Xperia Z Issues (Good & Bad)

[Lemon]

So, I decided to buy the Xperia Z.

A few days in, I'm noticing that...

The Good;

* Multi-tasking is phenomenally good.

* Hi-spec games run perfectly.

* RAM is IMMENSE, phone rarely lags.

* Walkman is FINALLY back to it's best. Visualiser, equaliser are both top notch.

* Screen is amazing.

* The Camera takes amazing high-light photos.

* LED notifications work fine for me, and I don't expect them to work when I have Stamina Mode turned on. I don't see why people make such a fuss over

the LED, it's not a deal-breaker, and I don't see why you'd want to turn off Stamina Mode.

* Using Stamina Mode, under normal usage, I could easily get 2+ days off the battery, although Stamina Mode says 4 days. Under heavy usage, Bluetooth, Wifi, full whack, I think the battery life drops to maybe 10 to 12 hours, which still isn't bad whatsoever.

The Bad;

Major Issue;

* Bluetooth & Wifi - not separately, but collectively. I like to listen to music at my desk over bluetooth to the MBS-100, and I have the MBS-200 at home. However, when I have both Bluetooth & Wifi turned on, surfing the web while listening to music (I like to party) one knocks the other off. Wifi will stay on and knock Bluetooth off... Or Bluetooth will stay on and knock Wifi off... The two are completely unrelated!!! This is the same issue I was having with the 2011 Xperia Arc!!! I can't believe Sony still have this issue 2 years later, and that it's gone undiagnosed for so long!!! This is a big problem, and I'd appreciate if someone could confirm whether this is the software or the device. Wifi will not stay active any longer than 4/5 minutes while Bluetooth is running, the Wifi icon stays active, as if to suggest I'm still connected, but my browser will say I'm not, and will not return any pages, until I disconnect and reconnect.

Lesser Issues;

* There are minor screen-tearing & rendering issues at higher scrolling speeds.

* No support for Flash Player. Can't view certain videos or websites.

* There is no 'App to SD' function anymore, which means I'm using 5GB on my internal storage, when I could be keeping this free, and backing up up to my 32GB/64GB microSD. Why has this feature been removed?

* YouTube - the YouTube app sometimes starts playing a video, over Wifi, and then stops about 30 seconds in, and then buffers, without loading any extra content. I don't get disconnected from Wifi, my connection stays perfect, but the videos won't load in their entirity. Some will, sometime I get this issue, and can't watch beyond 30/40 seconds. (Update - this YouTube problem seems to be an Android wide issue since it's latest update)

* The camera takes very poor low light photos with flash... Although low-light photos without flash are better than most, they're still quite grainy.

* I also find that the Xperia Home Launcher and associated Jelly Bean widgets are very poorly designed, compared to ICS. The theme was much more consistent in ICS, so I've actually taken to using the Nova Launcher, which works like an absolute dream on this handset.

* The theme of the messaging and contacts largely remains WHITE. I want BLACK. No option to change this anywhere, sadly.

* I've installed a third player media player, the 'Rocket Player'. When the Walkman app is playing music, and I lock the screen, the lock-screen music widget, will either allow me to control the Walkman app, the Rocket Player app, or will say that no tracks are playing, despite the Walkman app audibly playing music in the background. This has been solved by deleted the Rocket Player app, but is clearly a bug of sorts.

Now, if anyone can help with the following, it would be greatly appreciated;

* ANY fix, I mean ANY fix for the Wifi/Bluetooth clashing and crashing. Case in point, listening to music over Bluetooth earlier, while trying to download the game 'Vector' from the Play Store, my Wifi knocked off about 15 times, Bluetooth about 3 times. The Icon stayed active, as if I were still online, but I wasn't. The only way to re-activate the Wifi was to turn it off and on again. This is a similar issue I experienced on the Arc and am SHOCKED to see it happening on a quad-core device with 2GB of RAM, there's definitely something wrong with Sony's coding or architecture, Bluetooth and Wifi should be completely exclusive and not affect each other in this way. If it could be solved by a factory reset, or some other method, please tell me. If it's my device and I should return it to the retail outlet where I bought it, please tell me.

* Recommend a Flash-enabled mobile browser? I'm thinking Opera maybe?

* No App to SD.

* YouTube playback issue (seems to be an Android wide issue)

* Recommend any good launchers, widgets, APKs, or anything to make the Xperia Z sexier.

It's a great handset in fairness, and the Bluetooth/Wifi issue is my only real bug. And it's a big enough one to report.

Thanks,

Willy

[kipperman]

@Lemon

Sorry to hear the problem has returned.

I managed to get my wifi to hang whilst transfering some large files and whilst it may not be related to your problem I think I have fixed the cause of my wifi lockups.  I discovered that a neighbours router was on the same wifi channel as mine although a weaker signal. I have changed my router so there's no overlap and reset all my wifi devices. Since then I have had no issues. I am running with full charge so I will see what happens as the battery drains

[Lemon]

Thanks Gregorg!

Many thanks to hear your feedback, though I doubt it can be any apps in the background causing this;

I got into work this morning.

Turned on Bluetooth.

Smartconnect picks up on my MBS-100 (an official Sony bluetooth speaker)

Opens, Walkman, starts playing.

Meanwhile, I'm browsing in the background, using my browser only.

About 20 minutes later, Bluetooth knocks off.

Wifi knocks off, page can't load.

Bluetooth reconnects, music starts playing again.

Wifi doesn't reconnect.

Wifi Icon stays on as if active.

No connection.

Need to manually turn Wifi off and on again to reconnect.

20 minutes later, issue repeats.

So, I have auto-sync turned off, Location services turned off, I'm not using any third party apps, I'm simply browsing and listening to music over bluetooth.

The only app I have for social media, is the Sony Xperia 'Socialife' app. This works perfectly.

When Wifi is on, on it's own, all my apps and games work perfectly.

It's only when Bluetooth is turned on that WiFi keeps disconnecting. So it can't possibly be any apps. It's either some coding issue, a resource management issue, or an architectural issue.

[Lemon]

Retesting now, for transparence;

* Time is 12:27pm

* Battery on 62%

* WiFi has been on since 10am, for 2 and a half hours, and has NOT disconnected once.

* I've just turned on Bluetooth.

* Smart Connect starts up, connects to MBS-100, starts playing.

* Now, I will commence browsing.

* Time is 12:31 - 61% - Bluetooth disconnects.

* Time is 12:32 - Bluetooth reconnects, walkman continues playback.

* WiFi adapter active, however I have zero internet connection.

It took 4 minutes that time!!!

* Time is 12:34 - Bluetooth still turned on and media player playing over MBS-100.

* Battery is 60%

* Turned off the WiFi adapter (as it is still on, despite no connection).

* Turned WiFi on again.

* Internet connects, browsing commences.

* Time is 12:38 - 59% -Bluetooth disconnects.

* Bluetooth reconnects - Walkman continues playing.

* WiFi adapter still active - NO CONNECTION.

It took 4 minutes that time again!!! And now I will repeat this one final time;

* Time is 12:40 - turning WiFi off... Turning it back on now...

* Open browser. Start to browse.

* Checking out Kotaku, Gizmodo, Engadget, Techcrunch, Xperia Blog and one or two other bookmarked mobile websites...

* 12:48 - starting to experience issues loading pages, some are loading very slowly...

* 12:51 - Pages not loading, Bluetooth disconnects.Bluetooth reconnects, music continues playing.

* 12:52 - WiFi adapter still turned on - NO CONNECTION. 'Web Page Not Available'.

Took 11 minutes this time.

WiFi settings says my router/network has been 'Saved, secured.' But has disconnected, when I tap on it it asks me if I want to Cancel, Forget or Connect.

So I'm losing connection to my router/network every couple of minutes (4 mins, 11 mins, 20 mins...) while Bluetooth & Walkman are playing, and it will not reconnect. Can only be reconnected manually. I hope these tests help! Any feedback would be great, thanks. If it's a matter of changing things in my settings, then that would be awesome. But I don't think this is the case. During these tests, Location based Wi-Fi is turned off, Location services were turned on.

[Lemon]

Also, battery down from 62% to 52% during the course of these tests over the last 30 minutes.

[gregorg1]

Hello Lemon,

just an idea about WLAN:

at advanced WLAN setup there ist an item "Bad Internetconnection" (don´t know if this is the text in english translated this from german)

In the desription is written: "Use WLAN only with good internet connection"

Do you use this?

just an idea.....

Regards

[Lemon]

FFS this is really starting to annoy me now... It's happening every 5 minutes.

I'd really like to know if it's a problem with my phone, if it is, then I suppose I have to bring it back and swap it for a new one, eh?

It would be nice to know either way. These issues have plagued me pre-repair and post-repair... Repairing didn't solve a sausage.

So it seems to be something inherently wrong with either my specific handset, the coding, the architecture, or the system's resource management methods.

Advice would be nice.

[Lemon]

Thanks man.

I'm sitting about 10 feet from my router, and my signal is full strength, all 4 bars are lit up when active.

And anyway, what I want is to PREVENT disconnection.

I don't want to enable a feature that may disconnect it even more frequently, depending on my range, that's counter-intuitive.

[gregorg1]

Hello Lemon.

No I don´t want to activate this option!

In english (I switched my XS to British English) the option is:

"Avoid poor connections" -  "Don´t use a WIFI networkunless it has a good internet connection"

This function is not documented in userguide and I don´t know what the default setting is.

This has nothing to do with WLAN signal strenght I think. It has to do with a somehow measured Internet quality.

I think you checked if this option is on?

Kind regards

[Lemon]

I've never turned this option on - it has always been turned off.

Not all of my posts are coming through, I got a message saying my last post needed moderator approval - please post it mods!

It was referring to the option under Advanced WiFi settings to 'Auto IP support'.

This is currently disabled on my phone.

The description of this feature says turning it on will 'Assign Auto IP address if DHCP fails.'

Could enabling this fix my issues? Doubtful, but any advice will be helpful.

[Lemon]

My WiFi has been perfect for one hour now, it ONLY disconnects while playing music over Bluetooth... And every 4 minutes on average it seems. Such a frustratingly simple issue, on such apparently good hardware. I need a fix, or I need to be told that there's an issue with my handset. I might even just call my retailer, but then I'm going to have to explain everything all over again. There's no point in contacting my provider I assume?