Not staying connected to data network

[337gtikid]

OK so im having a similar issue, im on my second thunderbolt because my first one was stolen. At my job i had consistent and fast 4g/3g connectivity on my first thunderbolt. after it was stolen, i had to go back to a regular droid and i went to craigslist and bought another thunderbolt. The problem with this current phone is places i had 3g/4g connection i only have 1x symbol. if i were to check my phone 9/10 times it would say 1x. i barely connect to 4g/3g and when i do sometimes it still wont load pages or videos but shows the 3g/4g icon. I called verizon tech, pulled battery, sim car, and did a factory reset but i still get nothing. and because it wasnt bought through them there is no warranty. i have no idea what could be the difference in why my 1st TB connected and and my 2nd TB wont connect for crap. I use my phone alot at work and since the 4G signal is strong out here that was my whole purpose of getting it, now im kinda screwed, any suggestions

 

[eldub]

Latest OTA

OK so im having a similar issue, im on my second thunderbolt because my first one was stolen. At my job i had consistent and fast 4g/3g connectivity on my first thunderbolt. after it was stolen, i had to go back to a regular droid and i went to craigslist and bought another thunderbolt. The problem with this current phone is places i had 3g/4g connection i only have 1x symbol. if i were to check my phone 9/10 times it would say 1x. i barely connect to 4g/3g and when i do sometimes it still wont load pages or videos but shows the 3g/4g icon. I called verizon tech, pulled battery, sim car, and did a factory reset but i still get nothing. and because it wasnt bought through them there is no warranty. i have no idea what could be the difference in why my 1st TB connected and and my 2nd TB wont connect for crap. I use my phone alot at work and since the 4G signal is strong out here that was my whole purpose of getting it, now im kinda screwed, any suggestions

This problem started for me after the July OTA, and ended after the latest Gingerbread OTA. Have you downloaded the latest software update? My phone is stock and I don't want to root until the warranty runs out since rooting voids the warranty, but since your don't have a warranty anyway you may want to consider rooting since you can change roms and radios which will probably help your bolt perform better.

 

[337gtikid]

I got the phone Tuesday night and it had a software update I am running 2.3.4 I went to the Verizon store this morning and had a new sim card pit in it but I'm still noticing the 2x signal in some areas, ill chrch when I get to work if it still has 1x ill have to do some research on rooting cause that means this phones radio is garbage

 

[337gtikid]

Well I got to work and the phone still shows 1x and sometimes loses data all together, which means the sim card didnt do anything so now I'm stuck between rooting or just selling it. You said I could root it and download software to improve radio signal? How would i do that

 

[eldub]

check your settings before rooting

Well I got to work and the phone still shows 1x and sometimes loses data all together, which means the sim card didnt do anything so now I'm stuck between rooting or just selling it. You said I could root it and download software to improve radio signal? How would i do that

I'm no expert, and I really don't have the time to make playing with my phone a career so I am stock. Poke around the internet about rooting the thunderbolt and you will find lots of info. Some things you may want to check on your phone first: follow the instructions on this site, How to disable 4G on the HTC Thunderbolt for battery savings | How To - CNET, except make sure the "CDMA+LTE/EvDo auto" option is selected.
Go to menu > setting > wireless and networks > make sure mobile network has a green check and says connected > from there go to mobile networks > network mode > make sure LTE/CDMA is selected.
This is obvious, but make sure WiFi is turned off.
Whatever you do, do not dial *228 like you would on a non-4g phone to update roaming. If you do it will damage your sim card.
Sorry you are having this problem, I know how frustrating it can be. Luckily this problem seemed to be fixed for many people by the latest OTA, good luck I hope you can get it worked out. This is why I would be very nervous buying a refurbished or used phone, I cringe every time Verizon's solution to any problem I have that isn't fixed by a factory reset is to exchange it for a "certified like new phone" which is a fancy way of saying a refurbished phone that someone checked to make sure it powers up.

 

[337gtikid]

I'm no expert, and I really don't have the time to make playing with my phone a career so I am stock. Poke around the internet about rooting the thunderbolt and you will find lots of info. Some things you may want to check on your phone first: follow the instructions on this site, How to disable 4G on the HTC Thunderbolt for battery savings | How To - CNET, except make sure the "CDMA+LTE/EvDo auto" option is selected.
Go to menu > setting > wireless and networks > make sure mobile network has a green check and says connected > from there go to mobile networks > network mode > make sure LTE/CDMA is selected.
This is obvious, but make sure WiFi is turned off.
Whatever you do, do not dial *228 like you would on a non-4g phone to update roaming. If you do it will damage your sim card.
Sorry you are having this problem, I know how frustrating it can be. Luckily this problem seemed to be fixed for many people by the latest OTA, good luck I hope you can get it worked out. This is why I would be very nervous buying a refurbished or used phone, I cringe every time Verizon's solution to any problem I have that isn't fixed by a factory reset is to exchange it for a "certified like new phone" which is a fancy way of saying a refurbished phone that someone checked to make sure it powers up.

I know what your saying, I tried all those options including swapping out sim card, factory reset, removing battery, any of the regular options that have worked. when verizon offered to send me a new phone that's when i knew i was screwed, and i couldn't cause i had to buy this from another person on craigs-list so, because my upgrade wasn't due for another 6 months and my droid crapped out of me, so it wasn't covered. So i can even get one of those phones. I mean if i can root it and improve my connectivity ill try that option, but if there's not point then id rather sell the phone, not to try and rip someone else off but im in a crappy situation myself.

 

[m@tt]

I've been dealing with this for awhile now. Last night I was on the phone with support for at lease hour or two. They put in a support ticket to another company that supports their towers (Guessing) I have a ticket number which never gotten before. The first lady talk to which was lvl 1 support try to tell me it's cuz in that area they have to many users trying to pull data. She gave me some url, but I could careless what her excuse was. I started noticing this problem 2 updates ago (To give you understanding when HTC put the option to switch from LTE/CMDA in the menu. Below are the steps I have taken...

Pull battery (Would come back for little awhile then you lose data again)
Factory reset (Beware of this, you well lose any custom settings you have setup)
Replace the phone
New 4g card (Which the problem went away for couple weeks)

Normally I experience the issue around 6pm - 7am in zip code 77494. I should hear something in 24/48 hours. Hopefully this issue can be corrected.

 

[Charged]

Don't waste your time. I've tried multiple Verizon LTE phones in multiple states and all of them have had the same problem. This Gingerbread update I got has made things at least 10x as bad as it was before. I'm really pissed at Verizon right now and it's time they come clean and admit there is a major issue with all of their LTE smartphones and give all of us refunds. I just don't understand how the bleep these phones ever made it out of testing stage and onto the market. Even the Droid Bionic can't stay connected to the network.

 

[eldub]

how i deal with it

I have found the easiest way to deal with this problem is to have the "mobile" widget button on my home screen and any time I lose data just turn data off and back on using this button. Most of the time 4g pops right up after doing this, sometimes not. You can also turn 4g off and just use 3g, then just turn 4g back on to download or do something data intensive. The issue seems to be with the phone's ability to automatically switch between 4g and 3g. I am close to a 4g tower and since the last OTA have had strong 4g signal. I haven't gone to a fringe area on the edge of the 4g signal yet, but when I do it will be interesting to see if the problem has been fixed or if my phone will continue to drop data as it tries to switch between 4g and 3g. I guess I will find out when I drive to PA for thanksgiving dinner.

 

[Banzai]

Glad I opened up a ticket on this when the issue started because now I'm a month into it and I have one hell of a paper trail that I'm using to get my hotspot and 4g service refunded until this crap is worked out.

Here is all relevant info from my ticket in case anyone wants to find some commonality.

Symptom:
Any location I used to tether to the following devices last for anywhere from 30 seconds to 12 minutes, with the average hang time being around 10 minutes. The hang time is noticeable first on the connected device when the page fail to load and speed tests (spekeasy on the web and the speedtest app on the phone/market) say they cannot connect to the network. Soon after the page failures the 4G icon on the phone either downshifts to 3GD or blinks off entirely. The 4G icon will try to come back on for 5-10 seconds and then blink off. This will continue until I shut down the hotspot.

Devices:
Mac Power Book - Snow Leopard
Mac G4 - Snow Leopard
PS3

Phone: Samsung Charge
I have gone through 3 different phones and 2 different sim cards with the same result.

App:
The default hotspot app "Moble Hotspot" and I have also tried "Tethering Shortcut", the only 2 apps I think are sanctioned by Verizon.

Things I have tried:
Power cycle.
Battery removal.
SIM Card removal.
Phone replacement.
Changing security type on connected devices to WAPPersonal, WAP2Personal, WEP, 801.x
Swapping into airplane mode.
Toggle on/off hotspot.
Turning standby mode off.
Data roaming on/off.
System selection LTE / CDMA - (CDMA is more stable but what's the point)

My signal strength is: -58 dBm thru -80 dBm
Hardware ver: i510.06
Firmware: 2.2.1
Kernel: 2.6.32.9


I have, no joke, spent over 10 hours on the phone with over 9 different techs. Been physically inside 1 brach that was totally worthless who sent me to a corporate store 8 miles away to sit in the lobby for 30 minutes and be spoke to like an didiot until I showed them, on my laptop, what the problem was. And then replicate th eproblem on the in store iPad and Xoom. 2 hours later they were scratching their heads and putting notes into my account but had ZERO help for me.

Out of that full 3 hour debacle all I got was a single note in my file that told tech support that the phone was not the issue.

On a personal note it was very satisfying to see the rep go from thinking I was an idiot to 3 reps huddled around the device telling me they had never seen that issue before.

By the way, I'm located in North Hollywood, California.

 

[Comp625]

Add me to the list of Thunderbolt users that are having issues locking into 3g.

Back in mid-September, I was out shopping and experienced this issue for the first time where the Thunderbolt wouldn't keep a 3g connection. It could still lock onto 4g, but I intentionally keep 4g disabled for battery-saving purposes. Mind you, the Thunderbolt was stock and was running on Froyo 2.2 at the time.

I spent about 30 minutes with Phone Tech Support and the L1 tech said there were no outages or service issues, and didn't know how to address my situation. At that point, I had demanded to speak to a manager and he said the only thing he could do was open a service ticket, and that was it. Both the L1 tech and the manager blamed it on some silly coincidence/maintenance work excuse that made no sense.

That same afternoon, I went to a brick & mortar Verizon store and the Manager there blamed it on the fact that I used apps like LTE On/Off and JuiceDefender. His explanation did make sense at the time until I got home and did some research that debunked his excuse.

The solution at the time was to hit ##778# > Password: 000000 > Modem Settings > Rev. A > "Enabled" (instead of eHRPD). That fixed it until...

Earlier this week (mid-December), I started experiencing this issue AGAIN. This time around, the Thunderbolt was still Stock but it's running Gingerbread 2.3.

1. While I was out shopping, I switched to 4g mode to quickly research on why this was happening. Stumbling upon the ##778# solution, I tried it again EXCEPT the Rev. A. setting was already set to "Enabled" (instead of eHRPD).
2. I've toyed around with Turning the Radio Off and then On again, via the "LTE On/Off" app, which worked once. However, the phone wouldn't lock back onto 3g.
3. I've tried Enabling/Disabling Airplane Mode and that didn't do anything.
4. I've confirmed that the Network Select has been and is still set to "Automatic" (instead of "Home Only").
5. I also tried disable and enable the "Data Enabled" feature in the Settings menu. It worked THIS time, but I would not be shocked if this problem will continue to surface again in the coming days.

Here are a few other facts that I've gathered when reading around other forums:

1. Apparently, rooted users are experiencing the same issues.
2. It would not shock me if the Thunderbolt's Gingerbread delays were related to this issue, and how it has been difficult to diagnose, replicate, and correct.
3. Also, I've stumbled on other threads indicating that non-Thunderbolt 4g users are having the same issues. It leads me to believe that this might be a Verizon issue related to the Handshakes/Permissions for phones that are equipped with a 4g LTE radio.

 

[Charged]

Back in mid-September, I was out shopping and experienced this issue for the first time where the Thunderbolt wouldn't keep a 3g connection. It could still lock onto 4g, but I intentionally keep 4g disabled for battery-saving purposes. Mind you, the Thunderbolt was stock and was running on Froyo 2.2 at the time.

I spent about 30 minutes with Phone Tech Support and the L1 tech said there were no outages or service issues, and didn't know how to address my situation. At that point, I had demanded to speak to a manager and he said the only thing he could do was open a service ticket, and that was it. Both the L1 tech and the manager blamed it on some silly coincidence/maintenance work excuse that made no sense.

That same afternoon, I went to a brick & mortar Verizon store and the Manager there blamed it on the fact that I used apps like LTE On/Off and JuiceDefender. His explanation did make sense at the time until I got home and did some research that debunked his excuse.

The solution at the time was to hit ##778# > Password: 000000 > Modem Settings > Rev. A > "Enabled" (instead of eHRPD). That fixed it until...

Earlier this week (mid-December), I started experiencing this issue AGAIN. This time around, the Thunderbolt was still Stock but it's running Gingerbread 2.3.

1. While I was out shopping, I switched to 4g mode to quickly research on why this was happening. Stumbling upon the ##778# solution, I tried it again EXCEPT the Rev. A. setting was already set to "Enabled" (instead of eHRPD).
2. I've toyed around with Turning the Radio Off and then On again, via the "LTE On/Off" app, which worked once. However, the phone wouldn't lock back onto 3g.
3. I've tried Enabling/Disabling Airplane Mode and that didn't do anything.
4. I've confirmed that the Network Select has been and is still set to "Automatic" (instead of "Home Only").
5. I also tried disable and enable the "Data Enabled" feature in the Settings menu. It worked THIS time, but I would not be shocked if this problem will continue to surface again in the coming days.

Here are a few other facts that I've gathered when reading around other forums:

1. Apparently, rooted users are experiencing the same issues.
2. It would not shock me if the Thunderbolt's Gingerbread delays were related to this issue, and how it has been difficult to diagnose, replicate, and correct.
3. Also, I've stumbled on other threads indicating that non-Thunderbolt 4g users are having the same issues. It leads me to believe that this might be a Verizon issue related to the Handshakes/Permissions for phones that are equipped with a 4g LTE radio.

I can confirm this issue exists with both the Droid Charge and HTC Thunderbolt. I can't keep an internet connection going for more than about 10 minutes and since it's my only way to get on the internet at home, it sucks. Verizon should reimburse every internet user for the last 12 months plus huge credits on our bill for all the time we've wasted on this issue. What I don't understand is why this isn't being mentioned in the mainstream media or even some major tech websites.

 

[lee__D]

I can confirm this issue exists with both the Droid Charge and HTC Thunderbolt. I can't keep an internet connection going for more than about 10 minutes and since it's my only way to get on the internet at home, it sucks. Verizon should reimburse every internet user for the last 12 months plus huge credits on our bill for all the time we've wasted on this issue. What I don't understand is why this isn't being mentioned in the mainstream media or even some major tech websites.

rooted tblot here. have had this issue fora week now. 4g for a few seconds>3g>1x>no data. It's bs. I'll have to goto the store and complain.

 

[Nyobie]

I've had my TB for 3 months. 4G had been working well until I updated the firmware via OTA which coincided with the day the Nexus was finally released in the US. For the past couple days, I've had nothing but issues with 4G, 3G, 1X bouncing back and forth. Hotspot is needless to say, completely worthless if 4G won't stay on.

I've tried every suggestion I've found on Forums over the past several hours and nothing worked until I turned off the phone, removed the battery and SIM and put them back in, then immediately turning the phone on.

It just doesn't make sense unless VZ has an algorithm running on their end that adjusts 4G usage based on a combo if settings and usage of an individual's phone, plus tower usage.

There is a Consumer Product Lemon Law I might look up again, just so I have it for my call to VZ with my complaint. Documented complaints are important if you need to go the next step, whatever that step may be.

Frustrated...

Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt

 

[bschuhma]

Is this fixed for everyone? I still have the issue...

I've been researching this for awhile but I just found this thread. I've had this issue for months, myself.

I've tried a new SIM card, a replacement phone, factory resets, etc. I've just tried the ##778# modem thing and it failed, too. I've placed 3-4 trouble-ticket calls to the "help" desk.

I visited a Verizon store a few days ago and the really helpful guy there tried a few experiments with me. We found the store's MS Windows PC was able to connect to my phone and the data link stayed lit, while connecting from my Macbook running Snow Leopard caused the link to immediately fail. I verified at home that my MS Windows laptop could connect and keep the data link up on the phone. The only thing I can think of is that my Mac is causing the data link on my phone to fail. I have a colleague with the Droid Bionic and a Mac that is able to maintain the data link, but he's running Lion, not Snow Leopard.

So my question is this - are any of the people suffering the data link dropout on their Droid using MS Windows or OS X Lion? Maybe I need to visit a Mac store with my laptop and see if their Lion Macbooks work where my laptop fails...

Thanks,

Bret