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The N900 is now 15 years old! (8)
to Nokia N900 by whayong - 11 hrs ago -
Sailfish OS for the Motorola Moto G7 Power (XT1955-5) - (ocean) (4)
to SailfishOS by Maemish - 5 days, 7 hrs ago - more...
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2010-05-19
, 08:52
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Posts: 762 |
Thanked: 395 times |
Joined on Jan 2010
@ Helsinki
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#2
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Hmm does sound quite strange. However I feel that sometimes the N900 is really resiliant as to hold on to a signal and I will see one bar of 3G in my mom,s house where I know no 3G coverage exists. However this sounds more like a bug than anything else.
I don't really have any solution as to what might be going on or how to fix it, but if you're having troubles with staying connected and want to better control how you're connected, try the 2G/3G switcher app.
This way you can "reset" your connection to your network by changing from 3G Only to 2G or "Dual" mode. At least it will save you from having to go Olffline.
I don't really have any solution as to what might be going on or how to fix it, but if you're having troubles with staying connected and want to better control how you're connected, try the 2G/3G switcher app.
This way you can "reset" your connection to your network by changing from 3G Only to 2G or "Dual" mode. At least it will save you from having to go Olffline.
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2010-05-19
, 09:13
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Posts: 433 |
Thanked: 274 times |
Joined on Jan 2010
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#3
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I've experienced the same (without the femtocell) a few times when out shopping in town - occasionally after being in a basement I get back to street level and find the signal/network icons have entirely dissapeared from the phone, even though I'm back in good covereage. Sometimes using the 2G/3G switcher is enough to kick it back to life, sometmes toggling offline is required, and occasionally a reboot is needed. Has happened to me about 5 times over 6 months - not sure if my phne's a lemon or if Ijust happen to frequent the wrong basements ...
It may just be that I'm noticing this while the phone is in a transient state (i.e. while it hasn't yet noticed that it's got a signal again) and that therefore any actions I take are placebos - not sure but don't have the patience to wait & see once Inotice I'm off the air ...
Last edited by Pigro; 2010-05-19 at 09:15.
It may just be that I'm noticing this while the phone is in a transient state (i.e. while it hasn't yet noticed that it's got a signal again) and that therefore any actions I take are placebos - not sure but don't have the patience to wait & see once Inotice I'm off the air ...
Last edited by Pigro; 2010-05-19 at 09:15.
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2010-05-19
, 09:33
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Posts: 16 |
Thanked: 1 time |
Joined on May 2010
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#4
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Originally Posted by Pigro
I'm pretty sure what I see is not a transient state because the signal strength meter will stop changing (if it hasn't dissapeared, which it does sometimes). I have left it in this state for a while before and it doesn't sort itself out.
It may just be that I'm noticing this while the phone is in a transient state (i.e. while it hasn't yet noticed that it's got a signal again) and that therefore any actions I take are placebos - not sure but don't have the patience to wait & see once Inotice I'm off the air ...
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2010-05-19
, 12:03
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Posts: 274 |
Thanked: 82 times |
Joined on Dec 2009
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#5
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The signal bar disappearing is normal. This will suggest you are out of range and the device will make it reappear once it has gained signal and authenticated with the network. It disappears because it is showing what type of network you are on, 2G etc so there is no point in showing it when you are not on a network if that makes sense.
As for it sticking at 1 bar, this is because it probably has such a minuscule signal but not enough to be functional.
As for it sticking at 1 bar, this is because it probably has such a minuscule signal but not enough to be functional.
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2010-05-19
, 12:47
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Posts: 433 |
Thanked: 274 times |
Joined on Jan 2010
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#6
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Originally Posted by teh
Yes, it makes sense, I've worked in telephony for 20+ years so hopefully I'm keeping up with you on the basic concepts :-) What you describe is of course the normal, expected behaviour - what we're describing are unexpected digressions from that behaviour. The OP describes his phone permanently sticking in an unusable state after being in a dead spot, even when he knows he is back in an area of good coverage.
The signal bar disappearing is normal. This will suggest you are out of range and the device will make it reappear once it has gained signal and authenticated with the network. It disappears because it is showing what type of network you are on, 2G etc so there is no point in showing it when you are not on a network if that makes sense.
@namche - FWIW, I have some experience with the 1st UK Telco/cellco provided picocells (deployed within large corporate sites), which do exactly the same thing as your femto, just with more connections/load, and I've not come across this as an issue before.
My own point was that the n900, while on conventional GSM/3G network, appears to
a) take an eternity (>2 minutes, never waited longer than that before poking it) to detect that it's back in coverage and reconnect
OR
b) have some intermittant bug (pure speculation, but possibly related to background data usage like widgets/push email etc. ongoing when coverage is lost?) which sometimes leaves it in a state whereby it is not able to reconnect once back in coverage without manual intervention. Doesn't happen (to me) often enough to be an issue - I just check the phone occasionally after I've been in an area of poor/no coverage to check it's back online.
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2010-05-19
, 13:34
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Posts: 16 |
Thanked: 1 time |
Joined on May 2010
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#7
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Thanks Pigro, yes as you point out the signal strength meter 'sticks' and the connection remains in an unusable state until 'poked'. I've also worked in cellular comms for many years (including femtocell development) so hope I'm not being too stupid - I know what the signal strength meter is supposed to do :-)
Good point about background activity - I do have Nokia Messaging running all the time so I don't know if that has an effect. On the other hand it's hard to see how data activity could paralyse the connection...my gut feeling is that it's something to do with the handoff operation. When the phone loses the femtocell I imagine it getting stuck in a loop where there is just enough signal to 'keep it interested', but a decision elsewhere has already been made to move to another cell. I could be talking rubbish though :-)
Good point about background activity - I do have Nokia Messaging running all the time so I don't know if that has an effect. On the other hand it's hard to see how data activity could paralyse the connection...my gut feeling is that it's something to do with the handoff operation. When the phone loses the femtocell I imagine it getting stuck in a loop where there is just enough signal to 'keep it interested', but a decision elsewhere has already been made to move to another cell. I could be talking rubbish though :-)
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2010-05-19
, 13:41
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Posts: 1,062 |
Thanked: 961 times |
Joined on May 2010
@ Boston, MA
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#8
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Originally Posted by Pigro
Having the SAME problem with Tmo USA. Very annoying indeed. Is there a bug open for this? I am pretty this sort of thing can be corrected through firmware - I had the same problem with my old iPAQ.
My own point was that the n900, while on conventional GSM/3G network, appears to
a) take an eternity (>2 minutes, never waited longer than that before poking it) to detect that it's back in coverage and reconnect
OR
b) have some intermittant bug (pure speculation, but possibly related to background data usage like widgets/push email etc. ongoing when coverage is lost?) which sometimes leaves it in a state whereby it is not able to reconnect once back in coverage without manual intervention. Doesn't happen (to me) often enough to be an issue - I just check the phone occasionally after I've been in an area of poor/no coverage to check it's back online.
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2010-07-16
, 15:42
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Posts: 27 |
Thanked: 0 times |
Joined on Feb 2010
@ United States
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#9
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Originally Posted by cfh11
I'm on AT&T in the USA and this bug started occurring for me today. Does anyone have a fix?! I've rebooted and it goes away temporarilly but then just disappears again. Never have had this problem since I purchased my phone in December..
Having the SAME problem with Tmo USA. Very annoying indeed. Is there a bug open for this? I am pretty this sort of thing can be corrected through firmware - I had the same problem with my old iPAQ.
At home I use a Vodafone SureSignal (femtocell) for 3G within my house. There are a few dead spots at home for me and when I'm in one of those my phone signal will often just freeze - the strength indicator won't move or just dissapear, moving back to a strong signal area doesn't reset it, and moving outside the house to where there is a decent 2.5G signal doesn't help either. To resolve this I need to switch the phone to Offline mode, then back to Normal mode and it kicks back in to life.
This doesn't happen with my Blackberry which happily switches between my SureSignal and outside 2.5G without a hiccup, as does my wifes iPhone.
I don't know if this is related to my SureSignal - when I'm out and about the phone switches between networks quite happily. I get the feeling it's something to do with the phone getting unhappy on the edge of a very low signal and maybe trying to hand off too often or too quickly.
This is quite annoying, does anyone know if this has been observed before?
Thanks in advance for any advice.