Anyone with a SGSIII on 4.1.2 experiencing constant freezing?

[Anonymous]

I received an in-phone notification last Tuesday from Samsung alerting me to an update to my existing 4.1.2 firmware so I went ahead with it. When the update finished, I noticed straight away that my phone was lagging considerably and when I cleared my RAM, it would take sometimes up to 20 seconds for my phone to become responsive again. This is my third Galaxy S device (after the SGSI and SGSII) so I'm very familiar with the OS and basic troubleshooting so I put this down to a need for a factory reset.

After factory resetting, I didn't install any apps for a while just in case it was a rogue app hanging but I noticed no change. In fact, it became worse. My phone would randomly freeze up. I'd be doing everyday stuff like browsing the internet/Twitter and my screen would just hang. Sometimes I would take it out of my pocket and I'd be unable to unlock it, it would just stay blank and the only way to revive the device would be to force restart either by holding the power button or removing the battery.

I spent about 4 hours researching the issue last night to see if it was a global problem or just my phone and I discovered that this issue was affecting hundreds of people, all on 4.1.2. One particular dev forum believes the issue points to a fault with devices bought around 5-7 months ago that all break and become corrupt with this software update. I've not rooted nor manipulated my device in anyway, this all happened after updating officially via Samsung.

Anyway, could someone suggest what I should do next? Any help would be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

oops, I meant 1.30 am, tired posting ... 

[MI5]

The unlock code has to be requested from Samsung then it gets sent to O2 before they send it to you - Hence the delay but it is usually only around 3-4 days before you get the email.

[Anonymous]

Someone's finally smiled down on me at o2 and they sent me the unlock code.

But,

in order to trigger it to ask, I have to put in an active sim from another carrier.

The only ones I have access to aren't triggering a code, (friends on giffgaff and tesco) they piggyback on o2, the cards just register and no unlock code is asked for.

*#7465625# - view phone lock status doesn't work on XELLA

746562577*# (Insert Network Lock Keycode SP) doesn't work on XELLA
#746562577*# (Insert Operator Lock Keycode) doesn't work on XELLA

So, how can I get my  CSC: i9300o2uell2 phone to run regular samsung firmware  and solve this, I have the latest from sammobile  (I9300XXEMB5), via kies ideally as I don't want to do anything that risks voiding my warranty.

[MI5]

First you need a Voda, Orange, T Mob or 3 sim to complete the unlock. That is vital before you flash firmware.

Then you need Odin (http://www.android.gs/download-odin-3-07/), put your phone in download mode (Vol Down + Home + Power), connect phone to Odin with data cable and wait for com box to go yellow. Put the .md5 file into the PDA section of Odin and leave all the other boxes empty. Then press start, sit back and wait.

Make sure Kies IS NOT running or Odin won't connect.

[Anonymous]

Many, many thanks for your guidance. This is exactly how I thoguht things were, I'm stuffed until I can find someone with a non piggybacking card, I was hoping maybe someone had found the MMI code and I just hadn't found it searching yet.

[MI5]

Most of the codes were blocked due to the Exynos vulnerability issue. Any active SIM will do the job, you can pick them up in pound shops and I know for sure that 3 (Three) PAYG SIMs are activated as soon as you put them in a phone.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorted, thank you soooo much.

csc: i9300OXAEMB5

going back into the download mode on the phone still says samsung official, status official 

I haven't rectory reset it, all files/apps/data still seem to be there (I lost some of the phone accounts that got deleted by random reboots from XELLA yesterday though 😞  ) I did take a backup but I'd rather not have to restore everything if I don't have to. wish me luck with stability

[MI5]

You shouldn't have to reset as you were already on the same format, however, as always, if you get issues a reset should be the first thing to try. If you do a full Kies back up now and tick the option to backup to Google servers a reset should only take a few mins.

Good luck and let us know how it goes - It will prove for sure if it was a software issue or not

[Anonymous]

Certainly not had a single glitch, hiccupp, lag, reboot or shutdown in the last 4 hours anyway. And I've been using it a lot. For what I've been doing I could guarantee a lockup at least 5 minutes long causing me to give up and reboot, or an instant reboot certainly at least once every 10 minutes previously. when having problems before I did follow advice several times over the last 3 days and let it naturally recover from a lockup, having to leave it 20-30 minutes before it recovered, it seemed to last a bit longer after that than previously, but did then still die freeze again as long, or reboot itself, or power off entirely.

before flashing I had previously logged 52 reboots in 48 hours with "Reboot logger" from the market. None of them were wanted, and there would have been an aweful lot more if I hadn't given up on it and only tried to use it when I had to.

'Vector' was the last game I was trying before all of this started, and that seems to be running a fair bit faster as well now. I'd prevoiusly thought maybe it wasn't very well written as I was supprised how slow such a simple game seemed to run, it's actually got a half decent pace to it now, it feels like something between a 30 and 60% increase in frame rate.

[MI5]

I think Leonard or Toby needs to feed this info back to the software team.... XXELLA has bugs and O2 need to push out XXEMB5 ASAP.