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Help what happened to my S3??? it's possesed.

S

sdtag

Well-Known Member
I was coming home from a business trip, and I was wandering around Denver airport for 45 minutes between flights. Every time I pulled out my S3, it was on. It was obvious that it had been on for some time and the screen had Google search up, and some crazy keyboard thing, extended characters or something. Another time it was Google maps.
I did what I needed to do, then shut off the screen by hitting the power button for a split second, then put it back into my defender case.
The next time it was on again. Then I started investigating this a little bit. I would turn off the screen and it would immediately turn itself back on. sometimes it was immediate, sometimes it would take a minute, but it would turn on, and go past the lock screen to the home screen. I can watch it do this.
I had a screen protector on it. I tore it off thinking it was interfering. Nope, it still did it.
I had to go so I got on the plane for LA and put the phone into airplane mode. By the time I got to LA (2 hrs) the battery was down to 20%. This phone is going crazy trying to do something but I have no idea what.
I bought this phone about a month ago, one for me, one for my wife. I have modified mine a little bit, go launcher, swift key, light wave, etc. whatever. Hers is stock and no problems.
This morning I called Verizon. What a waste of time, now I'm here. :)
I started removing apps, go launcher, swift key, etc. I thought go launcher notify was the culprit. Nope, it started doing it again.
Now I am back on the stock launcher, keyboard, notifications, etc, and it still does it. It is less frequent now I think, although sometimes it will fight me back and forth until I pull the battery. I have a little holder for it in my truck and as I'm driving it will just turn on by itself and go right to the home screen.
My plan is to keep removing apps, then eventually do a hard reset if I have to. My last resort.
Anyone seen this? or heard of this? The phone was great up until yesterday. BTW this all happened on 10/31, Halloween. Is there a Halloween virus going around? I have Verizon Security on my phone.

Thanks in advance...
 
Well, not to the extent you're describing but last night (3:45am) out of the blue I was woken up to ESPN radio blaring on my phone. I grabbed it and tried shutting it off and it was possessed. None of the keys were functioning and the screen was flickering and several apps were loading. I finally did a battery pull and it was fine. Very odd..
 
now a day later it seems to be better again.
I haven't reinstalled anything and it's behaving like it did pre-Halloween.
This must have been a Halloween/Denver thing.
Now it's fine, the battery is lasting longer again, hmmm...

No one else? Only me???

Bueller.... Bueller.... Bueller....
 
sdtag said:
now a day later it seems to be better again.
I haven't reinstalled anything and it's behaving like it did pre-Halloween.
This must have been a Halloween/Denver thing.
Now it's fine, the battery is lasting longer again, hmmm...

No one else? Only me???

Bueller.... Bueller.... Bueller....
Click to expand...


sometimes you have to wait more than 23 hours for someone else reply
 
I just can't believe that I am the only one this happened to.
Maybe I was the only one in Denver airport on Halloween with an S3.
I find that hard to believe.
 
sdtag said:
I was coming home from a business trip, and I was wandering around Denver airport for 45 minutes between flights. Every time I pulled out my S3, it was on. It was obvious that it had been on for some time and the screen had Google search up, and some crazy keyboard thing, extended characters or something. Another time it was Google maps.
I did what I needed to do, then shut off the screen by hitting the power button for a split second, then put it back into my defender case.
The next time it was on again. Then I started investigating this a little bit. I would turn off the screen and it would immediately turn itself back on. sometimes it was immediate, sometimes it would take a minute, but it would turn on, and go past the lock screen to the home screen. I can watch it do this.
I had a screen protector on it. I tore it off thinking it was interfering. Nope, it still did it.
I had to go so I got on the plane for LA and put the phone into airplane mode. By the time I got to LA (2 hrs) the battery was down to 20%. This phone is going crazy trying to do something but I have no idea what.
I bought this phone about a month ago, one for me, one for my wife. I have modified mine a little bit, go launcher, swift key, light wave, etc. whatever. Hers is stock and no problems.
This morning I called Verizon. What a waste of time, now I'm here. :)
I started removing apps, go launcher, swift key, etc. I thought go launcher notify was the culprit. Nope, it started doing it again.
Now I am back on the stock launcher, keyboard, notifications, etc, and it still does it. It is less frequent now I think, although sometimes it will fight me back and forth until I pull the battery. I have a little holder for it in my truck and as I'm driving it will just turn on by itself and go right to the home screen.
My plan is to keep removing apps, then eventually do a hard reset if I have to. My last resort.
Anyone seen this? or heard of this? The phone was great up until yesterday. BTW this all happened on 10/31, Halloween. Is there a Halloween virus going around? I have Verizon Security on my phone.

Thanks in advance...
Click to expand...

In the past, when I have had phones do something this insane, do a battery pull (with the phone still on) & see if that doesn't help. I does kind of a "soft" reset. Hopefully it was just a fluke & you won't have it happen again. We forget sometimes that these are miniature computers- I've certainly had my PC wig out from time to time inexplicably- usually a goo swift push of the power button & restart will put it right.
 
well I thought I was out of the woods, maybe this was some kind of Halloween prank, but it just did it again sitting on my desk. I did as you suggested, I pulled the battery in the middle of it's tantrum. I waited 5 minutes then plugged it back in and powered it up. I walked away for 10 minutes and when I came back it appeared normal. I ran super task killer and it killed 27 apps. Media Hub keeps appearing. I keep trying to kill it but it won't die.
I want to kill a bunch of apps because in my mind with all these little apps running in the background it will eat my battery. Stuff I don't use like media hub, all share, amazon kindle, talk, all that crap.
I think I'm developing an opinion that the more apps running in the background, the less often it has it's little tantrum. Maybe something is trying to update itself and gets stuck because I keep killing it???.
It might be time for a hard reset and start over.
 
Did you have Drivelink installed from the Samsung App store. It has a fault and keeps the screen on. I took it off (it did not work very well) and no more problems.
 
no drivelink.
I think I figured it out.
it was super task killer. I was killing too many apps like allshare play, media hub, etc.
I figured if I wasn't going to use them why should they be running in the background?
I guess I found my answer the hard way.
Thanks everyone for all your input.
even you, Heisenberg.
:)
 
If you really want to stop those bloatware from running in the background and save some battery. The only way is to root your s3 and freeze/uninstall them with programs like Titanium backup. I've personally freeze most of the Samsung and Rogers (carrier)apps since i dont use them.
 
well I thought that super task killer was the culprit.
Nope. It's still doing it.
stock launcher, keyboard, notifier.
It still will turn on by itself. I watched it turn on, then back off in 5 seconds. other times it turns on and stays on.
WTF???
OK now it's really time for a hard reset.
Any other suggestions? This isn't happening to anyone else, only me?
 
The factory reset seems to have helped.
The reset only wiped out half of my downloaded apps though.
I was expecting it to be like brand new out of the box again but no.
Weird.
 
sdtag said:
The factory reset seems to have helped.
The reset only wiped out half of my downloaded apps though.
I was expecting it to be like brand new out of the box again but no.
Weird.
Click to expand...

correct a factory reset should delete all downloaded apps, leaving just the pre-installed loike your said brand new out of the box, bring the phone back
 
My phone has done what the OP described about three times in the last couple of weeks...it just wigs out, unlocks itself, sometimes it freezes on the transition of unlocking and being unlocked, so you see the lock and home screen superimposed over each other, whenever it's behaved this way even if it fixes itself, only a battery pull makes it function properly.

And my running background apps are RIDICULOUS, more so than with anything else I've experienced...it always kills over FORTY apps. o_O
 
Try the GSAM Battery Monitor.

You're going to be looking for apps that have wakelock permission and that does what the name implies. Keeps your phone awake. Those are going to be the problem apps, in most all cases.


Most background apps are really just placeholders in the cache so they can be restarted quickly and aren't running in the background at all.
 
I downloaded an app called task manager. it has a logo of a chip.
It says I have 81 things running at once. I'm not using it to kill anything, just to look.
I also downloaded task manager shortcut app. It's just a missing S3 shortcut to the long press home button task manager. That's all I ever really wanted to begin with. I don't care about the 81 running apps because Android is built for it. Most of them aren't really running anyway. I just want to be able to shut down dolphin and you tube when I exit out of them, that's all.
It's been a tough transition from windows to android, a real learning curve. Hopefully I'll get it before I have to factory reset my phone again! haha
 
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