah,i reverted to zv4 also. didnt even bother keeping the update even for the radio. my speeds and signal dropped out several times(just like they were doing before update) right after the update,so to me it wasnt worth keeping. im already looking at other carrier options as well as a new phone. the elite,virgin mobile service,or both has had serious issues since I moved to this phone. constant data outages plague this device on my end. not sure if its strictly the phone or what,but i never had these kinds of problems on my optimus v. very frustrating.
 
Curtis1973 said:
yeah,i reverted to zv4 also. didnt even bother keeping the update even for the radio. my speeds and signal dropped out several times(just like they were doing before update) right after the update,so to me it wasnt worth keeping. im already looking at other carrier options as well as a new phone. the elite,virgin mobile service,or both has had serious issues since I moved to this phone. constant data outages plague this device on my end. not sure if its strictly the phone or what,but i never had these kinds of problems on my optimus v. very frustrating.
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I bet that makes you miss the phone that could... the ov is beast.
 
At home my data is pretty steady. Not blazing fast but decent speeds. It does tend to slow down while at work which is in a smaller city versus the little town I live in.

I do however miss my OV
 
just got off the phone with vm. gonna send me another device. that's not an elite. i told them i dont want it. tried all their methods to get data working right and it still constantly drops out. ill go back to the v versus this damn thing. cals work fine,texting/data...almost non functional. been like that since i first activated out of the box. this was a bad buy overall for me.
 
Curtis1973 said:
just got off the phone with vm. gonna send me another device. that's not an elite. i told them i dont want it. tried all their methods to get data working right and it still constantly drops out. ill go back to the v versus this damn thing. cals work fine,texting/data...almost non functional. been like that since i first activated out of the box. this was a bad buy overall for me.
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That really stinks, sorry to hear that. I was a bit nervous upgrading from the V since it was such a reliable phone and I did not want to risk losing that quality. For me, the Elite has been a great upgrade with only great improvements from the V. I think it's just a combination of variables per person such as the phone (which hardware & such can be problematic) as well as your location and who knows what else. Glad to hear they are getting you taken care of.

To get on topic to the OP, I seem the be the only one that updated my Elite to the ZV5 update and I have not had a problem and I kinda like the ability to take screens. The radio does not seem to be any better or worse so I just have kept it on since I spent 30 minutes to update it and reroot it. So it's up to you really, if you dont want to take the 30 minutes to install and reroot then just skip it, you are not missing anything revolutionary here.
 
Curtis1973 said:
just got off the phone with vm. gonna send me another device. that's not an elite. i told them i dont want it. tried all their methods to get data working right and it still constantly drops out. ill go back to the v versus this damn thing. cals work fine,texting/data...almost non functional. been like that since i first activated out of the box. this was a bad buy overall for me.
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What phone?
 
sellers86 said:
What phone?
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vm says they want to try one more elite replacement abd if that doesnt resolve data issues it will be another model,not a v but what they called an upgrade. ive aleeady had two elites with same data issues. i think its the elites hardware. my sister is using my old v and she isnt having data loss issues that are outside the norm.
 
Curtis1973 said:
vm says they want to try one more elite replacement abd if that doesnt resolve data issues it will be another model,not a v but what they called an upgrade. ive aleeady had two elites with same data issues. i think its the elites hardware. my sister is using my old v and she isnt having data loss issues that are outside the norm.
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I wonder if they will send you the Slider if this new one does not work. Hopefully it does, and I would guess some faulty hardware too if you get good reception etc. from the V.
 
i like the elite. but i find it hard to think two different elites had the same issue. if it isnt local reception/transmission issues,it has to be the device having faulty receivers. im not sure what device they may send. ive had vm send me the next level phone before. their upper tier cs isn't bad at all. its the low level support that drags issues out. i just want my service to work.
 
Curtis1973 said:
yeah,i reverted to zv4 also. didnt even bother keeping the update even for the radio. my speeds and signal dropped out several times(just like they were doing before update) right after the update,so to me it wasnt worth keeping. im already looking at other carrier options as well as a new phone. the elite,virgin mobile service,or both has had serious issues since I moved to this phone. constant data outages plague this device on my end. not sure if its strictly the phone or what,but i never had these kinds of problems on my optimus v. very frustrating.
Click to expand...


I was having tons of problems with my data as well, but ended up getting it fixed. Fair warning: I have no idea what I'm talking about, and am mostly parroting things that I read while fixing it.

I guess the phone was constantly searching to switch satellites, and never had steady data because of it. I dialed *#*#4636#*#* on the keypad and then changed my data to CDMA only, so it would just lock onto one/have less options(?). Seems like it worked for me, good luck to you or anyone else who might have this problem!
 
FightinPike said:
I was having tons of problems with my data as well, but ended up getting it fixed. Fair warning: I have no idea what I'm talking about, and am mostly parroting things that I read while fixing it.

I guess the phone was constantly searching to switch satellites, and never had steady data because of it. I dialed *#*#4636#*#* on the keypad and then changed my data to CDMA only, so it would just lock onto one/have less options(?). Seems like it worked for me, good luck to you or anyone else who might have this problem!
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the replacement oe will be here this afternoon. i just got the "update" notification on current oe. im going to activate the replacement,install the update to zv5 and then put it through a test to see how it does with new update before i call vm back. im also going to try this also. then if no improvement ill call vm back. i think me giving the oe 3 attempts to perform properly before requesting a refund or different model is not being unreasonable. we'll see.
 
I installed the ota update and now I want to root, will it ruin my root? Or will it be fine because it's a whole nother firmware?
 
Android311 said:
Just ok? Does it lag now or not perform the same?
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By OK, I meant that the rooting process was successful, not completely smooth, but successful. The directions in the click root application could use some improvement. I have not experienced any problems while running the ZV5 firmware, yet.
 
Curtis, I having the same speed issues as you are. Before, they were okay, not great but ok. About ~2 Mbps I'd say. Now I'm lucky if I hit .2, it's usually .1. It started say about two weeks ago. I have verified I am not over the 2560 MB limit. I have been hesitant to reset it to see if that helps.

Rooted and not updated
 
Just ran speedtest.net: 98kbps down and 254kbps up
Just sad
I'm in Los Angeles county and completely soaked in 3g signal.
 
Yeah, I live in San Bernardino County and I'm having the same issue. It suddenly started happening to me a few weeks ago, so I thought that maybe I had just screwed up a setting or something. I'm getting a replacement in the mail today so I'll see how it goes.

Have you compared your speeds to other VM users in your area? The few times that I've compared my OE to my mom's OV and brother's One V I've noticed that their speeds were also crappy. My OE would still display "3G" even though the current speeds were unusable, while the other phone's would at least show "1X" or a disabled connection, so I guess that VM's service has gotten crappy lately...
 
Ricky, that's somewhat reassuring to hear. I thought I might have left some setting wrong as well. Now I won't do a master reset.

I will await your replacement trial, just as I wait for Curtis's.

Are you rooted or updated by chance? My paranoid brain sometimes thinks that Virgin knows about the rooted users, and purposely limits them.

I'm just waiting for some conclusion, such as Virgin doesn't have enough of Sprint's signal in certain areas.

If you can speedtest your phone that would be great. If you get 90-125 kbps that probably narrows it down to either Virgin, or faulty OE radios or buggy software. I have not asked anyone, as I don't know anyone else with VM. But at this point I definitely cannot recommend them, whereas I used to.
 
Okay, so I got my brand new OE yesterday and I had the same speed issues right out of the box. It failed to download the "Essentials" ID pack the first time, but it slowly succeeded the second time. It did come with the ZV4 firmware, but I was prompted to install ZV5 soon after.

Xeren, none of my OEs were rooted, and I don't feel like I did anything in particular that would compromise the data connection. My first OE worked perfectly all of June, I mean, I was even able to watch an episode of Mad Men while taking the bus to school straight out of the browser using my data connection!! The only reason I exchanged it for another was because I accidentally broke one of the two leads connecting it to the NFC antenna. I was cleaning it with a towel and a piece of it got got hooked under the lead and it snapped. I'm sticking with microfiber towels from here on!! lol My second OE appeared to be working fine the first two weeks of July, but then the data connection started going straight to hell after that. I started using GO Power Master around that time so I thought that maybe the app was the culprit since it's able to disable the data connection if the battery got too low, but that never made much sense to me.

Anyway, as I said before, I did notice that my mom's Optimus V and my brother's One V were having the same problems the few times that I've compared all three devices. They would display "1X" or a disabled connection where my OE would still show "3G", so that's why I felt that my OE was also screwed up besides the lousy service. I mean, I couldn't even use the OV as hotspot anymore, and some apps like Facebook could no longer synchronize on the One V. Because of that I'm inclined to believe that maybe it's not the OE that's at fault, but rather Virgin Mobile's service as of late. I had awesome service with VM for years now, and 3G had been fantastic for nearly the two years that I had my OV... :(

VM's CS has told me that I'm currently being throttled, but you can still see how unstable the data connection can get from the screenshot...

I don't know what to do at this point... I feel that it's not the OE, but I don't want to be dealing with the service as crappy as it is right now... :confused: Some say that's it because of the VM's recent introduction of the 4G data connection, or how Sprint is currently making hardware changes in their radio towers... VM has put serious effort in releasing new smartphones lately, so maybe their service is indeed getting hammered with a lot data users right now... who knows...

As Curtis mentioned somewhere, I wonder if it's possible to get VM to send you different and perhaps a better smartphone like the One V... I say this just for kicks, I feel that the OE is not at fault, but since the problem is still ongoing maybe VM can compensate me for my troubles... ;) :D

Whew!! It feels good letting it all out...
 

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