[Q] SGS4 WiFi/Bluetooth Death, ZERO working solutions, willing to pay.

Wexberg · Jan 20, 2014

Hi everyone, I'll try to keep this as concise and clear as possible. Thanks in advanced for reading this.

Phone: SGS4
Running: Android 4.3
Carrier: Bell Canada
Rooted: No
Rom: Stock TouchWiz.

Problem: The phone will not turn on WiFi or Bluetooth. If you attempt to switch either on, it remains a dim green for a few seconds and then turns back off shortly after.

Solutions tried:
(a) Battery pull.
- Unsuccessful. (At first, if battery pulled during Samsung logo animation after restarting from ON state, both WiFi/Bluetooth would turn on again, sometimes for minutes, sometimes hours. Eventually, this stopped working. It would only work on a restart pulling the battery during the animation, never at any other time)
(b) Update to latest firmware through Samsung Kies.
- Unsuccessful.
(c) Boot into safe mode to see if any applications were the cause.
- Unsuccessful.
(d) Wipe device clean and start fresh.
- Unsuccessful.
(e) Change WiFi power saving state to off through *#0011# menu.
- Unsuccessful.

I have not tried loading other roms or kernels.

A quick google search shows that many people have the same problem, I have yet to find a working solution. If anyone here can point me in the right direction, I'm willing to pay at this point. I cannot return it to Samsung as there is a crack on the screen which has voided the warranty. I could fix the screen and try sending it in but I'm hoping for a software solution.

I feel as if it is not a hardware issue as the battery pulls worked initially.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Once again, I'm willing to pay for a working solution, the number is up to you as long as it is reasonable.

DeadlySin9 · Jan 20, 2014

Wexberg said:
Hi everyone, I'll try to keep this as concise and clear as possible. Thanks in advanced for reading this.

Phone: SGS4
Running: Android 4.3
Carrier: Bell Canada
Rooted: No
Rom: Stock TouchWiz.

Problem: The phone will not turn on WiFi or Bluetooth. If you attempt to switch either on, it remains a dim green for a few seconds and then turns back off shortly after.

Solutions tried:
(a) Battery pull.
- Unsuccessful. (At first, if battery pulled during Samsung logo animation after restarting from ON state, both WiFi/Bluetooth would turn on again, sometimes for minutes, sometimes hours. Eventually, this stopped working. It would only work on a restart pulling the battery during the animation, never at any other time)
(b) Update to latest firmware through Samsung Kies.
- Unsuccessful.
(c) Boot into safe mode to see if any applications were the cause.
- Unsuccessful.
(d) Wipe device clean and start fresh.
- Unsuccessful.
(e) Change WiFi power saving state to off through *#0011# menu.
- Unsuccessful.

I have not tried loading other roms or kernels.

A quick google search shows that many people have the same problem, I have yet to find a working solution. If anyone here can point me in the right direction, I'm willing to pay at this point. I cannot return it to Samsung as there is a crack on the screen which has voided the warranty. I could fix the screen and try sending it in but I'm hoping for a software solution.

I feel as if it is not a hardware issue as the battery pulls worked initially.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Once again, I'm willing to pay for a working solution, the number is up to you as long as it is reasonable.

When you say wipe device clean, how did you do that? Did you use ODIN and flash the firmware or just do a factory reset?

Wexberg · Jan 20, 2014

DeadlySin9 said:
When you say wipe device clean, how did you do that? Did you use ODIN and flash the firmware or just do a factory reset?

I did not use ODIN, I did a simple factory reset. I will try that ASAP and post an update. If there any other solutions as well, I would really appreciate them in case that does not do the trick.

Thank you for your response DeadlySin, it is greatly appreciated.

DeadlySin9 · Jan 20, 2014

Wexberg said:
I did not use ODIN, I did a simple factory reset. I will try that ASAP and post an update. If there any other solutions as well, I would really appreciate them in case that does not do the trick.

Thank you for your response DeadlySin, it is greatly appreciated.

Just try that first, as doing a factory reset does not actually change the system files but rather wipes all userdata. Just use the file for whatever firmware you have in the I337m firmwares thread.

Wexberg · Jan 26, 2014

DeadlySin9,

I finally got around to using odin to reset the firmware, first to stock 4.3 from my carrier, then 4.2, both of which still failed to change the state of the problem. At this point, it seems like an obvious hardware problem but if that was true, I still can't understand why I could re-initiate WiFi/Bluetooth after a specific pattern of battery pulls (this does not work anymore but worked for awhile, stopped, then started again, now finally stopped). Any last ideas? I really appreciate your help.

DeadlySin9 said:
Just try that first, as doing a factory reset does not actually change the system files but rather wipes all userdata. Just use the file for whatever firmware you have in the I337m firmwares thread.

DeadlySin9 · Jan 27, 2014

Wexberg said:
DeadlySin9,

I finally got around to using odin to reset the firmware, first to stock 4.3 from my carrier, then 4.2, both of which still failed to change the state of the problem. At this point, it seems like an obvious hardware problem but if that was true, I still can't understand why I could re-initiate WiFi/Bluetooth after a specific pattern of battery pulls (this does not work anymore but worked for awhile, stopped, then started again, now finally stopped). Any last ideas? I really appreciate your help.

I don't know why that would work. At this point I'm not sure what else you could do. I know I used to have WiFi issues after some flashes with my Inspire but i never really had a fix even then.

Amb669 · Jan 27, 2014

i had issues enabling wifi after installing a custom kernel & with certain roms (same 1/2 lit green toggle crap, sometimes it would toggle back off sometimes it would just stay 1/2 lit and make my phone burn)
my solution has been 100% working for myself so far, if you'd like to try it here's the directions
1. install es file explorer
2. set root permissions AND mount as writable, within es file explorer
3. use es file explorer to navigate to the root of your phone (system directory, i think) and open the build.prop file than select the es file editor
4. find the line that says ro.securestorage.support=true and edit it to false, save and close
5. reboot phone, and hopfully you have no more wifi issues
i was skeptical when i first did this because nothing worked to fix my wifi, but this works 100% for me on every rom

fffft · Jan 27, 2014

Been there, done that.

It's not a hardware problem. It is, I believe, problems with the restrictive 4.3 update not playing nicely with some system settings. In short your system drivers or configuration settings are getting messed up to to bugs in how Knox and the bootloader are interacting with the modem.

I had your exact symptoms after installing certain custom ROMs, also noted that the problem could be temporarily "fixed" if the boot process was interrupted or by specific sequences of modem changes. The situation is not helped by Bell being more restrictive than other Canadian carriers e.g. Rogers, something that also caused me problems when I was enabling AWS on a Bell firmware.

The effective solution was to install a custom recovery to facilitate a complete wipe of files, then flash a Rogers stock image. Cured. And continuing to work properly if subsequently returned to a Bell stock image. Although, frankly you'd have a more stable and flexible platform if you you kept the Rogers image in the end. If the build properties edit doesn't solve your issue, then here is a path for you to pursue.

.

jrwebdev17 · Jan 27, 2014

1/2 Lit Toggles - build.prop editing issue

Amb669 said:
i had issues enabling wifi after installing a custom kernel & with certain roms (same 1/2 lit green toggle crap, sometimes it would toggle back off sometimes it would just stay 1/2 lit and make my phone burn)
my solution has been 100% working for myself so far, if you'd like to try it here's the directions
1. install es file explorer
2. set root permissions AND mount as writable, within es file explorer
3. use es file explorer to navigate to the root of your phone (system directory, i think) and open the build.prop file than select the es file editor
4. find the line that says ro.securestorage.support=true and edit it to false, save and close
5. reboot phone, and hopfully you have no more wifi issues
i was skeptical when i first did this because nothing worked to fix my wifi, but this works 100% for me on every rom

I have the exact same problem - I'm on US AT&T, I337UCUAMF3, Android 4.2.2 and this solution looks promising. I followed the steps and have RW set up, but ro.securestorage.support does not exist in my build.prop file. Does anyone know if this property is specific to certain builds and/or if there is an equivalent property?

DeadlySin9 · Jan 28, 2014

jrwebdev17 said:
I have the exact same problem - I'm on US AT&T, I337UCUAMF3, Android 4.2.2 and this solution looks promising. I followed the steps and have RW set up, but ro.securestorage.support does not exist in my build.prop file. Does anyone know if this property is specific to certain builds and/or if there is an equivalent property?

Adding it to the end shouldn't hurt as long as you make sure you set properties on the build.prop

jrwebdev17 · Jan 28, 2014

DeadlySin9 said:
Adding it to the end shouldn't hurt as long as you make sure you set properties on the build.prop

Thanks for the tip, good to know it wouldn't screw anything up. I did add it to the build.prop file, rebooted and it seems to have had no effect. Seems that if the property is not present in the file, adding it does not resolve the problem.

fffft · Jan 28, 2014

Editing build.prop is a plausible workaround if the OP has root access. If he doesn't wish to root his phone, then he can clean up his system configuration by reinstalling as I described earlier in the thread without requiring root. Two approaches to the same result.

And yes, you can add the entry if it doesn't already exist in your configuration.

.

jrwebdev17 · Jan 29, 2014

jrwebdev17 said:
Thanks for the tip, good to know it wouldn't screw anything up. I did add it to the build.prop file, rebooted and it seems to have had no effect. Seems that if the property is not present in the file, adding it does not resolve the problem.

UPDATE: I didn't have any luck using the build.prop fix, nor with the wpa_supplicant.conf fix that some of you may have seen mentioned. I ended up Recovering to stock MF3, (I was already on MF3). This gave up my root access, and I didn't take any additional steps to hide busy_box or anything like that, after my MF3 recovery it looked like I was safely unrooted and I contacted AT&T support via web-chat, and they asked some questions and sent me to a nearby AT&T device center. I took it there, they didn't ask a single question about how it happened, whether I had rooted it, etc(although I was paranoid that there would be traces left behind and they would turn me away). Long story short, they replaced the phone no questions asked!

In my opinion it would seem that while this problem could in some cases be caused by rooting and tinkering, it's enough of a known issue to AT&T that they would replace it under warranty. Hopefully Bell or other carriers would do the same. My advice is to try your carrier, particularly if you are with AT&T.

rogin16 · Feb 11, 2014

Just to help people who are searching for a solution. I had flashed a T-Mobile rom and my wifi stopped being togglable on my AT&T S4. That is, I couldn't turn on wifi. The button would get stuck on. After trying to flash what I thought was the right MK2 modem and still having the same issue, I thought I was out of luck. However, I found this one here: http://xdaforums.com/devdb/project/dl/?id=3275 and hit paydirt. Flashing it using Safestrap and then wiping cache and delvik worked. The file is called jflteatt-MK2-modules.zip.

elkolodj · Sep 25, 2014

Only for WIFI, for me what worked was I had to open a litte bit the one side of the phone and close it again (removing a little the plastic, like if you were going to open the device) Wifi started working again, no need to flash any roms, it seemed to be something related with pressure, humidity or something inside the phone.

Regarding bluetooh I had no luck still not working, only keeps saying activating and never gets activated.
does anyone find a solution for this yet?

radoo7701 · Sep 25, 2014

I have had the same issue for months. Started after warranty was up. I have AT&T on nc1. I tried everything mentioned here but nothing worked. Even left it with the phone repair guys for a week with no luck. It first started after I flashed Hyperdrive ROM. A reboot helped for a while. It actually came back for a week on Kevp's ROM, but then had an error that reboot the phone and lost it again. Phone is now on Craigslist and I am back to my S2. On a high note it's nice to not have a unlocked bootloader again.

don2012 · Sep 27, 2014

you need to flash the exact same model/firmware's modem file atleast thrice before giving up.... i have a simalar issue the thing is my model number is 1377z and google doesnt have a working flashable modem file for it so basically i am screwed too wifi calling and video recording doesnt work....

update :: saw that you got it replaced !!
smoooth .....

danger.ray · Oct 21, 2014

Amb669 said:
i had issues enabling wifi after installing a custom kernel & with certain roms (same 1/2 lit green toggle crap, sometimes it would toggle back off sometimes it would just stay 1/2 lit and make my phone burn)
my solution has been 100% working for myself so far, if you'd like to try it here's the directions
1. install es file explorer
2. set root permissions AND mount as writable, within es file explorer
3. use es file explorer to navigate to the root of your phone (system directory, i think) and open the build.prop file than select the es file editor
4. find the line that says ro.securestorage.support=true and edit it to false, save and close
5. reboot phone, and hopfully you have no more wifi issues
i was skeptical when i first did this because nothing worked to fix my wifi, but this works 100% for me on every rom

Just tried this on my sgh-i337m that was having the same wifi issues after rooting and flashing a kernel. Rebooted and wifi is up and running. So far so good. Thanks a lot!

[Q] SGS4 WiFi/Bluetooth Death, ZERO working solutions, willing to pay.

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