Samsung Galaxy Nexus Sudden Woes

[Aristotelian]

So, as some of my posts in this sub-forum have shown I have been rather happy with my Galaxy Nexus and Android after switching over from many other iOS and other smartphones.

Last Friday, everything was normal with my phone. I woke up on Saturday morning to a flurry of text sounds and saw (I am currently using pay as you go) a bunch of texts saying "You have used your 3gb bundle, you are now being charged xxx per megabyte" followed instantly by "you have used your credit, please recharge at base.be" etc.

I woke up and thought "what the hell". I checked my data usage and it showed Mail (Exchange) had used over 2.5gb of data while I slept (about 8 hours). I refilled the data thinking this was a bug. The Mail (Exchange) default program works with my work email account. I noticed I hadn't received any new e-mails since Friday night - the client could not pull new e-mails from my work mail server. I thought this was a temporary issue and went out for lunch, and a few hours later this happened again. My next 1gb data recharge had been used completely.

I removed my exchange account and added it again. It downloaded all of the e-mails up until the point where it was not able to retrieve further mails (the mails I had received on Saturday on my work account but could not receive on my phone). I went out to dinner, and tried to load a restaurant website and was met with "authentication via the proxy server was unsuccessful" and repeated issues with web browsing where only repeatedly refreshing a page got it to load.

I loaded the app store last night after coming home to see about getting some games, and kept getting "application could not be downloaded due to error (this number ranges, sometimes 901, sometimes 500, etc.)

I spent this morning looking for solutions. The one with the play store is supposed to be caused by conflicting google accounts. So, I did a factory reset on my phone and created a new google account, and the problem persisted, as does the browsing problem. Worse, I can't download any 'login based' applications like facebook, skype, etc. The standard mail client works fine, but browsing has become a nightmare of authentication failures and more.

I'm really seeking some help here, as I'm not sure what could have suddenly gone wrong with an otherwise great phone. I bought the phone off amazon.co.uk less than 1 year ago so I should be covered by some kind of warranty, and am thinking of trying to get a replacement. Any ideas here? I know there are lots of Gnexus users on this forum.

 

[Chocu1a]

are you running a custom rom/kernel?

 

[gsaldivar]

Gnex user here.

If you are a heavy Exchange user, I strongly recommend switching to a more robust email client like Touchdown. While rare, it's possible that the stock one got stuck in some kind of loop and caused the data spike that you noticed. I have occasionally seen issues with Android phones using the stock email client (which isn't necessarily Google's, and isn't always the latest version), so now all of my clients are now using Touchdown for consistency. Now, I can update people's email client without having to wait for OS update, and regardless of what carrier they are using.

That being said, it sounds like you have some underlying issues with the phone, your Google account(s), or the software you are putting on the phone. I would start with a full and complete factory restore, and configure ONLY Exchange. Use this phone in a "sterile" state for a few days and confirm that it's completely stable and the problems are resolved before loading ANY further apps or adding any additional Google accounts. If you can't get it working with only email, then it's time to swap out the phone.

Good luck!

 

[Aristotelian]

are you running a custom rom/kernel?

No, the stock software.

Gnex user here.

If you are a heavy Exchange user, I strongly recommend switching to a more robust email client like Touchdown. While rare, it's possible that the stock one got stuck in some kind of loop and caused the data spike that you noticed. I have occasionally seen issues with Android phones using the stock email client (which isn't necessarily Google's, and isn't always the latest version), so now all of my clients are now using Touchdown for consistency. Now, I can update people's email client without having to wait for OS update, and regardless of what carrier they are using.

That being said, it sounds like you have some underlying issues with the phone, your Google account(s), or the software you are putting on the phone. I would start with a full and complete factory restore, and configure ONLY Exchange. Use this phone in a "sterile" state for a few days and confirm that it's completely stable and the problems are resolved before loading ANY further apps or adding any additional Google accounts. If you can't get it working with only email, then it's time to swap out the phone.

Good luck!

I have done two factory restores, and these problems persist. I have a feeling it has to do with the data connectivity, as even with other sim cards I get the same play store errors, inability to download exchange e-mails and so on. I called Samsung and they said it could be a firmware error, and I'll take it in later today to see. Being without a smartphone for a few days, oh no!

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Sometimes the servers have issues and cause major problems

 

[cardiac]

How does it function on WiFi? Does everything work properly then?

 

[Aristotelian]

Sometimes the servers have issues and cause major problems

Well, this is a persistent problem (I'll explain below).

How does it function on WiFi? Does everything work properly then?

I have not been able to test this on wifi but will be able to later this week.

I sent the phone back to Samsung for repair, and it arrived back a few days ago. The random 'page is not found'-> refresh -> 'page is there' issue is gone, exchange works properly again, but still the play store errors persist.

I have to say that this is really, really annoying. I cannot download skype, at all. I'm not sure if Base has put some kind of restriction on my sim card, but now if I try to load an embedded video longer than a few minutes I will often get a '404 the file is too large to send back' error.

Suffice to say, in my years of using a smartphone this has never happened and it is damn annoying. Nowhere on Google is there a clear fix for the playstore issue. Nor should I have to use wifi to install apps. I have tried other sim cards (from Mobistar here in Belgium) and I still get the play store issues. In no other country that I have used this phone have I *ever* received a play store issue like this, but I will test that too later this week. I'm not sure if in Belgium the play store just sucks, or carriers simply suck, but this almost has me ready to just buy another phone to avoid this issue.

Edit: I just found a neighbour's unsecured wifi and the app store works perfectly over wifi. I'm not sure what to do about this - just assume Belgium's carriers suck? I'm working in Brussels, and find it incredibly odd that here there would be carrier related play store issues.

 

[Raduque]

This is the kind of crap that keeps me off prepaid carriers. It sounds like due to the problem with your email client that caused your data to skyrocket, the prepaid carrier you have did something to your account that limits your data usage.