Verizon Tech here - ask away!

[viperboy]

Hey everyone. I just registered for this site. Seems like a great place to be. I do Tech Support for Verizon in-store and know all of the phones pretty well. I am here to answer any questions you might have (let's try to keep it related to the Droid) that you might not have the answer to. Please keep in mind, I'm not a developer and I'm not going to be able to tell you that why such and such app isn't working on your phone. I'm here to answer questions related to Verizon and how the Droid works with Verizon's network and any tech related questions related to the Droid.

Feel free to ask whatever questions you have. I look forward to helping you.

UPDATED 12/25/09

A couple quick things...

1.) First and foremost, I'm here to TROUBLESHOOT and provide answers to help you with your phone. If you are looking for leaked information about new phones or you want credits on your account, you've come to the wrong place. None of that will be happening here. I just need to make sure this is 100% clear.
2.) This seems like this is really catching on here, so I will keep this post up to date with common issues and fixes to things so you don't have to go through the entire thread for answers.
3.) Please understand, this is not my full-time job to sit here and wait for someone to post something so I can respond. I'm doing this to help you guys and answer questions.
4.) That being said, you might see that I don't get to answer questions for 12+ hours. Don't worry, I will answer them, but it will take some time to do so.
5.) On that note, for simple issues, it might be more beneficial for you to search and read through some threads instead of awaiting a response from me on a question about battery life, for example. There is no set answer, it would be best for you to search around, find a thread that is already created for that topic, and take a read through. I'm not saying I don't want to answer those questions, but you might get an answer faster that way and learn more in the process.

Initial Troubleshooting Steps (Please do these steps before asking a questions about a problem with your phone!)
Step 1: Remove battery. If issue persists, see Step 2.
Step 2: Boot the phone in Safe Mode. This can be done by pressing and holding the Menu button on the physical keyboard and the Power button when the phone boots up. You will know you are in Safe Mode because it will say so in the bottom left of the screen. If issue persists, see Step 3.
Step 3:Now post in this thread to ask me a question. I will assume that you did these first 2 steps if you are posting here.

Common Tech Solutions and Tips

- Improve Call Audio Quality (Doesn't seem to work if you have anything to do with Alltel!)

• Dial ##7764726 (##PROGRAM) and act as if you were going to call that number.
• Enter 000000 for the SPC Password and then tap Verify
• Tap on "04 Vocode"
• Tap on EVRC-B than Apply
• Tap the Home Screen button and the phone should automatically reset a few seconds afterward. If not, power cycle the phone
• Explanation - This changes how the phone compresses and decompressed the call audio which improves the quality.

- Safe Mode

• With the phone off, slide open the keyboard open
• Press and hold the Power+Menu button (on the keyboard)
• Continue to hold until the "Droid Eye" comes up and you feel the phone vibrate
• Phone should start up and say "Safe Mode" in the bottom left-hand corner
• Explanation - This starts only the core Android processes. This is best used for diagnosing if a 3rd party application is causing your phone to malfunction or if you cannot uninstall if when in regular mode.
• TRY THIS FIRST if you are having any problems with your phone acting up, especially with the built-in Android apps (example - Messaging app is crashing. Boot in Safe Mode. If app doesn't crash when doing what you were doing in regular mode, it's most likely going to be a 3rd party app with access to messaging that is causing a problem.)
• BE AWARE that after coming out of Safe Mode, 3rd party widgets might not display properly on the home screen. Press and hold on the widget and drag it down into the trash can, then readd it to the home screen. This will fix the "problem loading widget" error.

- Multiple Facebook Entries for a Contact

• From the Home Screen, go to Settings > Accounts and Sync
• Tap on your email assigned to your Facebook
• Tap on "Remove Account"
• Go back a menu and tap "Add Account"
• Select "Facebook" and set it up again

- Contacts No Longer in Contacts List

• Go to Contacts > Menu > Display Options.
• Tap on your GMail account to drop down that list
• Check everything in that list
• Back out and they should be in there
• Explanation - Sometimes after a SW update, the contacts groups will go back to default and "hide" some (or possibly all) of your contacts.

FAQ

- What was changed with the 2.0.1 Update?

• This is directly from VerizonWireless.com. http://learning.verizonwireless.com/learning/Droid_Motorola_Software_Update.pdf

- After the 2.0.1 update, the Browser lags! Why?? When will this be fixed?

• It has been suggested that what is slowing it down is that the phone is now keeping full image quality even while scrolling instead of lower image quality while scrolling and than full quality when not scrolling. At this time, Verizon hasn't issued a way to correct this. If this changes, I will update this.

- When will tethering be officially supported by Verizon?

• This fix is projected for sometime in Q1 '10. The hold up is that Access Manager isn't compatible with the Android phones yet and doesn't have the drivers built-in to get the phone to tether.

- When is new software coming out for the Droid??

• If all goes according to plan, the end of January.
  

- How about new Android phones??

• I can't really talk about that. Truthfully, you will probably read about it online before many people at Verizon know.

- How do you delete your bookmarks?

• Open the Browser, press Menu, select Bookmarks, and long press and hold on the bookmark you want to delete than "Delete bookmark".

- What cases will work with the Car Dock and Multimedia Dock?

• All of the current cases offered by Verizon will not work with either dock, unless you remove the case.

- When is the Droid going to get multi-touch?

• Officially, there have been no announced plans for multi-touch. I was told by a Motorola rep that when they were testing this phone they found that using multi-touch was more cumbersome to use than just double tapping. That is why this phone doesn't do that, so I hear.

- Can you send sounds through the Messaging app?

• No, you cannot send it through a text, but you can download Explorer and navigate to the directory where your audio is kept, long press, and then Send. You can then select GMail to send via EMail. You could also put in that persons "phone email" such as 5555551234@vtext.com for example.

• Explorer will give you an option select Messaging instead of GMail but it just opens the messaging app and will not attach your audio file. It's a shame, that would be a very useful feature.

- Can you upload files from the Browser?

• No, uploading is disabled. I do not know of an app that will enable that, even Dolphin Broswer doesn’t support uploads.

- Can you go on the web while on a call?

• ONLY if you have WiFi on and are connected to a network. There is NO OTHER WAY to use data and be on a call at the same time. And if you just load the Browser and make it go back a page and it loads when you don’t have WiFi on, it’s because that page is cached. You CANNOT use the phone and be on the web at the same time without using WiFi. Period.

Why did my contacts disappear??

• They probably didn’t, don’t panic. Go into Contacts > Menu > Display Settings and tap on your Gmail account. Check all of the boxes under there and then back out. All of your contacts should be there.

- My contacts won’t sync and I get an error that says “Sync is currently experiencing problems. It will be back shortly.” What do I do?

• Go to gmail.com from your computer, login, and click on Contacts on the left hand side. Export them and save that file on your computer. Make sure it is saved there. Go back to your GMail contacts and select all of them and erase all of them. From your phone, erase all contacts and try to sync with your GMail than. The error should go away and your contacts should be gone. Go back from your computer and import those contacts again. Initiate a sync from your phone (Home Screen > Menu > Settings > Account and sync – tap the green sync icon) and you should have no more problems syncing!
  

- If I root my phone, do I still have a warranty?

• Verizon says that this “may void the warranty”. Unfortunately, that isn’t very clear so it is really up to the rep. If they feel that you rooting the device directly caused a problem that ruined your phone, they could refuse to replace it.

- Why do I see a ? when trying to view pictures in an EMail?

• This problem seems to happen when pictures are embedded into an email. Unfortunately, there is no fix for this at the moment.

- How do I make an app not have a default action anymore? (Using Messaging app instead of Handcent, for example)

• This can be changed by going Home Screen > Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage Applications. Select the app you want to unassign from an action and select “Clear Defaults”.

- How do you make a contact a favorite?

• Go into your Contacts and tap on a contact you want to set as a favorite. Tap on the star in the top right of that contact. It should turn gold and when you go into Favorites, it should be set.

- I want to tether my phone. Can I use PDAnet?

• PDAnet is a program that breaks Verizon’s Terms and Conditions. Your data plan is only for using data from your phone. It’s not for a computer to use your data connection. If Verizon would find out that you were using PDAnet, you could be held responsible for that tethering usage.
• A tethering option from Verizon will be coming in the 1Q of 2010. At this point, VZ Access Manager doesn’t have drivers for the Android phones to make them tether properly.

- Is there an easy way to send 1 text to multiple people?

• From the default Messaging app, no. It’s a little bit of a pain. There is an excellent SMS replacement called Handcent SMS that will allow you to do this.

I will continue to add to this as this thread grows. If you feel that anything should be added, please PM me and I will take care of it.

 

[New2u]

Hey there viperboy, thanks for joining. I would also like to thank you for extending your services for this site and it's users. We will try to keep this thread on topic, and if you need any help with that just send a PM and we will see what we can do about it

 

[s-one]

Cool, welcome dude. Hey so many of us have an issue with outgoing calls sounding horrible. Some have reported like a warble effect, others say their sound goes in/out and the person on the other end can't hear them. It has also been reported that the receiver says we sound muffled. Now this is totally different than the "echo" sound that the receiver hears when they themselves talks to a Droid cell phone user. These are all "outgoing" calls in which the receiver has problems hearing. Look at this thread over at Motorola Support Forum. They can't even tell me who to contact about the bug so it gets tracked. The Forum Manager over there bailed on the thread. So who's issue is this? Motorola's, Verizon's? Google's? and how do we report it so it gets tracked and fixed?

Dont worry.. I'm not coming at you sideways.. just want to get the blasted thing fixed.

 

[dezymond]

Great to have more help on the forum and a certified Verizon Tech at that!

Welcome to the forum. Might want to check out the Tech Issue section of the forum and start from there?

I personally don't have any problems at all with my Droid and am 100% completely happy with it.

 

[medicTHREE]

I always think it is funny when someone comes in and says they work for such and such and they are going to answer all of our problems. Rarely do they live up to the hype. I think the soft approach of just helping where needed without being all showy and asking everyone to look at them works a lot better... Prove we should listen to you, don't tell us we should.

 

[viperboy]

Hey there viperboy, thanks for joining. I would also like to thank you for extending your services for this site and it's users. We will try to keep this thread on topic, and if you need any help with that just send a PM and we will see what we can do about it

Thanks very much! I would love to one day make it to a mod here, always thought that would be cool :icon_ banana:. Thanks, I will let you know if any problems arise.

Cool, welcome dude. Hey so many of us have an issue with outgoing calls sounding horrible. Some have reported like a warble effect, others say their sound goes in/out and the person on the other end can't hear them. It has also been reported that the receiver says we sound muffled. Now this is totally different than the "echo" sound that the receiver hears when they themselves talks to a Droid cell phone user. These are all "outgoing" calls in which the receiver has problems hearing. Look at this thread over at Motorola Support Forum. They can't even tell me who to contact about the bug so it gets tracked. The Forum Manager over there bailed on the thread. So who's issue is this? Motorola's, Verizon's? Google's? and how do we report it so it gets tracked and fixed?

Dont worry.. I'm not coming at you sideways.. just want to get the blasted thing fixed.

Huge thread, I will try to read through all of it at a later time. I have been getting this in the store alot. Here is what you can do to improve call quality. I have done this on every customer's Droid.

##7764726 (##PROGRAM)
CALL Button
Enter SPC Password - 000000
VERIFY
04 Vocode
Select EVRC-B

This will change how the phone compresses and decompresses call audio. Seems to work really well, I have noticed and improvement for sure and I no longer get the "you sound like you're underwater" complaints from people I talk to. Give it a shot!

Great to have more help on the forum and a certified Verizon Tech at that!

Welcome to the forum. Might want to check out the Tech Issue section of the forum and start from there?

I personally don't have any problems at all with my Droid and am 100% completely happy with it.

Good to hear you like your phone! I love it too! I came from a few BBs (among other phones) so this is different for me. Used to be a T-Mobile Tech (in Tier 2) and never was into their Android devices for some reason. The network was definitely a weak point as well. But I am really liking the Droid!

 

[viperboy]

I always think it is funny when someone comes in and says they work for such and such and they are going to answer all of our problems. Rarely do they live up to the hype. I think the soft approach of just helping where needed without being all showy and asking everyone to look at them works a lot better... Prove we should listen to you, don't tell us we should.

I'm not trying to be "showy". Sometimes, people want answers from Verizon and they might get mixed answers/incorrect info from Care or Tech Support. Trust me, I know the network very well and I am always the one to give out the correct information and make sure other people I work with are up to date and giving out the correct information as well.

I created this thread so people have a place to go where they can as someone who works for the company. You will see what I have to offer to this community.

 

[dezymond]

I always think it is funny when someone comes in and says they work for such and such and they are going to answer all of our problems. Rarely do they live up to the hype. I think the soft approach of just helping where needed without being all showy and asking everyone to look at them works a lot better... Prove we should listen to you, don't tell us we should.

awww c'mon medic, no need to be so hostile to the new guy. He's here to help and that's alot better than some of the trolls i've seen around this forum that pop up every now and then.

He's already given advice to the Droids with bad sound quality. He seems like a good guy, just tryin to help the people who can't make it to the store or answer a question that no one else answered.

 

[viperboy]

I always think it is funny when someone comes in and says they work for such and such and they are going to answer all of our problems. Rarely do they live up to the hype. I think the soft approach of just helping where needed without being all showy and asking everyone to look at them works a lot better... Prove we should listen to you, don't tell us we should.

awww c'mon medic, no need to be so hostile to the new guy. He's here to help and that's alot better than some of the trolls i've seen around this forum that pop up every now and then.

He's already given advice to the Droids with bad sound quality. He seems like a good guy, just tryin to help the people who can't make it to the store or answer a question that no one else answered.

Thank you, that is all I'm trying to do. Basically, I want to be this community's "one stop shop" for complete and accurate information as it relates to the Droid and Verizon. Trust me, I'm not just another tech.

 

[seven40]

viperboy, when would you recommend the droid being exchanged for a new one? i've had to reset the phone to factory settings twice already due to random reboots and virtual keyboard not popping up when it should (yes, i checked the system settings and pulled the battery but no luck). i know that android uses automatic memory management which can contribute to the unstable performance, but how are we to know if we indeed have a lemon on our hands?

 

[viperboy]

viperboy, when would you recommend the droid being exchanged for a new one? i've had to reset the phone to factory settings twice already due to random reboots and virtual keyboard not popping up when it should (yes, i checked the system settings and pulled the battery but no luck). i know that android uses automatic memory management which can contribute to the unstable performance, but how are we to know if we indeed have a lemon on our hands?

What I do with issues like that is boot the phone in safe mode...

Power phone off
Slide keyboard open
Press and hold Power+Menu button (on keyboard) until "Droid Eye" comes up
Phone should say "Safe Mode" in the bottom left hand corner

Use the phone in Safe Mode for a little bit. In Safe Mode, the phone just loads the core processes and none of the 3rd party apps. Usually if you have a shortcut to a 3rd party app, it will stay there and might open, but usually you get a Force Close error. None of the 3rd party apps will load in the apps list.

If you still have that problem in Safe Mode, I would say it should be exchanged. If you don't have that problem, look at your 3rd party apps and see if any of those apps could interfere with the keyboard.

And when you have this problem, is it in a certain app? I keep alot of SMS and sometimes, when I get a text, unlock the phone and go to type, it's frozen (atleast that was on 2.0, haven't experienced that yet on 2.0.1). If you tap in the text field, it just "blinks" and doesn't bring up the keyboard and if you wait a few seconds, you get the Force Close or Wait option. I click Wait and it seems to work right after that. I just wanted to see if there was a certain time when your keyboard isn't coming up and if you were tapping on the text box to try to bring it up.

 

[viperboy]

I see someone already did some cleaning I appreciate that. It's nice to see that the mods on here care about the forum. I'm on a car forum that almost anything goes, and it shouldn't. Mods just let way too much go. Thanks again.

 

[lance7lot]

lost all my contacts after update

after updating recently, my contacts dissappeared. i first noticed that my messages only had numbers and no names. they came back for a second, but then dissappeared apparently for good now. all my contacts except two random ones remained.

i've tried everything, re syncing everything there is. trying to import from sd card, checked my gmail account contacts and they are all gone too! what in the world happened and are they really lost forever? i was such a fan of the droid but this is the worst possible thing that could have happened.

 

[viperboy]

after updating recently, my contacts dissappeared. i first noticed that my messages only had numbers and no names. they came back for a second, but then dissappeared apparently for good now. all my contacts except two random ones remained.

i've tried everything, re syncing everything there is. trying to import from sd card, checked my gmail account contacts and they are all gone too! what in the world happened and are they really lost forever? i was such a fan of the droid but this is the worst possible thing that could have happened.

Wow, sorry to hear that! If they're not on your GMail account, they are going to be gone, most likely. The only thing I can tell you is to go into Contacts > Menu > Display Options and check everything under your GMail account. Go back into your contacts and see if anything shows up. If not, sorry, they are gone.

Do you have an old phone still with your contacts on it? They can be transferred to your Droid from the store's machines.

 

[richie1378]

Viperboy, thanks for helping us Droid users with question/problems we have with our devices! I just have a couple issues that I'm concerned about:

1. Why is it that I still can't view some animated/videos that are sent to me by MMS? I have a friend that has another verizon smartphone (Blackberry Storm) and he has not problem viewing them.

2. When I check my Gmail account, it still shows some of the content (images) that are attached to the email as "question marks" instead of what it is supposed to be.

Thanks again, hope you can help!