10 days since the broken Samsung Pie update rolled to Sprint, some dick pointing but no LTE fixes still
Ten days ago I was quite happy to get the Android Pie update, and since that time I’ve had no LTE, location timeouts on WiFi calling so I can’t use that, and a host of other issues.
Sprint refuses to say there’s a known problem if you talk to customer support, ostensibly because it’s not the carrier’s call to say a manufacturer’s software is buggy.
Sprint is running Note 8 owners (and Galaxy S9, and 10 from what I read,) through a dog and pony show wasting everyone’s time because they refuse to allow the reps say there’s an issue (that or there really are a huge string of clueless reps.)
Samsung is saying “mail us your phone, we’ll look at it.” Thousands of brand new Galaxy 10 users are suffering the same issues. Stories of people trading phone for phone for phone at the Sprint stores until they got one that worked exist. This is a thing.
While it’s not Sprint’s job to fix the buggy Samsung software, they are leasing many of these phones to people, and they have an obligation to not waste people’s time in futile attempts. Hell, it would save them money to not waste people’s time.
Like seriously, how much of a contract breach with Samsung is it to tell customers who call in “we’ve heard of this issue, here’s what we know”? And maybe go a little above and beyond with a “here’s a phone we purchased for $35 you can use until we get a fix for you.”
What you get is that they have not heard of the issue (go ahead, call them,) factory reset, jump through these hoops, go to Sprint store, re-flash Android to 8 using something special, and in 50% of those cases you might, at three hours, have a working phone again.
Might.
Reading the forums people have had their phones disassembled, LTE antennas replaced or reattached, phones mailed off for repair. On the S10 side there are people reporting they’re on the third or fourth S10, same issues the S8 has. They’ve been having these issues for a lot longer than the S8 has.
I appreciate that maybe Sprint can’t say Samsung fucked up, but having customers wasting hours at a Sprint store isn’t the proper solution.
Yanking the Android Pie update from Sprint’s servers is a solution. That’s evidently not been done. Contain the problem until what’s affecting maybe one in 20 devices is found out.
Side note – for everyone that it worked great for, good for you. We really are happy it worked for most people. However, don’t come into a buggy update thread and post the update worked for you. It didn’t for everyone and that’s probably because the baseband software is buggy, or perhaps the LTE radio chipsets varied in a run of the phones.
Sort of like going to a hospital and saying “don’t know what’s up with you but I’m fine.” Does no good, people will throw their slushies at you.
The Note 8 was my first Samsung Phone. It was also the first Android phone I’ve had in 10 years I didn’t root, flash a custom ROM, and basically chuck everything the manufacturer had done away. They designed a device I really liked and now it’s slower on the Sprint Network than any phone I’ve owned in 10 years.
So anyway, as of today for Note 8 owners, there’s no fix, no official statement from Samsung that there’s a bug. There are a couple of Sprint reps in the forums saying it’s being investigated but that stops short of saying bug buggity bug bug.
Galaxy 10 owners, I’ve tried wading through the thousands of complaints, going to say you’ve been waiting longer, issue appears the same, betting it’s simply a baseband firmware issue affecting us all.
You’d think since the PR nightmare that was the exploding Galaxy Note 7 Samsung would get out there in front of this and issue a statement rather than telling their reps to have ’em mailed in.
