Although I'm interested in explanations or theories as to what happened and why, this is more of a story than a question...
Like most of us, I've had this phone for over 2 years, and I've been running / testing / messing with a variety ROMs for a long time... My "daily driver" recently has been from the cm10.1 nightlies (updated every week or so).
I saw the March 16 availability of BAKED blackbean, and thought I would give it a try... Being lazy, my initial flash was "dirty" after clearing only the cache partition and dalvik. All looked good on boot, but I soon noticed the infamous "phantom key presses" that usually only occur in very low signal areas... This was happening even though I could see 3-4 bars of signal. 3G data was working to some extent.
I dialed *228+ to reactivate (not technically sure when it's a good idea to do this - I once heard it should be done whenever a new kernel is installed, but it rarely seems necessary). But, the call failed to connect... I rebooted to recovery, full wipe, reflashed, same issue. Reflashed back to "stock" cm10.1 (3/15 build - why does this feel like "stock" these days
. Still no outgoing call capability and some phantom key presses. Couldn't send SMS messages either.
ODIN time - back to (truly) stock GB EH03. Still couldn't call to activate. My wife's fascinate, from the same room, could make calls and send texts, etc. so I mostly ruled out coincidental VZW network issues.
I went to VZW.com to "deactivate" my fascinate temporarily to a new phantom device and reactivate (an old trick), but VZW wanted me to choose a new data plan first and said I wouldn't be able to go back... So I called VZW tech support and got them to re-provision the phone from their end, and we finally got things working again only after using the EH03 stock function to factory reset (Settings --> Privacy --> Factory Reset), which kicks off an activation wizard on the next boot.
The VZW 2nd-level tech guy then called me, traded SMSes and verified I could call out to one of their test numbers... At this point, I seriously thought about staying on stock GB (or perhaps GeeWiz 2.9 - which is good stuff.
Anyway, now I'm back on cm10.1 with my usual data partition all nicely restored and everything is hunky-dorry. For a minute there I thought this old device may have been showing signs of old age and was about to die. But it seems good-as-new (better than new actually - given CM10.1.
So, any ideas of what happened to my phone in what seemed to be the normal life of a flash-junky? I don't blame BAKED blackbean (no similar tales in that thread), although my dirty flash of that ROM coming from CM10.1 was where the problem started for me.
When should one really reactivate their phone via *228? How often is it necessary to update "roaming" capabilities?
When will the Galaxy SIII refurbs start showing up on VZW.com (I was contemplating my best replacement option there for a few minutes - why spend $200 on something new when you've got a perfectly good Fascinate)?
Like most of us, I've had this phone for over 2 years, and I've been running / testing / messing with a variety ROMs for a long time... My "daily driver" recently has been from the cm10.1 nightlies (updated every week or so).
I saw the March 16 availability of BAKED blackbean, and thought I would give it a try... Being lazy, my initial flash was "dirty" after clearing only the cache partition and dalvik. All looked good on boot, but I soon noticed the infamous "phantom key presses" that usually only occur in very low signal areas... This was happening even though I could see 3-4 bars of signal. 3G data was working to some extent.
I dialed *228+ to reactivate (not technically sure when it's a good idea to do this - I once heard it should be done whenever a new kernel is installed, but it rarely seems necessary). But, the call failed to connect... I rebooted to recovery, full wipe, reflashed, same issue. Reflashed back to "stock" cm10.1 (3/15 build - why does this feel like "stock" these days
. Still no outgoing call capability and some phantom key presses. Couldn't send SMS messages either. ODIN time - back to (truly) stock GB EH03. Still couldn't call to activate. My wife's fascinate, from the same room, could make calls and send texts, etc. so I mostly ruled out coincidental VZW network issues.
I went to VZW.com to "deactivate" my fascinate temporarily to a new phantom device and reactivate (an old trick), but VZW wanted me to choose a new data plan first and said I wouldn't be able to go back... So I called VZW tech support and got them to re-provision the phone from their end, and we finally got things working again only after using the EH03 stock function to factory reset (Settings --> Privacy --> Factory Reset), which kicks off an activation wizard on the next boot.
The VZW 2nd-level tech guy then called me, traded SMSes and verified I could call out to one of their test numbers... At this point, I seriously thought about staying on stock GB (or perhaps GeeWiz 2.9 - which is good stuff
. Anyway, now I'm back on cm10.1 with my usual data partition all nicely restored and everything is hunky-dorry. For a minute there I thought this old device may have been showing signs of old age and was about to die. But it seems good-as-new (better than new actually - given CM10.1
. So, any ideas of what happened to my phone in what seemed to be the normal life of a flash-junky? I don't blame BAKED blackbean (no similar tales in that thread), although my dirty flash of that ROM coming from CM10.1 was where the problem started for me.
When should one really reactivate their phone via *228? How often is it necessary to update "roaming" capabilities?
When will the Galaxy SIII refurbs start showing up on VZW.com (I was contemplating my best replacement option there for a few minutes - why spend $200 on something new when you've got a perfectly good Fascinate)?
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