I've had to hard reset my phone 8 times...how about you

[mtiede]

Odd that you have had so many problems. One thing that may be different is my wife and kids don't have any protective case on out phones. I wonder if the cases hold in more heat and that could be there problem.

 

[IceDigger]

The hard reset feature on Windows Phone is a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, you're thankful it's there when your device barfs up on itself and you need to go the thermonuclear route and start over....on the other hand, it kind of sucks that Windows Mobile seems to barf up on itself so frequently that the reset button has to be there at all.

I've been the not-so-proud owner of a 950 for nearly a year now.

In that time I've had to perform a hard reset 8 times.

For the record, I always reset to factory settings and avoid doing a restore in case the glitch is still lurking in the backup. It's a serious, big time pain to have to set up your phone from scratch, especially if it's primarily used for business, which mine is. Even with cloud sync and being able to retrieve all my emails, contacts, messages and data it's still a couple of very unproductive and frustrating hours spent messing about.

The reasons for these resets vary. At one point the maps app refused to work. Or, more accurately, the gps wouldn't work so the map had no idea where I was. Then there's been the times when the phone would freeze or become too sluggish to use.

It's latest party trick is what I like to call the Black Screen Of Fury. It's a humdinger of a glitch and goes like this. You're on the phone, the call ends, you take the phone away from your ear and are met with a black screen...and no way to end the call. The screen stays stubbornly black for anything up to 10 seconds. The Black Screen of Fury also works very well when you try to wake your phone up. It's great fun when you need to use your phone in a hurry and find yourself pressing the power button again and again while your device switches from glance screen to pitch blackness over and over. Oh, Lumia, you old tease you...

The Black Screen of Fury is a glitch that also existed on my 1520 and Microsoft are well aware of it, but give them some space because they've only had 2 years to sort it out...

So, what have I done to help myself? Well, I've replaced the hardware and am now onto my second 950. The same problems exist on two phones from different suppliers. That doesn't totally rule out hardware as a possible issue, but it does make it less likely.

Then there's the apps. I figured maybe it's one or more specific apps that cause the issues. So I've catalogued each app as I've downloaded it, and if problems begin to surface I delete any apps I've recently added to my collection and monitor to see if the glitch continues. I'll tell you right here, having to do this kind of thing is a royal pain in the backside. Keeping track of each app and trying to figure out what you have running on your phone at the moment when it starts to glitch is a lot of homework that no end user should have to get caught up in.

For what it's worth, I'm now convinced that the apps aren't the issue. There's simply no emerging pattern that correlate's to a downloaded app and the phone barfing.

It's Windows 10 Mobile all the way.

This OS has been out for close to a year. It's had a major update. It should be leagues ahead of where it is right now.

Please don't get me wrong. This is not a Microsoft/Windows bashing post. I've used enough Android devices to know that they are the king of glitch. Even the iPhone isn't above going a bit spastic every now and then.

But Microsoft are really pushing the productivity line. They want to differentiate themselves as being the go-to guys when you need to get important stuff done quickly and easily.

Yesterday I had to find a location, create a one note, share it with a colleague and text him an address.

Instead of doing that I spent 3 hours hard resetting my phone because it wouldn't wake up.

Time Wasting 1, Productivity 0

I'm a Windows Phone fan and I'm praying to the tech gods above that the HP Elite and whatever phone Wharton Brookes or Microsoft launch does well in the market. But they have to give these devices a fighting chance with an OS that stands up to the plate and hits a home run every time, because that's what productivity in the business place needs and demands.

Black screen of fury is right. Yikes, this is such a pain. Am I still on a phone? Do I wait for the other person to hang up?

I loved my old windows phones, they were great. Windows 10 has been a big turd that I cannot get rid of. I accidentally hit the update button one day and it seems to have been a problem since. I had used my husbands old Blackberry Q10 for a while, and that thing never bugged or had any issues. Not a fan of the operating system and the camera was poor. The GPS system was amazing. I am thinking about switching back, especially since I am seeing other people having the same issues.

I have had my 950 since about February 2016. I can't recall exactly how stable it was that far back. However, since the last 2 or 3 official updates the phone has become so unstable it is unusable.

Issue's that I have experienced so far range from -
phone appearing to have turned itself off / not waking up. (this may be a "black screen bug" as described elsewhere.
phone ACTUALLY having turned itself off.
phone having reset itself.* (*at first I thought this may have been a post update reset taking place at an inconvenient time - and obviously requiring sim pin to complete reboot. - however subsequent observation reveals that this has NOTHING to do with any post update boot the phone actually does randomly decide to reboot itself.)
phone turning off or rebooting while in use, including during calls. Regardless of battery charge level.
phone apparently not actually charging ("soft reset" apparently makes phone accept that it is plugged in to a charger when this occurs)
phone apparently not knowing what the charge level of the battery is. (seems to occur as result of crash) phone can indicate for example 80% battery, then crash out and indicate 0% battery when restart attempted. Plugging in to power allows restart and battery is once again indicated at 80%
If "time and date" are toggled to manual the phone will lose track of time. - how much time it loses depends on how long it took to discover it had crashed or restart the phone. (I have never seen a phone do this)
massive overheating. This does not happen all the time....but sometimes when it is crashing it also burns up! (not 100% of time though)
frequently gets stuck in reboot loops once it has crashed.
frequently requires "soft reset" to actually get it to start again
often actually requires battery removal to get it to start again
often (recently) requires plugged into power to get it to start again

latest release version
no sd card installed (removing the sd card has had zero effect on stability)
hardly any apps installed. only app frequently used is their own browser (edge) - which does crash, and indeed when that happens this can also crash the OS.
phone is NOT in a case any longer. Removing the phone from its case seems to have had zero effect on stability.

Full factory default reset has previously appeared to make the phone stable for about 3 days. I am not performing full factory default resets frequently enough to know whether this was just coincidence. (because...come on! should I need to do a factory default reset and reinstall every 3 days on a phone this expensive?)

I have had several of these issues as well. I do have a Samsung SD card in the phone, so am going to try operating it without the SD card and see if I get any improved performance. I only just received my new case today, prior to that I was carrying it around in a ziploc back to prevent any scratches. I don't want to do a hard reset.

 

[Blakatak]

I'm experiencing the exact same thing. I thought that it was because I was on the Insider Fast Ring as it started happening with the first Redstone 2 builds - 14905, then 14915, then 14926 and now again today on 14936. I did a hard reset on 14926 and it persisted. My firmware is 01078.00053.16236.35006, which I think came out around the same time, and I've heard that's the culprit, that it causes the battery to fail. I've seen posts on Reddit where people with this issue replaced the battery and it went away. I'm going to go to the Microsoft Store tomorrow and hopefully that will fix it.

 

[northernpipeman]

For what its worth, a bad SD card can crash a laptop or even a Surface Pro 3, ask me how I know.

Chances are the behavior is attributed to the SD card (which I was going to ask if you had anyway) considering the fact that you replaced the phone and had the EXACT same behavior. Its not the OS and its not the core HW. It is your SD card, remove it and drive the phone without it. If you don't get the same behavior(s) and the phone is heck of a lot more stable, back up the data on that card and toss it.

Get the Lexar card: https://www.amazon.com/Lexar-Profes...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUwpUvbUpU3570170

If indeed your SD card causes issues. This is also a reason I am slightly against SD cards in phones in general, and MFG's should just offer large storage by default, 64GB should almost be a standard now if 4K images are a thing.

If you want to get models of trusted GOOD sd cards, go to the GOpro site and look at their approved SD card list.

I agree completely with this - all of the crippling problems with a 630/640/950/SP2 were due to the SD card and/or SIM card. A bad card, dodgy formatting or failing to properly unload it before removing has causing shorts and other soft/hardware problems. I think I have been very lucky with some of my hardware, but I would always point the first finger at external cards if they have ever been used in a phone/laptop.