Help What I don't understand

[jojo99]

I am new to smartphones.

Three weeks ago I brought the HTC EVO V. Generally it works well except for one major problem. I get poor mobile phone service in my home (but wi-fi is OK, so that helps overcome the problem).

What I see is the signal strength bars keep going up and down, as if the cell tower is turning. Mostly the bars are at 0-2 but again, the strength floats around, which everyone I talk to tells me is unusual.

So I have spent some hours arguing with VM about this problem. They claim they have done maintenance work on the towers and so on. So then they offered to send me a new phone. However, the phone turned out to be an older (based on the serial number sequence) Sprint branded phone.

In trying to get the "new" phone setup, I swapped the SD card from the old phone into the new phone.

But after doing this, I lost most of my apps and settings, which was unacceptable.

I had backed the apps up using a pp called super backup, but when reinstalled in the new phone, it could not locate any of the previously backed up settings it had made (although I could clearly see those files on the SD card).

So questions:

1. WHY would the signal bars fluctuate form moment to moment when the phone is stilling perfectly still in one place?

2. WHY do I lose all my apps, contacts, settings, etc. that is on the SD card when I move the physical card from one phone to another? Is this some Android/Linux design problem?

Thanks in advance.

 

[OverByter]

So questions:

1. WHY would the signal bars fluctuate form moment to moment when the phone is stilling perfectly still in one place?

2. WHY do I lose all my apps, contacts, settings, etc. that is on the SD card when I move the physical card from one phone to another? Is this some Android/Linux design problem?

Thanks in advance.

1) The signal bar fluctuations on this phone is a well known issue, for the most part it's purely cosmetic. If you look at the actual signal strength you'll find that it's fairly steady.

2) The Super Backup app is just for contacts and sms messages. The gold standard for backing up your phones apps and settings is Titanium Backup which requires root access. Unless you're rooted you can't backup your system apps and data, also you need to make sure that you backup all of your apps data as well as the apps themselves. Your contacts should be backed up to your Google account so you don't really have to worry about them. I just recently switched from a 32 GB card to a 64 GB without any problems which is basically the same thing you're trying to do except in reverse.

As for the phone being "older" don't even worry about it, I've had my Sprint branded phone since launch day and except for the silk screening saying Sprint on the front all of the Evo V's are identical both hardware and software wise.

 

[jojo99]

1) The signal bar fluctuations on this phone is a well known issue, for the most part it's purely cosmetic. If you look at the actual signal strength you'll find that it's fairly steady.

2) The Super Backup app is just for contacts and sms messages. The gold standard for backing up your phones apps and settings is Titanium Backup which requires root access. Unless you're rooted you can't backup your system apps and data, also you need to make sure that you backup all of your apps data as well as the apps themselves. Your contacts should be backed up to your Google account so you don't really have to worry about them. I just recently switched from a 32 GB card to a 64 GB without any problems which is basically the same thing you're trying to do except in reverse.

1. How do I find the single strength?

2. I still don't understand. Isn't everything stored on the SD card? If not, where is it stored when I shut down the phone? If everything is on the SD card, then why doesn't it show all the apps installed and the same screens when I swap the SD card into the 2nd phone?

3. I have a number of Gmail accounts. I specifically created a new Gmail account for this phone. SO it has no contacts in it. But my phone has contacts in it. How do I get my contacts on the phone into this GMail account?

4. Is there some sort of Android tutorial that you would recommend?

 

[Kamau]

Download a free app from the app store called "Signal Notification". It displays your actual strength in numbers.
But I hear you on the flux problems. Mine does the same thing, but mostly because of poor coverage in my area. I hesitate rooting because it's not the phone, but the area. Rooting would not solve that, but would give me more cntrol over the phone itself. But since I plan on getting as far away from VM as possible in the next couple months, and this phone, again rooting is really not helpful for me.

 

[imabitfighty]

most of your information is saved to your google account.

contacts are saved there, downloaded apps are remembered, most phone settings. pretty much everything except SMS.

I use "SMS backup and restore" to move sms between roms. everything else I let google take care of for me. never had a problem with that method.


of course if your trying to save app data like your score in angry birds, then youll need to backup the app itself. but all the apps I use are services that I sign into.

 

[jojo99]

Download a free app from the app store called "Signal Notification". It displays your actual strength in numbers.
But I hear you on the flux problems. Mine does the same thing, but mostly because of poor coverage in my area. I hesitate rooting because it's not the phone, but the area. Rooting would not solve that, but would give me more cntrol over the phone itself. But since I plan on getting as far away from VM as possible in the next couple months, and this phone, again rooting is really not helpful for me.

I am in the thick of the SF Bay Area, about 2 miles from San Francisco airport. The coverage map shows solid coverage everywhere in this area. I am not out in the sticks. So this up and down signal strength shouldn't be related to any coverage problems. My friends AT&T and Metro-PCS phones work fine where the VM phone doesn't.

I also saw the same problem for the short time I tried using the replacement phone that VM sent me before I switched back to the old phone because I did not want to lose all my apps & settings.

 

[jojo99]

most of your information is saved to your google account.

contacts are saved there, downloaded apps are remembered, most phone settings. pretty much everything except SMS.

I use "SMS backup and restore" to move sms between roms. everything else I let google take care of for me. never had a problem with that method.


of course if your trying to save app data like your score in angry birds, then youll need to backup the app itself. but all the apps I use are services that I sign into.

I am not seeing this. I just went to my GMail account and I don't see any of my contacts there. So then I went into the phone settings to the 'Account & sync' screen and did a sync all. But still no contacts have shown up.

Which makes me ask the question as to if contacts and 'People' are one & the same?

I have about 15 people (contacts?) under the 'People' app. Should these people be somewhere else? If so, how do I get them wherever they are supposed to be?

 

[jojo99]

What is rooting? Doesn't doing this invalidate your phone warranty?

 

[imabitfighty]

I am not seeing this. I just went to my GMail account and I don't see any of my contacts there. So then I went into the phone settings to the 'Account & sync' screen and did a sync all. But still no contacts have shown up.

Which makes me ask the question as to if contacts and 'People' are one & the same?

I have about 15 people (contacts?) under the 'People' app. Should these people be somewhere else? If so, how do I get them wherever they are supposed to be?

i use the HTC phone app to save my contacts, it doesnt specifically ask me to save to phone or gmail, but ive been able to sign in on a fresh rom installation and see all the contacts I saved back after a sync.


on a pure AOSP android rom, the phone app would ask if you want to save to phone memory or to gmail contacts. the gmail contacts sync back to a phone.


check your settings in android and every app. back up as much as you can to your gmail, it just saves alllll this headache your dealing with.

 

[jojo99]

Seems the only way I could get my contacts into my GMail email account was to do a VCard import.

Is it possible that the problems I am having connecting this phone and Google might be due to the fact that I am using a Google Voice number from a different email account? The email aco**** tied to the phone does not have a GVoice number.

Why? Because I want to retain the old number I have been using for the last couple of years but don't want all the contacts that reside on the old email account connected to that voice number.

When I discovered that the phone had imported over a hundred meaningless contacts from that old email account when I connected the phone to the old GMail account (why not offer the option to let me choose to import the contacts?), I deleted them all. I then switched the phone connection to a new GMail account BUT retained the old GVoice number and settings that routed to the phone.

 

[Kamau]

I am in the thick of the SF Bay Area, about 2 miles from San Francisco airport. The coverage map shows solid coverage everywhere in this area. I am not out in the sticks. So this up and down signal strength shouldn't be related to any coverage problems. My friends AT&T and Metro-PCS phones work fine where the VM phone doesn't.

I also saw the same problem for the short time I tried using the replacement phone that VM sent me before I switched back to the old phone because I did not want to lose all my apps & settings.

Don't go by the coverage map. The one for me shows excellent coverage, but it's nowhere near accurate. I didn't know it at the time I bought my phone, but Sprint is absolutely horrible here. Even CS says coverage in my area is great, when it's not.

 

[jojo99]

Don't go by the coverage map. The one for me shows excellent coverage, but it's nowhere near accurate. I didn't know it at the time I bought my phone, but Sprint is absolutely horrible here. Even CS says coverage in my area is great, when it's not.

So coverage maps are not accurate for just Sprint or for all the cell companies? The FCC doesn't care? Is it worth complaining to the FCC?

I installed the signal app recommended above. Most of the time in my home, the signal strength is in the -90 to -110 range (which is a poor signal). Right now I am looking at -94 signal but 4-5 bars on the display!

So these signal strength numbers do not match the bars I see on the phone status display. Where is VM/Sprint getting their bar numbers from?

 

[Kamau]

All I know is that the signal bars are not nearly as accurate as the numbers I get from Signal Notification. I also will have any number of bars up to 5, yet still can't make or receive calls. But when my numbers are - 95 or more, then calls are more likely to drop or be broken up, and the Internet is much slower.

 

[deathsled]

while you may put apps on your SD card there are still pointers in the phone's built in storage that tell the phone to look to the SD card for the rest of the app data. If you put the card into another phone those pointers don't exist.

If you install a program in Windows and tell it to install to an external HD do you expect to be able to hook up that HD to another computer and the programs to appear in the Start menu?

 

[jojo99]

while you may put apps on your SD card there are still pointers in the phone's built in storage that tell the phone to look to the SD card for the rest of the app data. If you put the card into another phone those pointers don't exist.

If you install a program in Windows and tell it to install to an external HD do you expect to be able to hook up that HD to another computer and the programs to appear in the Start menu?

Maybe a better example would be if I were to install a program on a USB flash drive and then plug that flash drive into another computer, would I expect the computer to find that program? The answer is of course I would. Wouldn't you?

My 2 cent opinion is that on a very portable device like a phone that is subject to loss or breakage more frequently than other less portable computing devices, the OS developers should make a total backup a one-step operation and it should be easy to reload everything on another phone.

As I am learning now, backing up and transferring to another phone in Android is a hair-pulling exercise. Some aps apparently run on the SD card, some cannot and must reside in the primary phone memory. Contacts are supposed to be backed up to a GMail account (??) but this is not working for me right now. App settings cannot be backed up unless I root the device. And I am sure there is more that I have yet to stumble upon. Whew.

 

[deathsled]

Maybe a better example would be if I were to install a program on a USB flash drive and then plug that flash drive into another computer, would I expect the computer to find that program? The answer is of course I would. Wouldn't you?

No my example was better and more accurately describes what you're experiencing.

It's true on a PC you can have applications that don't "install" necessarily and can just run from any folder located anywhere. Yes those programs can simply run off the USB drive, but Windows isn't aware of them. They wouldn't show up in the Start Menu or in the Add/Remove Programs section.

Most programs must be installed using their installer and place files in the Windows directory or entries in the registry. The same thing happens when you install a program on an Android device. Android apps are installed via a downloaded/sideloaded APK which decompresses, places files in various places, and registers itself with the OS. There aren't any executables that just blindly run without installing.

Your phone is not a PC.

 

[softtech]

jojo99 is describing how (s)he wishes things would work; deathsled is describing how things actually work.

jojo can argue all (s)he wants about how things ought to work. I won't even argue with him/her, but neither should jojo argue about deathsled's description about how things actually work. (S)he's right.

 

[jojo99]

jojo99 is describing how (s)he wishes things would work; deathsled is describing how things actually work.

jojo can argue all (s)he wants about how things ought to work. I won't even argue with him/her, but neither should jojo argue about deathsled's description about how things actually work. (S)he's right.

I was not arguing. It was my 2 cents opinion. [shrug]