Database Develop

how to troubleshoot random freezes and restarts

Hi guys, I have had a G1 for over a year now, and it has been rooted for that long. I began using cyanogen's mods since 4.1 or so, and they have been rock solid until recently, when I upgraded from 4.2.6 to 4.2.7. Ever since that upgrade, my phone has been "freezing" and rebooting at seemingly random intervals.
First, let me try to define what I mean by freezing: this usually occurs when the phone is put to sleep, and it just refuses to wake up. The screen remains black, however my notification LEDs continue to flash (if they were flashing before). Sometimes, the phone freezes while I am using it; buttons stop responding, and opening/closing the keyboard does not change orientation. The phone usually gradually slows down to a crawl before this type of display-on freeze happens. In both cases, I am able to restart the phone by pressing call+end+menu buttons.
For the restarts: these started happening recently, I'll guess after 4.2.9. This always happen while I am using the phone. It'll pause for a second, like it's frozen, then restart back to the G1 boot screen a few seconds later.
I have tried wiping, repartitioning my SD card from scratch, using the phone without any of my apps installed, etc. The only thing that seems to fix this is if I downgrade back to 4.2.6. I have tried to narrow this down to the best of my ability, but I still cannot figure out the cause. My question is, how can I begin to troubleshoot this? Is there a log or some way for me to see what is the last thing the phone tried to do before it froze/rebooted? Right now, I don't even know where to begin.

well for the phone freezing it MIGHT be too many apps running in the background and eating up CPU usage...download advanced task killer from the market, it allows you to close apps that run in the background.
as for the random reboots, i am almost certain it has to do with the rom you are on. there should be an app called "log collecter" in your app tray, it comes with the rom, try and get the logcat from it when your phone reboots, and send that logcat to cyanogen via the link he provides on his thread.

2 things that I can think about:
1. Wipe you dalvik-cache
if that does not fix it
2. This may be a good time to re-format the ext 2/3/4 partition of your card and do a complete wipe.

I have this exact problem, it first started with random sd card errors "removed sd card" with an sd card inserted, and now the black screen of death, I reformatted and repartitioned my 8gb transcend class 6 card and flashed latest cyanogen. Today I got the black screen again so I used nandroid and went back to cyan 4.0.4, I still got the black screen freeze running old rom but so far sd card is working so not sure what the cause is, bad sd card? I just got this card a month ago... or phone going bad?

yeah, i get the freeze, its usually when i am running multiple resource eating apps. Try advanced task killer for a convenient notification bar click away from closing apps.
I also get the other problem where it wont wake up! Seems like we are running into the same problems under the same ROM. When it doesnt wake up i usually wait a few seconds and try pressing other buttons than the menu button to wake it up when its not turning on. A combination of waiting 5 seconds and trying a different button usually wakes it up.

Hey guys, thanks for the logcat info.
The most frustrating part about this problem is that it is unpredictable; it just happens when it feel like it and is impossible for me to reproduce, therefore I cannot figure out the cause nor can I tell whether or not any changes I make have any effect.
I do have ATK, and I use it regularly. It still doesn't stop this from happening. In fact, I installed ATK in order to try to solve this, which means before this started occuring, I did not even have ATK installed nor did I have this problem.
Can anyone tell if there were any significant changes from cyanogens 4.2.6 to 4.2.7? I see the changelogs, but most of it doesn't really mean anything to me because I don't understand what its talking about.

Yeah I usually get the freeze after installing a new rom onto my htc dream 32a. I just take out the battery and put it back in. Then I reboot and have no problems after that.

try going back to previous rom you had and see if the problem still exists... could possibly be an issue with latest update for rom...

Help? Battery/Software/SD?

So I've been lurking around this forum ever since the G1 first came out. Messed up on the rooting procedure once, got a replacement a few months ago.
Worked fine so far. A while ago, I flashed the latest SuperD rom. I am using an 8gig SD card. I've overcharged my battery several times by accident, so the health isn't exactly up to out-of-the-box standards.
I noticed the phone entered a random reboot when I turned the music on for a while. As time passed, the random reboots became more and more frequent. Since I couldn't keep the phone on for more than 20 seconds without a reboot, I decided to wipe and flash a new rom today.
I chose Pays 1.6 Rom and flashed that. Didn't wipe my ext4, just wiped and flashed. I figured ext4 wouldn't cause such a problem, so I ignored it for now. Problem not solved.
I turn the phone on, and in the few seconds, I noticed the following:
the apps all show up, meaning the phone reads the ext4 apps (right?.)
The sd card itself displays an error - I can't access music, pics, etc.
Phone service is fine, all apps are normal.
Buuuut there's still that random reboot issue. It reboots, enters a G1 screen, then reboots quicker. In other words, after I take the battery out and reboot, it might take maybe 1 minutes before it auto-reboots. I wait, then it reboots in maybe 30 seconds. And faster and faster, until it doesn't respond anymore and I have to take the battery out again.
I'm not sure what I do causes random reboots. Sometimes it's when I press a button while in the music app. Sometimes it's when I open the keyboard. Sometimes it's just when the screen goes to sleep. It's fairly random.
I can go into recovery (once I take the battery out once.) Fastboot also works.
Running the danger SPL and the second to latest radio (I believe a new one came out recently? Mine's the one with 26)
Help please? What part of my phone is broken?
I'll give additional information if asked. Not sure what parts are relevant.

Sound's like Kernel panic. Wipe everything and install soemthing stable like cyanogens 4.2.15.1 or dwangs rom. Didn't know there was anything worng with SuperD's kernel though.

jaekim708 said:
So I've been lurking around this forum ever since the G1 first came out. Messed up on the rooting procedure once, got a replacement a few months ago.
Worked fine so far. A while ago, I flashed the latest SuperD rom. I am using an 8gig SD card. I've overcharged my battery several times by accident, so the health isn't exactly up to out-of-the-box standards.
I noticed the phone entered a random reboot when I turned the music on for a while. As time passed, the random reboots became more and more frequent. Since I couldn't keep the phone on for more than 20 seconds without a reboot, I decided to wipe and flash a new rom today.
I chose Pays 1.6 Rom and flashed that. Didn't wipe my ext4, just wiped and flashed. I figured ext4 wouldn't cause such a problem, so I ignored it for now. Problem not solved.
I turn the phone on, and in the few seconds, I noticed the following:
the apps all show up, meaning the phone reads the ext4 apps (right?.)
The sd card itself displays an error - I can't access music, pics, etc.
Phone service is fine, all apps are normal.
Buuuut there's still that random reboot issue. It reboots, enters a G1 screen, then reboots quicker. In other words, after I take the battery out and reboot, it might take maybe 1 minutes before it auto-reboots. I wait, then it reboots in maybe 30 seconds. And faster and faster, until it doesn't respond anymore and I have to take the battery out again.
I'm not sure what I do causes random reboots. Sometimes it's when I press a button while in the music app. Sometimes it's when I open the keyboard. Sometimes it's just when the screen goes to sleep. It's fairly random.
I can go into recovery (once I take the battery out once.) Fastboot also works.
Running the danger SPL and the second to latest radio (I believe a new one came out recently? Mine's the one with 26)
Help please? What part of my phone is broken?
I'll give additional information if asked. Not sure what parts are relevant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since the rom relies on apps to sd I would guess the ext is borked and maybe the fat32 as well. I would reformat the whole thing to fat 32 then reformat to ext2 or 3. Load Dwangs rom for testing (easier to get running just as a test).

So I wiped my SD (ext4, dalvik, fat32) and tried cyanogen. Then I tried Pays. Reboot problem's gone, but neither of them is reading my SD card.
I'm assuming its just a matter of backing up the SD and repartitioning? I'll try that next when I have time.
Thanks for the help guys! Lastly, any ideas on why this happened? It'd be hard to pinpoint the exact reason, but I'm assuming I'm not the only one who had this problem - how did other people get to the situation I'm in?

I wiped all of my SD, repartitioned, wiped the phone, flashed AOSP 1.6. w/ root and "expansion" pack.
Reboots are less frequent, but they still occur too often. They don't occur by themselves - its always when I'm using my phone.
It seems that it reboots more when its connected to my computer. The SD isn't mounted, but the simple fact that its connected seems to trigger reboots more frequently. Is this a coincidence or can a USB cord trigger reboots?
Help please
EDIT: The phone just made an audible cracking sound as it rebooted - like someone stepping on gravel. Hardware issue?

Booting with Removed SD wreaking havoc. Need help.

I seem to have done some real damage to my phone and I could definitely use the help of fellow XDA'ers. I took my memory card out to put some files on my PC. Phone was off so no problems. I reinsert the SD card and reboot. Now although I'm absolutely sure the card was fully inserted, once the phone fully booted I had the "SD Card removed" icon in the corner and everything started to force close. So I quickly shut the phone off, made sure the card was fully in, and rebooted again. it loaded up again, and while the no SD Card removed error was gone, I was still getting FC's left and right and apparently have no gps, no wifi, and no 3g. So I once again rebooted into recovery, ran the fix permissions and rebooted. Again, booted up and FC's everywhere. So now about 90% of my apps FC on launch (either actual launch of the phone or by pressing the icon), I can't activate WiFi or GPS, and I have no data/3g. What happened and how can I fix this? Thank you so much in advance for your help.
Edit: After a little more fiddling, I find that I can't change any settings. I can't set screen timeout, notification levels, so on and so forth. What happened?

FatBoyExtraordinaire said:
I seem to have done some real damage to my phone and I could definitely use the help of fellow XDA'ers. I took my memory card out to put some files on my PC. Phone was off so no problems. I reinsert the SD card and reboot. Now although I'm absolutely sure the card was fully inserted, once the phone fully booted I had the "SD Card removed" icon in the corner and everything started to force close. So I quickly shut the phone off, made sure the card was fully in, and rebooted again. it loaded up again, and while the no SD Card removed error was gone, I was still getting FC's left and right and apparently have no gps, no wifi, and no 3g. So I once again rebooted into recovery, ran the fix permissions and rebooted. Again, booted up and FC's everywhere. So now about 90% of my apps FC on launch (either actual launch of the phone or by pressing the icon), I can't activate WiFi or GPS, and I have no data/3g. What happened and how can I fix this? Thank you so much in advance for your help.
Edit: After a little more fiddling, I find that I can't change any settings. I can't set screen timeout, notification levels, so on and so forth. What happened?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried repairing ext file systems?

FatBoyExtraordinaire said:
I seem to have done some real damage to my phone and I could definitely use the help of fellow XDA'ers. I took my memory card out to put some files on my PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Windoze no doubt. Windoze is HOSTILE to non-MS filesystems and WILL attempt to destroy them.
Other possibility is that you simply didn't click the card in all the way.
Anyways, what has happened is that your phone booted up and was missing a ton of applications that it was expecting. It therefore irreparably destroyed your package configuration.
You MIGHT be able to salvage it if you have a recent backup of the file /data/system/packages.xml.
Try restoring that file, syncing the filesystem, and rebooting via 3-finger-salute INTO RECOVERY ***IMMEDIATELY*** after syncing. Then do a fix permissions and reboot normally.
... and cross your fingers.

r3s-rt said:
Tried repairing ext file systems?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did that, but it was a no go. Everything still FC'd, couldn't change any setings, and it says my phone doesn't have internet permission, so anything requiring data access doesn't work.
lbcoder said:
Windoze no doubt. Windoze is HOSTILE to non-MS filesystems and WILL attempt to destroy them.
Other possibility is that you simply didn't click the card in all the way.
Anyways, what has happened is that your phone booted up and was missing a ton of applications that it was expecting. It therefore irreparably destroyed your package configuration.
You MIGHT be able to salvage it if you have a recent backup of the file /data/system/packages.xml.
Try restoring that file, syncing the filesystem, and rebooting via 3-finger-salute INTO RECOVERY ***IMMEDIATELY*** after syncing. Then do a fix permissions and reboot normally.
... and cross your fingers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm guessing I didn't click it all the way in because I have done this 100's of times before and it never happened. Unfortunately, I don't have a recent back up of that file so it's sounding like i am screwed. Would i be able to just wipe the phone, the ext, the cache and start over from scratch?

It seems I may be out of the woods. It's going to be a tedious solution, but at least I won't have to wipe anything or unroot or so on. Basically I have to uninstall and then reinstall everything to end the FC's and restore settings and data. It was actually the Maps update that helped me figure this out. I got the notification that there was an update so i followed it and upgraded. The fact that it notified me and then allowed me to download the new version told me the net was working. I also had another app that needed to be updated that was also fc'ing. So i upgraded that app and viola, no more fc and the 3g was working. So i uninstalled other apps that were giving me trouble with settings and data like Quick Settings and Tweetcaster, reinstalled and now I'm good money. I've got 144 apps installed so it's gonna take a few hours, but it's worth it to have my phone back. Thanks again for the advice.

[Q] Internal SD card disappearing when KIES is used?

Anyone else having an issue with the internal SD card on their SGS dropping off and not showing up after using KIES, in fact it might be every time I plug the phone into my computer and select a connection option.
I've been using the JH2 Eclair version for my Bell I9000M since it came out. a couple weeks ago I had an issue with the OCLF crapping out when I dropped my phone while it was running an app and it popped the battery. It messed a bunch of stuff up, I lost some apps, had a number of them that refused to re-install and a fair number of FC's on random Apps that were stable prior. I also experienced a number of FC's on the gmail app in relation to syncing.
I then did a Factory Reset and then finally a full re-install of JH2 and all those issues went away. Now the only problem is the fact that the SD disappears from inside the OS, after plugging it into the PC, If I connect it Via KIES it will work once, then the phone begins to flash the Kies app in and out on the screen on my second attempt and the SD card vanishes.
I have found that if I do a 3 button boot and go to the update screen and run the option that deletes the Cache partition and reboot the phone it fixes both the KIES issue and the missing SD issue until I plug the phone into my computer again.
I'd be interested in hearing any ideas people might have as to why this is happening and what if any options I might have to permanently fix the issue.
O.

I have the same problem. I'm using JH2 as well and after unplugging from my PC my internal SD and external SD are unmounted. A reboot remounts them. I rarely use kies so it's just kind of an annoyance

[Q] Phone freezes randomly / needs hard reboot - 2.3.3 and 2.3.4 custom ROM's

Hi all
Ever since upgrading to 2.3.3 I've been having random freezes that usually end up in needing a battery pull or pressing down on the power button until the phone reboots itself. This is with Darky's 10.1, although I don't think it's related to the "Darky parts" of the ROM itself, but something more to do with the OS.
Also, I've felt that the phone sometimes slows down. It doesn't feel like the original lag on 2.1, but rather feels like something's eating up CPU power. This will happen on ANY application, and even when moving through homescreens on TW Launcher or ADW Launcher.
Another thing of note is that it seems to be the UI or input process that hangs or dies or something. Because whatever's running keeps running I just can't make the phone respond to touch or any of the hard buttons. For example, today I was playing Age of Wind (sweet game, check it out) and after like 10 seconds of the game stuttering, the phone stopped responding, but my ship just kept going forward and the other ships were trying to keep up with me. Sounds and music kept going. And after 30 seconds of "inactivity", the screen went to sleep. As you can see everything's normal except there's no input.
So what I'd like is for ideas on how to fix or figure out what's wrong. I'm somewhat tech-savvy so I wouldn't be scared of using adb or some other debugging tool. So far I've not been able to figure out what's wrong because all the logs start over whenever I reboot the phone.
So, any ideas? Any additional information that would be useful?
Edit and update: I've changed the title because this has already happened on different custom ROM's, including Darky and Criskelo.
I have now tested for 5 days on Criskelo's ROM (based on 2.3.4) and it will happen also. So far what I've noticed both on Darky's and on Criskelo's ROMs:
- The phone will work perfectly for about 4-5 days
- On the 4th day it will start stuttering and lagging. That's when I know it's very close to locking up.
- On the 4th day it will maybe lock up once in a day
- After the 4th day it will start locking up up to three times a day
- The lock-up is at the UI level. Applications will keep running, it will ring if you call it, notification sounds are still alive, the screen will turn off normally after 30 seconds or whatever timeout you set up. But input is totally dead.
- When it locks up, both soft-buttons will light up and stay lit.
Possible causes:
- Something related to USB storage or SD card storage. Someone mentioned that it might be caused by the "fast media scanner". It's possible, because on one of my many tests, instead of reinstalling an OS, I formatted the minisd, the internal sd and phone storage and the phone was fine for 4-5 days and then it started doing screwy stuff again. This reinforces the theory that it's something to do with storage. My guess is the OS itself starts degrading the filesystem or handles or something. And my suspicion is that it's something in the /system/dbdata or /cache partitions, not the sdcard or external sd cards. Impossible to know because I have no idea how to debug using adb and nobody has given any ideas on this.
- I'm starting to suspect the BLN support in the kernel. I have BLN turned off, but I'm not so sure.

Hi,
Sorry don't have any answers, but am having the exact same problems on Darky's 10.1. Except I have a TouchWiz4 Port + Galaxy S II Icons.
Hopefully someone will know of this issue! Its starting to annoy me!!
Cheers,
Sunny

Tell me something, when you installed Darky, did you restore your apps via Titanium Backup? Did you select "Restore apps + data" or just apps?
I'm in the process of reinstalling Darky's from scratch, see if that works. If not I might go back to 9.5 or try Criskelo's ROM.
Thanks

Hi,
Nope I didn't backup or restore any apps. My data is all on my SD card and I just reinstall apps.. I came from DebusROM G1.
Thanks,
Sunny

Maybe a factory reset (do it in recovery) would help?

I actually did a factory reset before installing.
@sundazetoo: Do you have Voodoo lagfix enabled?
Last night, while in the process of reinstalling Darky's ROM, I disabled the lagfix (converting to RSF) and after almost an hour i decided to pull the battery. Then when I rebooted again, it went through the conversion process, finished in 2 minutes (wut!) and an error displayed (it couldn't mount some partition, one that I know is not critical).
So I'm suspecting a filesystem problem.
I already installed and DO NOT have Voodoo's lagfix enabled. I also did a complete wipe and restored my apps without data. So far it seems fine but it's only been a few hours.

@Lunchbox115: I did the factory reset when I installed too.
@ferparedes: Yep voodoo is enabled. I am now running on the stock launcher that came with Darky's 10.1 and it seems to be running a lot smoother. I was running a TW4 port so that may have been my problem!
I will monitor it and let you know how it goes.
Have you tried clearing the data / cache for the launchers you are using? That seems to fix alot of FC issues for apps for me.. I guess no harm in trying anyways?

2 days in after reinstalling.
Voodoo EXT4 lagfix NOT enabled. Phone is pretty snappy and I've haven't had any more freezes. I think it was either a bad EXT4 conversion or the lagfix itself was causing it. Anyways, since the phone is pretty fast I'm leaving it with RFS lagfix only.
One thing of note, though. I'm running stock GB launcher atm, because ADW was giving some problems.
Yesterday ADW Launcher *died* and although the phone was working and responsive, the launcher never came back. The result was that when I pressed the home button nothing happened but a blank screen. The power button worked, though, so I was able to do a clean reboot and switch to Launcher.

Interesting, I dont seem to have the same issues with the voodoo lag fix.
Also I am now using ADW Launcher EX and have not had any issues. I think my problem was the TW4 port.

Same again
I get these issues too. I seem to get them RFS and ext4 (I think - mostly its been ext4 though). Often get a delay on the keyboard. Its driving me a bit nuts but I am reluctant to go back to Froyo just for this (I hate having to restore all my user names and passwords).
Silly thing is I cannot recall if I got in when I tried Gingerreal (on Darky 10.1 now).
Would love to see thoughts and theories too..
G

UPDATE
After almost 2 days of totally flawless operation, I reinserted my 16 GB Micro SD card with all of my stuff in there. Among many things:
- Audible audiobooks, along with bookmark and "furthest listened" data
- Music, playlists. All created by TuneSync (which I use to wireless sync music and playlists from my PC's iTunes)
- Dropbox download folder
- Photos and videos taken with the phone
- Some other files not associated with any app
2 hours after doing this, blam, the phone locked up again requiring a reboot. So I removed the Micro SD and when I got home I backed up my photos and videos on the PC, reinserted it in the phone and formated the card. This was last night.
So far the phone's working fine.
My current theory:
The Micro SD card I originally bought for the phone was an 8gig. When I got the 16 gig one, I just copied everything from the 8gig onto a folder on the PC, then copied everything over to the 16 one. This might've broken something.
After going to Gingerbread, it's possible that the way some applications look for their data (for example, Audible) changed but when encountering the same data (that was copied over from a windows folder on the PC) it might've generated errors which in turn put the interface into a deadlock.
My strongest suspect is Audible. After installing Darky 10.1, the app just chugged away remembering all my farthest listened to data, all my audiobooks were visible, etc. After reinstalling (and removing the Micro SD) I had to redownload some, but it still remembered where I was and didn't have to reactivate the device. Now, after formatting the Micro SD, I've had to redownload everything, it didn't remember where I was on each audiobook and I also had to reactivate the device.
If the phone doesn't lock up during the next 4-5 days then I'll conclude that errors on accessing the Micro SD by some app was the cause.

sundazetoo said:
Interesting, I dont seem to have the same issues with the voodoo lag fix.
Also I am now using ADW Launcher EX and have not had any issues. I think my problem was the TW4 port.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I actually don't think ADW launcher is causing this particular problem. But in a different problem altogether, it did die and in this case required me to do a reboot, albeit a clean one. But if it gave me this one single problem than I'm inclined to stop using it. I don't want the phone disabled for the 3-5 minutes it takes to boot up if I need it in an emergency (it's a phone first and foremost, after all)

tw4 is an EVIL for SGSi9000 imho... because almost everyone have problems with it !!! so just use another Launchers... LauncherPro, Launcher EX (my favourite) but not TW4 )))

I tried to fix with a reinstall of stock jvp and then went to F1 v8 jvp rkm but I also formated ext_sd card as suggested here (and deleted audible application which I was not using.
So far so good but it's only been an hour...
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App

Definitely something related to sd card. Everything is screwy now but less so with the sd card out.
Anyone find any solutions?
I was getting double boot screens and freezes on the dialer. Realized it was the sd when my backup would not load.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App

Had this happen to me today,
I had the phone boot up and it would get to the lockscreen, then media scan, then it would lock up, only a battery pull would turn it off.
Tried booting without the External SD and it didnt occur, hmmm
Put the microSD card in the card reader on the PC, and performed a scan for errors/fix bad sectors, it didnt find anything but i put it back in and it goes fine now, im sure its the external card.

related info
Found this thread that seems related;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=367912&page=3
Trying the chkdisk utility now...

It did it again with the micro sd card out. So today I reformated the internal SD storage (usb storage) and will see how it goes. If this last attempt fails I will either go back to froyo or try another ROM.
But I do think it has something to do with one of the SD card storage.

gfacer said:
Found this thread that seems related;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=367912&page=3
Trying the chkdisk utility now...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Should be fine

More things to try
Looked at my rom page (F1 JVP) and noticed that V8, which I have now, had the faster media scanner as does Darky's 10.1-which is not getting updates often now it seems. Well the faster media scanner only lasted 2 days until V9 of the F1 rom when the delevoper removed it. My guess it that it was causing issues.
Leads me to wonder if that might be causing the corruption in the first place or at least a contributing factor.
Also read some threads at google about similar issues across a whole wave of devices and one person there mentioned H2testw utility to test the sectors of your SD card. It sounds like cheap ebay sd card and larger SD cards my have more issues (mine is a 32gb). It is best to format and then test with h2testw but I decided to run just on the empty parts of the card and decide from there.
G