I know I can enter the APN manually, but why whould it delete the APN Settings and then not auto detect??
APN Settings, selected Carrier/Operator/Network, and other settings can be lost whenever the phone installs software or operating system updates, installs new firmware, is hard-reset or factory-reset. Badly-written or misbehaving apps can also erase or override user settings, their background updates can do the same. And "Auto" might work one day then break on another for no apparent (or comprehensible) reason.
It happens. Maybe it wouldn't or shouldn't happen, maybe there's no explanation, but still it happens.
Understand that half the engineering that goes into a product is about making a better product, pushing efficiencies and capacities and new thresholds, making it better or faster or bigger or smaller or awesomer.
Understand that half the engineering that goes into a product is about improving the process of making a better product, pushing more quantity out the door, making it cheaper to build and easier to sell.
Today's smartphones are miraculous multi-faceted devices, pretty and powerful pocket computers with an astounding array of hardware and software capabilities. They're also mass-produced cheap junk, and they work on a complex framework built from kludges layered upon kludges. No different from any other computer or complex machine - expect problems, ignore drowning in the technical details and just focus on what works, there is no substitute for success.
