possibly cell radio issue with lollipopo 5.1.1 update

[MyAliasIsGary]

hi all

I thought update had gone ok.

Very little battery usage when phone is in sleep/display off, etc. Used home wifi network a lot yesterday. Basically no data wifi.

day 2 (today):

• I was out today and had my data connection (4G) on quite a lot (hadn't yesterday).
• Wasn't streaming or anything, just needed data for checking train times, google maps a bit - certainly nothing intensive.
• Phone was charged to 100% (switched off) then switched on at 9am ish this morning
• Cell Standby reports, although only 5% of max battery usage, 24% time without signal (out of 8hr). This seems ridiculously high.
• I have noticed that my signal strength is frequently 1 bar with 4G.
• I noticed a bit of signal fluctuation, even with 4G switched off but virtually every time I got my phone out and 4G was on, it was on 1 bar of signal.
• I checked the battery history details:
• WiFi is indicated as active for the entire time I've had a shoddy mobile network signal - this correlates with my 4G usage.
• Other times when Wifi has been on (home network, not data), cell signal seems fine.
• I am on O2 in London
• 4G can be a little up and down for me but has NOT generated this measure of cell standby / out of signal until 5.1.1 upgrade
• 5.0.2 was ok, although tbh I use 3G most of the time, as I associate better battery usage when I don't use 4G.
• I was even in exactly the same locations using data, etc, as when I was with 5.0.2 ROM, so I'd not anticipate such a dramatic difference/drop in signal quality.
• I checked with 02 and there are no reported service issues in my area (checked via their website service status).
• I've just remembered that I had GPS on too but know, 100%, that Location Services was set to "device only", rather than high accuracy. You can also see from my battery history usage, how little the GPS was 'on' for.

I am very surprised and disappointed at this.

This suggests (to me) a radio issue in the latest update.

However, I've not seen others complaining about cell radio issues, so can't corroborate/prove my suspicions.

Anyone have any suggestions for me?

Cheers,

Gaz

Screenshots:

[Uliwooly]

@MyAliasIsGary

Reinstall 5.1.1 with PCC, it's a pain but it should smooth things out, also turn off auto update apps and check if you are auto backing up with G+/photos

PC Companion (PCC)

Bridge (for Mac)

Alternatives on How to backup Xperias

http://talk.sonymobile.com/thread/36355

[MyAliasIsGary]

---

@uliwooly wrote:

@MyAliasIsGary

Reinstall 5.1.1 with PCC, it's a pain but it should smooth things out, also turn off auto update apps and check if you are auto backing up with G+/photos

PC Companion (PCC)

Bridge (for Mac)

Alternatives on How to backup Xperias

http://talk.sonymobile.com/thread/36355

---

hi mate

oh seriously though? A re-install?

It took a day for me to get everything back in place (I wiped my internal storage), so I'd have a clean install of 5.1.1 (I wiped 5.0.2).

So am I to do a repair or reinstall (or are they the same)?

The only other thing I did yesterday was hold power button and volume-down until you get 3 buzzes - I read that this wipes the cache partition. It was suggested this could clean up sluggish performance after an update (although tbh I didn't find my phone to be sluggish).

RE: auto updates. I've turned all them off. Also, things should not be syncing in background either (I'm careful to turn that off).

G+ shouldn't be updating in background as I've disabled it lol

In fact I've disabled most of the google stuff.

RE: backing up of photos. This shouldn't be happening, at least going on the amount of data I've used today (only 17MB).

Btw, could you just explain (or point me to an article) as to why I should use PC companion (rather than say just doing factory reset)?

Cheers,

Gaz

[Uliwooly]

@MyAliasIsGary'

If there's a bug PCC should fix it

[MyAliasIsGary]

---

@uliwooly wrote:

@MyAliasIsGary

Reinstall 5.1.1 with PCC, it's a pain but it should smooth things out, also turn off auto update apps and check if you are auto backing up with G+/photos

PC Companion (PCC)

Bridge (for Mac)

Alternatives on How to backup Xperias

http://talk.sonymobile.com/thread/36355

---

@uliwooly

testing in safe mode / trying to avoid the wipe.

Out of curiosity, am I right in saying Sony produce a generic handset build, which then goes to individual carriers for tweaking?

If i did a repair/reinstall with PCC, would I get the sony build or the O2 one?

4G is still very unreliable - signal strength fluctuates wildly with data on. Tested it again on friday in the same locations as on thursday. Will test again today when I'm out (using safe mode). Have deliberately had 4G on at home though and already have cell standby/no signal issues.

One other person, who's on O2 in the same location (stonebridge park, NW london), has reported similar 4G issues (running on iphone though, so one could conclude it's an O2 issue, as it appears hardware independent) - she claims O2 have had problems with 4G there for weeks now. No admission as such from O2 though.

Regards,

Gary

[Uliwooly]

@MyAliasIsGary

That's correct, Sony creates a general update and then send it to networks for them to add their bloatware > test it > approve it > release it 

Repairing with PCC will re-install which ever update its available for your phone, if the phone it's locked to a carrier then it'll be that update, in this case O2