Windows 10 Mobile and Hard Resets

[aimulaidni]

Isn't the 930 a lesser phone than the 950? I don't think the problem is the hardware.

It is...and yes, the problem is not the hardware, it's the software...and herein lies the issue....i can't go back to 8.1 on the 950XL, so if I do want to use one, I would either have to go for the 930 or the 1520 (these being the flagships when they were released)...and I can't use the 1520 because of it's size, so only option left is the 930...the only things holding me back are the camera and the price...I'm a student and had to save up to get the 950XL, now if i sell it, I would probably have to do it for a loss of atleast $200 bucks and I don't want to do it...I was banking a lot on the 950XL and was planning to keep it for atleast two years...but I'm just fed up with this phone now...almost smashed it yesterday out of anger (threw it down but the carpet saved it)...stupid me i know

 

[aimulaidni]

Okay, to all those who mentioned that a hard reset isn't necessary and should be the last resort, what do I do when none of the solutions work? As in for the battery drain, cortana crashing,resuming screensetc. And is there even a fix for cortana crashing? And the resuming screens?

 

[aimulaidni]

Maybe you've already done this, but I've found that changing the diagnostics setting from Full to Basic makes a huge difference to battery life. (Settings > Feedback and Diagnostics > Diagnostic and usage Data > Basic.

Also, I've noted that Whatsapp consumes a lot of battery even if it remains in the background. (You could verify this by noticing the percentage of battery drain that an app contributes while in the foreground vs background.) So I make sure to long-press the Back key and actually close WhatsApp after every instance of responding to chats.

Other than this, I get standby battery drain of about 1-1.5% per hour (Lumia 950), which seems perfectly acceptable.

No, I didn't do that before...but just did it...will post here if it works, thanks!

 

[mixaogion]

It is...and yes, the problem is not the hardware, it's the software...and herein lies the issue....i can't go back to 8.1 on the 950XL, so if I do want to use one, I would either have to go for the 930 or the 1520 (these being the flagships when they were released)...and I can't use the 1520 because of it's size, so only option left is the 930...the only things holding me back are the camera and the price...I'm a student and had to save up to get the 950XL, now if i sell it, I would probably have to do it for a loss of atleast $200 bucks and I don't want to do it...I was banking a lot on the 950XL and was planning to keep it for atleast two years...but I'm just fed up with this phone now...almost smashed it yesterday out of anger (threw it down but the carpet saved it)...stupid me i know

I also have the 950XL for over a month now. Currently on the lastest build on Fast ring. Here are a few issues I noticed so far:
1. Windows Hello doesn't always fire up . At times, there would be a huge lag time to bring up the log in screen from the time of pushing the power button. Reboot seems to be the fastest way to solve the problem.
2. App crashing: Instagram, FB usually crash while uploading videos. Windows Central usually crash on first attempt (not sure why).

Improvements: battery life has been great for the last 2 builds. I'm a casual user, not huge on gaming, and usually can live with one charge every 16 -20 hrs with production build (averaging 4-5%/hr). With the last 2 builds, the phone almost didn't lose any power on idle. Over the weekend, it only managed to lose 56% power in 27 hrs. Pretty impressive to me.

 

[PF Mail]

It is...and yes, the problem is not the hardware, it's the software...and herein lies the issue....i can't go back to 8.1 on the 950XL, so if I do want to use one, I would either have to go for the 930 or the 1520 (these being the flagships when they were released)...and I can't use the 1520 because of it's size, so only option left is the 930...the only things holding me back are the camera and the price...I'm a student and had to save up to get the 950XL, now if i sell it, I would probably have to do it for a loss of atleast $200 bucks and I don't want to do it...I was banking a lot on the 950XL and was planning to keep it for atleast two years...but I'm just fed up with this phone now...almost smashed it yesterday out of anger (threw it down but the carpet saved it)...stupid me i know

I see. The thing about W10M is that you get the updates automatically. Since November, the phone has probably gone through several updates, and with the app updates (I'm assuming that your apps are actually getting updates), so sometimes troubleshooting is a moving target.

For me, the most of my problems are apps, and for me, I did the hard reset after upgrade because the process screws up my app list with blank or duplicate icons, not for performance reason. My experience is that the hard reset doesn't really fix things and the backup/restore sucks.

Hopefully you can find a solution with all the suggestions from all the good people to make your 950XL usable again.

 

[K Raghu]

Hi,
Have 1520 initial build didn't have the touch screen issues that have been reported as I started getting upgrades .

Started the win 10 insider then started having issues, have done clean re-install and still have issues . Took it to windows store in MN and they had no clue as to why it was happening.

with the SD card on it goes crazy , removed the SD card and its a little bit more stable.
- ALL apps are stored in phone
- Downloads /Music /Movie all stored in SD card


After the clean reinstall of Win 8.1 using MS tool the lumia 1520 now shows 16MP camera instead of 20 MP...

as long it works I can be happy I think

 

[greycounciller]

I recently joined the 950 club from an L930. Though the L930 was a battery hog, my L950 seems almost on par. I get an average of 8 - 10hrs average daily use. I was wondering could it also be down to 8.1 apps not perfectly optimised for W10 phones? Of the most used apps I have, they are 8.1 apps which I don't think will ever be updated.

 

[chinni subhash]

I have an international version single sim 950 xl. I am not on insider. Only after the update I reset once and also I got a new firmware from windows device recovery tool. Since then, I have no problems. There are very minor problems which I don't care. Try to reset in WDRT.

 

[pankaj981]

with the SD card on it goes crazy , removed the SD card and its a little bit more stable.
- ALL apps are stored in phone
- Downloads /Music /Movie all stored in SD card

I had the exact same setup, no issues with the screen so far.

After the clean reinstall of Win 8.1 using MS tool the lumia 1520 now shows 16MP camera instead of 20 MP...

Its 16MP on 16:9 ratio, change it to 4:3 and you will be back to 20MP.

 

[mgowen]

On the standard build for 950 and finding it ok. However, I have gotten so used to doing backup -- reset --- restore that I now get to the weekend and think "Time for a restore?". A kind of Stockholm Syndrome?

If I don't need to rebuild the phone I feel lost. End up having to relax, play with the kids, talk to the wife... Very odd.

 

[kristalsoldier]

Not correct. Most of users doesn't know everything they install on your phones stays on background, till phones collapse and drain. And essential services cannot be stopped anyway.

You are right. But then again most users are also not thinking about turning off apps simply because they don't know anything about this kind of stuff like we do (they are not exactly enthusiasts like we are!). To them, the sequence works pretty much like this: installed app>needs to work>why is battery life so low>terrible phone>get a new device. I have seen this happen across all mobile OSs (well except for Blackberry - I dont know anyone who used to use a 'berry - and feature phone OSs).

 

[kristalsoldier]

On the standard build for 950 and finding it ok. However, I have gotten so used to doing backup -- reset --- restore that I now get to the weekend and think "Time for a restore?". A kind of Stockholm Syndrome?

If I don't need to rebuild the phone I feel lost. End up having to relax, play with the kids, talk to the wife... Very odd.

I admire your candour!!!:grin:

 

[kristalsoldier]

Okay, to all those who mentioned that a hard reset isn't necessary and should be the last resort, what do I do when none of the solutions work? As in for the battery drain, cortana crashing,resuming screensetc. And is there even a fix for cortana crashing? And the resuming screens?

Well, unfortunately, in the MS/W10 universe you are now left with no choice if the above list mentioned by you is what you are contending with. Having said that, I would recommend not simply a "hard reset" but going back to baseline with the WDRT. From there get back to whatever Production of Build version you were on. And, try to avoid using a 'back up" to set up your phone. Start afresh.

I really don't think you have any options. And yes, selling the 950XL now will not really make sense.

All this said though - I use a 950XL as my daily driver. It runs the latest Insiders' Fast Build. And it is rock stable. Yes, there is a problem with Cortana, but I don't use her services often. Battery life has certainly improved with this build but I am sure the OS can be further optimized in this context which I expect to happen by the time the AU is released in July sometime. Everything else seems fine really. While I don't use a lot of apps, the ones I do use - paid and free - work very well and the integration with my other Windows machines is good and is slated to get even better shortly (hopefully!!!). Don't get my wrong here - I am not saying that the OS does not need quite a bit of refinement - it most certainly does!!! which I am hopeful will happen (tongue-in-cheek!) "soon".:grin:

 

[kristalsoldier]

I recently joined the 950 club from an L930. Though the L930 was a battery hog, my L950 seems almost on par. I get an average of 8 - 10hrs average daily use. I was wondering could it also be down to 8.1 apps not perfectly optimised for W10 phones? Of the most used apps I have, they are 8.1 apps which I don't think will ever be updated.

Yes apparently so. I have read at numerous places that while Silverlight apps used to work just fine on 8.1, this is not the case with W10. Either those apps rework themselves into (most likely) UWP or they will probably languish.

 

[aimulaidni]

I have an international version single sim 950 xl. I am not on insider. Only after the update I reset once and also I got a new firmware from windows device recovery tool. Since then, I have no problems. There are very minor problems which I don't care. Try to reset in WDRT.

Yeah, I will do this over the weekend...had a minor issue today where I couldn't search for any app in the store, it would just give me a blank screen with the resuming scroll...i could search for songs, movies and other stuff, just not apps...and I tried to install them by searching for the apps in the store on bing but that too was giving me an error, something along the lines of 'the app doesn't exist'...I just didn't want to deal with it then, so left it aside...but once i got back home, I could search for apps again in the store.

 

[aimulaidni]

Well, unfortunately, in the MS/W10 universe you are now left with no choice if the above list mentioned by you is what you are contending with. Having said that, I would recommend not simply a "hard reset" but going back to baseline with the WDRT. From there get back to whatever Production of Build version you were on. And, try to avoid using a 'back up" to set up your phone. Start afresh.

I really don't think you have any options. And yes, selling the 950XL now will not really make sense.


All this said though - I use a 950XL as my daily driver. It runs the latest Insiders' Fast Build. And it is rock stable. Yes, there is a problem with Cortana, but I don't use her services often. Battery life has certainly improved with this build but I am sure the OS can be further optimized in this context which I expect to happen by the time the AU is released in July sometime. Everything else seems fine really. While I don't use a lot of apps, the ones I do use - paid and free - work very well and the integration with my other Windows machines is good and is slated to get even better shortly (hopefully!!!). Don't get my wrong here - I am not saying that the OS does not need quite a bit of refinement - it most certainly does!!! which I am hopeful will happen (tongue-in-cheek!) "soon".:grin:

Lol, no, I get it...Even I'm hoping the anniversary update will iron out the issues

 

[leomou]

Hi!

I'm not on a 950 (XL) .. I use a 930 and was on 10.0.10586.107 (or something like that). I had the same issues like crashing cortana etc.
I solved the problem by joining the insider program: NO fast, NO slow ring, BUT release preview!
Now I'm on 10.0.10586.338 and my Lumia 930 runs perfectly smooth.

I did this about a month ago.

Hope that helpes.

 

[offroad73]

That's fantastic!

Inpired by your comments I did the following changes to my Lumia 950 configuration. Only these two changes from an otherwise unmodified Lumia 950.

1 - The maximum network speed has been set to 3G
2 - Email sync setting has been set to "Depending on my phone usage" (emails are still entering almost instantly on all 3 accounts)

This morning @ 5h30 I unplugged my phone off the USB cable. It is now 12h30 and my battery is at 84%. My usage have been :

- download and install Shazam from cellular network;
- about 10 SMS;
- 3 phone calls for a total of about 10-12 minutes;
- about 50 emails received;
- surf lightly on the Web... perhaps a dozen web pages;
- about 30 minutes of music.

This is awesome as normally, under these circumstances, I shall be looking for a power outlet... flirting with the low 30%.

Also, i notice the Lumia is not warm at all. Even when I browse the Web with Edge which used to generate a lot of heat in the past.

It seems to me the culpript for my battery drain was the 4G/LTE. Frankly, I can't event tell the difference in terms of network speed... Shazam download and Web browsing is a snap.

On a sidenote : I haven't missed a single call yet and the network indicator remains strongly in the 3 bars and +. :excited:

 

[Maurizio Troso]

That's fantastic!

Inpired by your comments I did the following changes to my Lumia 950 configuration. Only these two changes from an otherwise unmodified Lumia 950.

1 - The maximum network speed has been set to 3G
2 - Email sync setting has been set to "Depending on my phone usage" (emails are still entering almost instantly on all 3 accounts)

This morning @ 5h30 I unplugged my phone off the USB cable. It is now 12h30 and my battery is at 84%. My usage have been :

- download and install Shazam from cellular network;
- about 10 SMS;
- 3 phone calls for a total of about 10-12 minutes;
- about 50 emails received;
- surf lightly on the Web... perhaps a dozen web pages;
- about 30 minutes of music.

This is awesome as normally, under these circumstances, I shall be looking for a power outlet... flirting with the low 30%.

Also, i notice the Lumia is not warm at all. Even when I browse the Web with Edge which used to generate a lot of heat in the past.

It seems to me the culpript for my battery drain was the 4G/LTE. Frankly, I can't event tell the difference in terms of network speed... Shazam download and Web browsing is a snap.

On a sidenote : I haven't missed a single call yet and the network indicator remains strongly in the 3 bars and +. :excited:

Really, if you aren't able to see any difference btwn 3G and 4G, better you blame your carrier coverage instead your phone manufacturer
If coverare is pooor, all phones will drain trying to reach performance

PS: LTE is NOT 4G, is a powered 3G

 

[aimulaidni]

That's fantastic!

Inpired by your comments I did the following changes to my Lumia 950 configuration. Only these two changes from an otherwise unmodified Lumia 950.

1 - The maximum network speed has been set to 3G
2 - Email sync setting has been set to "Depending on my phone usage" (emails are still entering almost instantly on all 3 accounts)

This morning @ 5h30 I unplugged my phone off the USB cable. It is now 12h30 and my battery is at 84%. My usage have been :

- download and install Shazam from cellular network;
- about 10 SMS;
- 3 phone calls for a total of about 10-12 minutes;
- about 50 emails received;
- surf lightly on the Web... perhaps a dozen web pages;
- about 30 minutes of music.

This is awesome as normally, under these circumstances, I shall be looking for a power outlet... flirting with the low 30%.

Also, i notice the Lumia is not warm at all. Even when I browse the Web with Edge which used to generate a lot of heat in the past.

It seems to me the culpript for my battery drain was the 4G/LTE. Frankly, I can't event tell the difference in terms of network speed... Shazam download and Web browsing is a snap.

On a sidenote : I haven't missed a single call yet and the network indicator remains strongly in the 3 bars and +. :excited:

How did you set the maximum network speed to 3G? I don't have that on my XL. I found another post in the forum where the user had the same issue but one of the others users who replied to that thread had the option to change the network speed.