Desire Z bugs (or are they Android/HTC Sense bugs?)

[Kristoph]

I've decided to make my earlier post a thread, I want to see if this is affecting people with just Desire Zs or HTC Sense/Android phones.

Apart from the keyboard related only to the Desire Z, and the obvious battery issues, does anyone else experience any of these?

I'm noticing a lot of buggy things with the phone :s


1, (keyboard related) When typing with the keyboard out, the screen scrolls upwards randomly and you have to drag it back down to see the text input box again. Annoying.

2, (keyboard related) When long pressing the number keys, the number doesn't always appear in the list of other characters.

3, Several times now, I've sent text messages and then later noticed they aren't in my text thread anymore. I just had to re-write one just now, and both of them appeared next to each other, two seconds later they vanish. Nowhere to be seen still. :s

4, Messages that I've read in the message inbox are still appearing as a notification in my task bar at the top. I can't just view the text by using the message icon to get rid of it, I have to physically go through the pull down task bar and read it, or use the clear notification button...

5, Contact names don't always appear on text messages. I've had a contacts name reappear and disappear on a regular basis in the message screen and call history.

6, Not really a bug, but a full charge is lasting hardly any time at all. I slept for 5 hours yesterday and the phone was on, but in standby. It dropped its battery from 56% to 11% doing nothing - wifi/bluetooth/gps etc were all off.

Went to work at 10pm last night, used the headphones on and off and had everything disabled, battery went from 100% to dead in about 5 and half hours. (which isn't that surprising.. but still).

7, Photos are very intermittently shown in the gallery. I've had 20 or 30 photos and videos I've taken, disappear on me and then have to restart the phone to see any of it again.

8, When writing a text - if I decide I don't want to write it anymore - I back out of it and it becomes a draft. No problem, I'll just go back in and delete the text, then it won't be a draft anymore? Nope. I delete the text, leave the message, and it's still a draft. Re-enter the thread and it's all there again. To get rid of the draft I have to either delete the thread, or leave a space there or something. :s

 

[manveruppd]

1, (keyboard related) When typing with the keyboard out, the screen scrolls upwards randomly and you have to drag it back down to see the text input box again. Annoying.

Only happened to me a couple of times and then I realized it was due to the way I was holding it, I had accidentally nudged the trackpad
Speaking of the trackpad though, does anyone else find that it's a lot more sensitive when you're in landscape mode than in portrait? And also that it's a little too easy to accidentally click it?

2, (keyboard related) When long pressing the number keys, the number doesn't always appear in the list of other characters.

Never happened to me

3, Several times now, I've sent text messages and then later noticed they aren't in my text thread anymore. I just had to re-write one just now, and both of them appeared next to each other, two seconds later they vanish. Nowhere to be seen still. :s

Unless I've misunderstood your problem, you could be experiencing one of the 2 well-documented Android bugs where either a text message turns up in the wrong thread or a text message is sent to the wrong recipient. You can check who they actually went to by going into message details: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=9392

4, Messages that I've read in the message inbox are still appearing as a notification in my task bar at the top. I can't just view the text by using the message icon to get rid of it, I have to physically go through the pull down task bar and read it, or use the clear notification button...

That never happens to me with the stock app, but because I installed a couple of alternative SMS apps when a text arrives they also flash their notifications, and I need to go through the notification bar like you described to get rid of them even if I've read it in the stock app.

5, Contact names don't always appear on text messages. I've had a contacts name reappear and disappear on a regular basis in the message screen and call history.

That doesn't happen to me with the stock app but a couple of the alternative apps I tried don't display contact names. Not sure why. Are you talking about the stock app?

6, Not really a bug, but a full charge is lasting hardly any time at all. I slept for 5 hours yesterday and the phone was on, but in standby. It dropped its battery from 56% to 11% doing nothing - wifi/bluetooth/gps etc were all off.

It'll get better after a few more charging cycles. If you want it to last longer turn off auto-syncing for all your various accounts. Just sync them when you need to.

7, Photos are very intermittently shown in the gallery. I've had 20 or 30 photos and videos I've taken, disappear on me and then have to restart the phone to see any of it again.

Not happened to me, sorry. I;ve taken very few photos with mine so far though. Are you storing them on the on-board memory or on the SD card?

8, When writing a text - if I decide I don't want to write it anymore - I back out of it and it becomes a draft. No problem, I'll just go back in and delete the text, then it won't be a draft anymore? Nope. I delete the text, leave the message, and it's still a draft. Re-enter the thread and it's all there again. To get rid of the draft I have to either delete the thread, or leave a space there or something. :s

Not had that so far, sorry. Maybe you accidentally locked the message?

While I'm here, have you had any problems with the phone mucking up your contacts? (Creating duplicates, changing details, mixing up fields from different contacts, etc) It's a problem I've been struggling with since day 1 and I'm on the verge of throwing it against the wall. I REALLY need to solve it or it's a complete dealbreaker for me. At first I thought it was purely a "matched contacts" problem when it was automatically trying to match GMail and Outllok contacts together, but now I'm thinking it might be an HTC Sync problem cause I wiped the phone's contact list and re-synced to Outlook only and it still did it! I wrote about it here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18233916
My latest attempt is described in the 3rd post from the end of the thread.

 

[GeX]

1, (keyboard related) When typing with the keyboard out, the screen scrolls upwards randomly and you have to drag it back down to see the text input box again. Annoying.

My HTC Hero used to do that, but only ever when had GPRS or Edge connection. It was like someone was flicking the roller ball.

 

[Kristoph]

Thanks for the replies.

Sorry manveruppd, I've not experienced that problem you're talking about..

I'm using HTC Sense and I havent been touching the trackpad either (I've noticed this guy has the same as me, http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=3046055).

None of the problems are happening frequently, but have happened at least 3-4 times in the past 2 weeks or so.

 

[Stellios]

1, (keyboard related) When typing with the keyboard out, the screen scrolls upwards randomly and you have to drag it back down to see the text input box again. Annoying.

Theres a lot of reports of this on XDA, it seems to bemostly phone related rather than software. The main suspicion seems to be something to to with the trackpad not tracking quite perfectly.

2, (keyboard related) When long pressing the number keys, the number doesn't always appear in the list of other characters.

If your after numbers it a lot faster to press the FN key to get the numbers. Press FN once to enter one number and return to the normal keyboard as normal, or double press FN to lock it to entereing numbers and then press FN again when your done to return to normal.

3, Several times now, I've sent text messages and then later noticed they aren't in my text thread anymore. I just had to re-write one just now, and both of them appeared next to each other, two seconds later they vanish. Nowhere to be seen still. :s

Ive never ever had this issue, but it seems to be Android related from what ive been reading. Have you got your clock set to sync automatically just to ensure your timestamps on the texts are correct. Sounds stupid but it seems to help with this issue from what ive been reading.

4, Messages that I've read in the message inbox are still appearing as a notification in my task bar at the top. I can't just view the text by using the message icon to get rid of it, I have to physically go through the pull down task bar and read it, or use the clear notification button...

Androids normal response, the notification bar clears when you tell it to. Do you have SMS Popup installed or anything similar? SMS Popup is a brilliant program that pops any texts you receive up on your screen as they arrive meaning you dont need to go into your messaging app to read it, and it includes options to clear your notifications bar upon reading the message etc. If you dont have it id highly recommend trying it as its excellent.

5, Contact names don't always appear on text messages. I've had a contacts name reappear and disappear on a regular basis in the message screen and call history.

Ive never had this happen ever so got no advice.

6, Not really a bug, but a full charge is lasting hardly any time at all. I slept for 5 hours yesterday and the phone was on, but in standby. It dropped its battery from 56% to 11% doing nothing - wifi/bluetooth/gps etc were all off.

Went to work at 10pm last night, used the headphones on and off and had everything disabled, battery went from 100% to dead in about 5 and half hours. (which isn't that surprising.. but still).

Check your account & sync settings, if youve got everything set to sync every 10 minutes then its beast your battery.

7, Photos are very intermittently shown in the gallery. I've had 20 or 30 photos and videos I've taken, disappear on me and then have to restart the phone to see any of it again.

Use a file explorer to delete your thumbnail cache then the next time you open your gallery itll fully reload your pictures, with any luck this will solve your issue.

8, When writing a text - if I decide I don't want to write it anymore - I back out of it and it becomes a draft. No problem, I'll just go back in and delete the text, then it won't be a draft anymore? Nope. I delete the text, leave the message, and it's still a draft. Re-enter the thread and it's all there again. To get rid of the draft I have to either delete the thread, or leave a space there or something. :s

Drafts themselves can be deleted, go into your text messages main screen and press the menu button, if you have dafts stored you will get a drafts option upon pressinbg the menu button, go in there and delete the draft

 

[Kristoph]

Thanks Stellios.

I've now started to slowly use the FN button more than the long press option.

I'm using the digital clock widget, but the date and time settings in the phone menu seem to be set to auto update according to the mobile network.

I'll try the sms popup program, sounds like what I need.

The auto sync thing is probably what it is by the sounds of it, I've just gone through all of them and also adjusted how often my bbc/sky news apps update. Had 5 or so apps all auto-sync'd for every 30mins/1hr.

Also I've been told that the setting, 'use wireless networks' in the location thing, can drain batteries quite a bit so I've disabled that.

The thumbnail thing is new to me, as is the drafts menu thanks for solving those problems.

 

[Stellios]

Also I've been told that the setting, 'use wireless networks' in the location thing, can drain batteries quite a bit so I've disabled that.

I never knew that one myself so thanks for that, Ill give it a go and see what happens

Hope you have some success mate. With the syncing ive got most of it turned off, things like Facebook have 2 sync options if you have the app installed on HTC Sense so you only need to enable one of them. Also your flickr stream will refresh when you open your flickr gallery so unless your a follower of groups etc you can pretty much disable that. Again if you dont use anything that regularly uses the weather (widgets etc) then the sync update for that isnt really needed as itll refresh upon being opened anyways.

 

[Kristoph]

Apparently the 'use wireless networks' tool is used by certain applications to gather data on your location in the background.

I've also installed JuiceDefender and JuicePlotter.

Will be interesting to see how long my phone lasts tonight with hardly any use (sending a text message every 45mins/1hr).

Last night I was using Last.fm and killed the battery in 5 hours.

 

[manveruppd]

Was that over wifi or GPRS (your last.fm session I mean)? You should be happy though, my old Universal couldn't possibly last5 hours playing music even if it was playing it off the SD card, much less streaming it off the internet! And that's even though I had installed a 3180mAh extended battery in it!