Tearing My Hair Out: PLEASE Help!

[desperate_canadian]

Hello and thank you for taking the time to read this. I know it's my first post and that I am a noob on this forum, but please, I seriously need some help.

LONG STORY:

I bought my SG2 6-8 months ago. I live in Canada, but, I bought the phone over-sees in the Middle East. It's the I9100, running on 2.3.3, never rooted. It worked perfectly this whole time. People always complained about battery life etc on their sg2, but I had no problems whatsoever.

Two days ago, I wake up and it's making this annoying sound as if it's being plugged in to charge then plugged out, over and over, and over. I turn off the phone. To my dismay, it turns on by itself right away. It does this several times.

I call Samsung Canada, they give me instructions to factory reset it. I do as I'm told, the problem seems fixed. Excellent. I attempt to set up my phone firstly by adding music to it from my macbook pro. I plug in my usb chord, it won't read. So, I start looking up tips on this forum (i.e, usb debugging/usb utilities/usb storage mode). My phone starts to read on my macbook.

Now, I set it down on my table as I look through folders and such, and all of a sudden, it disconnects and I look down at my phone to see that it is in car mode, and to see that voice instruction thing (blue screen) pop up. What the hell? Okay, so I try again, same thing.

So I put it down for the day and tell myself to relax because it's so frustrating. The next day, I try purely using samsung kies. But, today, it's different. No matter what I try, I can't get it to connect. When it finally works, I transfer all my music, hooray! After the media scanner completes, I go to play music in the player, but there's nothing there! I go to my files, all my music is in usb storage. ?????

Every day, my phone seems to act different. I plug it into the wall to charge, and when I unplug it, it still thinks it's charging. Samsung Canada won't help me because I bought the phone over-sees. I can't find a single Samsung repair center near my home. Through my research, I discovered that this whole situation is caused by water damage. I haven't dropped my phone in water, but I do shower and listen to music with the phone on the counter, so maybe it was the steam? I believe that there is an issue with the USB port. If I take the battery out and put it back in, most times, the phone turns on automatically. Is this normal? Perhaps it thinks it's being plugged into the wall?

I think it is very strange that each day my phone malfunctions differently. If anyone could PLEASE PLEASE give me some kind of info on what is going on, I would be so happy. I guess the phone runs on a different software than the other SG2's in Canada. 2.3.3 seems to me to be very old. My provider has not release ice cream yet, but I thought there are other versions, like 2.3.4. Perhaps my software is glitchy?

Thank you so much for reading. PLEASE answer!!

[Swipermusic]

Software wouldnt cause the troubles you are having. Think you need to try drying it out for a few days to see if it is water/steam damage, sure sounds like it is.

[Tufftoad]

Try taking the battery out for 10 to 15 mins and put back in see what happens. May work, may not - but not that technical to do and won't brick your phone.

[RichH]

Wow, so many issues
As you have tried a factory reset (usually the cure all) I can only assume a hardware fault. The charging ports are susceptable to damage. Try very gently cleaning the charge port with an old tooth brush just incase its dirty, if not try gently prying the middle pin upwards as sometimes it shorts out.....
I'm guessing you are on open FW as your phone was bought over seas so you are not dependant on waiting for your carrier to release updates. You should get them direct from Samsung. However, Kies will not update you from 2.3.3 to ICS so you will need to do it yourself using Odin. If you want to try this let us know and we can walk you through it.

[stonkr]

Personally, in this order I would...

Remove the battery for ten minutes.
Clear the cache in recovery mode.
Factory reset in both settings and via recovery mode.
Flash new stock firmware then clear cache and factory reset.
Look to invoke the warranty as it appears to be hardware related.

[desperate_canadian]

Wow, so many issues
As you have tried a factory reset (usually the cure all) I can only assume a hardware fault. The charging ports are susceptable to damage. Try very gently cleaning the charge port with an old tooth brush just incase its dirty, if not try gently prying the middle pin upwards as sometimes it shorts out.....
I'm guessing you are on open FW as your phone was bought over seas so you are not dependant on waiting for your carrier to release updates. You should get them direct from Samsung. However, Kies will not update you from 2.3.3 to ICS so you will need to do it yourself using Odin. If you want to try this let us know and we can walk you through it.

I would love information on this. I wasn't hoping to get updated to ICS as my cell company, rogers, hasn't released it yet. I called the other day and asked, they said they didn't know when they'd have it. I was just hoping to update it to any thing better than what it is now, and I was under the impression that kies was the way to go. I regret to say I have no clue when odin is (does this have to do with rooting my phone?).

I've been dealing with this for three days, literally all day. I called samsung again today and they gave me a lot of different options, but nothing worked. So, they told me I would have to pay a service center to repair. I am not against this, as I guess there is some water damage from the steam when I shower. Supposing that this is indeed the problem, is a side effect not being able to connect to kies? For one thing, I connected to my macbook just fine today and put some music on it. Also, I tried kies on my macbook AND on a windows laptop. Both times, my phone said I was connected, while kies didn't. However, I could connect via wireless, but that method does not allow for updates.

One question: what is the effective way to 'back up' all my apps? I'm sick of reseting the phone and setting it up again. I backed up with kies, but since I can't connect to it anymore, that kind of defeats the purpose.

Detailed info is appreciated, as I'm kind of a noob with android.

[desperate_canadian]

Personally, in this order I would...

Remove the battery for ten minutes.
Clear the cache in recovery mode.
Factory reset in both settings and via recovery mode.
Flash new stock firmware then clear cache and factory reset.
Look to invoke the warranty as it appears to be hardware related.

Hi. Thanks for your post. Could you please give me instructions on how to do this? I'm not very good with technology. I don't know what recovery mode is, or how to clear cache. Basically any instructions you have time to provide me with. I've reset my phone twice in two days, by putting in codes in the keypad that samsung told me to put in. Besides that, I also reset it from my settings on the phone.

[RichH]

First off, to get to recovery mode you turn phone off (wait until it vibrates) then hold Volume up + Home + Power until you see the Samsung logo then let go. Phone will boot to a kind of DOS screen. You use the vol up/down keys to navigate to the options and press the power key to execute. First select clear cache then select factory reset. Phone will reboot to completely as new out of the box condition so this effectively rules out any software issues as the ROM is reinstalled. If this doesn't fix it the next step is to flash ICS via Odin. It's not rooting and does not effect your warranty. It is very low risk as long as you follow the instructions carefully. Come back if you need more.....

[desperate_canadian]

First off, to get to recovery mode you turn phone off (wait until it vibrates) then hold Volume up + Home + Power until you see the Samsung logo then let go. Phone will boot to a kind of DOS screen. You use the vol up/down keys to navigate to the options and press the power key to execute. First select clear cache then select factory reset. Phone will reboot to completely as new out of the box condition so this effectively rules out any software issues as the ROM is reinstalled. If this doesn't fix it the next step is to flash ICS via Odin. It's not rooting and does not effect your warranty. It is very low risk as long as you follow the instructions carefully. Come back if you need more.....

thank you for the instructions. Will odin install ICS on my phone even though my cell phone provider hasn't released yet for my phone?

Also, I just got off the phone with a random cellphone repair guy in down town Toronto, where I live. He said he cleans up the phone with rubbing alcohol and checks out the usb port for 45$ and secondly, replaces the battery for 25$. Is it just me or does this seem too cheap to be a fix? Should I consider this? Thank you again for your help and I'd appreciate any answers.

[desperate_canadian]

I was just as a cell boutique and the guy working there spoke to me about upgrading the firmware. He told me not to do it because I bought the phone in the Middle East and that the firmware here will 'mess up my phone.' Is there any truth to this?