No service since the whole day, in Montreal

[YLAhisar]

Hi,

My phone has been showing "limited service' all day, and is not working for texts or calls. I live in Montreal, and my husband's Public Mobile phone is working fine, why do I have no service? I checked the battery and the sim, restarted the phone, etc. still nothing. Is there an outage in Montreal?

Thanks

[srlawren]

@YLAhisar I'm glad things are (so far) better, and wish you continued luck!

[YLAhisar]

Hi @imm1304,

The instructions you sent me for clearing the cache were very easy to follow. I have done so, and the phone is now working for a few hours.... if it stops I guess I'll try the reset, but for now it's good! Thanks for your great advice!!

@Korth, I didn't yet look at the program you mentioned as I first tried the way that @imm1304 had sent me, but if I need to I will look it up, thanks very much for your idea!

@srlawren, here is my update that the phone seems to be working following the cache clearing procedure. I had been busy all day and had no chance to try it out until this afternoon. Thank you for your help!!

Thanks to everyone for their time and advice, this is a great community! 

[srlawren]

@Korth and @imm1304, great responses!  Thanks for helping out!  Hopefully clearing the cache will help @YLAhisar without a factory reset.  Please give us an update @YLAhisar when you have had a chance to try out the cache wipe.

[Korth]

@YLAhisar

I use ES Task Manager for this.  There are many Task Manager (aka Task Killer) apps out there, but this one is free and popular and can easily be configured and actually works on my older Android device.  It also integrates nicely with ES File Explorer, though that's something else.

Your ultimate "cleaning" tool is to just remove the battery for a minute - the phone will self-reset itself during cold boot.  Though some user settings (mostly cosmetic personalization stuff) might be lost.

[imm1304]

I am happy to hear that the airplan mode on/off helped somewhat.

I am fairly confident that clearing the cache partition of your phone will resolve this issue.  Here is a link to instructions:  https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-19052

At first, just do the "wipe cache" option.  Reboot and see if problem fixed ...90% chance that it will be fixed.  If not, go back to recovery and do a factory reset.  

Don't worry, this procedure is fairly easy.. it may seem complicated at first but just keep the page open on your screen and follow step by step. 

Also, if you have to do a factory reset, make sure you backup your important files/pictures to an sd card or transfer to a computer before starting.  Good luck!  

[YLAhisar]

And sorry, I forgot to ask, how would I clear the cache?

Thanks!

[YLAhisar]

Thanks for answering!

I have a HTC Wildfire S, it's an old Android from about 5 years ago. Setting it to airplane mode as you suggested helped after doing so a few times! Service came back and some texts from earlier came in!

So, how would I then go about resetting the phone? Or is there anything else I might try first?

Thank you for your time!

[imm1304 · Accepted solution]

Hi @YLAhisar!

Since your husband's PM phone is working fine, its safe to rule out an outage in the area.. other people would have reported an outage as well.  

I think this issue may be specific to your phone.  Which phone are you using?  Many android phones had this issue.  

Try this:  enter Airplane mode on your phone.  Wait 10 seconds or more... and then disable Airplane mode.  Test to see if you got your service back.  

If yes, then you may need to clear cache and/or factory reset your phone to start working normal again.