Spontaneous reboots - discssion on possible causes

[auvo.salmi 135]

I believe my Pro1 reboots sometimes. I reported long time (like 2 months) ago, that the Pro1 queries pin code sometimes. I was thinking that it only loses network. I even replaced my sim card, to make sure that the problems aren't because of worn out/loose sim card. Replacement didn't help though; the device randomly reboots sometimes. There can be days to weeks without a reboot, but I think it has rebooted even three times in one day once. Looks like those reboots are more likely to happen when I am on weaker network area. For example in my friend's home the 4G signal is weak, and this makes the phone (not just Pro1 but every phone with the same network operator) to switch between 3g and 4g all the time. I don't have any proof for this to cause reboots, but feels like it happens more often in weak network.

[Slion 1,201]

Still not a single spontaneous reboot since I got my Pro1. Using it with 2 SIMs and even weak signal does not bother it. I did not travel much with it though, I wonder what it will be like on the train for instance.

[EskeRahn 5,464]

3 hours ago, Slion said:

Still not a single spontaneous reboot since I got my Pro1. Using it with 2 SIMs and even weak signal does not bother it. I did not travel much with it though, I wonder what it will be like on the train for instance.

I believe it is not limited to a weak/failing signal, but combined with the bands relevant for the carrier. As more of us would see it if it was just the lost signal.

[MickH 211]

I was talking to a tutor at the college where I work, he lectures communications. He says he's seen it happen sometimes and believes it's something to do with band switching, but he's still looking at the phenomena, as he put it.

[lzb 43]

Just throwing in my "me too." I sometimes work off-site not too far from my work's main campus in an area with poor cell service, but that has wifi. When I'm up and running everything works fine, and the wifi lets me use Google Voice and WiFi calling with my carrier. I get reboots every so often when I'm here. Always seems to be in the same physical location, not so much in other places (this phenomenon was mentioned earlier in the thread). I'm in the US, on T-Mobile (although considering switching to Mint, which probably won't make much of a difference haha)

I will also mention that today is a particularly bad day, with 3-4 reboots in the span of 15 minutes 😞

I will also note that the off-site location is a trailer that basically acts like a Faraday cage, so that is definitely not helping

Edited March 13, 2020 by lzb

[FlyingAntero 871]

I got my 4th reboot yesterday. I have had my phone for one and half month now. It is a rare issue for me and it is only happening when I am travelling. I can't reproduce it near my home. I am pretty sure that it is the same issue which was reported on Sony devices. Any plans to implement the fix soon? Is this bug also in Lineage OS rom?

 

[auvo.salmi 135]

I am using Lineage (test9) and had my first boot yesterday. I have been using LOS for ten days or so, and been at least two times at my friend's home (where network is weak and where I usually had reboots on stock) but it hasn't happened even once. But yesterday I got my first reboot and I was at home (where I have really strong network), so I don't know if it was the same issue after all. But I'd say there's at least lesser reboots in Lineage.

Question for all of you who have the rebooting issue: Have you ever seen it rebooting? I mean, does it happen while using the phone? Because for me it has always happened while I have had the phone in my pocket.

[VaZso 1,998]

16 minutes ago, auvo.salmi said:

Question for all of you who have the rebooting issue: Have you ever seen it rebooting? I mean, does it happen while using the phone? Because for me it has always happened while I have had the phone in my pocket.

I still had only two reboots on the same motorway and same direction where signal probably was very weak but the phone was in my pocket both times.

After last reboot, I was on the same road once more without reboot...

[Jordi 72]

7 hours ago, auvo.salmi said:

Question for all of you who have the rebooting issue: Have you ever seen it rebooting? I mean, does it happen while using the phone? Because for me it has always happened while I have had the phone in my pocket.

I saw both situation on stock OS, reboots in idle or while using the phone.

[EskeRahn 5,464]

1 hour ago, Jordi said:

I saw both situation on stock OS, reboots in idle or while using the phone.

We will normally have a weaker signal with a phone in the pocket than in the hands (or at a desk), and as the issue seems correlated with a weak signal it will be more common when in a pocket.

[auvo.salmi 135]

Yesterday I had two spontaneous reboots while having a call. I was working on my garage, and had working gloves on. First time I really thought that the device rebooted spontaneously, and the second time I was ready to throw the device towards concrete wall... But then I realized that I had accidentally long-pressed the power button on both of times and this caused the reboot 😄

[brunoais 334]

Before you throw it, ship it to me. I can give it a new home.

[michael.bosscha 142]

Alright, so I just had my first random reboot. For me, this has never been an issue until today, when I connected to GF's new wireless router. I remarked that I found the signal strength a bit lacking for a device that's not even 10 meters away, but she said she had good connection since starting it up. OK, let's try it out! I connected, entered an URL in an open window and... bam, random reboot. Whut. OK, reboot, reopen Chrome, browse to the FX forum, search for this thr... bam, another reboot. OK, so definitely sure now this is due to the wifi acting up. Reboot, switch off wifi and back to cellular... and smooth sailing again. That was weird... does my phone keep track of system crashes somewhere in a log like Windows does?

[Jerrykaisler 3]

My phone also reboots. It's not at random times. It's whenever I'm at certain locations. If I'm connected to the wifi at my house, I get "random" reboots. Sometimes up to 6-8 per day. The network at home uses a 192.168.1.x address range with 2.4GHz and 5Ghz wifi bands. If I'm at work with a different subnet, it's just fine. FXtec support knows about the issue, the first thing they asked when I said I was getting reboots and couldn't hold a call, was "are you using wifi and is wifi calling enabled".

If I'm using wifi at my house, I can make a call for about 1 minute and 20 seconds before the phone will reboot. It happens on google voice calls and regular calls. I've tried disabling wifi calling, I've tried all kinds of stuff. Coupled with the rattling screen, the hyper sensitive sides of the screen, the fact that this is the second pro1 I've had because the first screen was defective, the reboots, the lock ups, and the shitty experience in general, I've given up and am moving to the unihertz titan.

 

This phone blows.

[tdm 2,322]

On 5/15/2020 at 1:51 PM, michael.bosscha said:

Alright, so I just had my first random reboot. For me, this has never been an issue until today, when I connected to GF's new wireless router. I remarked that I found the signal strength a bit lacking for a device that's not even 10 meters away, but she said she had good connection since starting it up. OK, let's try it out! I connected, entered an URL in an open window and... bam, random reboot. Whut. OK, reboot, reopen Chrome, browse to the FX forum, search for this thr... bam, another reboot. OK, so definitely sure now this is due to the wifi acting up. Reboot, switch off wifi and back to cellular... and smooth sailing again. That was weird... does my phone keep track of system crashes somewhere in a log like Windows does?

Reboots like this are not tracked anywhere for production devices.  I'm pretty sure you are seeing a bug in the qcacld kernel driver (eg. the Qualcomm wlan module).  Is there anything particular about this wireless router that might cause the issue?  I would like to see if anyone else can reproduce this.

 

[Jordi 72]

1 hour ago, tdm said:

Reboots like this are not tracked anywhere for production devices.  I'm pretty sure you are seeing a bug in the qcacld kernel driver (eg. the Qualcomm wlan module).  Is there anything particular about this wireless router that might cause the issue?  I would like to see if anyone else can reproduce this.

I can reproduce this quite easily at home, in a room where I have poor wifi signal. Unfortunately, my router is not configurable directly, I have to go to the internet site of my provider and there is just a few parameters I can modify.

[DieBruine 397]

I also had issues with rebooting. But if I recall correctly this was only on 2.4GHz. So I stopped using 2.4GHz. Unable to test now, still awaiting my replacement screen. But, I am 100% sure I never had a reboot after switching to 5GHz networks at home. 

Also, pretty sure I never had a reboot on 2.4GHz in combination with my Unifi AP's. Just with the router my ISP provided.

[EskeRahn 5,464]

2 hours ago, tdm said:

I'm pretty sure you are seeing a bug in the qcacld kernel driver (eg. the Qualcomm wlan module). 

There sure are bugs in that code. I get substantially worse stamina when connecting to my WiFi router with 5GHz than 2.4GHz (Distance about 1m) I have given up using 5GHz for now. This goes for both stock and Lineage.
(Otherwise both works fine here, I do not see the reboot issue)

[VaZso 1,998]

I have not experienced such reboots for a while because I have not really traveled on the same road in the last couple of weeks because of Corona thing...
...it may be another bug or not directly related (WiFi was turned on but not connected, so it may still cause problem), but a relation with weak signal (near tunnels) and network switching is suspicious.

[tdm 2,322]

12 hours ago, Jordi said:

I can reproduce this quite easily at home, in a room where I have poor wifi signal. Unfortunately, my router is not configurable directly, I have to go to the internet site of my provider and there is just a few parameters I can modify.

That is great (well, great for reproducing the issue).  Can you connect the device to a PC and run "adb shell cat /dev/kmsg" and then cause the issue to happen?  Hopefully the device will show a kernel panic message before it resets.

 

[Jordi 72]

On 5/29/2020 at 7:46 PM, tdm said:

That is great (well, great for reproducing the issue).  Can you connect the device to a PC and run "adb shell cat /dev/kmsg" and then cause the issue to happen?  Hopefully the device will show a kernel panic message before it resets.

For doing so, I decided to root the device, this seemed easier and quicker to do than installing LineageOS. I followed the appropriate thread in the forum but I was not able to achieve this until I understand my bootloader was locked.

So I unlocked it but I was not aware that the phone would perform a fresh install ... now, I know!

I installed Magisk, I set Super User access for apps and adb. I hide / unhide Magisk to see if one is working.

I tried some apps which need root and they are working well.

But I still have :

root@Jordi-Dell:/home/jordi# sudo adb start-server
root@Jordi-Dell:/home/jordi# adb shell cat /dev/kmsg
cat: /dev/kmsg: Permission denied
root@Jordi-Dell:/home/jordi#

Any idea?

[Craig 1,435]

I don't think you need root for adb shell.  Just enable it in developer options.   Tab on your build number repeatedly to enable developer options in about phone.

adb shell is run from your pc, not device.  Usually via usb cable.

However, you can cat /dev/kmsg on device with root.  But if it reboots, which is your goal, you wouldn't be able to see the last message on your screen very easily 😉

[Jordi 72]

1 hour ago, Craig said:

I don't think you need root for adb shell.  Just enable it in developer options.   Tab on your build number repeatedly to enable developer options in about phone.

adb shell is run from your pc, not device.  Usually via usb cable.

Yes, I did that.

[jlavi 112]

When developing N900 at Nokia we had a special koops handler which saved the crashing kernel oops to a log area in NAND memory. The saved dumps were then automatically reported on the next reboot. It collected valuable statistics about the frequency and stacks frames of kernel crashes. Without the NAND based logger the devices would have had to be logged via serial console.

[auvo.salmi 135]

As I have reported before, my device has been having random reboots once a while. It has been almost daily. Typically, when I wake up, I come to kitchen from upstairs and start to make breakfast. Looks like I have better network upstairs, because these reboots almost always happen in the kitchen, usually at morning when having breakfast. Also I have those reboots sometimes when I travel to places with weaker network coverage. But what is strange, is that I don't have these reboots anymore. Like, at all. Let's say no reboots in 7 days at least. Nothing have changed in my phone lately, and I haven't changed network operator etc. Of course it is possible that the operator has made some changes to area's network coverage, but anyway looks like these reboots are gone for some reason.

I have also suffered from unresponsive screen issue, which mostly happens when the device has been sleeping for a while (over night typically), and when I try to wake it up, the screen doesn't respond. It's offtopic here, but I just wanted to tell that for some reason, I also have these issues much more rarely than before (it used to be like few times in a day). So looks like the issues have fixed themselves apparently, which is awesome!

Edited June 7, 2020 by auvo.salmi