power cycling

[megraven21]

My phone starts power cycling all on its own. I am on my first replacement phone and this was the problem with the first razr. it will power cycle for anywhere from 5-30mins at a time and there isn't anything i can do to stop it. it gets really hot, which worries me that it will damage my phone. The first razr i got was a replacement phone as a replacement for the bionic so i have never actually had a NEW razr. I am using Go Launcher on a non-rooted phone. anyone have this problem or know what's going on? I saw that this might have been a software problem but i an wondering if this may be a cause of go launcher. i just read some reviews and i do see a couple people say GL caused a similar issue but don't say what phone that are on. I am tempted to call Verizon but I'm betting another replacement phone is not going to fix this.

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[cereal killer]

delete Go Launcher and see what happens. It's definitely a troublesome app. You just have to find it. First thing I would do is delete Go Launcher, reboot for the halibut, and run it for a day. If no problems then you found the issue, if it happens again, jump back in here and list all your apps you have downloaded. Let us know what happens either way.

 

[megraven21]

I deleted Go Launcher and it power cycled again today for over 45mins. I actually lost a client over this because I couldn't respond to him fast enough. =(

Called verizon today and they said its a known issue and they are working on a fix. obviously there is no telling when it will come out so they offered me a different phone, any 4G phone. I have been wanting the Maxx since it came out so I am going to try that. I know it might have the same issue but since its the I have wanted anyway, its worth a shot. If it still happens with the Maxx, Droid 4 it is.

I am still interested in known how to fix this or at least what the problem is. also, I'd like to know off anyone is having this problem with the Maxx?

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[m524c]

Meg,

I have struggled with this problem since i received my Razr in early January. I have spoken with both Verizon and Motorola - but at that time (Jan) they were not ready to admit it was a known problem. Did the Razr Maxx solve your issues?

My phone works great as long as I do not load all my apps. I have done extensive testing to prove to myself it is not a matter of any particular app, but rather the phone simply cannot handle the volume of apps... especially if you move a good chunk of them to the media area (internal SD card).

 

[FoxKat]

Meg,

I have struggled with this problem since i received my Razr in early January. I have spoken with both Verizon and Motorola - but at that time (Jan) they were not ready to admit it was a known problem. Did the Razr Maxx solve your issues?

My phone works great as long as I do not load all my apps. I have done extensive testing to prove to myself it is not a matter of any particular app, but rather the phone simply cannot handle the volume of apps... especially if you move a good chunk of them to the media area (internal SD card).

You bring up a good point. When I had my Droid 1 and Droid 2, I used to install a bunch of stuff, sometimes as many as 300+ apps, just to try them out. I found the digitizer to be unresponsive during some of those times, but if I went in and deleted the largest of those apps, it would only take 3 or 4 deletions and the problem would go away.

 

[FoxKat]

My phone starts power cycling all on its own...It will power cycle for anywhere from 5-30mins at a time and there isn't anything i can do to stop it. it gets really hot, which worries me that it will damage my phone.

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There is one thing you should be able to do to stop the power cycling. Press and hold the power button and volume down at the same time for at least 10 seconds. The phone should stop cold and then try to reboot. If it begins power cycling again I would plug it into the charger and do the same thing one more time.

If that second resetting while plugged in results in the phone booting properly I feel the problem could be low voltage coming from the battery. If it boots normally the first time and doesn't begin power cycling, I going with a factory reset as being in order. It may be one or more apps that are starting up initially and that may be interfering with the boot process causing it to stall and try to fix itself by rebooting. Also, I didn't notice if it was asked, but are you rooted, are you running a custom ROM?

 

[raygun91]

I'm having the same issues with my Maxx. It's less than a month old and is not "rooted." It rebooted on it's own today, which is normal, but went into an endless power cycle. Battery pulls do not solve the problem with and without the charger. Also, with the power off and the charger plugged in it shows a gray battery with a big question mark (?) inside (could my battery be dead or have a bad connection somehow?). I've had it on the charger for 4.5 hours now but still no luck. I plan on visiting the Verizon store tomorrow.

 

[FoxKat]

I'm having the same issues with my Maxx. It's less than a month old and is not "rooted." It rebooted on it's own today, which is normal, but went into an endless power cycle. Battery pulls do not solve the problem with and without the charger. Also, with the power off and the charger plugged in it shows a gray battery with a big question mark (?) inside (could my battery be dead or have a bad connection somehow?). I've had it on the charger for 4.5 hours now but still no luck. I plan on visiting the Verizon store tomorrow.

Gray battery and question mark is a bad sign after so long. It may be that the battery had been discharged below the minimum thresholds to allow the phone to charge it. It's even possible that the battery is now in protection mode.

Have you ever charged it fully while the power was off? Did you do this initially, before playing with the phone when first activated, or did you start using it right away like most everyone does?

If you get a replacement phone tomorrow, make sure you do not use it until it has been fully charged while powered off.

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[raygun91]

FoxKat: No, I have not charged it fully with the power off since I got it. The night I activated it, I played on it for a couple of hours before going to bed and charging it (power on however). After reading your posts in other threads I have a feeling that this is probably the source of my question mark problem. It looks like they should have consulted you when writing these start-up guides It seems like something like that should be included in these in giant bold wording. Could this also be related to the power cycling issue that is plaguing me?

But I very much appreciate the advice and will definitely keep it in mind should I end up needing a replacement.

 

[raygun91]

I was finally able to get out of the power cycle of doom on my Razr Maxx!dancedroid I will write it out step-by-step to possibly help other poor souls in the future:

*I started by performing a battery pull by holding down the volume down and power button for about 10 sec.
*As soon as the screen went dark, I then held both volume buttons until a screen came up with white letters giving some booting options.
*Scroll down to "restore" by using the volume down button, and select "restore" using the volume up button
*Now a screen with a triangle with an exclamation point (!) and the android guy popped up.
*Press both volume buttons to bring up a pop-up menu with several options including something similar to "factory restore." Select it by pressing the power button
*Another menu comes up with "yes" or "no." Scroll down to "yes" using the volume down and select it with the power button.

I am not sure if all of steps are exactly right, but there they are as best as I can remember. By doing this, I was able to perform a factory restore without being able to boot. This erases all of your saved data, but at least restores the phones functionality. If you were having the same problems as me, make sure you power down and charge it to 100% IMMEDIATELY after setup (Many, many thanks to FoxKat for all of the info on this:hail:. Read his posts for tons of his expert knowledge on batteries). I will update in the future on whether or not it solved all of my issues or not.

 

[FoxKat]

That is what I call some serious troubleshooting. Good work.

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[m524c]

Glad to see you got it working... disappointed you have the same problem as with the standard Razr... not surprised though... I think they run the same OS, and the only difference on the Maxx is the larger battery.

I have found that when you do a factory reset the way you describe it does not clear all your internal memory... so after doing that, I always do another one through the menu system...

There are a couple tricks to rebooting once it starts power cycling, but if it just keeps going, what you did is about the only option.

Do you have lots of apps loaded? Do you know how many?

 

[FoxKat]

Glad to see you got it working... disappointed you have the same problem as with the standard Razr... not surprised though... I think they run the same OS, and the only difference on the Maxx is the larger battery.

I have found that when you do a factory reset the way you describe it does not clear all your internal memory... so after doing that, I always do another one through the menu system...

There are a couple tricks to rebooting once it starts power cycling, but if it just keeps going, what you did is about the only option.

Do you have lots of apps loaded? Do you know how many?

This is good advice in general. Theoretically it shouldn't be, but we all know how finicky these little computers are and it's not uncommon to have a tiny error slip through during flash that might show up immediately but also might not rear its ugly head until that moment in time when you need the phone the most (Murphy's law).

Of course, not only should you do the full Factory reset, but also make sure you've backed up the internal SD card prior to (if you can gain access to it), and then make sure to wipe internal SD card as part of the reset. Also, I think it's good practice to go in and wipe both cache and Dalvik caches as well. On another note, someone mentioned that even if you're having trouble getting access to the phone's OS, you may still be able to plug into USB and get access to the SD cards to backup to the PC, so that's also worth a try.

 

[raygun91]

Glad to see you got it working... disappointed you have the same problem as with the standard Razr... not surprised though... I think they run the same OS, and the only difference on the Maxx is the larger battery.

I have found that when you do a factory reset the way you describe it does not clear all your internal memory... so after doing that, I always do another one through the menu system...

There are a couple tricks to rebooting once it starts power cycling, but if it just keeps going, what you did is about the only option.

Do you have lots of apps loaded? Do you know how many?

I didn't have many at all. Maybe 10-15 and a few widgets as it is fairly new and my first smartphone. I have read about people feeling like they have too many apps. What kind of numbers are we talking about for this to become an issue?

 

[FoxKat]

I didn't have many at all. Maybe 10-15 and a few widgets as it is fairly new and my first smartphone. I have read about people feeling like they have too many apps. What kind of numbers are we talking about for this to become an issue?

Ha! I've routinely had upwards of 200 on the RAZR and it gives no problems so you need not worry.

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