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alex_ncfc

Hi all,

Firstly this post is for my housemate's phone, not for myself.

Basically he had an iPhone a year ago and it broke, so I convinced him to go down the Android route, more specificially, I recommended Sony and he liked the look of the Z5 Compact so he got that.

But I have to say he is constantly fed up and disappointed with this phone and asking me questions about how to solve the issues etc and I have tried everything I can think of but I can't! The battery life is shocking (down to 40% by midday) and worse of all is the wifi connection. It's constantly causing problems.

The wifi issue - he will be scrolling down Facebook and then suddenly met with a spinning loading wheel (you know the one) even though the WIFI icon is present in the top status bar with full bars. Same again, in Facebook Messenger - he will go into Messenger and it will say "Waiting for connection" - even though, again, he has full WIFI bars at the top! Thirdly, with WhatsApp - he sends a message to someone - it will just show the small clock icon next to the message, which means it hasn't even been sent to the contact yet. You guessed it, full WIFI coverage (and it isn't just limited to these apps) What is this all about? I've been in the wifi settings, I've tried various things such as forgetting the connection and trying again, but for whatever reason, his phone has these problems, and mine never does - but we live in the same house and therefore are both connect to the same WIFI router!

The other issue is battery. He got the phone as it promised "3 day battery life" - which I knew was bull and I said this at the time but I said he should be able to get at least a day or 2 before charging. Nope. Ever since he got the phone brand new, battery life has been absolutely dire. I have tried everything again, turning off bluetooth and wifi scanning, and checking for rogue apps but nothing seems to help. Every time a new Android version or system update comes out for the Z5 Compact, I tell him it will probably fix the battery life. But no, he can be down to 40-30% by midday, which is pathetic. He doesn't have Bluetooth or GPS on and I can't see anything that could be eating the battery life.

The one thing I don't want to be advised is to do a factory reset for him - I did this 2 months ago, after months of telling him "Trust me, a factory reset will sort out the battery issue and may even solve the WIFI one" - he reluctantly got around to asking me to do a factory reset for him, and it made absolutely zero difference.

What is it then with this phone? I have had Xperias since the X10, and the Xperia S, Z1 Compact and now the X Compact, and none have ever had these issues, hence why I recommended Sony to him when he was looking for a new phone last year. But I am out of ideas of what to suggest next, I feel I've tried everything. Just what is causing the WIFI connectivity issues, and the short battery time?? I think out of the two, he is most frustrated by the WIFI issues, which I can understand as a) I don't have them with my Xperia X Compact and we are on the same WIFI router, and b) you can clearly see the phone is connected to WIFI at the top, but it just acts as if it isn't connected. There isn't even a "!" symbol next to the WIFI symbol.

Any ideas would be appreciated, as he is constantly telling me that Sony phones are terrible and with these issues it's hard not to agree with his view!

Thanks

AlexandruRai

1. Assure yourself if the phone has the 32.2.A.5.11 system upgrade. I also had many problems with it until this upgrade. Now are none.

2. Close/disable Google search at least.

3. Activate Stamina mode all the time.

Good luck!

MarlonUk1

1.) having a full wifi bar doesnt mean fast connection,

2.) at what advert did it say that the device has 3 days battery life?

if he is a power user (likely to use the phone heavily , any device would not last more than a day)

try to perform a software repair using Xperia Companion

or if the problems still doesnt get fixed by the software repair, send the device to a local service center Local support

http://www.xperiablog.net/2017/01/23/43791/

alex_ncfc

1) I never said the wifi was fast, or expecting a fast connection - having wifi indicators in the status bar might not indicate speed, but it does indicate a wifi connection which should load. If you'd read my post properly, you'd see that apps are saying "no connection" when there is clearly one indicated by the wifi icon in the status bar.

2) When the phone was released Sony did advertise it as having a 3 day battery life, I vividly remember the posters in the shops.

Already said that a software reset didn't do anything.

NeoBeum

Has the Z5C been set to restrict WiFi networking?

alex_ncfc

Hi,

What does restrict wifi networking mean? Can't find any settings for this.

NeoBeum

In Data Usage

It means, thou shalt not download crap

Anamon2

WiFi

I will say that WiFi is generally a bit iffy on more recent Sony phones–although it's somewhat iffy on all devices, there is probably no other technology that spread as widely as WiFi despite being so utterly broken and unreliable, but that's another story. I also have a Z5 Compact, and as long as the screen is on, I don't tend to have any connectivity problems.

Since you have other devices that work fine on the same access point and network, I'd put my money on some incompatibility or configuration issue between your router/AP and the phone. We have a home WiFi with about a dozen devices. We have one particular brand-new Samsung tablet that has similar issues to what you describe, despite all other devices working perfectly fine, including another, slightly older Samsung tablet. I narrowed it down to some issues that makes the DHCP server of the D-Link access point and the DHCP client of that particular Android version occasionally ignore each other, so the tablet keeps getting kicked out of the network. But I wasn't bothered enought to try and fix it yet. While this is happening, the tablet will show full WiFi signal strength and connectivity (no "!") because it actually remains connected to the network, it just uses a bogus DNS server so it can't look up any domain names.

One thing you could try doing is to give the phone a fixed IP address, that is of course assuming you have access the the hotspot's configuration, and you didn't try that already. Also, try manually setting up Google DNS servers on the phone (8.8.4.4 and 8.8.8.8) instead of the ones you get from DHCP. Out of all DHCP-related issues, probably 90% can be resolved by avoiding dynamic IP address allocation and automatic DNS settings.

Battery issues

I'm sorry to hear that you're having these issues, those are tough to diagnose. What immediately comes to mind is that your two problems could be related. If the phone is having WiFi connectivity issues, it's possible that that's what's keeping it awake and draining the battery. It might constantly be communicating with the hotspot to reconnect when it drops.

Also, try installing an alternative battery stats app. For a couple of years now, Android's stats have been utterly useless. If they even do make any sense, they have a tendency of simply ignoring or hiding the most culpable apps.

Another thing I ask everyone who complains to be me about Android battery life: does the phone by any chance have the Facebook and/or Facebook Messenger apps installed? I've found that on all of my Android phones so far, having any Facebook apps installed at all would reduce battery life by about 50%. That is just having them installed, without even opening them once, my battery drains twice as fast as with those two apps removed.

NeoBeum

I hang #### on Facebook almost every post I see here...

I saw a news article about having a second phone for "light" usage and less notifications.

I feel sorry for anyone gullible enough to think it's a great idea. Their marketing and R&D team probably never heard of push to sync... Or the toggle that turns off notifications for almost every app... Or you know... Just turn data off, so it's voice only....

http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/technology/say-hello-to-the-antismartphone/news-story/4c8826...