Windows 10 Mobile and Hard Resets

[aimulaidni]

Hi everyone,

I recently had a ton of issues with my 950XL-cortana crashing all the time, battery drains, resuming screens, sluggish movements through apps, CBD not working properly...so I decided to do a hard reset again and not backup my data. Things seem to running well so far...but then I started thinking...isn't this what we hate about android, the OS getting bogged down after a few months and you having to reset the phone everytime? I really don't understand if people actually believe there's nothing wrong with W10M or they are just pretending to be, because I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one facing these issues. Whenever I'm in the forums, and read people's posts asking for help, the answer given by most people is a hard reset. We shouldn't have to reset our phone for everything that's going wrong, nor should we have to reset it every couple of months. I've had this phone since November of last year and i think I've already reset this 3-4 times (and I never restore backups). I know everyone's got their own opinion and not everyone is facing these issues and i might very well have a faulty handset, but just wanted to see what everyone's thoughts are on this.

Thanks!

 

[JP8296]

Are you using Insider builds (Redstone Branch, Fast Ring)?

 

[aimulaidni]

Nope, not in the insider program...knew there would be bugs, so didn't want to try it...but have my 920 on it...and frankly speaking it's running better (though a little bit slower) than my 950XL.

 

[JP8296]

Nope, not in the insider program...knew there would be bugs, so didn't want to try it...but have my 920 on it...and frankly speaking it's running better (though a little bit slower) than my 950XL.

I have my one week XL on the insider fast no problems at all, great battery, smooth performance, maybe you should give it a try.

 

[aimulaidni]

Hmm...will probably give it a shot, just to see if it's working better

 

[Ma Rio]

You shouldn't hard reset every few months. You should hard reset only once after an update, so you can start off fresh. All other hard resets after that don't mean much to you. And I've never had similar experiences.
If my phone works well the day I update it, it's going to work well for the next who-knows-how-much. Hard reset should be your last solution to things you can't really manage - like an irational battery drain bug, or FS corruption, or IDK, but hard reset is not a thing you should do every once in a while like maintenance. How often do you completely reinstall your PC OS? You should hard reset your phone exactly as often as that.

 

[aimulaidni]

Well, that's the problem...only hard resets seem to be solving the problem...battery drains (and it's ridiculous, 4.5-5% per hour, up from the normal 3%)...cortana crashing all the time and by all the time I mean all the time...resuming screens, which I can live it but that is followed by sluggish movement through the app...I try finding solutions first on the internet or in the forums, when I get none or none of them work, I resort to a hard reset, coz what else can i do then?

 

[EspHack]

I've never done a hard reset, whatever problems you have, a hard reset will merely schedule them to come back after whatever actions caused it happen again in the future, some times that may not be the case, but most of the time that's exactly what will happen, that said, if you enjoy a fresh start doing a hard reset after updating is a very good idea anyway, since it will prevent old demons from carrying over

 

[Player Piano]

Well, that's the problem...only hard resets seem to be solving the problem...battery drains (and it's ridiculous, 4.5-5% per hour, up from the normal 3%)...cortana crashing all the time and by all the time I mean all the time...resuming screens, which I can live it but that is followed by sluggish movement through the app...I try finding solutions first on the internet or in the forums, when I get none or none of them work, I resort to a hard reset, coz what else can i do then?

Yeah, W10M is still buggy as hell. It has improved drastically but still not up to par. At least it is “usable” now.

 

[ttsoldier]

Well, that's the problem...only hard resets seem to be solving the problem...battery drains (and it's ridiculous, 4.5-5% per hour, up from the normal 3%)...cortana crashing all the time and by all the time I mean all the time...resuming screens, which I can live it but that is followed by sluggish movement through the app...I try finding solutions first on the internet or in the forums, when I get none or none of them work, I resort to a hard reset, coz what else can i do then?

You think 4-5% /hr is ridiculous?

....

 

[kristalsoldier]

You think 4-5% /hr is ridiculous?

....

You don't think 4-5% per hour on idle is ridiculous?

Edit:

Having said that, I also noticed something else (I am using the 950XL running the latest Fast Insiders' Build). I use Battery Pro + (free version) and Insider (free version) to check on the battery. But what I have noticed is that because of some API restrictions, these apps only can check on battery levels every 30 mins or something like that. How do I know? The developers mention it as a caveat.

The thing then is that the battery reports that I get from such apps is at least 30 mins late. So, for example, if I was working on Whatsapp, Viber, Edge and Word the battery expenditure would be high and if that coincides with the app's reading then that would reflected in the report which carries forward for 30 mins (at least). So, I am getting a reading that is not reflective of the condition of the battery at the moment when I am checking.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Hard resets on android will also help just as in Windows phone.

But here's the thing, lets say you got a new android phone, it doesn't get any updates like most android phones and the phone slows down after a few months.
Now lets compare an windows phone, you don't give it any major updates like the way some phones still are on 8.1 - would the phone slow down over time? I have yet to hear of any windows phone slowing down over time.

Hard reset is supposed to solve slow down of the system. But it also solves any errors that could crop up because of a faulty upgrade. So if you do a major upgrade from 8.1 to 10, you could so a hard reset. If you do a minor update from 10586.318 to 10586.338, no hard reset is necessary if you had done it the first time from 8.1 to 10240.

You might also need to do a hard reset if the redstone upgrade comes through. Between small updates - hard reset not required in majority of cases. But for upgrades - needed in a good number of cases

 

[aimulaidni]

Just like Kristal said, 4-5% is ridiculous when the phone's not being used for anything. And specially considering the fact that it used to be 3% before and is now less than 2.5% now after my hard reset.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Just like Kristal said, 4-5% is ridiculous when the phone's not being used for anything. And specially considering the fact that it used to be 3% before and is now less than 2.5% now after my hard reset.

It should be between 0-1.5% per hour. 2.5% is still high kind of. 5% means the phone battery won't last a day

 

[Chintan Gohel]

For those with battery issues try the suggestions below:

• Check settings >system > battery > which apps are using the most energy?
• Again, in battery section, which apps can run in the background? Can you disable those you don't need? Keep messaging enabled to run in background
• In battery section, you can also set up battery saver to kick in when the battery reaches a certain percentage. I keep mine on 100% so it's always on battery saver mode
• In mail app, how often do you have mails to sync? Generally the longer the time period, the less the battery usage
• What about brightness settings? Is it on high or auto? Auto is better than a fixed setting
• If you find that messaging app uses a lot of battery, this could be because it's linked with skype. Go to messaging app, settings and unlink skype
• In photos app, do you have auto upload of photos enabled? If yes, try to not upload high res photos and videos unless you are charging the phone and on wifi
• When you use some apps that are not data heavy like whatsapp or mail, you can use a lower network speed like 2G. It's what I do usually. I only use LTE when I have to use 6tag
• If you're using edge for basic browsing, you could try using UC browser. Not only does it use less data but you can also disable images which means you save even more on data. The less data your phone has to receive, the less the energy used
• In settings > privacy - check each of those settings to see which apps can use what. For example I can't understand why Word would need to access location info so I disabled that. There might be apps using services that they are not meant to use
• Finally, keep wifi/cellular off when you don't need to have them on. The toggles in action centre are pretty fast so it doesn't take much time in switching internet on/off
• Disable auto update of apps, you only update when you are ready and not when you are in need of critical things

Hope this helps you

 

[kristalsoldier]

For those with battery issues try the suggestions below:

• Check settings >system > battery > which apps are using the most energy?
• Again, in battery section, which apps can run in the background? Can you disable those you don't need? Keep messaging enabled to run in background
• In battery section, you can also set up battery saver to kick in when the battery reaches a certain percentage. I keep mine on 100% so it's always on battery saver mode
• In mail app, how often do you have mails to sync? Generally the longer the time period, the less the battery usage
• What about brightness settings? Is it on high or auto? Auto is better than a fixed setting
• If you find that messaging app uses a lot of battery, this could be because it's linked with skype. Go to messaging app, settings and unlink skype
• In photos app, do you have auto upload of photos enabled? If yes, try to not upload high res photos and videos unless you are charging the phone and on wifi
• When you use some apps that are not data heavy like whatsapp or mail, you can use a lower network speed like 2G. It's what I do usually. I only use LTE when I have to use 6tag
• If you're using edge for basic browsing, you could try using UC browser. Not only does it use less data but you can also disable images which means you save even more on data. The less data your phone has to receive, the less the energy used
• In settings > privacy - check each of those settings to see which apps can use what. For example I can't understand why Word would need to access location info so I disabled that. There might be apps using services that they are not meant to use
• Finally, keep wifi/cellular off when you don't need to have them on. The toggles in action centre are pretty fast so it doesn't take much time in switching internet on/off
• Disable auto update of apps, you only update when you are ready and not when you are in need of critical things

Hope this helps you

This is a good list! The only thing is a "smart phone" to be "smart" (to the extent possible really) needs to have background services running. So, turning off that (except for emergency situations) seems to me to defeat the raison d'etre of the smart phone - don't you agree?

 

[Chintan Gohel]

This is a good list! The only thing is a "smart phone" to be "smart" (to the extent possible really) needs to have background services running. So, turning off that (except for emergency situations) seems to me to defeat the raison d'etre of the smart phone - don't you agree?

the trick is too know which apps you don't need running in the background. For example, why should word or excel need to run in the background?
Messaging needs to run in background and so does phone app and alarms. But 6tag or edge? That would consume battery and data for no reason

 

[aimulaidni]

But like I mentioned in the post, it's exactly what's happening...It slows down over a period of time and a hard reset seems to be the only solution. 8.1 never slowed down, but for me 10 is going in a completely opposite direction. That's why I was planning to sell this phone and get a 930.

 

[aimulaidni]

Did almost all the things you mentioned in the list. And that's what is confusing, I don't see any app that is causing a massive drain but I still turned off most of them. The only thing I don't know how to do is changing the setting from LTE to 2G, I had looked around for a setting for this but didn't find it, so assumed it didn't exist in WM10. How do we do this?

 

[aimulaidni]

Wish it was. No matter what, I cannot get it down to 1.5%. I don't think it was that low even when I bought the phone. And yes, with 5%, it doesn't last a day. Used to get around 36 hours, now I'm happy if i get 24.