Samsung Stratosphere and data connection

[Indy99]

Let me know your results.  Please post links to any relevant info you find.  I am very technical and have a lot of experience with networking and wireless.  I would love to find a workaround.  I plan on going to the Verizon store over my lunch break today and showing them the problem first hand.

[Indy99]

Well interesting experience at the Verizon store.  Talked to the tech guy, and told him I had a Stratosphere and recieved the update and am having a problem.  He actually said "let me guess, wifi connection problems".  Turns out he also owns a Stratosphere and has experienced the exact same problems after the update.  He also beleives it is something within the FF1 update that broke wifi.

Unfortunately, he did not have a good solution for me.  He offered to have a replacement shipped to my house, and I can keep my existing phone until the new one is active.  He said it will probably have the same wifi problem, but at least this way it will be documented that at least this was tried.  Plus, my manufature warranty is up Oct 18 - and the replacement will come with a 90 day warranty.  This will allow me more options.  He said there likely won't be a solution until Samsung updates the code or reverts back to the original software.

Let me know if anyone figures out anything more with this.  I am so frustrated over this.

[lschultz76]

Well that to me, is more horrible an idea than I can stand, because, as I stated this is an issue based on what I have seen that has existed since 2011!  I find it doubtful that Samsung will be changing anything at all for a problem gone on this long. 

I am beginning to feel like I don't have anywhere to turn.  I fear calling the main number because of the "trouble shooting" that was done in this thread.  It was a whole lot of useless.  And store employees?  You are lucky, Indy, that you ended up with the one you did, and that he was familiar with the problem.  Most retail store employees are not knowledgeable about the technical details, and only know the most basic of troubleshooting steps...and unfortunately this has been my experience with even the customer care centers for most companies I deal with.  They are not IT consultants, nor networking engineers.  They are people who are trained to ask a series of questions based on the answers they get.  Unfortunately then we are left to fend for ourselves and dig through material that might end up doing us more harm than good when we have an issue.

I actually called my local store just to see if they had had any reports of this issue from customers in their stores.  All I got was confusion on the other end of the line, and a canned response to call the 800 number (which as I said based on the very BASIC steps Verizon suggested, is something I do not want to do).

So what is a customer to do?  I have not lost connectivity *yet since I changed that one setting, but truthfully I have no idea how long the interval was that I was losing it to begin with.  It isn't obvious when it happens...i.e. the wifi upload and download symbols are flashing.  But I cannot connect, or it connects slowly.  What we really NEED is a KNOWLEDGEABLE tech to give us a solution to this problem.  I for one, am not happy that I have lost functionality on a phone that I purchased in August of this year. 

I know this is all a matter of opinion and they will all be different, but frankly? This update didn't do anything at all positive for me.  A few cosmetic things I don't rather like anyway.  If it's really down to Samsung; why can't Verizon give them a boot in the behind to fix it, or let us roll back, or give us a version of ICS that doesn't have this problem? I'd be happy enough to roll back to 2.3.5.  I had no issues with it at all.

Sorry for the rant.  I was up so late last night trying to get all this worked out and all I am now is very tired and upset.

[Indy99]

Trust me, I share all your frustations.  I bought my phone the DAY it was released in October 2011.  While there were always some minor problems with it, generally I was happy.  I do a lot of typing o nmy phone and cant stand using touch for a lot of typing.

I think you can ultimately blame the broken U.S. patent system for why this update even happened.  If Samsung would not have lost their patent case so bad against Apple, I dount this update would have happened.  I think (and this is totally my opinion) that the main driving force of this FF1 update was to remove some of the features that Apple won in their patent lawsuit.  Namely, the rubber band bounce back (now it just raises a green color at teh end of scrolling) and the way swipe to unlock was implemented.

Getting back to the issue at hand, I feel the only thing we can hope for is enough noise is made over this issue to get Samsung \ Verzion to fix the problem in code, or allow us to revert to the orginal (with the Apple patened features).  I suppose someone figures out a setting change to fix this, or there is always the option to root the phone and install a custom ROM - but I really have no interest in doing all that.

Maybe they will let us upgrade to the Strat 2 thats coming soon for a discount.  That would be a great alternative if they can't fix this.  With no 36 / 4g signal at my house, this smartphone is no more than a phone to me now.

I do appreciate the offer to send me a new (most likely refurb) phone, and there is always a chance it could work.

Im sure there will be more to come...

[Indy99]

Ok, I spent a little time researching this with Google, and think I probably saw a lot of the same info you did.  in a way, I am encouraged.

It appears there is a bug in the core Andorid 2.3.6 OS, which is what this FF1 update put on.  From what I read, the bug occurs when the phone gets a DHCP lease of "Forever".  It appears the phone treats this as a "-1" value, and keeps dropping the lease and trying to reconnect.

I also read there are two ways to fix this:

   1.  Set DHCP lease to anything other than "Forever".  IE, 2 weeks would work fine.

   2.  Use a static IP.

I will try both of these tonight and report back tomorrow.  If one of these works, I will feel a lot better.  However, this will still be a problem when using any WiFi hotspot that gives a lease of forever that we do not have the ability to change.  IE, any WiFi we don't own.  Seeing this is a bug within Andorid, I doubt Samsung \ Verizon would have wasted time to fix a bug in an outdated version of the OS.

Anyways - I will report my finding tomorrow.

[lschultz76]

I feel like I just give up trying to figure it out on my own. My connection goes sluggish within an hour or two.  The only other details I can provide are as follows.

I have a Linksys wrt54g v5 router.  Security is wpa with password, and also mac address filtering (which of course includes all the devices in our household).  All was working fine before this update.

After the update, the wifi connection goes sluggish after an hour or two, I cannot say exactly which.  My phone is also getting hot during use, which is something that did not happen before. For whatever reason...certain browsers function much better even if it's gone into its "sluggish" phase.  Specifically, Dolphin and the stock browser take ridiculously long to load pages, but they do load. However, firefox and opera mini seem to be mostly unaffected.  In the "slug" phase, connections to my facebook account seem most affected, be it my accessing it through Tweetdeck or Facebook Messenger app.  Again, if I browser there via opera mini or firefox it seems to be ok.

Turning off the wifi connection and turning it back on does not seem to fix the issue, but restarting the phone does fix it consistently during my troubleshooting. But in an hour or two it is back to being slow and hot.

I have no idea based on all this what I should do to "fix" it.  To someone like me with only limited technical knowledge it is a bunch of random circumstances that don't make sense.  I'm hoping by posting these details that someone might see it and have a eureka moment and give me an idea on what to try next.

This isn't a problem for everyone who receives the update, HENCE that is part of the bigger problem.  I wish I knew if I just needed a new router.  This one is old anyway.

*edited to add response*

Yes I saw those two things, though by default my release was set at a day, and not forever; if I recall this was an issue with Belkin routers.   I also saw people trying to use a static IP but I didn't go that route, because too many of them said it worked for "a day" or "awhile" then quit working. I suppose I'm just so frustrated right now that I don't want to have to do this, I want someone to be able to tell me what's wrong so I can fix it.

[tashi]

Another unhappy customer having data connectivity issues after the update.  Actually two, my wife and I both have stratospheres, and both phones started having the same issues immediately after getting the update.  The constant searching for a connection has killed my battery life.  I used to be able to go all day on a single charge, and half the next day if I forgot to charge my phone overnight.  Now I'm lucky if my phone still has any life left by early evening.  I've started keeping the wi-fi turned off a lot of the time, which has helped some with both the connectivity and battery issues, but I'm sure the data usage will now start to go over the limit every month and slow way down.  I really hope they let us roll back to 2.3.5 so that we can have a functional phones again.  The only functional improvement I've noticed is with the camera.  It's more responsive and has zoom now.  Other than that all of the changes have either been aesthetic or complete downgrades. 

[jrh4054]

How do you change the 'DHCP' lease setting?

[Dave-in-Decatur]

You should be able to do it through your router's set-up software.You probably used this program when you first installed the router and (if you're anything like me) haven't touched it since. If you can remember how to get at it in your browser, the setting you need to change will be in it.

For instance, I have a Cisco Linksys E2000 router. When I enter its set-up/control software and go to the Setup tab, in the DHCP Server Setting section there is a setting for Client Lease Time. That's the one that needs adjusting.

[Indy99]

I researched more as well as performed some testing last evening.  Unfortunately, I only have bad news to report.  I had high hopes that the DHCP lease settings or using a static would solve this problem.

I discovered on my NetGear N900 router, I have no ability to change DHCP lease times.

So I put a static IP on my phone.  The phone did accept the settings to use a static IP, and I confirmed it did not get a DHCP lease.  However, this had no affect on the problem.

After a reboot, WiFi works perfect for about 20 minutes, then the connection seems to start bouncing on and off.  I was close to the router and had great signal strength.  I was very unhappy to find that using a static IP had no effect on the problem.

From what I can tell, while this FF1 update to Android 2.3.6 may have the DHCP lease bug that has been reported for a long time, there is something else going on.  Static IPs do not use DHCP settings so my problem can not be related to DHCP leases.  Perhaps there is a bug as well in static, but with my inability to change my DHCP settings on my router I can not verify this.

So I am now left with a phone that I can get no data connection when at my house, and I have a year left before upgrade eligibility.

I have pretty much exhausted all work arounds I can think of at this time.  Verizon is sending me a new (refurb) Startosphere that should arrive tomorrow, so I will confirm the same problem exists on that.

I hope people keep posting there findings and troubles so we can get a resolution.  If there is not fix or no rollback to 2.3.5, the ONLY option that will be left will be a custom ROM - which is a path I really don't wish to peruse.

If anyone has any ideas please let me know!!!  My frustration level with this problem keeps growing more each day.