Is there an Android expert in the house?

December 13, 2016 5:19 AM

Upgraded from a Note 3 running Lollipop to a Note 4 running Marshmallow and now my apps are glitchy. Help?

I had a Note 3 that worked perfectly (or at least as perfectly as any smartphone) but I bought a Note 4 so I can give my 3 to my mom for Christmas. And now I am having trouble with things that I never had trouble with before, and I'm wondering if there's a simple explanation, maybe a setting that will help somewhere.

Specifically: my brightness setting keeps turning Auto back on even though I've tried to turn it off several times. My AdyClock alarm app will not remember the ringtone setting and keeps going back to the default beep. My YNAB app un-cleared one transaction several months in the past on several different accounts, which made balancing/reconciling an absolute nightmare. My Medisafe app has a reminder set for 6:28am each morning but won't remind until after 6:30am. My AutomateIt rule which turns on sound after work sometimes forgets. My calendar app sometimes vibrates to remind me of appointments during the day but sometimes it doesn't. Etc.

If it was just ONE THING, I could deal but there seems to be a pattern here. I have owned Android phones for several years and I get that they can be fiddly but this seems to be going beyond a random crappy app, especially since these are all the same apps that I used on my Note 3 with no problems whatsoever. And they are all things that I rely on and so it's super annoying that I apparently CAN'T rely on my phone like I used to.

I don't have any apps on the 4 that I didn't have on the 3, except a live wallpaper app but these problems predate the installation of that. I've tried to recreate the settings on the 4 that I had on the 3 but since I'm dealing with a different version of Android and a different phone model altogether I don't know

Does anyone have any ideas of what I can try?

posted by rabbitrabbit to Technology (5 answers total)

Some of these might be the doze mode that Android M added. One consequence is that Apps don’t get woken up very often (if at all) if the phone is asleep & decides to go into doze mode.

No idea about the other glitches. Could be bad RAM or flash, but seems unlikely.
posted by pharm at 5:45 AM on December 13, 2016

First thing to try would be a complete device wipe & restore to factory settings with the latest Samsung ROM image. You’ll have to re-install everything, but it might fix the problem.
posted by pharm at 5:46 AM on December 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

These all sound like bugs with the particular apps you're using.
You can't do much short of submit bug reports to the developers.

Template for a great bug report:

Android Version: 6.0.1
Device Type: (Samsung Galaxy S6)
Steps to reproduce reliably:
1.
2.
3.
Expected events:
Actual events:

That all being said, Android M has been out for a year or so and I'd expect developers to have fixed any issues with the new version of the operating system.

Another option is that something got farkled when you upgraded (there's a specific process to migrating from an old version to a new version of the Android operating system that developers have to account for).
I second pharm's answer. Try reinstalling the apps that are misbehaving.

Source: mobile developer
posted by lalunamel at 6:17 AM on December 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

The first issue of system settings not sticking is something I've seen (as an app developer) on a few different Samsung phones. Usually there is a magic sequence of events you can do to make it stick. Good luck though. Honestly if you can return it still I would recommend trying to get a google or htc phone. Samsung loves to hack android up in strange ways.
posted by jeffamaphone at 6:39 AM on December 13, 2016

Super late to the party, but also check to make sure your system time is correct. That could cause a whole host of issues.
posted by theRussian at 7:18 PM on December 19, 2016