LG

Posted by wgbeatty on 21 Jul 2010 09:47 AM:

Pulled the battery last evening for a few minutes. I have noticed that since the update forced the install of Backup Assistant, this app runs nearly all the time (for syncing I assume). We really should have a way to uninstall this - especially those of us who are using our Google account for contacts, etc. I've been running pretty good without a task killer, but after manually killing BA, it persists to keep running ALL day. I'm not sure what it's doing exactly when it's running, but if it's contributing to the decline in battery life, not good.

Warren

I think it's the scheduling portion that's persistent. I'll see if I can find out anything on it.

Posted by LG Product Pro on 21 Jul 2010 01:26 PM

Posted By Tnnisace on 21 Jul 2010 10:32 AM:
What can we do if we have not received this update? I don't believe I have.

You can check the version of software you have installed on your phone by going to Settings>> and then at the bottom of the list choose "About Phone" Next scroll all the way to the bottom and you'll see a number like "VS740ZV6" the last digit tells you what version you are running. If the last characters are "V8" then you have version 8.

If you haven't received the update, it should happen anytime... Verizon is delivering by Region.

Are you still having issues access the Market? This is the first report of this I've had.... I'll report it. What have you tried to see if you can resolve it? Just wondering what steps have been tried.

Posted by Tnnisace on 20 Jul 2010 19:04 PM:

I do not see anywhere to select "call standby" after i select battery use.

Should everyone receive this V8 update?

Interesting... Go to Settings>> About Phone>> Battery Use>> "Cell Standby" should be the top item.

Posted by LG Product Pro on 20 Jul 2010 02:00 PM

Posted By Tnnisace on 20 Jul 2010 13:29 PM:
Sorry-I am a new Ally user. Can someone explain what the 50% bug is please?

Welcome to the Forum! Are you referring to the "Time without Signal" topic that's been brought up? When you go to Settings and then Battery Use and select Call Standby, it will display a window Showing how long the phone has been on and the percentage of time the Phone is without a signal. I have a associate who has the Droid-X and we compared this value and it's the same on his Motorola... So I'm not sure what it's relevance and since both of the phones work fine I don't think it's an issue.

Sorry if this isn't what you are referring to.

I think everyone is referring to that as the "50% bug". And you bet it affects battery life like CRAZY!

Airplane mode on before a reboot (power off and power on), then airplane mode off once you're booted back up. Airplane mode before a reboot seems to do the trick every time so definitely not a software bug, probably just a moron that wrote a startup script that enables the radio but looks for more than one type of signal (cdma + gsm), so your phone consistently looks for a different signal at all times (never finding one) wasting battery while still functioning on CDMA.

Also, LG Product Pro, could you please inform us if there is a way to prevent specific services from starting at boot? It seems as though any "built in" widget you try (and inevitably don't like and remove from your home screen), the service STILL starts at boot?! So anytime you power off and back on your phone there you have it, the service is running! This is my main gripe with the phone, and now that Verizon Backup Assist (trash) is bundled with the OS in the V8 update and since I already know this is terrible software I never configured it. But guess what, yet another service running at startup. Looks like they fixed all the broke stuff with the factory load however created more clutter with this.

It will be way more beneficial to let us know how to prevent things from starting at boot, as we all know from too many things running at startup in MS Windows, it slows down performance DRAMATICALLY and makes the hardware seem like garbage when it really isn't.

The only problem I've had with accessing the market is ONE time when I got a "force close" then it proceeded to work as expected ... it was a one time thing. My big problems are that I can not open any emails from Exchange even though they are in the list of emails on the phone ... and of course Corporate Calendar does not do much of anything ...

Posted by ArtCloud on 21 Jul 2010 20:51 PM:

I think everyone is referring to that as the "50% bug". And you bet it affects battery life like CRAZY!

Airplane mode on before a reboot (power off and power on), then airplane mode off once you're booted back up. Airplane mode before a reboot seems to do the trick every time so definitely not a software bug, probably just a moron that wrote a startup script that enables the radio but looks for more than one type of signal (cdma + gsm), so your phone consistently looks for a different signal at all times (never finding one) wasting battery while still functioning on CDMA.

Also, LG Product Pro, could you please inform us if there is a way to prevent specific services from starting at boot? It seems as though any "built in" widget you try (and inevitably don't like and remove from your home screen), the service STILL starts at boot?! So anytime you power off and back on your phone there you have it, the service is running! This is my main gripe with the phone, and now that Verizon Backup Assist (trash) is bundled with the OS in the V8 update and since I already know this is terrible software I never configured it. But guess what, yet another service running at startup. Looks like they fixed all the broke stuff with the factory load however created more clutter with this.

It will be way more beneficial to let us know how to prevent things from starting at boot, as we all know from too many things running at startup in MS Windows, it slows down performance DRAMATICALLY and makes the hardware seem like garbage when it really isn't.

So you're looking for something like a "Startup Manager" for Android? I would download it as well. Unfortunately I don't know of one and "i'm not sure how effective it would be since the start up apps appear to be pretty persistent by relaunching when they are killed. I have an associate with a Droid-X and looking at it there are also a ton of Apps that launch at startup as well... Including Backup assistant. So this must be a Verizon and Android 2.1 thing to load the startup apps they want running. However the memory is a little more limited on the Ally so it could be frustrating to have things installed and or launched if you Can't take advantage of there features.

Posted by LG Product Pro on 21 Jul 2010 03:26 PM

Posted By Tnnisace on 20 Jul 2010 19:04 PM:
I do not see anywhere to select "call standby" after i select battery use.
Should everyone receive this V8 update?

Interesting... Go to Settings>> About Phone>> Battery Use>> "Cell Standby" should be the top item.

My standby says 74%...then under it it says "phone idle"27%. Is that good or bad?

Also my time without a signal is 55%...what does that mean?

Posted by Tnnisace on 22 Jul 2010 09:32 AM:

Also my time without a signal is 55%...what does that mean?

It seems that about 50% is typical. On my Ally, it sits at 50% and on a Motorola Droid-X, an associate has, it sits at 50% as well... I wouldn't worry about it, at this point. I'll try to investigate more.

I'm having a heck of a time with the OTA 8 update. Yesterday the process started, the phone rebooted, the android appeared on the screen with a progress bar, the phone rebooted, and nothing happened. The software version did not change, there is no corporate calendar, no backup program, etc. Never got offered the update again.

Called Verizon customer service and the rep got a LG tech on the phone. After talking with the LG tech and reading out everything in the settings section of my phone, the LG tech confimred that my phone had not been updated - however, Settings/Abount phone/System Updates said there were no updates available for my phone, so both the LG tech and Verizon support person said there was nothing I could do other than return the phone and have Verizon order me another one - what a HUGE bummer.

If I have to return my phone I'll be tempted to get a phone with a chance of getting Android 2.2 - but I really like the Ally, and before I did something drastic I was wondering if someone from LG watching this thread might find a copy of the OTA8 file (or even OTA9) and let me try installing it myself (like the guys in the "Ally v9 Firmware Update" thread did when it was available)? I've got both the Windows and the Linux Android developer's kits already installed and working (I cross complied and installed my first working Android "C" program last week), so I think I'm technically competent to handle the update process.

Anyone out there with a copy of the update file I can try installing?

Pro is the Corporate Calendar going to get fixed anytime soon? It would be great if it would work not just for me but i'm sure other folks would like that. I had to buid a virtual machine with XP running Google calendar sync so that I can get my calendar updates but I don't think everyone has those kind of resources available to them.

Posted by udwoodr on 22 Jul 2010 11:29 AM:

Pro is the Corporate Calendar going to get fixed anytime soon? It would be great if it would work not just for me but i'm sure other folks would like that. I had to buid a virtual machine with XP running Google calendar sync so that I can get my calendar updates but I don't think everyone has those kind of resources available to them.

I don't have a time frame but it should be a priority.... Everyone is on Vacation this week so I'll try and get some info on Monday.

Posted by travel_rob on 22 Jul 2010 11:19 AM:

I'm having a heck of a time with the OTA 8 update. Yesterday the process started, the phone rebooted, the android appeared on the screen with a progress bar, the phone rebooted, and nothing happened. The software version did not change, there is no corporate calendar, no backup program, etc. Never got offered the update again.

Called Verizon customer service and the rep got a LG tech on the phone. After talking with the LG tech and reading out everything in the settings section of my phone, the LG tech confimred that my phone had not been updated - however, Settings/Abount phone/System Updates said there were no updates available for my phone, so both the LG tech and Verizon support person said there was nothing I could do other than return the phone and have Verizon order me another one - what a HUGE bummer.

If I have to return my phone I'll be tempted to get a phone with a chance of getting Android 2.2 - but I really like the Ally, and before I did something drastic I was wondering if someone from LG watching this thread might find a copy of the OTA8 file (or even OTA9) and let me try installing it myself (like the guys in the "Ally v9 Firmware Update" thread did when it was available)? I've got both the Windows and the Linux Android developer's kits already installed and working (I cross complied and installed my first working Android "C" program last week), so I think I'm technically competent to handle the update process.

Anyone out there with a copy of the update file I can try installing?

Ouch, this is a first. The update is 'Pushed' to your phone, there isn't a way to 'request' the update. So going to SETTINGS>> About phone>> System Update, won't work, in this case. The update is strictly Over the Air, so there isn't an update file I could send out to you either. I would think that if your phone is still reporting V6 (The Original Ver) that the Verizon's update server should try again. If I understand correctly this could be a couple of days before it retries you.

What steps did the Verizon Tech walk you thru? I don't want to make you do additional work, but if it was my phone, this is what I would try... I don't know if this will help but if you would like you can try this.

* Download and install 'Mybackup pro' (Trial version) or any other good back up utility

* Backup your data and Applications with this app

* Do a Hard Reset on the phone... THIS WILL ERASE EVERYTHING back to Factory defaults.

* I would then do a Restore which should make your phone look just like before the Reset.

* I would then wait a day or so to see if the Server finds that you don't have the update and prompts you again.

Don't try this if you already have done it with the Verizon Tech...

Let me know how it goes.

Posted by LG Product Pro on 22 Jul 2010 10:24 AM

Posted By Tnnisace on 22 Jul 2010 09:32 AM:
Also my time without a signal is 55%...what does that mean?

It seems that about 50% is typical. On my Ally, it sits at 50% and on a Motorola Droid-X, an associate has, it sits at 50% as well... I wouldn't worry about it, at this point. I'll try to investigate more.

Ok ...so now when I look at battery use the breakdown is:

Android system-55%

Cell standby-24%

Phone idle-18%

voice calls-3%

display-2%

What does all this mean and is this bad??

I tried the airplane mode on/restart/airplane mode off thing and that's when all those other things below in my previous post came up. But my time without signal is down to 27% now...so I don't know, but what does all this mean? Is my battery being drained terribly or is this fairly standard for the Ally and no worries?

Ok ...so now when I look at battery use the breakdown is:

Android system-55%

Cell standby-24%

Phone idle-18%

voice calls-3%

display-2%

What does all this mean and is this bad??

As far as I can tell you're fine....

55% of the Battery is The Android OS is busy doing File managment or some OS related activities

24% of the Battery is Cell Stand By - searching for Cell Signal

18% of the Battery is being used doing nothing just sitting idle

3% for Voice calls

2% for the Display.

Remember these numbers are based on the time your phone has been on and will reset when you power cycle the phone...

Posted by LG Product Pro on 22 Jul 2010 10:24 AM

Posted By Tnnisace on 22 Jul 2010 09:32 AM:
Also my time without a signal is 55%...what does that mean?

It seems that about 50% is typical. On my Ally, it sits at 50% and on a Motorola Droid-X, an associate has, it sits at 50% as well... I wouldn't worry about it, at this point. I'll try to investigate more.

I couldn't disagree more. My Ally lasts 2 days casual-aggressive use if I do the Airplane mode trick. If I boot without it in airplane mode with time without signal constantly at 50% it lasts 4-5 hours (less with aggressive Pandora / surfing) and it won't even charge the phone when plugged in if I have navigation running, I would say that its probably something to worry about.

I want Wifi tethering and you need to Root to get that. I applied the V9 update and from my understanding you can only root v8 not v9. Its annoying.

Suggestions?

From what I've read you can still root with V9.

Thanks for the reply - I can't image that my phone is really busted as it is working very well for me.

The Verizon tech said that their servers are not pushing the update, only the LG servers. The LG tech seemed to confirm this. It seem like the upgrade would HAVE to come via the Verizon servers but maybe I got a couple of techs that:

a) Didn't really know
b) Didn't really care
OR
c) Didn't think the customer would bother to follow up on their info

-- a moot point-but it felt good to grouse a bit

Just an FYI - Before I attempted the OTA update, I did check the SETTINGS>> About phone>> System Update and it did show an update available (but I did not initiate the update that way - I waited until the popup asked again).

I don't know if Verizon will let me keep the existing memory card so I was going to backup everything before I took the phone in anyway. I think your idea of doing a factory reset and then a restore is a good one, and probably the safest route, so I'll try that first.

A kind soul found a copy of the V9 file, and I was going to see if I could figure out how to unpack/merge/replace the OS via that file. I assume it will take me a couple of days to decypher what is going on in the V9 file, so that should give the backed up/reset/restored phone a chance to get another shot at the update OTA. Either way I'll drop a note back on this forum with my success or failure.

Thanks again for your suggestions.