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View Full Version : Strange cell phone problem: old "dumb phone" is frozen, trying to connect to bluetooth. For days!



George
April 4th, 2014, 08:22 AM
Answer: Get a damn iPhone like your wife and stop whining at us.

Signed,

Everyone reading this.

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Okay, now that that's out of the way, I have a Sony Ericsson C905a, which was a great camera-phone in its day, with the emphasis on CAMERA. 8.1 megapixel, and looks a lot more like a camera than a telephone. I got it when our kids were maybe two years old - they'll be six in May, and it has been a superb device to carry for my needs - a telephone so my wife can ask me to get milk on the way home from work and a camera to document our kids' lives so far. I have thousands of pictures of them taken with this camera, and of course all the silly car sightings and bicycle and guitar pictures I bore you guys with.

http://www.mobilephonekings.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/sony-ericsson-c905a-.jpg

A few days ago - Monday, I think, and now it's Friday morning, I left the USB cable for this phone in my car and rather than walk over to the parking garage to get it, I attempted to connect to my laptop here at work via bluetooth to transfer some pictures I took over the weekend for the Cycling thread.

I turned on Bluetooth on the laptop and the phone, made each visible, etc. Since then - on Monday morning - my phone has been "frozen" on a screen showing a progress bar just spinning but not doing anything and a message saying: "[Name of my laptop] Adding - The other device must enter same passcode".

Nothing ever displayed on the laptop and I wanted to cancel the whole thing because I had the cable anyway, but I can't get the phone to do anything at all. I can't turn it off, I can't make a call, and I can't get to any other screen or menu. I can't access the camera function, which usually turns on when I open the lens door on the front. Or back. Whichever side that is.

I can, however, answer incoming calls. I know because I called it from my office phone and left both phones off the hook for about an hour, thinking I'd kill the battery. I had foolishly just charged it, thinking that plugging it into the computer via USB might trigger something to change on the phone. No dice. I hung up after about an hour when I realized I didn't want to get killed for minutes on the next bill. I have the most minimum plan available because I rarely call anyone on the cell other than my wife and the occasional craigslist guitar deal, but that's pretty rare. I don't text, either.

Anyway, that was Monday and this thing won't die. It still has a good 50% charge left!

Oh well, I don't expect anyone here to have any specific solution, but talking about this is more fun than working on a Friday morning when I got my week's work done in 40 hours Monday - Thursday and now can just play catch-up with the less urgent stuff.

I haven't googled even once, well, except to find the picture above. Does anyone make an equivalent phone to this today - I'd like a basic telephone, texting capability unimportant, no smart anything, NO ADDITIONAL MONTHLY FEES TO USE IT, and a nice camera built in?

I suspect what I have is on its last legs and was probably the last of the cool dumb phones - sort of like the "missing link" between the old rubber-encased Nokias that everyone had it the early '00s and todays computer-phones that everyone but me carries around.

Hey, I dig iPhones. My wife has one. But I REFUSE to pay even a penny more a month, simply because I work a mere five miles from my house and I am overwhelmed with computing power in both places, and if I needed to borrow her iPhone for some reason, like the trip to Nevada that my company keeps threatening me with, I could borrow hers.

Assuming there's nothing like I have now anymore, are the cameras in cheap flip-phones any good these days? Seems like just a few years ago you never heard "cell phone picture" without the word "crappy" first. I wouldn't mind springing for a $25 (or whatever they cost) flip-phone if it will take pictures as well as my 8.1 megapixel one does.

Random
April 4th, 2014, 08:27 AM
You can't just pull the battery to reset it?

George
April 4th, 2014, 08:37 AM
Don't know how to access the battery. Seriously. Will google. Thanks.

Apparently it's major surgery. This video is over seven minutes long.

There isn't a door to open as on most other battery-powered things.

Instead of tearing into my phone, I'll just keep waiting for it to die, but wow, this sure is taking a long time. Sometimes my phone will lose a charge in a day but now it's apparently in Marathon Mode. :lol:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXlnDDgdo6g

Random
April 4th, 2014, 08:54 AM
Ah, you have one of those phones. Sucks to be you. ;)

George
April 4th, 2014, 09:19 AM
Nah, my life is great lately. This is trivial.

Here's my latest soooper-genius moment:

Just called my cell phone from my desk phone and answered it. I had access to the Menu while the call was active! Awesome! So I turned Bluetooth (which I never use anyway) back to OFF, where it belongs, returned to the main screen, and triumphantly hung up.

Ha!

Oh, what's this?

"[Name of my laptop] Adding - The other device must enter same passcode".

Sucks to be me.

Alan P
April 4th, 2014, 09:23 AM
I take it holding the power button for ten seconds does nothing?

thesameguy
April 4th, 2014, 09:29 AM
If it's any consolation, iPhones sometimes get stuck in an infinite Bluetooth loop too. We've had to dispose of a couple of them for that reason.

George
April 4th, 2014, 09:33 AM
Alan, that's correct. I've held it down for a minute or two.

It's not a bad problem to have - I don't need to call anyone, but it's just strange.

Kchrpm
April 4th, 2014, 12:02 PM
Often devices without a removable battery will have a Reset button hidden behind a pinhole. I can't find info on it for that phone, though...

Rob
April 5th, 2014, 01:09 AM
While you're on a call from another phone, can you not navigate to the settings menu and perform a master settings reset?

George
April 5th, 2014, 07:22 AM
Fortunately, I didn't have to try a master settings reset. The phone was dead this morning and I charged it. It's back to normal.

Another Drama Of The Week now can slip quietly away into the mists of time.

Thanks all.

Alan P
April 5th, 2014, 05:30 PM
According to this user guide (http://www-support-downloads.sonymobile.com/c905/userguide_EN_C905_1212-2838.2.pdf) there should be a removable battery?

Bah glad you got it working. Bookmark that though.

George
April 5th, 2014, 06:07 PM
Done. Thanks Alan.