Pre3 spontaneous reset on slider closing

[bethel95]

In the past 3-4 weeks my Pre3 (2.2.4; I've had it for 4 months) will occasionally spontaneously restart when I slide the keyboard closed. At first, I thought it was happening when I had just flicked an app closed then closed the slider, but I've recently noticed it can also happen if closing with JustType search results displayed, and even once with nothing going on (I had been viewing an app, and had opened the slider to wake up the screen).

This is happening about 5% of the time when I close the slider, but not with any consistency. Sometimes it's done it twice in the space of a half hour, other times I've gone 3-4 days without an occurrence.

I'm guessing that it's a hardware flaw, but before I contact my warranty company about it, I thought I'd check and see if others are experiencing this (which might indicate a webOS bug, if it's at all widespread).

Chime in if you've also ever had this happen to you, even if only once!

[netwrkr9]

I've had my Pre 3 for 1 year now and I have never had this issue.

[bricia]

I have the same issue. I have noticed that if i close with force it reset automatically. But if i close the keyboard softly it work well. I think that it can be caused by battery that move itself in the phone when i close it fast and with force.
Any other have this issue??

[Herrie]

I had the same with one of my Veers. Took out battery, put it back and Doctored. That combination seems to have solved it. Just battery didn't do the trick, so I guess the Doctor fixed it eventually.

[ToniCipriani]

I had this issue sparingly. But instead of reset, it just loses power completely, so I think it might be more of a battery problem for mine. Hasn't happen lately though.

[bricia]

Ok, so i can try to remove battery, insert it in again and doctor my pre3. When i have a minut try this!
I think the problem is mechanical: i slide to close the keyboard, the phone vibrate and for a while the battery not give current becouse it move inside the slot and don't touch the power connector. I think to fix it with a piece of paper that keep the battery in place.. or something else similar.
What you think?
Luca

[Remy X]

The good old slider crash...

They said it was fixed before the Pre+ launched, but after two years, my Pre+ developed it. If the Pre3 and the Veer have it, i'm really not surprised.

See here for the fix:

Slider crashes inspire MacGyver solution | webOS Nation

[bricia]

it work!!! Perfectly!
with a little piece of paper I fix it!!
Thanks all!!

[kaidoloor]

I have experienced Pre3 random resets and it seems to relate to some homebrew patches. So the doctoring helped. Until I forgot about it, and applied some pathes again, getting to random resets agains. So doctored again, and now ok.

Kaido

[bethel95]

Originally Posted by Remy X

The good old slider crash...

They said it was fixed before the Pre+ launched, but after two years, my Pre+ developed it. If the Pre3 and the Veer have it, i'm really not surprised.

I removed my Pre3's battery and compared it to the battery from my Pre+. The Pre+'s battery had flat contact plates parallel and slightly indented from the top edge of the battery. These matched up with spring-loaded contacts in the Pre+ battery compartment. I can see how a slider closing could result in a crash if one of the spring-loaded contacts was pushed in just a bit.

The Pre3 battery uses a different design. Instead of flat contact plates, it has thin slots in the top edge of the battery, with contact plates on both sides of each slot. The battery compartment contacts are thin wires that fit into the slots in the battery. I would have thought that this arrangement would have prevented a slider crash, as any shock would at most cause the contacts to slide around in the battery slots, but not so as to lose electrical continuity. Further, the "piece of paper" approach wouldn't seem to provide a better contact.

None the less, after replacing my battery, I didn't have a slider crash for over a week--I thought that the problem was solved. About a week ago, though, the slider crashes returned, so now I'm considering jamming in some paper at the bottom of the battery anyway, just to see what would happen.

In the meantime, I'm squeezing the sides a bit while closing the slider in order to achieve a "soft" closing (as opposed to a sharp snap). So far, no slider crashes when I've done that.

Given the different geometry of the Pre3 battery, I'm unable to make sense of my experience. Guess it's just another example of when logic and observation contradict one another, just believe what your eyes tell you.

[kyle3om]

Originally Posted by bethel95

In the past 3-4 weeks my Pre3 (2.2.4; I've had it for 4 months) will occasionally spontaneously restart when I slide the keyboard closed. At first, I thought it was happening when I had just flicked an app closed then closed the slider, but I've recently noticed it can also happen if closing with JustType search results displayed, and even once with nothing going on (I had been viewing an app, and had opened the slider to wake up the screen).

This is happening about 5% of the time when I close the slider, but not with any consistency. Sometimes it's done it twice in the space of a half hour, other times I've gone 3-4 days without an occurrence.

I'm guessing that it's a hardware flaw, but before I contact my warranty company about it, I thought I'd check and see if others are experiencing this (which might indicate a webOS bug, if it's at all widespread).

Chime in if you've also ever had this happen to you, even if only once!

I have one particular battery that always did this. I guess it was shorter than the others. So I put tape on one end to really wedge it in place and it never did this again.

[Remy X]

Hmm, thanks for the analysis, bethel95

At least they tried to do something to improve the design...

However, it only takes a split second of one of the pins being disconnected, before the hardware will use up all the power stored in the mainboard and crash. If the battery reconnects quickly enough, the OS will crash but the phone will remain powered on, if it's marginally longer, it'll result in a full shutdown.

Thing is, unlike a desktop computer, the phone doesn't have those big fat inductor coils ("doughnuts" wrapped in coils of copper wire), so it is less able to handle a momentary "brownout".

It's almost like the electronic components manufacturer that had a millisecond power outage cause their equipment to screw up a large batch of microchips... it may have been a laser that was responsible for the damage, but i no longer remember the name of the company... i think it happened last year or the year before..

I understand the idea behind the newer battery design, but still don't trust it to be perfect enough in real life, with keyboard slams, accidental drop-kicks and thermal expansion. If it fails, it still fails, a well known 1st gen problem in a 4th generation device...

[bethel95]

Originally Posted by Remy X

I understand the idea behind the newer battery design, but still don't trust it to be perfect enough in real life, with keyboard slams, accidental drop-kicks and thermal expansion. If it fails, it still fails, a well known 1st gen problem in a 4th generation device...

FYI, after a full week of my "soft" slider-closing experiment, I've had no further slider crashes.

Given the design of the Pre3 battery connectors, I'm wondering if tape on the side (rather than the bottom) of the battery would help.

[ToniCipriani]

Originally Posted by bethel95

FYI, after a full week of my "soft" slider-closing experiment, I've had no further slider crashes.

Given the design of the Pre3 battery connectors, I'm wondering if tape on the side (rather than the bottom) of the battery would help.

Or maybe a foam pad on the opposite side of the contacts.

[ToniCipriani]

Mine just did it again. Strangely wasn't triggered by the slide, but me lifting the phone off the Touchstone. The other strange thing is, I notice if I deliberately try to trigger it, it won't reset.

I'm actually starting to think if it could be something loose inside my phone, in particular with the slider cable or something, cause I actually dropped mine quite a lot.

[bethel95]

Originally Posted by ToniCipriani

Mine just did it again. Strangely wasn't triggered by the slide, but me lifting the phone off the Touchstone. The other strange thing is, I notice if I deliberately try to trigger it, it won't reset.

I'm actually starting to think if it could be something loose inside my phone, in particular with the slider cable or something, cause I actually dropped mine quite a lot.

Still so far, so good for me, as long as I don't snap-close my phone. Even when I forget, it resets only about 25% of the time.

Based on the poll numbers, this doesn't appear to be a wide-spread issue.

I just purchased a new battery--after I put it in, I'll have to see if I can still force the reset. If not, then it might be a battery issue, not a problem with the handset.

[ToniCipriani]

As for the battery, I can confirm it happens to both stock and Mugen batteries/

[bethel95]

After installing the new battery and snapping the slider closed several dozen times, I'm unable to force a reset.

Given that I didn't experience the reset until 5 months after I bought my Pre3, I'm definitely beginning to suspect that the contacts on the HP batteries somehow loosen up over time until the reset problem begins. Given that not all Pre3s exhibit this, however, I further suspect that there's some variation in the manufacturing outcome that makes some handsets susceptible to this while others aren't.

Of course, if it turns out that the reset issue never returns with the new battery, then I'm going to blame it all on variability in battery manufacture.

[namgod]

Had this problem when I first got my Pre+. Palm must have known about the problem because the battery compartment had two plastic bumpers stuck on the rear of the compartment to increase battery tension against the contacts. My problem was solved by cleaning the battery contacts with alcohol. I thought that new batteries may come with an anti-corrosion coating on the terminals although probably not if they're gold. Haven't had the "reboot on close" since. (May 2010) I have moved on to a Pre2 which I practice the same procedure on and have never had a problem.

[kaidoloor]

One more thing to try: if you have a SIM phone, make sure the SIM card is has a good contact.

Kaido