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< Esato Forum Index > Sony Ericsson / Sony > Symbian phones > M600i - is it really this bad? **UPDATE- No!** Bookmark topic

I've had a heavily branded Vodafone M600i since November, and while it had plenty of quirks and I got very sick of the poor Vodafone-designed UI (particularly after seeing how it should look) it was basically pretty stable. Restarts were few and far between, and it routinely ran for a week or more at a time without any real issue. When I did turn it off and on, it was the normal reasons - in a cinema, meeting etc - not because I had to. So when I read all the horror stories on here about how unreliable people were finding it, I generally thought some people were exagerrating a little. I mean I had the klunky old Vodafone firmware, and it wasn't that bad...

When Kulankendi debranding came along, I thought excellent - now I can get the latest SE firmware, the improved UI, and hopefully fix some of those little quirks (contacts not being recognised when they ring, for example). I finally managed to change the CDA and download R5B2 this last Sunday - and that's where it all started to go wrong.

Admittedly, I've been playing with the phone a bit more than previously, because it looks and feels like a new phone - and I like it, I like the themes I've been trying out (none of them worked properly with the stupid Voda FW), and I like the speed increases of things like the browser, which was very slow to open before. BUT. It's not stable anymore. It can't seem to run for much more than 24 hours without crashing - and it doesn't even restart, it just locks up. If I'm lucky I'll get a message about memory being low, but I won't be able to do anything about it, because it will already have frozen. The only solution is to hard-reset.

At first I thought it was because I did a partial restore from an old backup - only the notes and unified inbox mind, NOT the settings or anything else - so I did a master reset, and started again from scratch (syncing my calendar and contacts with the PC) - but still, it's crashing. Every day. At least the old Vodafone firmware managed to restart itself when it needed to (which was rarely).

Honestly, is this what people are putting up with? Is the P990 this bad? The W950? I can't quite believe that after all the time the M600i's been out, and all the updates that have been released, this is the sort of stability that anyone has to put up with. I'm seriously considering getting another credit off Kulankendi and reverting back to the Voda firmware, which despite all the flack they've had, does actually work most of the time. Before I do that, does anyone have any ideas on where I might be going wrong here? Is this really normal behaviour for a M600i on latest firmware?

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t28s -> t68i -> P800 -> P910i -> M600i

[ This Message was edited by: Boinng on 2007-04-02 11:06 ]
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Posted: 2007-03-09 12:24:43
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Some people are experiencing stuff like this when the firmware flashing went bad. Try reflashing the phone with SEUS (it has the firmware cached on your computer, so you won't need to redownload it), it has done wonders for many people.
If that doesn't help, the downloaded firmware might be corrupted. To solve that, just remove all files and folders in C:\\Program Files\\Sony Ericsson\\Update Service\\db (or [wherever you installed SEUS]\\db) and then redo the update.
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Posted: 2007-03-09 12:33:36
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That´s strange...lots people here have M600 and do not report the phone is worse with latest fw, you are reporting serious problems

What you are experiencing is the same with P990: some people report frequent problems with newer fw that other people don´t experience, at all

What can i say to you...the normal, but i think you just did something similar...but i would do it again...format internal drive, then reflash the phone
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Posted: 2007-03-09 12:37:24
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Try a MASTER RESET + format C: drive from Service Menu + Reflash from SEUS with the same firmware.

Don't restore from any backup, but syncronize only Contacts, Notes, Appointments from Outook and insert manually all settings.

I'm one of the first who tried the WG1 R5B02 on a M600i after Kulan debranding and the phone is more stable and never locked again.

The only thing I notice is a minor multitasking capability with some games (seems to look but actualy runs slowly).
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Posted: 2007-03-09 12:37:50
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hi - thats not good

ive got a debranded 600 with latest f/w and dont have any issues with it - i keep min running all the time - never power it off - no probs

i restored from backup BUT WITHOUT SETTINGS - and all ok

reflash called for i reckon
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Posted: 2007-03-09 14:09:31
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It might be worth finding out where all you memory is going (the phone must think that something somewhere is using it !)

It could be something rouge in their that is not releasing the memory. E..g Memory leak in one of the applications you are using, such that each time it runs it grabs more memory etc.

Like other have said the alternative is to do a reflash. and then install each application one at a time to note at which point it becomes unstable. (assuming it is stable with a clean flash and NOTHING else put on it.)

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Posted: 2007-03-09 17:12:10
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I'm not using any software that I wasn't using quite happily on the Voda firmware - in fact apart from a couple of freeware games I've hardly used, the only app of note is Swiss Manager (the free version) which again I've not used to any significant degree - I don't leave it running in the background, for example.

I guess a reflash may be necessary (I've done a master reset before, but not a reflash) but it seems very strange that SEUS can report everything went fine the first time, the phone can actually turn on and run the new software for most of the time, but there can still something "broken" or missing somewhere in the software. You'd think there would be checksums etc built in to SEUS to make sure that the phone either had the whole software properly installed or not, not this twilight "mostly ok but a bit dodgy" install that I apparently have.

Unfortunately I've no internet at home (still) so I'll have to wait to reflash. I'll keep you posted.

PS - the only strange thing I noticed with this upgrade (apart from the instability) is the fact that QuadraPop has a very pixellated icon. It's just a very small thing, but the little icon for QuadraPop in the entertainment menu is very fuzzy and low-res, whereas I'm sure it was as sharp and detailed as all the rest of them on the old firmware. Is that just an oddity of R5B2 that everyone has, or perhaps a sign that something's not quite right on my phone? The game itself plays ok, as long as there is memory available.

[ This Message was edited by: Boinng on 2007-03-09 16:34 ]
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Posted: 2007-03-09 17:29:02
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yeah, Quadrapop is pixellated. Don't know why. My M600i is super stable - no crashes since I upgraded a month ago. As everyone has said, sounds like a reflash is needed...
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Posted: 2007-03-09 17:46:56
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Boingg, a reflash at a Service Center, if you can acess one, would be even better, because it would guarantee a stable connection with Update Service
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Posted: 2007-03-09 18:39:32
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Would suggest that you don't put Swiss back onto the phone unitll you have tried it for a while after reflash. My thinking being that Swiss is memory manager, and as such has a level of interference with the Operating system which in your case may not be ideal. worth a try.
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Posted: 2007-03-09 18:48:18
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