PhilNoPhoneKid
Sup guys, do me a favor and read about my
Phone Problem
Yeah, so a rather interesting thing happened with my phone today.
Background information:
But before I start, I suppose I should give a little background info on my phone: I have an LG VX9100 (enV2), the same phone that everybody and their mom has. I've never modified it or done anything fancy with it. The most complicated thing I've ever done was copy pictures off the phone via Bluetooth (which has always worked just fine). I've had the phone for about a year, and I've never had any problems with it before.
That being said, here's what happened:
How it "broke":
While hanging out with Rob and Tom (of the "NoBarKid" family), at one point, we started sharing pictures on our phones. Rob sent me one of the small default graphics from his phone to mine. It appeared correctly, but I noted that it displayed differently. From my inbox, the preview of the text was just "[Object]", and when viewing the text, it didn't give me the Erase option on the bottom-left corner (although the option still existed in the menu). The graphic was a small monochromatic 16x16(?) sprite of an umbrella. I suspect everything that I've described so far is perfectly normal, but I had never received one of those before, so I figure it's worth mentioning.
A few minutes later, he tried to send me another (much larger) default graphic, but this is where it gets weird:
I got the usual "New Text Message" notification, so I proceeded to open the text -- but when I pressed the button, my phone just froze on the New Text Message screen for a really long time. I don't know for how long, because I eventually just put it away, but it wasn't responding to any of my keypresses or anything.
Since then, my phone has been incredibly unstable:
Behavior:
(And I might as well mention this now: I don't know the model of his phone or which graphic he tried to send, but I can ask) Okay, I asked:
He has a Samsung SGH-E635 T-Mobile phone. The first embedded graphic he sent me was the Rain graphic, and the second text contained all three of the Cat, Dinner, and Stars graphics. He thinks the Stars graphic may have been problematic, since it is significantly larger than the other three (including the Rain graphic, which displayed properly).
Help:
I absolutely need a working phone fairly soon because I'm expecting a call from a recruiter for a phone-based technical interview in a week or so. I'm very excited about the job opportunity, so I'd hate to miss out on that just because my phone randomly decided to break.
Not to mention, my phone functions as my alarm, my watch, my camera, one of my primary forms of communication, and the only medium through which I can effectively remind Tom to wake up in time to turn in his Basic Logic homework.
So if you have any suggestions for a fix or ideas on how to isolate the problem (even if they seem stupid), please comment.
I can provide more information upon request, and I will probably make an update once I've tested more ideas.
Even if I can't fix the phone, I do want to know what happened because it sounds exploitable because it's interesting. :) *whistles*
If you read all this, I appreciate it. Thanks
tl;dr: Don't expect to be able to contact me through my phone. In other words, it's last year all over again! :P
Phone Problem
Yeah, so a rather interesting thing happened with my phone today.
Background information:
But before I start, I suppose I should give a little background info on my phone: I have an LG VX9100 (enV2), the same phone that everybody and their mom has. I've never modified it or done anything fancy with it. The most complicated thing I've ever done was copy pictures off the phone via Bluetooth (which has always worked just fine). I've had the phone for about a year, and I've never had any problems with it before.
That being said, here's what happened:
How it "broke":
While hanging out with Rob and Tom (of the "NoBarKid" family), at one point, we started sharing pictures on our phones. Rob sent me one of the small default graphics from his phone to mine. It appeared correctly, but I noted that it displayed differently. From my inbox, the preview of the text was just "[Object]", and when viewing the text, it didn't give me the Erase option on the bottom-left corner (although the option still existed in the menu). The graphic was a small monochromatic 16x16(?) sprite of an umbrella. I suspect everything that I've described so far is perfectly normal, but I had never received one of those before, so I figure it's worth mentioning.
A few minutes later, he tried to send me another (much larger) default graphic, but this is where it gets weird:
I got the usual "New Text Message" notification, so I proceeded to open the text -- but when I pressed the button, my phone just froze on the New Text Message screen for a really long time. I don't know for how long, because I eventually just put it away, but it wasn't responding to any of my keypresses or anything.
Since then, my phone has been incredibly unstable:
Behavior:
- If I turn on the phone, it functions normally -- but only for a very short time.
- After a variable time of using the phone (anywhere between 3 and 30 seconds), it will freeze for about a minute, then the screen will go blank as if it were turned off. After a few seconds, it will restart (as if rebooting from a crash), and the cycle will repeat.
- Even if I don't touch the phone at all, it will still repeat the above process.
- I have not received a text since the phone started acting up, and I know that I have texts to receive. This makes me wonder if the phone is crashing in the process of attempting to download a text message. (I will later try using the phone in an area where I am less likely to get reception to test this theory)
- When I try to view the text message that screwed it up, it just appears as a few random characters.
- I can still send texts (provided I can manage to send them before the phone freezes -- which, by the way, is very difficult)
- I was even able to make a short call to a friend. The phone's screen froze mid-call (three seconds into the conversation), but interestingly, this freeze did not interrupt the call itself. However, the phone would not respond to any of my keypresses (so I believe it was he who ended the call), and the screen never updated since the call. It rebooted about a minute later, like usual.
- I can turn the phone on and off. (But I can only turn it off if I so do before the phone freezes)
- Clearing my text messages (including the two aforementioned texts with the graphics) did not solve the problem
(And I might as well mention this now: I don't know the model of his phone or which graphic he tried to send, but I can ask) Okay, I asked:
He has a Samsung SGH-E635 T-Mobile phone. The first embedded graphic he sent me was the Rain graphic, and the second text contained all three of the Cat, Dinner, and Stars graphics. He thinks the Stars graphic may have been problematic, since it is significantly larger than the other three (including the Rain graphic, which displayed properly).
Help:
I absolutely need a working phone fairly soon because I'm expecting a call from a recruiter for a phone-based technical interview in a week or so. I'm very excited about the job opportunity, so I'd hate to miss out on that just because my phone randomly decided to break.
Not to mention, my phone functions as my alarm, my watch, my camera, one of my primary forms of communication, and the only medium through which I can effectively remind Tom to wake up in time to turn in his Basic Logic homework.
So if you have any suggestions for a fix or ideas on how to isolate the problem (even if they seem stupid), please comment.
I can provide more information upon request, and I will probably make an update once I've tested more ideas.
Even if I can't fix the phone, I do want to know what happened because it sounds exploitable because it's interesting. :) *whistles*
If you read all this, I appreciate it. Thanks
tl;dr: Don't expect to be able to contact me through my phone. In other words, it's last year all over again! :P