HTC Droid Incredible Fix - DROID INCREDIBLE by HTC (Verizon) - Android Forums

I just got off the phone with an HTC rep named Matt. Armed with the knowledge I've gained from this thread and my experience with my misbehaving HTC Droid Incredible with Software Number 4.08.605.15 710RD and running Android 2.3.4, I told him of my problems with my Incredible, especially noting the 2-AM-reboot issue. He told me the problems I'm having with my Incredible are caused by the last update not being installed completely, which is indicated by the 2-AM reboots. That information was quite a revelation, considering no one on this thread seems to have that information and none of the seven previous HTC reps with whom I've communicated ever mentioned the 2-AM issue.

Anyway, Matt had me remove the battery, re-install it after about one minute, and then execute a procedure using the volume control and power button. I recall clearing cache and restarting the Incredible a couple times; it all went too fast for me to have remembered or taken notes.

Matt then told me the 2-AM-boot attempts are caused by the Incredible trying to complete an incomplete 4.08.605.15 710RD update, and, therefore, I shouldn't have removed the battery to stop the booting. Because my Incredible is usually off at 2 AM, it's only had a couple of chances to complete the update, and I foolishly defeated both of them! At 2 AM tomorrow morning, I'm to allow the Incredible to try to complete the update. If the update isn't successful, I'm to contact HTC again for further instructions.

Somewhere on the Internet, I saw an elaborate procedure for getting the 4.08.605.15 710RD to install correctly. At the time I saw the procedure, I thought the update for my Incredible was successful but the software was flawed and disregarded the procedure. Now I know the update wasn't installed completely, I guess I'd better try to find that procedure again. Stay tuned.

Here's a post I found on the Internet, which supports the HTC rep's story and adds a tad more:

"I just got this update and everything seemed to work fine until 2 am this morning. Then my phone woke me up because it was continuously rebooting and making that droid noise. After about one hour (many, many reboots) I yanked the battery. I called Verizon this morning and they told me that the multiple reboots was definitely normal. It was the process that needed to occur for the software upgrade to be successful. I laughed and asked if they were serious. They were definitely serious. Apparently this software update needs many, many reboots in order for it to successfully install. And Verizon/HTC programmed those updates to occur at 2 am for two consecutive nights so as to minimize the disruption to the phone owner. So the Verizon rep told me to deal with it for one more night and then it should be done. I just wanted to relay this info to all of the other people who are experiencing the multiple reboots at 2 am."

By the way, I, Nice-Guy, asked the HTC rep why none of the approximately seven HTC reps with whom I previously communicated connected my descriptions of my Incredible's misbehaviors with the 2-AM-update process. He apologized and said he didn't know why none of his associates hadn't mentioned the update process. Apparently, no one at Verizon informed customers about the 2-AM update process either.

Here's some more information that is shown somewhere on the HTC site, according to an Internet poster:

"WARNING: During the upgrade process the device will reboot multiple times and show software upgrade screens.

Before you proceed with the update, make sure you have done the following:

Your device is currently running Software number 4.08.605.2. If you are running older software, please contact Customer Care.
Set aside approximately 15 minutes to allow the device to update.
Connect the device to a charger.
Ensure the battery is charged to at least 35%.
You have received the notification that there is a software update available for your device.
If you have not received the notification, please wait until you do to proceed."

If an insufficient space message appears during installation, try the following cache wiping procedure (won't delete data or apps):

1. Press and hold Power. Choose "Restart" option

2. When screen turns off, press and hold Volume Down and Power.

3. When the white HBOOT screen appears, use the volume button to move down to “RECOVERY”.

4. Press the Power button to select “RECOVERY”.

5. When the Green Arrows and/or triangle and exclamation appear(s), press the Volume Up and Power button at the same time.

6. Using the volume button, scroll down to “Wipe cache partition” and select it using the Power button.

7. Select "Reboot system now".

Now there should be enough space to download and install the update(s). Verizon released two updates for the HTC Incredible. Possibly, only one was received.

Prior to 2 AM this morning, I booted my Incredible with a fully charged battery, connected charging power to the Incredible, and positioned it near my Wi-Fi source. At about 2:01 AM, the fun began.

My Incredible automatically did a complete reboot. Several minutes later, a reboot attempt began, which was followed by many more partial reboots. Most reboots only progressed to the Droid routine before beginning another reboot. A couple reboots progressed to the locked-screen display before another partial reboot began. After about ten minutes, a reboot went to completion, and there were no further reboots or partial reboots. So far as I could tell, my Incredible was operating normally at that point. So, I rebooted it to see what would happen, and the reboot went to completion in about one minute and fifteen seconds, which now seems to be the approximate boot-up time. At that point, I shut off my Incredible and went to bed.

This morning, I booted my Incredible twice, which took about one minute and 15 seconds the first time and about one minute and twenty seconds the second time. Then, I ran a variety of apps from simple to complex. All apps ran normally.

Well, one rose doesn't make a summer. Time will tell whether or not my Incredible's schizophrenia has been cured. I plan to leave my Incredible on tonight to see if it still needs a 2-AM feeding. Hopefully, this baby will sleep through the night, and dad can get some rest.

Sadly, the baby woke up at 2 AM for its feeding and went through all the steps it had the previous night. After the "update", I turned off my Incredible and went to bed. The first attempt to boot this morning was a broken play. Therefore, I used the Restart option on the Power options menu to restart my Incredible. This time booting was normal and lasted about two minutes and fifteen seconds. The Incredible has been running fine since the restart and ran fine all day yesterday up to the 2-AM boot sequence.

So, I called HTC again this morning and regaled the rep, Jackie, with all that went on at 2 AM this morning. She said the update only required one 2-AM rebooting sequence, which meant my phone was still not operating properly even though the 4.08.605.15 update appears to have been installed. She asked me if I had removed the SD card before the 2-AM update process. I told her I hadn't and had never been instructed to do so. She told me to remove the SD card before the next 2-AM updating sequence.

Jackie further had me select Menu/Settings/Accounts & Sync/Backup Assistant. Then, she had me change the Schedule from whatever it was to Every morning (6am-12pm). I asked what removing the SD card and changing the backup schedule had to do with the 2-AM issue, but she didn't know. She was just following orders. Apparently if my Incredible misbehaves tomorrow morning at 2 AM, my issue is to be escalated to a Level 2 rep.

First, here's some old business. Prior to Jackie telling me to change the schedule of the Backup Assistant, I didn't have it activated for two reasons. First, the Backup Assistant is a Verizon Wireless software, and I suspected it wouldn't work because I'm a Page Plus customer. Secondly, I use Google Voice, which automatically transfers my contact information from my desktop computer to my Incredible and vice versa. Consequently, my phone data is already backed up on my desktop computer and its backup. So, I don't think the Backup Assistant could have been causing the 2-AM reboot problem.

OK, I set up my Incredible as instructed by Jackie with the Backup Assistant active and rescheduled and the SD card removed from my Incredible. The 2-AM reboot sequence did not occur. (By the way, I wonder if unmounting the SD card would have the same effect as removing the card.) Was the 2-AM rebooting problem fixed? Maybe, but I guess I won't know until I test my Incredible again tomorrow morning at 2 AM with the SD card installed and mounted. Stay tuned.

The 2-AM test this morning with the SD card installed was a dismal failure, and I don't know exactly what went wrong. My incredible had run perfectly since early yesterday, and the battery was nearly fully charged. Nevertheless, I connected the Incredible to its wall charger about 1:35 AM in accordance with HTC instructions. To my surprise a minute or so later, the Incredible began rebooting. Only one boot occurred, and it was flawed. So, I removed and replaced the battery and then rebooted. This time the boot appeared normal to me, and I waited impatiently for 2 AM. At about 2 AM, the Incredible crashed. I again removed and replaced the battery and rebooted. I watched the boot sequence very carefully, and it appeared to be normal. My Incredible has been running perfectly since then. Obviously, more 2-AM tests must be done.

Last night, I left my Incredible on, running only on its battery, which was fully charged, and with the SD card installed and mounted. This morning the battery was down to about 40% charged, and the Incredible hadn't been rebooted. I know it hadn't rebooted because the Android Assistant app would have reported the time it took to reboot. HOWEVER, the Wi-Fi selection was unchecked, and about 29 megabytes of data had been used! I have no idea how the Wi-Fi selection managed to get unchecked. Except for that glitch, the Incredible, which I haven't turned off or restarted (rebooted), appears to be running normally.

At this point, it appears the SD card and/or its contents seem(s) to be involved in the 2-AM reboot issue. So tonight, I'm going to unmount the SD card, insure the Incredible's battery is charged, connect the Incredible to its wall charger, leave the Incredible on, and see what happens.

In addition to data and whatever, my SD card contains a number of installed and operating apps plus back-ups of all my apps. Maybe the apps installed on the SD card have something to do with the 2-AM issue.

Speaking of my SD card, I really don't understand why HTC provided 8-GBytes of internal storage when 32-GByte SD cards are available. Further, some of my apps don't know about the internal storage. In my opinion, it would have been better to have increased RAM and/or ROM rather than to have provided 8-GBytes of internal storage. Another thing about the SD card is it's flexible. That is, I can expand that function by having more than one 32-Byte SD card, although I suspect 32-GBytes is more than adequate for most users. I seem to recall Microsoft did a study and found most users don't need for more than 7 GBytes of storage, which is why they lowered free storage for SkyDrive from 25 GBytes to 7. I suspect I could get along nicely with 8 GBytes of internal storage on my Incredible if all my apps knew how to use it.

My experiments to date plus HTC information strongly indicate the SD card and/or its contents is/are heavily involved in the 2-AM problem. Last night at bedtime, I unmounted the SD card, verified Wi-Fi was working, verified the rest of the Incredible was working, and connected my Incredible to its wall charger. This morning, the Incredible had not rebooted during the night (as indicated by the Android Assistant app), the battery was fully charged, no data had been used, Wi-Fi was still functioning, and the SD card was still unmounted. I then activated the SD card, and all the apps residing on it came to life. After that, I extensively tested various aspects of the Incredible and its apps, and everything worked and is still working fine.

So until HTC develops a fix for the 2-AM problem, unmounting the SD card at least during the 2-AM window appears to be a viable workaround for the 2-AM problem. If an app residing on the SD Card is needed during the 2-AM window, move it to ROM.

A friend in South Carolina and his wife each have an Incredible. He told me he has never seen any 2-AM mischief nor any fallout from it. Sooooo, maybe the 2-AM problem is peculiar to one region or more but not to all regions. Of course, the problem could be caused by what's installed on the SD drive.

Having apparently found a way to keep the dreaded, 2-AM Monster at bay, I turned my attention to installing the TuneIn Radio app on my Incredible and configuring it for primary use as a bedside radio. So last night before climbing into bed, I was preoccupied with setting up the TuneIn Radio app and totally forgot to unmount the SD card. Guess what? You guessed it. The Monster didn't occur. Did my Incredible finally somehow get the 4.08.605.15 710RD update installed correctly? Did HTC finally vanquish the Monster? Was the failure of the Monster to occur just another schizophrenic behavior of my Incredible? Will Marsha marry John? I haven't a clue. I do know my Incredible for the first time since I've owned it has behaved beautifully for a couple days.

Two nights ago, I unmounted my Incredible's SD card before retiring, tuned into a talk program on TuneIn Radio, and set the sleep timer for 60 minutes. I went to sleep long before the timer timed out. The next morning I found the 2-AM Monster hadn't visited whilst I slept. However, the Incredible's operation was a bit suspect (e.g., the HTC screen appeared momentarily when moving from one home page to another). So, I restarted the Incredible, which had been running for about two and one-half days. As the boot didn't meet the criteria I've found to be acceptable, I shut down the phone, removed the battery for one minute, re-installed the battery, and booted my Incredible. That boot didn't meet my criteria either, and I removed and replaced the battery again before booting again. This time the boot met my criteria, and the phone has been running well ever since.

Last night, I didn't do anything but open the TuneIn Radio app, set the sleep timer to 60 minutes, and select a program to be heard. The Monster didn't visit, and the Incredible was running normally when I awoke this morning and is still running normally. If it weren't for my Incredible's history of schizophrenia, I would say the 2-AM Monster has been slayed somehow. Although my Incredible works incredibly well when its sane and the Monster doesn't visit, I doubt I'll stay with the HTC brand, especially considering the state of HTC.

The Monster didn't appear last night again. I fell asleep listening to a talk show on TuneIn Radio, and this morning the Incredible was operating normally. I used around eight apps or so this morning and even accessed a web page from a URL embedded in an e-mail. I logged onto that web page, used its facilities, and then logged off successfully. The Incredible is still operating normally and is charging as I write this post. I still haven't needed to resort to a factory reset. A response from my last post to Adam would be nice.

Still going... The Monster didn't arrive in the wee hours of this morning, and my Incredible continues to work well. So far, there's been no need to perform the factory reset recommended by HTC, which makes me a bit suspicious of the recent fix procedure provided by them. After all, I've been told there's nothing wrong with the Incredible, there's one bad third-party app or more installed, to clear cache and allow update to occur, to allow update to occur with SD card removed and Backup Assistant rescheduled, and, most recently, the procedure that includes a factory reset.

By the way, the update had been installed when I received the factory-reset Incredible from the seller. So, that factory reset didn't help the situation. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly what made my Incredible start operating properly and probably never will know. Of course, the problem may just be dormant and return again any moment.

The events that seemed to help were deselecting Fast boot, clearing cache and allowing update to occur again, and the off-the-wall event. That event didn't involve a 2-AM update but did automatically turn off Wi-Fi, use many megabytes of data, and substantially drain the battery. (I hadn't connected the wall charger.) Strange as it may seem, my Incredible seemed to work better after the off-the-wall event.

Once again, the Monster didn't visit my Incredible in the wee ,morning hours. No factory reset has been needed. My Incredible continues to run well and hasn't been turned off and rebooted for days. Could it be HTC turned off the dreaded 2-AM update? Or, did my Incredible get with the program by accident?

Yawn! Gee, it's getting boring. The Monster doesn't call nor write, and my Incredible continues to work properly. What will I do with all my spare time if the Monster never writes nor calls and my Incredible just works?

Borrrring! The Monster didn't make its 2-AM visit again! OMG, can it be those visitations are actually over? I'm afraid the Monster is Lucy, I'm Charlie Brown, and she's going to pull the football away just when I think everything is OK.

Another night without the Monster has passed. I wonder when I'll feel the Monster is actually gone?

OK, I'm going to put this issue in the customer-win column inasmuch as the Monster didn't pay my Incredible a visit again last night. Now, that should entice the Monster to come again if she/he is still alive.

As Steve Jobs often said, there is one more thing. I saw no indication variable booting changed with any changes I made to my Incredible. Because my Incredible seemed to boot properly the last time I did it and because I have had no need to reboot my Incredible in any fashion since that time, I don't have any current information about the booting issue.

I consider a good boot one that goes through all the steps I learned by close observation of many boots, takes about two minutes and fifteen seconds plus or minus about five seconds, and leaves the Incredible in a stable operating condition. In my opinion, it's best to leave the Incredible on for as long as possible after achieving a good boot. Just recharge the battery as necessary and let the good times roll.