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Verizon working on HTC DROID Eris weather widget issue, still investigating other problems

by Michael Oryl on May 26, 2010 5:15 pm

HTC DROID Eris for Verizon

I got word back from a Verizon Wireless rep moments ago regarding all of the complaints we are seeing in comments about the recent HTC DROID Eris Android 2.1 over the air firmware update. We were told that the tech gurus are already working on the weather widget issue, but that other less frequently cited problems (such as missing call audio and message notification issues) have not been properly documented yet.

I was advised that people with problems other than the weather widget should call Verizon Wireless or bring their DROID Eris to a Verizon Wireless retail store. Verizon is somewhat skeptical of anonymous internet chatter, but will put a heck of a lot more weight on something that they can experience more directly and link to actual customers.

So, you want to get a fix to your problems? Call Verizon by dialing 611 from your Verizon phone or (800) 922-0204 from any phone and seek tech support. Tell them what the problem is, when it started happening, and how to duplicate it.

Michael Oryl

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Comments

Warren

Will Droid Eris ever get 2.2 Froyo?
Karla Martins

I have had nothing but trouble with Facebook AP and widget since I updated the software to Eris 2.1.
James Davis

Since the update to 2.1 from vzw I’ve had to reset my phone to the factory reset and am still have issues using my blue tooth headset ever since. Calls were going out people were recieving them, but could not hear me, and i could not here them. Had to finally turn off the blue tooth setting in my droid Eris… What is VZW going to do about this.
AMendez

My phone received the 2.1 upgrade. Since then my phone has powered off, deleted all my text messages, very frustrating since I refer to those to keep convos going. I am frustrated with this phone doing things like that. Any ideas on how to get this corrected?
sezme

First, I still like my phone. Getting the Google Nav was my target from the beginning and I just couldn’t justify the Droid. However, I have to say the update is buggy and I sincerly hope a fix is in the works. Calls freeze in mid conversation, 3 way calls don’t work at all. Nav text to speech works sporadically, Oddly, the camera doesn’t seem to work as well. I’m sure there’s more that I have not discovered yet. Reboot seems to work but having to do that once a day puts my brother’s advice to go with iPhone squarely in the “I told you so” corner. Darn, I hate it when he’s right.
dmennenoh

This phone was nice until 2.1 was pushed to it. Now it’s a pile of crap. I can’t hear people when they call me, sometimes dialing takes 5 – 10 seconds for a number to register – facebook pics are blurry if they show at all – weather doesn’t work – camera has loads of problems. All in all the 2.1 turned my phone into a useless paper weight. Nice going Verizon and HTC – way to beta test your software.
east boston

2.1 upg – now having trouble with voice. People can hear me, I can’t hear them. Happens intermittently with send and recieve. Phone appears to lock up sometimes and I can’t make a call. Went to Verizon store today. They don’t have any diagnostic software. Willing to replace phone with a new one w/ 1.5 OS, then I can upg to 2.1. Doesn’t make much sense unless 2.1 is patched.

I was the second one with the same problem according to one techrep, but as I opted to not exhange, my problem was not recorded in the system, so Verizon can safely say “We are not aware of any problems with the 2.1 upgrade.
Mike

I have had all of the above problems with my phone. SO I decided to call tech support and see what happens.

Long story short they blamed it on the phone not updating correctly and had me pull the battery out of the phone then reprogram it by dialing *228 then selecting option 1.

My phone seems to be working properly now….but it has only been a few minutes since the ‘fix’. We shall see….
Michael

Loved the Eris and still do, but 2.1 is really frustrating. Problems I’ve encountered include: Phone not ringing/not getting message notifications, not able to hear or be heard during calls, Phone has suddenly shutoff and reset a couple of times. Not to mention the significant slow down of most functions. Android 2.1 is awesome, but I just don’t think the Eris was made to run it.
http://howbuds.com How-Buds

Hi all..I have had nothing but an awesome time with my Erie since the 2.1 OTA upgrade. No issues as others are experiencing. Battery management, speed of web, camera, weather updates, etc. all running excellent. I purchase my Eris in November 2009 so I can say without a doubt that the upgrade was just that…like a new, sweet smartphone! Here is my question… how many of u performed the OTA from a OEM 1.5 Android OS? I am guessing that others on so many blogs with issues may have performed some, well, u know, something that made their update perform so poorly. Think about Verizon & HTC software engineers making the update for a stock 1.5 to 2.1 OS. Please remember I am only just thinking out loud cause again my Eris is like a whole new phone & working wonderfully. So to conclude if Verizon does offer a patch or patches, what about those folks that aren’t having any issues whatsoever?
Nate

I found this on another site and it resolved all of the weather widget problems for me

Go to
Settings/applications/manage applications/weather provider/clear data

Then go to
Settings/accounts and sync/weather/sync now
Kimberly

I got my Eris on April 15. I was COMPLETELY happy with it. Loved it. Made no changes to it (that’s to How-Buds)

Then I did the upgrade. Since then:
1) I drop phone calls at least 5x a day
2) My phone deletes contacts/removes phone numbers from contacts/unlinks contacts and facebook profiles regularly (sometimes they relink, come back, other times not). By regularly I mean several times a week. I will spend an hour getting everything back to normal, the next day it’s all gone again.
3) Internet is much, much slower.
4) Calendar Force Quits if I try to view it. It is 100% useless.
5)Spontaneously turns ringer off.
6) Annoying vibration sound when call is happening.
7) (And probably the biggest thing). When I try to make a call, about
a) 1/3 of the time, the call goes through normally.
b)1/3 of the time, the phone acts like nothing is happening and then after 10-15 seconds, the call goes through. Frequently, at that point I am trying to redial, I hit CALL right as it finally dial and I end up ENDING the call accidentally. And the other c)1/3 of the time, it blinks off to a white or HTC screen for 1/2 second and then pretends I didn’t do anything. But when it happens, I don’t know if it is going to dial eventually like in b. So I have to wait.
8) Twitter App & Pandora only work about 60% of the time.
9) Photo sharing to picasa or twitter only works 10% of the time.
10) Phone turns off and restarts at least 2x a week
11) I rarely have more than 1 bar of service, frequently none. In places where i had 2-4 before.
12) People OFTEN can’t hear me.

This has made my phone ridiculously frustrating and hard to use. My sister was going to buy a Droid, but after all of this, she just got a Blackberry Storm today. I AM SO JEALOUS! I hate that I made a decision on my phone, loved it until JUST after my 30 day return period, and now hate it. Hate.
Mar

I’m having the same problem with my weather Widget and am hoping for a fix soon.
Jim Z

I bought my Droid Eris in mid February and I loveddd it; only complaint was battery life and i dl advanced task killer free edition and it has helped but the battery is still a weakness on this phone. Ever since i got the automatic s/w update downloaded onto my phone 2.1 my eris has turned to JUNK!!! As many people have posted here the sound for me is the biggest problems are:
1. i have to reboot my phone at least 15x a day because i lose all sound i get calls people cant hear me i cant hear them, and the ringer just goes silent, no vibrate or ringer.
2. the signal is up and down all the time i never had issues with signal strength before
3. Internet browser likes to force close by itself for no reason
4. Rolling ball will just go nuts and flash white even though i dont have any new mail or msgs. I’m sure there’s more wonderful items on the way, I went to VZW store yesterday Tech rep was real snotty and did a factory reset and was 100% confident i wouldn’t have any more issues. It worked last night cause i got no phone calls but sure enough today i already had to reset 5x so i called 611 and the rep told me they hadn’t heard of any sound issues at all which was shocking since all over these android forums that seems like it’s a #1 complaint. I’m going to VZW store today and demanding a new Eris with 1.5 on it; 2.1 really is a P.O.S bigtimeee way to go HTC.
Jen

Same problem as everyone else. I know why there’s no sound though…it’s because the sound profile resets itself to “silent” every 10 minutes or so. Even when the phone is powered on. It sucks! I can’t stand it. My apps lock up, I’m missing calls, even if I set it to vibrate. I lost most of my “people” in the upgrade too! I absolutely hate the phone now.
Victoria

I am so disappointed in this phone. I bought in November 2009 and loved it up until May 29th or so. I updated to Android 2.1 and since then the problems have been persistant and any attempt at a fix is futile. Rebooting solves the problem until I make a second call or someone calls me. I love google Navigation but hell – I’ll go back to google maps/directions if I can just get 1.5 back! Sadly, HTC didn’t even recognize the Droid Eris on their website for the longest time after it’s initial release. HTC makes a good phone, but when I’m due for my upgrade – HTC may have lost a customer.
Daphne

Same issues. I don’t have much on my Phone. It was so great at first. My son has one as well. He received the download first. I told him to wait, I’ll do it first. Good thing. I did not like that it takes you back to factory defaults for many items. This is an operating platform correct? I don’t do this for my pc. At any rate, weather widget irks me. Forces close. Upon receiving a call the finger progressively decreases on its own. Phone vibrates while I’m making a call.1 bar of service. People can’t hear me. When I make a call the phone used to pick the mobile number as priority, however, now picks home number. I’ve also had problems with Bluetooth. I’m not happy. Sure I got navigation, but I thought it was all supposed to work together.
Steve

Anyone have any updates on if Verizon is working on a fix for the call audio issue. My phone works fine, but my wife got the update on her phone and since then has had a lot of trouble with making and receiving calls. There is no audio, but the call seems to go through and connect. Verizon even switched out her phone to a new (refurbished) one and that one has the same problem. Restarting the phone is a temporary fix, but they need to address it. She went to a VZW store today and their “tech” guy told her to remove the battery once a week and that should fix it. That is not a fix, that is a work around.
Nuadi

Nate, thanks. Worked for me too. :)
Beth

I have experienced most of the same. My calendar won’t sync with Microsoft Exchange anymore, my contacts are all messed up and I can’t even add appointments to my calendar’s main page without a FC crashing in on me. This is so upsetting. I LOVED my phone before the update. I mean I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread – now I am so dissapointed. I feel like I had the best phone ever and now it has been taken away from me. I am absolutely going to call Verizon support and report these issues, and I will even go into a Verizon store if I can’t get any help over the phone!
Patty

Did not receive the update, so I downloaded it elsewhere. No problems except weather widget not working. I’m having trouble downloading some programs, for example, Skype. Coudl this be because I didn’t get the “official” version?
Matt

Received the update OTA and had the problem of not being able to hear when someone called me or when I called them. I would turn the phone off and turn it back on where I would find it working again but it would then stop working after about 15 mins. I took the phone into my Verizon store and the lady already had had a few cases where this was happening. She told me the best thing to do was just to get a replacement phone. After receiving my replacement phone in the mail, I haven’t had a single problem with anything about it. Works great and 2.1 is so much better than 1.5. Much faster and battery life is absolutely amazing. Will have it on all day and with 1.5 the battery life would be almost out but with 2.1 my battery life at the end of the day is around 70-75%!
Ak

I don’t understand any of yalls complaints my phone performs better now then ever before!!! No problems of any you speak of. I know half of yalls problems came from not having a full battery before you started the update!! It will not install proprley with a low battery hence all the eff’in problems your having!!!!!
Martin

Thanks Nate worked for me to. Weather issue is gone.
Alan

I have loved my Eris up until today. I would try calling people… they could hear me, but I didn’t hear anything, not even the ringing. I restarted my phone and now my haptic vibration no longer works?! I mean, how can I tell when I pressed a button correctly?! Not to mention all of my contacts went out of sync.

UGH! I am going to Verizon tomorrow.
Sarah

I loved my Droid Eris before the update. But since the update to Android 2.1 it is always freezing up, and it runs a lot slower. i have been having trouble with calls and messaging too. That’s not all, it seems everything on my Eris is out of whack; nothing works like it is supposed to/ or like it did. This update is not worth it, and I would like to know if there is a way to get rid of it.
Sarah

P.S. I had great service before the update, never dropped a call, but now I rarely get more than 1 or 2 bars. I hate this update.
aaron

The post below worked perfectly!!!
Thanks Nate!

Nate Jun 1st, 2010 at 5:53 PM I found this on another site and it resolved all of the weather widget problems for me

Go to
Settings/applications/manage applications/weather provider/clear data

Then go to
Settings/accounts and sync/weather/sync now
rebekah

Verizon is half of the problem with phone issues. They should back their products and they rarely do. Most often times they just state “Really? We’ve dont have any record of the phone’s having __ type of issues”.

HTC Droid Eris is a great phone, obviously the make of the HTC Incredible shows that they realize this phone should have more internal memory capability…however since the 2.1 upgrade we have had issues with:

1. Phone deletes contacts about every other day. VZW blames Google and once again I say… back your product and resolve the issue, dont play blame games

2. Phone responds slower…internet slower, app opening slower etc.

For all of you who had great success with 2.1 good for you but dont minimize other peoples issues. Product quality has to be qualitative as much as quantitative and 30/70 working quality just doesnt cut it when you pay 200 bucks out of pocket for these types of smart phones.
Jodi

Loved my Eris Droid BEFORE the update, TOTALLY HATE IT NOW! I used to try to get all my friends to go to Verizon but now it’s embarrassing! Verizon you are about to loose a loyal customer, Eris you F’d up.

I have these same issues, most irritating:

Can’t make a call, can’t hear a call, they can’t hear me. Hangs up and drops Bluetooth connection in my car and then the speaker option on the phone won’t even work. Have to turn off 1-2 times a day to get it to work again, JUST TO MAKE A CALL!

Blank emails in the preview screen.

Volume is out of control, can’t turn in call volume down.

Contacts are always refreshing so this takes a moment or two when I go to make a call from favorites list.

This is just the main problems many more as stated above. I feel a class action coming on.

If you can’t fix it, don’t break it VERIZON/ERIS who ever you are!
Laurel

Yup, had nothing but problems since the 2.1 download. It’s making me crazy!
Michael

Both tricks – cleaning weather provider data and full reboot of OS (long push of power switch/power off then power switch again)worked for me: 1st fixed weather widget problem, 2nd fixed the Bluetooth problem. Reboot was done twice.
It’s not the battery issue during the upgrade (my battery was 100% charged because I had this problem with Sony Reader before).
Have no problem with phone performance since the upgrade – probably because uninstalling all cool crap. TaskKiller helps a lot.
summer

I just spoke with Amber who is a tech support supervisor and was completely shut down on this problem (HTC eris 2.1 update). All of the well documented phone problems since the update are now happening to my wifes phone and our business is suffering because of it. How can we be compensated for business and customers already lost by my company due to this problem? When i asked who is responsible for the update coming on to the phone, she blamed HTC. My issue is that we bought our phone from verizon and pay money to verizon so why am i needing to call HTC? They are taking advantage of the convoluted mess of having three companies involved being google, HTC and Verizon. Getting the same useless phone as a replacement is not the answer to our problems as we continually lose money with our phone based business. My wife and I were both very happy customers at Verizon until this update and the response. We had a fair proposal that would make the situation right which Verizon will not agree to. Amber compared it to buying a tv at walmart and that any problems with the item must be taken up with the manufacturer outside of the warranty. I say that is apples and oranges since a phone is made up of the hardware, software and service and much different than a TV. This kind of dumb analogy is an insult. It’s more like the cable company(verizon) selling you a tv then zapping it with something that breaks it. Please fix this VERIZON or you will hear from a lawyer soon and lose many customers!
Jeff

I just spent 1 hour wiht Verizon customer service demanding resolution to the many problems both my wife and I have experienced with these phones since the 2.1 update. After all the transfers I finally got a supervisor on the phone who basically told me it was not their problem. He offered nothing but appologies but no solution. He even went so far to tell me that he has not heard of any problems with the 2.1 update. Total denial. We have been customers of Verizon for 8 years, it would appear that customer loyalty does not carry any weight. Very dissatisfied.
Lena

I too am having problems with the Eris after the 2.1 update. I would be interested in knowing anyone is having problems with the camera and if so, is there a fix? When I try to take a picture the track ball engages but the shutter doesn’t engage. The camera just freezes and then goes to a black screen. After experiencing this problem several times I took the phone to Verizon and the tech couldn’t replicate the problem so he wouldn’t acknowledge I was having the problem. He told me to remove the battery and let the phone reboot. From what I have read that seems to be the pat answer to every problem. This is not a solution, especially when you are trying to capture a moment. Extremely frustrated that is what they are calling a fix. Something else I have noticed is that the phone prematurely sends my emails and messages before I tap the send button. I will be typing the message and off it goes before I even finish the word. That is really annoying.
Karen Inclan

My Droid Eris isn’t working i can’t hear anything and what should i do? :(