Surface phone

anthonyng

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I know around november, december 2016, one of the production builds started making my camera app crash occasionally. It crashed on me yesterday. Seems to be factor of how much other things you have going on. I just haven't been able to consistently reproduce it.

Mine is a Canadian Dual sim.

Generally, when it does happen, I find that I'm in a ooo I gotta get that moment, press camera button in whatever I'm doing then one of the following happens:
  • Nothing wrong
  • press the on screen button and it stays gray for a long time.... like it's stuck trying to initiate the shutter
    • From here it may actually finish taking the picture... usually of the floor cause I'm wondering what's going on
    • Camera app Crashes
    • Phone goes and reset.

No it's not everyday or everytime but the feeling does seem to be how much I have going on at the same time.
 

mattiasnyc

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Ok, so can I get a link for that then? I'd like to read for myself what the exact issue is.

And the same bug exists all the way through the pipeline including the stable production release.

Since when do companies ever publicly acknowledge shortcomings on their final release products? People literally have to die and lawsuits have to be filed before that happens. Microsoft wouldn't even publicly admit how terrible the Windows 10 Mobile RTM version was. So obviously they're not going to put out a press release on a camera bug that they probably don't feel like addressing. They're going to quietly wait until the affected devices are phased out of use since those affected are an even smaller subset of the 0.5% of their smartphone market share.

Well, you're the first person I've ever heard of that has his phone restart half of the time that he tries to take a photo. It'd be nice to read what MS said on that blog.
 

aj173

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Ok, so can I get a link for that then? I'd like to read for myself what the exact issue is.

And the same bug exists all the way through the pipeline including the stable production release.



Well, you're the first person I've ever heard of that has his phone restart half of the time that he tries to take a photo. It'd be nice to read what MS said on that blog.

A person just chimed in here discussing their own camera restart problem, and a thread about jumping ship to Android happened to catch my eye as I was on my way back to this one. The reason for the jump? Camera reboots. And then ANOTHER person posts on that thread to comment about his own experience with this issue. And these are just the instances that I read about in the last 5 minutes without even actively searching for them. That doesn't include the people who have reported this previously, or the instances I've seen on other W10M phones in real life.

You seem to have made up your mind that this isn't a widespread problem, and that's fine. I'm obviously not going to convince you otherwise and I don't care enough to try. You can believe that the earth is flat and the sun is 20 miles away for all I care. I'm just saying that this IS a widespread problem, and the anecdotal evidence confirms this even if Microsoft won't.
 

nate0

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It was a single sim Hong Kong variant, whatever the RM for that would be. It started a few months ago, across all builds, final and insider.

Even with the restarts aside, Camera has been pretty bad in general since W10M launched. This is another one of those instances where I wish they would have stuck with the 8.x version until they ironed everything out.

That would have been the RM-1085 single sim international model. I owned the RM-1116 dual sim. Not much difference in hw (dual sim hw), but the fw revisions are different. Plus you had the Hong Kong variant. I owned the CV-NAM model North American Model. Wonder if the issue boils down to the variant specifically and I bet if you really wanted to to know how wide spread this was you could isolate it that way. Or could just be random and purely user/environment dependent. Maybe it got huffed on the wrong way...who knows.

My alcatel idol 4s started rebooting when I use the finger print sensor right after ending a call to unlock my phone. It will go to unlock then freeze for about 30 sec, then reboot. It was not there before, but something is aggravating it to do that now. It is interesting to see these occurrences that rarely existed on WP8. Show how much more complex this path/road Microsoft is on then most perceive it as. The cool part is is that we can voluntarily be part of it or not. I did not have to buy a W10M phone, but I chose to, so that I could be a part of what Microsoft is doing. Granted the reboot issues should not just continue indefinitely, so I can see the frustration.
 

mattiasnyc

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A person just chimed in here discussing their own camera restart problem, and a thread about jumping ship to Android happened to catch my eye as I was on my way back to this one. The reason for the jump? Camera reboots.

The issue wasn't that the "camera reboots", it was that the phone reboots when trying to take a picture, about half of the time. So is it that the camera or camera app or phone crashes / reboots?

You seem to have made up your mind that this isn't a widespread problem, and that's fine. I'm obviously not going to convince you otherwise and I don't care enough to try. You can believe that the earth is flat and the sun is 20 miles away for all I care. I'm just saying that this IS a widespread problem, and the anecdotal evidence confirms this even if Microsoft won't.

So now Microsoft is NOT confirming this? I thought you said MS did?

I get that you're annoyed and venting, but it's far more productive to try to figure out just what the exact problem is than to just say it's MS' mobile operating system that's the problem. If you're having this issue on a 950XL and I'm not seeing it on my 950, then it could be the OS if it's somehow not working with the device, or it could be the device not working properly. Dismissing the entire OS is a bit silly. That would be like blaming Android because of Samsung's 'hot' phones.

It could be an OS issue, could be a software issue, could be a hardware issue....
 

aj173

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1.) Camera reboots = phone reboots when using camera. I could have been more clear with the wording, but I suspect that you're just being a smartass about it since we've already been discussing this issue for several posts now.

2.) Correct, Microsoft has not acknowledged or addressed that this problem exists in their final production build. Only on the insider builds a few months ago, like I already said. Again with the smartass thing.

Since the issue exists across two different models of Windows Phones that I've used, even on bone stock fresh installs with no backup, I think it's safe to assume that it's the OS. Like I said, I tripped over 5 reports of the exact same problem without even looking for them. Without. Even. Looking. For. Them. The denial and snark from Microsoft and the WP community goes a long way toward explaining why this ecosystem looks the way it does. And it's probably not going to get any better after this happens:

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/best-microsoft-phone-now-samsung-165459551.html

Petty semantic critiques, denial, and irrelevant "gotcha" arguments couldn't save Windows 10 Mobile or the Surface Phone.
 

aj173

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It is interesting to see these occurrences that rarely existed on WP8. Show how much more complex this path/road Microsoft is on then most perceive it as. The cool part is is that we can voluntarily be part of it or not. I did not have to buy a W10M phone, but I chose to, so that I could be a part of what Microsoft is doing. Granted the reboot issues should not just continue indefinitely, so I can see the frustration.

Yeah, I agree that they never happened under WP8. And I understand that W10M is much more complex, so issues will inevitably arise. I was just expecting (maybe irrationally) that 2+ years of work on the project would have tamped down some of these issues, but they're actually getting worse in some cases.

Oh, well. Now that it's virtually assured that no new flagships are coming out on W10M this year or next, I guess I can just throw in the towel and buy something else. I was hoping to stay with a third option that wasn't iOS or Android, but since Windows Phone and Ubuntu are now officially done, I guess I'm going to have to flip a coin and go with one of the big two.
 

anon(50597)

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Yeah, I agree that they never happened under WP8. And I understand that W10M is much more complex, so issues will inevitably arise. I was just expecting (maybe irrationally) that 2+ years of work on the project would have tamped down some of these issues, but they're actually getting worse in some cases.

Oh, well. Now that it's virtually assured that no new flagships are coming out on W10M this year or next, I guess I can just throw in the towel and buy something else. I was hoping to stay with a third option that wasn't iOS or Android, but since Windows Phone and Ubuntu are now officially done, I guess I'm going to have to flip a coin and go with one of the big two.

Even if Windows phone was officially done (I haven't seen the memo), its not like it immediately stops working. The Idol4s and Elite X3 will get many years of good use.

Sent from mTalk on my SP4
 

mattiasnyc

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1.) Camera reboots = phone reboots when using camera. I could have been more clear with the wording, but I suspect that you're just being a smartass about it since we've already been discussing this issue for several posts now.

2.) Correct, Microsoft has not acknowledged or addressed that this problem exists in their final production build. Only on the insider builds a few months ago, like I already said. Again with the smartass thing.

Since the issue exists across two different models of Windows Phones that I've used, even on bone stock fresh installs with no backup, I think it's safe to assume that it's the OS. Like I said, I tripped over 5 reports of the exact same problem without even looking for them. Without. Even. Looking. For. Them. The denial and snark from Microsoft and the WP community goes a long way toward explaining why this ecosystem looks the way it does. And it's probably not going to get any better after this happens:

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/best-microsoft-phone-now-samsung-165459551.html

Petty semantic critiques, denial, and irrelevant "gotcha" arguments couldn't save Windows 10 Mobile or the Surface Phone.

These aren't petty semantic critiques, it makes a huge difference whether or not you have problems with the insider builds or the official production builds. Your writing wasn't clear and you implied the issue could have been with the production builds and that Microsoft acknowledged that.

If someone is a prospective buyer of a Win10Mobile phone and reads your posts they might think that if they buy a phone such as yours then running the production build the phone will restart when trying to take a picture, and that Microsoft had acknowledged that publicly. That's a hugely different proposition from someone buying the phone and it working as it should.

Now, you may think - incredibly rudely btw - that I'm just being a smartass, but I'm genuinely concerned with the stuff I invest in if I like it. I like my phone. It's in my interest to understand and know if Microsoft officially said that there was this problem with my phone. Get it? I need to know that, and the way you expressed yourself didn't make that clear.

It's also in my interest however that the platform grows, and spreading falsehoods about it, or "uncertainty and doubt" for that matter, only harms it. Less money for the platform = less development = less benefits for all of us.
 

aj173

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Even if Windows phone was officially done (I haven't seen the memo), its not like it immediately stops working. The Idol4s and Elite X3 will get many years of good use.

Sent from mTalk on my SP4

If it was "good" use, I'd be on board. But this OS is still fundamentally very rough, and it doesn't seem like that's going to change, so I can't call it "good" use. Maybe this update in a few days will fix some of these long-standing issues, but I hoped the same thing about the last two major updates. I would be encouraged if there was at least small incremental improvement being made, but we're just not seeing that. I feel like we've plateaued to a state of "****ty, but usable", and that's where we're going to stay until MS formally discontinues support.

I've been using MS Mobile products since the 90s. I'm a dedicated ****** who drinks the Kool Aid. But at some point, we have to accept reality. Selling phones with a rival company's OS is a very clear sign that Microsoft's mobile ambitions aren't going to involve developing a Windows Mobile platform.
 

aj173

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This has been a problem for me across two different phones, and on a variety of insider and stable release builds.

And the same bug exists all the way through the pipeline including the stable production release.

I figured that was pretty clear and unambiguous. I stated several times that these reboots happen on final production builds. In fact, the only reason I started taking insider builds in the first place was because I was hoping that I'd get a fix for the reboot problem sooner. I think that prospective buyers SHOULD know that their phone might reboot when they try to take pictures. That's sort of a big deal. I wouldn't harp on it if my case was an isolated incident, but it's obviously not. Microsoft didn't sell very many of these things, so the fact that you can find hundreds of complaints about this problem on the forums, MS support, and Feedback Hub is enough to convince me that it's a widespread problem.

I'm sorry if you took offense to being called a smartass, but after I posted several times to clarify exactly what the problem was, my troubleshooting efforts, and the lack of official documentation vs. insider documentation, I assumed that you were just being snarky.
 

anthonyng

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I feel like I can make good use with the OS. It's my main picture taking device.

OneNote during meetings, great for note taking especially to add pictures of the screen to supplement OneNote, switching to laptop OneNote on the fly for major typing is pretty fluid and seamless.

I'm interested in what this potential shape shifting device can offer me!
 

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