Never had a phone that was so much work before

[stelesque]

I got my new 650 yesterday to replace my 830, which developed some quirks (restarting every time I put it down on a desk/table, etc.)

I've never had such a difficult phone EVER. I'm seriously thinking of returning it. This is my 4th Lumia. It shouldn't be this hard.

I can't get Cortana to work. Every time I ask it to add something to my calendar, it says my settings need to be changed to give it permission. HOW? All the settings I see are fine - when I go into the settings in Cortana itself, when I click on read my texts - bluetooth it then just moves me from that screen into a general settings screen and when I go back nothing was changed in Cortana. I'm going around in circles.

I've already had to upgrade the software so that I could get ground-breaking features like the doubletap to unlock.

Had to reactivate speech recognition for texts, even though that was activated out of the box, before the update.

Spent an hour this morning getting my email notifications to work again.

WHY IS IT SO HARD?

Can someone please help me with Cortana - what on earth settings do I need to mess with to make it work? It says location history must be on, but I can't see that an an option ANYWHERE.

Thank you.:crying:angry:

 

[anthonyng]

Can someone please help me with Cortana - what on earth settings do I need to mess with to make it work? It says location history must be on, but I can't see that an an option ANYWHERE.

Sorry to hear you are having trouble!

You must have turned off location service or something. It's all under Settings - Location. Location History section and Even what app you want to allow access to locations. My wife did that on her 950, infact she turned off a bunch of stuff she thought wasn't a good idea and it ended up affecting different parts of the system.

If making sure your Location settings are allowed for Cortana still doesn't work well, please do a phone reset and more importantly, avoid the temptation to uncheck all the stuff Microsoft asks for. Maybe the collect random information one is ok to not do.

Pretty sure you can turn most of it off after, but to give you the best chance that something was not accidentally turned off and unable to be turned back on, agree to everything

When setting up the phone it should also ask if you want to use Cortana, say yes, you'll probably still need to wait for speech packs and language packs to download.

 

[stelesque]

Thank you. I checked all my location settings, they are all enabled.

If I do a reset, won't that ruin the last 48 hours of me working so hard to get this thing working? I've upgraded the software, spent hours downloading all my apps again, resetting data into an app that would not restore, sorting out the non-notifiying emails and so on. I'd be beyond pissed off if resetting just for possibly one Cortana setting meant that work was all undone!

I'm also confused as to why I'd need to give Cortana carteblanche to do whatever she (Microsoft) wants with every single aspect of my phone just in order to have her put entries into my calendar by speech...? My 830 Cortana works perfectly well even if I have location off sometimes, and with my stricter privacy settings...

I now have an appointment with the Microsoft store to see if someone there can help, after calling MS and them being absolutely no help, and then doing webchat with some company who apparently handle the tech support for Windows Phones, who were also beyond unhelpful.

I really just can't get over how they can turn someone who was blindly loyal to the products (I went lumia, lumia, iphone, lumia and hated every minute of the iphone) so against them. It really feels like this is FAR too much work for what should be an out of the box item. I know how to work Lumias and I'm baffled by this - no wonder people used to Android or Apple products don't want to deal with this stuff. It's so utterly disappointing. I hope I can get my money back from the MS Store or my credit card.

 

[anthonyng]

If I do a reset, won't that ruin the last 48 hours of me working so hard to get this thing working? I've upgraded the software, spent hours downloading all my apps again, resetting data into an app that would not restore, sorting out the non-notifiying emails and so on. I'd be beyond pissed off if resetting just for possibly one Cortana setting meant that work was all undone!

Yes you're right but at the same time, no one has an idea what could have went wrong. I've transitioned my parents from blue win jr to lumia 640, fast ring initially, then relase and then production no real issues. I transitiioned my mom in law from a blu win jr to a blu win HD LTE, and that one needs a funny process to get to windows 10 latest... but once I got that, the rest of the set up was a breeze and everything just worked.

I've transitioned my wife from 625, to 950... no frustration like you've indicated.

I've gone from 920, 930, 950.... On fast rings before, I know a full reset fixes odd behaviour

All I know is generally, it's working especially when starting from new and something is really off with your experience. The one thing I would definitely do before going to a microsoft store is reset it (they'll probably make you do it there on the spot anyhow)

 

[SL2]

...


As for spending hours to set everything up, once you've done it you can set the phone to back up all the settings. When you reset, or get another 650, it will set pretty much all settings like they were before, and install all apps of course.

 

[Vasil Dechkov]

Are you going to accept that from a NEW phone? I see no reason to keep it, get it replaced.

As for spending hours to set everything up, once you've done it you can set the phone to back up all the settings. When you reset, or get another 650, it will set pretty much all settings like they were before, and install all apps of course.

I believe he was talking about the 830 getting the quirks.

Sent from mTalk

 

[stelesque]

Thanks all. It was the 830 (2 yrs old) which was restarting each time I put it down.

I went to the "Answer Desk" I don't want to be disparaging, but I'm not sure the gentleman there knew any more about Lumias than I do. He messed with it for a few minutes then told me it was defective and I could return it. End of.

Randomly, Cortana started working an hour or two before I got there, but I still can't get the Cortana settings to read me my texts via Bluetooth as it gets stuck in this weird loop where you select that option from the drop down menu and it immediately moves you a Cortana screen saying "I'm happy to change that setting for you. With your permission, I can do things like manage you calendar, track packages, and help you send texts." then you have to tap "Settings" and then you get taken to the settings menu with no indication of WHICH setting is wrong.

The gentleman in the store said it wasn't worth me doing a reset, as the phone was brand new.

At this point I'm over it. I plan to return and then buy a product that is not WM. My favorite feature on the WP was that when you enter a text number that is not in your contacts, it shows you a dialing screen (789, 456, etc.) unlike the iPhone where you get tiny keyboard numbers (1234..), but it turns out that the Pixel has that so I'll spend 3x as much and get that.

I do appreciate everyone's replies, thank you very much.

 

[Krystianpants]

My bro had issues when we went from his 925 to 830. The problem was caused by restoring his backup. A reset and fresh start fixed everything. I feel windows 10 and backup restores are a bad idea.

 

[Ryujingt3]

I got my new 650 yesterday to replace my 830, which developed some quirks (restarting every time I put it down on a desk/table, etc.)

I've never had such a difficult phone EVER. I'm seriously thinking of returning it. This is my 4th Lumia. It shouldn't be this hard.

I can't get Cortana to work. Every time I ask it to add something to my calendar, it says my settings need to be changed to give it permission. HOW? All the settings I see are fine - when I go into the settings in Cortana itself, when I click on read my texts - bluetooth it then just moves me from that screen into a general settings screen and when I go back nothing was changed in Cortana. I'm going around in circles.

I've already had to upgrade the software so that I could get ground-breaking features like the doubletap to unlock.

Had to reactivate speech recognition for texts, even though that was activated out of the box, before the update.

Spent an hour this morning getting my email notifications to work again.

WHY IS IT SO HARD?

Can someone please help me with Cortana - what on earth settings do I need to mess with to make it work? It says location history must be on, but I can't see that an an option ANYWHERE.

Thank you.:crying:angry:

I don't suppose we can have a screenshot of the message please? I would like to see it.

 

[stelesque]

I didn't restore a backup, I think? I used TransferMyData just for contacts and texts. I never move photos to new phone, and I don't keep music on my phones.

Ryujingt3, I put the phone away ready to return, but I'll see if I can get a screenshot quickly before I take it back.

 

[anthonyng]

Maybe do a teamviewer if someone can see exactly what you see and it might help that way