Getting tired of S2 problems

[rouge]

These are probably not S2 problems, just Android but they are making me hate my lovely S2. I used to think that the S2 made iPhone look like a $2 watch, but now I am thinking that the $2 watch has value!! This phone is 6 months old.
1) constant reboots ( I have 16GB Sd card with no apps on it and v2.3.6 Android)
2) phone totally died 2 months ago. Samsung wanted me to pay big dollars for outsourced support rather than support its own customers. My Aussie provider (Virgin) told me to talk to Phillipino teenagers who had no idea where Australia was let alone help me with an S2 problem, so I went on the web and you great guys helped me flash a new OS and I was up and running in half a day.
3) So many apps occasionally crash on reboot that I cannot even turn the phone off! - have to take the battery out!
4) sometimes the phone gets into a rebooting loop that cannot be stopped unless the battery is taken out.
5) last week my auto rotation did not rotate any more. I finally found that the horizontal calibration was screwed - I did not screw it up!! Why did it fail?
6) Constant failures regarding "Samsung Push" - I removed the app and the errors went away.
Why is all this happening - Kies says I have the latest firmware, obviously I do not!
Can anyone provide a solution to all my problems? I would like to stay with Kies and be legit, but if Samsung has abandoned support for the S2 I am open to all suggestions??
Thanks in advance for all your considered responses.
John (rouge)

[Tufftoad]

1) Phone is force rebooting or are you rebooting?
2) That problem is country specific
3) Could be firmware related
4) Could be firmware related
5) Could be firmware related. Just re-calibrate it Menu > Settings > Display > Horizontal Calibration
6) Is this the Samsung App Store? I just don't use it, it is utterly annoying.

Dial *#1234# and let us know what the firmware is. I would suggest upgrading firmware but as you said Kies is saying otherwise.

Samsung haven't abandoned the S2 as this is still their flagship device. I think you may just be one of the really unlucky ones.

[rouge]

I have already done the things you said. I was hoping that Android V4 would be available on Kies, but no such luck. I do not want to mess around with firmware that Kies says is the correct version.
Thanks for your contribution

[greenman]

Hi John,
There has been an update on Optus via Kies, or you can download and install via Odin.
Don't be too committed to Kies as it is a flakey piece of software, and certainly for updating, Odin does the same job but much better.

On sammobile the ICS 4.03:

I9100XWLP8 4.0.3 2012 April I9100OPSLP4 Australia (Optus) Kies

sammobile link here:http://www.sammobile.com/firmware/?p...00&r=4#regiona

[zevlos]

I have updated my s2 to ICS and I have alot more bugs than gingerbread the bugs I have are:1)Keyborad freezes 2)When I listen to music some songs have static and I have to reboot my phone to go away 3)Phone contantly force close even twlauncher even android it self 4)When someone calls me the screen freezes and I can't answer or reject call 5)Touch screen freezes NEED HELP FAST thanks in advance

[greenman]

I have updated my s2 to ICS and I have alot more bugs than gingerbread the bugs I have are:1)Keyborad freezes 2)When I listen to music some songs have static and I have to reboot my phone to go away 3)Phone contantly force close even twlauncher even android it self 4)When someone calls me the screen freezes and I can't answer or reject call 5)Touch screen freezes NEED HELP FAST thanks in advance

Sounds to me that you didn't do a factory reset and clear cache. Recommended when going from gingerbread to ICS.
Try now, but back up first

[greenman]

You are currently on the 4th firmware in my list above. That's Gingerbread 2.3.6 and pretty good it is, or should be. Any problems can be resolved with a factory reset and clear cache. Both of these can be found in Recovery, which is actioned by pressing and holding
Menu + Volume up + power button.
Hold until in Recovery screen.
Hilight using the volume key and action by pressing Menu.

WARNING: Unless you back up Contacts and data it will be lost, as will your apps.

As the ICS update requires the same procedure you may wish to wait until Virgin release it.

[rouge]

My phone rebooted itself while it was in my bag today. I dialled *#1234" and it now says my PHONE component is "unknown". It will now no longer connect to Kies. It also came up in "flight mode" which took me a while to disable and get back to my provider. If I do the recovery actions you suggest, I will lose data, and not being able to use Kies to backup I am probably stuffed!. I think I will buy that $2 phone after all!
Thanks for your time.

[rouge]

Thanks. My phone rebooted in my bag today. I dialled *#1234# and it came up with PHONE: "unknown". I have tried to connect to Kies but it now does not recognise the phone. So I cannot backup anything I need to do before your suggested factory reset and clear cache. It also came up in "Flight mode", which took me a while to figure out and get my provider back. This software is junk, or is the phone junk. one or the other! Anyway, the $2 iphone option is looking good right now. Thanks for all your great advice. I will wait for a Virgin update, which could be forever, but as Kies now does not recognise my phone I am stuffed again. Thanks for your time.

[rouge]

Finally, Virgin Mobile Australia released 4.03 via Kies. The upgrade was not for the feint hearted - kept stopping and at one stage Kies rebooted my computer!! Try again and Android on the phone gets stuck on 'optimizing' 13 of 64 applications for hours. Bravely rebooted the phone and all seemed to go well. Re-installed all the stuff I backed up before, but nothing worked. Every app failed, the phone was constantly rebooting itself and then started to hate the batteries! V4.0.3 looks much the same as Gingerbread, for the time I have actually seen it working, so why did I bother??? I have not taken the battery out of the phone so many times before to get the phone to reboot!! Now, all my apps have had to be uninstalled and I cannot get web access through Virgin. Calls and email yes, but no web access. You would have thought that with one single phone (S2) and one single OS upgrade, the billionaires would have got it right. sorry, they have stuffed this up bigtime. As much as I hate to say, Apple may have the solution!