Screen freezes while answering phone

[pgoelz]

Title says all. At least twice recently, my lock screen has frozen while attempting to unlock and answer an incoming call. End result is a missed call. Today, I was able to re-lock (ie., swipe down) and then unlock after the phone stopped ringing. Very annoying..... the one thing I really need the phone to do is.... be a PHONE.

Anyone else had this happen? I have essentially NO extra apps loaded, and even deleted a couple of the preloaded ones.

Paul

 

[Judith Okon]

My nokia lumia 520 screen freezes everytime and i keep doing the soft reset and then it works for a while and freezes again. i have equally tried the hard reset but it still freezes. sometimes i cant read my messages that come in after i reset the frozen phone. how do i fix it?

 

[pgoelz]

As an experiment, I tried successfully to duplicate this issue today. I called myself and let it ring for two rings while in my pocket with the screen facing inwards (ie., toward my leg). I then took it out of my pocket and tried to unlock it (while it was still ringing) and the screen was lit but unresponsive. Aftr it stopped ringing I pressed the power button to turn the screen off. When I pressed it a second time, the lock screen came on and I was able to unlock the phone.

So I called Nokia and was told to send it in for repair (it is still under warranty). I asked what happens if they are unable to duplicate a customer described issue and the CSR danced all around that question in many slightly different ways but never directly answered it. I finally spoke with a "supervisor" who said that she had heard of the issue before and the repair techs "were able to repair it". She said it was a settings issue but would not tell me WHAT setting.

Since it is under warranty, I elected to send it back to them (about 10 days end to end). We'll see if they actually do anything to it.

In the mean time I'm back to my trusty Motorola Atrix 4G. Event though I much prefer the responsiveness of the Nokia 820, I have to say that the 4G is a breath of fresh air. It may be slower, but the battery life is better and VERY consistent, and when it rings I can actually answer the phone.

I hope things improve with GDR2 and Amber. If not, I think Windows Phone is a dying concept. Sadly. I kinda liked it overall.

Paul

 

[pgoelz]

UPDATE:
I sent the phone in to Nokia. Two days in transit and a week in their hands and they supposedly "repaired a mechanical issue". It is supposedly on the way back to me. Since the ONLY time it froze was when I was answering a call, I am skeptical that this really was a mechanical issue. Feels more like software. But I will wait and see what happens when it comes back.... before I sent it in I could easily reproduce the issue.

I am sorry to report that my experience with Nokia support during this issue and trying to follow up on the status was absolutely the most HORRIBLE experience I have had in YEARS. I will start a thread in the Nokia forum just to provide feedback. Basically, the people who answer the Nokia support line are hard to understand and seem to have about three canned responses to just about any question and it is almost impossible to get past them to a "supervisor". In addition, the "status" shown on the Nokia "check status" page is either erroneous or too vague to mean anything. My status was "new repair" for a while. Then it changed to "in repair" for a week. Shortly after I called to check status (a frustrating experience similar to what I am about to relate), it changed to "asset received". Never did figure that one out. Later that day it changed to "returned". Since that implied it was NOT repaired or replaced I called again to inquire. And got another absolutely incredible and frustrating runaround. To my question of "was it repaired and if so what did you do to it" I got the same halting and hesitant answer over and over..... "when you get it back there will be paperwork in it telling you what was done". I asked again and again and got the same answer. When I asked to speak to a supervisor I was put on hold..... and then the same person came back on and told me the exact same thing... "when you get it back there will be paperwork in it telling you what was done". This happened four or five times! I persisted because my first call to check status revealed that they DID have access to more informaiton than just the status page. After about the fifth time on hold only to NOT get a supervisor, I started raising my voice. Finally THE SAME GUY told me that they fixed a mechanical problem with the screen. Sheesh! Far as I know, that information was available to him from the beginning.

Note that when I called the first time to check status, I got an identical runaround with ZERO real information. When I persisted and eventually asked for a supervisor, he finally told me that after checking further, it turned out that they were "deciding whether to repair it or replace it". But getting that information took a good 10-15 minutes of frustration and persistence. The repeated answer to my question of "you have had it for a week, what are you doing with it" was "your phone is in our facility".

Coupled with the already documented issues with the WP OS itself (erratic battery life for starters), I'm here to tell ya that unless the freezing issue is actually repaired, this will be my last experience with Windows Phone and with Nokia. It has NOT been a good one. The only bright spot is that I bought the phone used and did not pay much for it. If I had signed a two year contract to get it, I would be a VERY unhappy camper right now. As it is, I have been out of contract for several years and will probably just drink the KoolAid and sign a contract for an iPhone. Near as I can tell, they work OK and are a far more mature system. I'd prefer to go back to Android but Android phone have become too big for my tastes. Even the 820 was a bit bigger than I wanted in a phone.

Paul

 

[pgoelz]

UPDATE #2:

Just got an Email with a tracking number and a copy of the repair results. THEY DID NOT REPAIR or REPLACE IT. They did a factory reset, updated the software and tested it. That's all. I hold out the faint hope that the update to GDR2 / Amber corrected the issue but if not, I am mightily displeased. Nokia lied to me twice. Once when they convinced me to send it in because "we have seen this and can repair it" and again when they told me they "repaired a mechanical issue". This has to be about the worst customer "service" I have experienced in this century. And I have not yet found a way to get past the ineffective CSR at the support number to register my displeasure. Gives me the strong feeling that Nokia doesn't care a bit what its customers are experiencing. And that from what I THOUGHT was a premiere cellphone manufacturer. Wow.

I'm about a day from bailing on the whole WP / Nokia experience and going Apple, sad to say. I'm pretty sure that Apple still cares about the customer experience. Disappointing.... I LIKED the 820. I am SO glad I got it for $39 on Ebay and not under contract.

Paul

 

[pgoelz]

Yet another update:

The phone arrived and I am 99.9% certain that in spite of their paperwork stating they did nothing physical to it, they DID replace the screen. The screen had a couple very small but noticeable nicks and they are gone. So who knows what to believe. The IMEI remains the same so they definitely did not replace the whole phone.

Additionally, although one of the items on the paperwork was "Passed software update" it was not upgraded to Amber / GDR2. I am updating it now.

So now to see if the freezing has stopped. Of course I am stuck trying to prove a negative......

Paul

 

[rusty_sim]

I've only had my 820 less than 2 weeks but noticed this too. Last week when I received calls my screen went blank/black. Touching, pressing the power button did nothing. When the call ended, the screen came back on.

I updated to amber in the weekend and have not received a call yet. Will test and see what happens.

It's weird because when it happened I couldn't end the call, my friend had to.