OMG!!! If you are an insider on 14295, doesn't matter how unreliable your phone has become (for most, a lot), DO NOT HARD RESET. Sunday afternoon, my phone is being consistently crashing apps, low battery life, camera not working... all those annoying bugs you'd come to expect from Insider Previews. The things is, consistently throughout Windows Insider, HR solves lots of problems. Well, apparently that isn't the case anymore. Here I am, monday morning, doing a restore on my phone after the third failed hard reset.
First of all, the phone won't automatically restart after you select Hard Reset. So you have to go onto that again. Then it took about 1 hour to complete the process (that usually doesn't go beyond 5min). When it finished... Well, everything went to ****. I restored my backup, but it didn't downloaded my apps, even though they all appeared on my start screen. They didn't appear as pending in the app list neither, so it was all a matter of manually downloading everything. Amidst the plethora of app updates, there was a store update. Prior to updating the store app, all apps that required overriding storage options to install (WhatsApp, MyTube... All those who require to be installed in internal memory) refused to complete downloading, even after several retries. After the store update, some of them got through before the store suddenly crashing. After that, it restarted with about 30 pending app updates that neither updated nor went away. About 4 apps that were downloading/installing at the time it restarted refused to begin downloading again, stuck in a pending state.
For a moment or two I though I could live without them (basically, FB Messenger, Instagram (Beta) and Baconit), but then I noticed my backup didn't restore Windows Insider neither, which was why several apps looked... different then they did before restoring (Phone, Camera and Maps to name a few). Plus, without WI I couldn't upgrade to the next build that would (hopefully) fix some of those issues. When I went into the store I found myself locked out from entering any apps. Not only there were about 32 pending downloads (The three aforementioned apps plus 29 pending updates that were already installed), but I couldn't get into any app in the store for installation. Any time I clicked any app (including Insider) all I got was a endlessly loading cycle. OK. I could live without installing apps for a few days until next build rolls around, then I restore, but the most basic function I will EVER require in any smartphone is e-mail and Outlook is completely broken after HR. Not only does it not read my MSA, it doesn't recognize her even after manually adding in the app. Nor did it work with any other account I added afterwards including Office 365 and Gmail.
You'd think it would stop there. It didn't.
I made a second HR, this time without a backup restoration hoping to at least get my e-mail up and running. Not a single one of the aforementioned issues was fixed. Every single one of them happened again, only this time they were paired with an SD Card issue. Once the phone booted, it recognized my SD Card and asked if I wanted to use it as default app install destination. I choose yes, because I have a 640XL with only 8GB of internal whilst my SD card is 32GB (Class 10, made for running apps without major constraints). The apps that remained there from the previous install were not removed (about 2 GB) and the phone refused to let any new ones in (I didn't format the SD along with the reset because there were about 8GB of music I did not wanted to have to copy into it again). And then, there was the third HR.
This time, I made sure to erase the SD card as well, which worked (for my surprise). All the issues from the first HR came back and there were new ones: None of the system apps updated (ranging from extras like Glance to more important ones like Extras & Info), lockscreen was gone (Not the image, the actual lock. Pressing the unlock button would take me straight into Start), any and all apps, excluding the pre-installed ones, refused to open, leaving me stuck on "Opening..." or "Loading..." or "Resuming...".
I've had enough for a day, so decided to save my third HR for the morning after. I put my phone on the charger all night long with the store open, hoping all those nasty problems would sort themselves out. They didn't. And the task responsible for checking battery life was apparently also gone, because when I got to my phone this morning it was still sitting on 40% battery life. After a Soft Reset, battery updated itself to 97% (it was supposed to be 100, but it's better than 40), store remained unable to download, update or dismiss any of the **** that was going on, outlook refused to allow me to read e-mail, WhatsApp (or any other app for that matter) still didn't open, so I finally decided to try and restore and stay on RTM this time.
Right now, I'm downloading the WP 8.1 image for restoration, after which I will update to RTM, HR and stay there for a while, at least until a more stable build makes it's way to us. I'm not ranting, this is a warning. I get that I'm an insider running a beta system bla bla bla, I'm just warning you not to make the same mistake I did, because I almost missed two deadlines for assingment delivery because my college group mostly uses WhatsApp as communication and I didn't had it for about 75% of the sunday. If only I could turn back time and stop myself from HRing, I would be SO MUCH happier right now. If your phone is unreliable on RS, straight up Recover and sit on RTM for a couple of days before updating.
Also, before someone says this, YES, I HAVE SUBMITTED THAT FEEDBACK ON THE DARN FEEDBACK APP.
Thanks.
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