Galaxy S3 update to 4.3

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Galaxy S3 update to 4.3

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aros71

122 posts

Master Geek

#1010484 21-Mar-2014 11:22

Yabanize:
aros71: Several reboots, removals of battery and SIM card later, no joy.... then I thought to toggle Flight Mode - that seemed to do the trick. Be Warned. It appears Flight Mode needs to be toggled at every restart to get it to register on the network.
Try a factory reset, or wipe cache

It was the Snapper SIM card causing it. Went to the 2D shop and swapped it out for a non-Snapper SIM: Problem Solved.

Just to disambiguate. The SIM swap solved the network connectivity problem. Still getting to the bottom of the excessive battery consumption

aros71

122 posts

Master Geek

#1010901 21-Mar-2014 23:49

aros71: I read somewhere else (can't find it at the moment) that it was the Smart-stay feature being permanently on that was draining the battery. Go to Settings | My Device | Smart Screen then turn OFF Smart Stay - apparently this returns the battery consumption to previous levels.

Jury's out on that so far, I've done this with mine and now am watching the rundown with interest.

Results: Empirical observation with a sample size of one suggests this information is correct. Disabling Smart Stay has restored the battery life to pre-4.3 run times or better. Came off charge at 10:00 this morning, at midnight it's down to 31% - previously it would have been at this level at 4pm.

friendlymonkey

180 posts

Master Geek

#1010925 22-Mar-2014 07:29

aros71:
aros71: I read somewhere else (can't find it at the moment) that it was the Smart-stay feature being permanently on that was draining the battery. Go to Settings | My Device | Smart Screen then turn OFF Smart Stay - apparently this returns the battery consumption to previous levels.

Jury's out on that so far, I've done this with mine and now am watching the rundown with interest.

Results: Empirical observation with a sample size of one suggests this information is correct. Disabling Smart Stay has restored the battery life to pre-4.3 run times or better. Came off charge at 10:00 this morning, at midnight it's down to 31% - previously it would have been at this level at 4pm.

I got the Vodafone update day it came out. I have left smart stay on the first week my phone would almost be flat. But now battery has gone back to normal. The same happened for me when updated to 4.1.2 maybe the update just needs time to settle in

Yabanize

2350 posts

Uber Geek

#1010954 22-Mar-2014 09:29

friendlymonkey:
aros71:
aros71: I read somewhere else (can't find it at the moment) that it was the Smart-stay feature being permanently on that was draining the battery. Go to Settings | My Device | Smart Screen then turn OFF Smart Stay - apparently this returns the battery consumption to previous levels.

Jury's out on that so far, I've done this with mine and now am watching the rundown with interest.

Results: Empirical observation with a sample size of one suggests this information is correct. Disabling Smart Stay has restored the battery life to pre-4.3 run times or better. Came off charge at 10:00 this morning, at midnight it's down to 31% - previously it would have been at this level at 4pm.

I got the Vodafone update day it came out. I have left smart stay on the first week my phone would almost be flat. But now battery has gone back to normal. The same happened for me when updated to 4.1.2 maybe the update just needs time to settle in

Also samsung recommends that you only use smart stay with the display time-out set to 1 minute or more :) , Otherwise it has to turn the camera on every 30 seconds but every minute isnt so bad :)

sampler

445 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1015174 29-Mar-2014 20:49

not a 2D issue......

Anyone else annoyed about the lack of ability to nicely amend the lock screen default call missed and txt message notifications ?

I have managed to turn off the unread text notifications, that show the text content on the screen.... but having a hard time working out if its possible to do the same with missed call notifications.

Any suggestions ?

Cheers

Lee

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#1020241 7-Apr-2014 20:37

I installed the update when I got the prompt from 2degrees that it was available, and I must say I'm not best pleased with it. In fact, I wish I hadn't installed it.

It doesn't seem to add a lot to the experience. But what it did was:

materially shorten the battery life
make the formerly zippy phone run much slower - noticeable lag when doing things, where there was none before, and
install a bunch of un-removable bloatware (TVNZ on demand, Google Play books, Google Play films, Samsung games hub etc) that has to be disabled.

Without wiping apps and data, does anyone know if is there a simple way to roll the phone back to 4.1.2?

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#1020248 7-Apr-2014 20:52

I am disappointed in the performance of my s3 too since the upgrade. It is so laggy now, and regularly just switches off for no reason. I has turned me of android. I have gone back to my older iphone while I get it sorted, which doesn't have anywhere near as much lag to it. I am considering doing a full reset on my s3. Also notice that the silver plastic edge around the s3 has developer a fine hairline crack at the point when the usb plug gets plugged in, so don't think much of samsungs build quality. I don't think I will be buying another samsung phone.

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mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#1020295 7-Apr-2014 22:20

I have just done a full reset on mine. It seems to now run a lot smoother. That maybe the answer.

bazzer

3438 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1020358 8-Apr-2014 08:32

They always recommend a factory reset following a firmware update. Most people don't bother and probably suffer for it. I guess it's difficult for them to test it fully on an "in situ" installation so it makes sense that a clean start would be better.

Mine is running just OK for the time being. I'll do a factory reset when I get a chance to back things up and whatnot.

muppet

2566 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1020377 8-Apr-2014 09:06

The Factory Reset thing is a myth. Everyone recommends it, not a single person can say why it would work. It's not like user apps can install system files etc. (Would love to have the technical reason why it would help explained to me, if there truely is a valid reason it might help)

When my NoteII (never rooted) was upgraded to 4.3 I had all the above problems. In the end I fixed most of them by:

1) Removing the Knox app if you installed it (like I did) to "Have a play". It's impact on performance was terrible, but I didn't notice until I removed it. (You have to Open Knox, go into settings and there's an uninstall button)
2) Disabling Location Settings until needed. Yes, I know this is a stupid cop out for a Smartphone, but unless I did this something kept the phone awake all the time. It'd never enter deep sleep so its battery would run out pretty quickly.
3) Clearing App Data on Contacts. For some reason it was chewing ~25% CPU all the time. Clearing App Data fixed it. You lose any custom ringtones you've got set, and any "local" contacts, but most people keep all their contacts sync'd in the cloud so it shouldn't be a problem for you.

Regardless, I've found 4.3 to be a right s**t of an upgrade.

By all means, go ahead and do a factory reset. Be sure to post back with how "worthwhile" it was, because no-one wants to admit they spent ~12 hours re-setting their phone up exactly how it was before the reset only to find out it's still just a terrible.

wibble

85 posts

Master Geek

#1020936 8-Apr-2014 22:58

My S3 was so slow it was almost unusable. I could type a whole sentence and thin sit back, wait and then see the words appear. Occasionally it would ring, but by the time the screen had woken to allow me to answer it the call had gone to voicemail.

I did a full reset back to factory settings yesterday and it is nice and snappy now. It's not back the way it was - I took the opportunity to remove a bunch of apps and some other cruft that had accumulated.

I think if I stick to calls, texts and web browsing I should be fine. Anything more than that and I'll be doing this again in 6 months.

As for the build quality - I don't know how Samsung get away with it. When you spend the best part of a grand on a phone you want something beautiful that feels a pleasure to hold. HTC, Nokia and Apple can do it, why not Samsung?

MurrayM

2455 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1020990 9-Apr-2014 08:16

I must be one of the lucky ones; since upgrading I haven't had any problems with speed or battery use.

Yabanize

2350 posts

Uber Geek

#1022520 9-Apr-2014 22:32

wibble: My S3 was so slow it was almost unusable. I could type a whole sentence and thin sit back, wait and then see the words appear. Occasionally it would ring, but by the time the screen had woken to allow me to answer it the call had gone to voicemail.

I did a full reset back to factory settings yesterday and it is nice and snappy now. It's not back the way it was - I took the opportunity to remove a bunch of apps and some other cruft that had accumulated.

I think if I stick to calls, texts and web browsing I should be fine. Anything more than that and I'll be doing this again in 6 months.

As for the build quality - I don't know how Samsung get away with it. When you spend the best part of a grand on a phone you want something beautiful that feels a pleasure to hold. HTC, Nokia and Apple can do it, why not Samsung?

I think it has something to do with all of those manufactures phones are sealed where as the samsung has removable back cover and user replaceable battery and SD card

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#1022523 9-Apr-2014 22:44

muppet: The Factory Reset thing is a myth. Everyone recommends it, not a single person can say why it would work. It's not like user apps can install system files etc. (Would love to have the technical reason why it would help explained to me, if there truely is a valid reason it might help)

When my NoteII (never rooted) was upgraded to 4.3 I had all the above problems. In the end I fixed most of them by:

1) Removing the Knox app if you installed it (like I did) to "Have a play". It's impact on performance was terrible, but I didn't notice until I removed it. (You have to Open Knox, go into settings and there's an uninstall button)
2) Disabling Location Settings until needed. Yes, I know this is a stupid cop out for a Smartphone, but unless I did this something kept the phone awake all the time. It'd never enter deep sleep so its battery would run out pretty quickly.
3) Clearing App Data on Contacts. For some reason it was chewing ~25% CPU all the time. Clearing App Data fixed it. You lose any custom ringtones you've got set, and any "local" contacts, but most people keep all their contacts sync'd in the cloud so it shouldn't be a problem for you.

Regardless, I've found 4.3 to be a right s**t of an upgrade.

By all means, go ahead and do a factory reset. Be sure to post back with how "worthwhile" it was, because no-one wants to admit they spent ~12 hours re-setting their phone up exactly how it was before the reset only to find out it's still just a terrible.

I did the reset, and it was definitely worthwhile, it is back to how it should be, and is now actually usable and snappy. I am going to keep to a lot of the stock stuff.

One thing I noticed is missing since the 4.3 update, is the quick launch icons on the lockscreen have disappeared eg. The camera and phone and email icons. There is no option at all to enable them. I can install a few widgets, but the icons have gone. Apparently there should be an option to enable them, but that is now missing from my settings. I used to use this a lot so annoyed that samsung have removed this feature.

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#1022548 9-Apr-2014 23:47

The performance is still laggy, but I have managed to get the battery life back to an acceptable state by going through settings and unpicking a lot of things that the upgrade did.

1. Disabling Smart Stay. This step alone seems to have done a huge amount for improved battery life.

2. Disabling un-needed apps. (And I wish 2degrees would explain why it has bundeled such a shed-load of crapware with its upgrades, and then added insult to injury by making them unable to be un-installed). I disabled:
- Dropbox
- Dropbox OOBE
- Game Hub
- Google Play Books
- Google Play Movies
- Group Play
- Hangouts
- TVNZ Ondemand
- S Suggest
- Samsung Apps
- Yahoo Finance
- Yahoo News

I still wish there was a straightforward way (without rooting) to just roll back to the earlier OS version until the performance issues are fixed.

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