Random Lock Screen Freezing (Won't Wake Up)

[Bleser]

Hi All,

I just got my Samsung ATIV S Neo last Saturday and can't say enough about how much I love it. Fantastic phone and Windows Phone 8 feels light-years ahead of Android which I've been on for years.

Anyway, an issue has crept up that I can't figure out. It started last night (Monday). Basically, seemingly completely at random, the phone will just not wake up from the sleep state. In other words pressing the lock button to wake up the screen in order to unlock it does nothing. Holding the camera button won't wake it up like usual either. It's like some task on the lock screen is freezing the phone in its locked stated. The only way to get out of it is to hold the lock button down for 10 or so seconds and reboot the phone.

Since last night it has done this about four times. Prior to last night it never did it. The only app I installed yesterday is Facebook. I disabled background updating of the app and turned off the Facebook lock screen but neither has resolved the issue. Next step will be to uninstall Facebook... but given its popularity I can't imagine that is the real cause.

How can I diagnose this issue? Is anyone else having this problem?

Thanks!

 

[DBDev]

If you don't get any other advice you could try a hard reset, but that will delete all data on your phone.

 

[Bleser]

Yes, if uninstalling things doesn't resolve it I will move to that. But it is odd that it started happening so suddenly.

 

[Bleser]

See post #14 in this thread:

http://forums.windowscentral.com/samsung-ativ-s-neo/239478-few-problems.html#post2145870

Uninstalling Facebook fixed my issues.

 

[Bleser]

Well, I spoke too soon.

Yes, uninstalling Facebook fixed the self-rebooting of the phone, but I still regularly get the issue I described above. The common thread I can find is camera use. If I take a few pictures and then lock my phone, you can almost guarantee that it won't wake back up (unlock) and requires a hard reboot.

Am I the only one seeing this problem? I'm using the default camera app. I back out of it to the home screen before locking. Doesn't matter if I force-lock or let the phone timeout.

Any suggestions? Call Samsung?

 

[TheNexxuvas]

Sprint Launch Ambassador here, also a technician,

I only got a smattering of rebooting when I used a lower class SD card to save my pictures. I find Windows Phone 8 works better with the higher cards. That said, due to similar issues but with loading mp3's, I ended up performing a hard reset, and switching out the card to the higher class I run in my Android units, which ultimately solved the problem. YMMV, and as a Sprint Tech I can only assist from afar, I cannot fix your issue permanantly unless the unit came into my specific location, then again, even those fixes might not work as they are just the troubleshooting steps I would start with.

Thanks and good luck.

 

[Bleser]

@TheNexxuvas,

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, this is all with the built-in memory; I don't have an SD card installed. What is frustrating is that it is hard to reproduce; today I used the camera and haven't had to reboot yet. Tomorrow after camera use I'll probably have to. I don't get it.

 

[Bleser]

It's been a while so I thought I'd post an update.

For whatever reason, my phone has decided to become stable. I've even re-installed Facebook (the October updated version) and it hasn't had the lock screen problem or random rebooting for weeks. I have switched to only use the Smasung Shooting Modes app for my camera (I like it better), but occasionally use the built-in app for video and both work w/o the locking problem.

Not sure what changed, but I'm happy!

 

[Bleser]

Well, that's what I get for posting that the problem is resolved.

Literally a few hours after that post, it happened. The only change was that I played with the build-in camera app again, taking a few photos of my kids, locking the phone, and then it failed to unlock about 5 minutes later. Had to do a hard-reboot - the first time in weeks.

I'm going to just use the Samsung camera app from now on and call it a day until Samsung releases an update. I also plan on movign to GDR3 early, so I'll test after that, too.

 

[JoeRollerfan]

I've been having the same problem -- my ATIV S Neo locks up after I use the camera and press the power button to put the phone to sleep. I was already running GDR3 (dev preview), so that alone won't fix it. However, after doing a hard reset and restoring my settings and apps from backup, the problem seems to have gone away. If it comes back, I'll post here again.

 

[JoeRollerfan]

Of course, I spoke too soon. My phone randomly rebooted while it was sleeping, and now the lockup problem is back.

 

[JoeRollerfan]

Through trial and error, I determined that my phone locks up only after taking a photo without playing the shutter sound (either by turning off that sound, or by putting the phone in vibrate-only mode). If I accidentally take a photo in vibrate-only mode, I can prevent the lockup by taking another photo with the sound on.