Lobster 700TV - SMS Service Centre number going missing

[Guest bitoclass]

I recently bought a Virgin Mobile Lobster 700 TV smartphone and while most things impress me about it (with one new exception since visiting this forum!), it does have one major flaw.

When I turn the phone off and back on, it loses the SMS Service Centre setting - that is, if I go into Settings -> Phone -> Call Options, the box under SMS Service Centre is simply blank.

If I then enter the number and save it, when I go back in there it is still missing!

All the time the number is missing, I cannot send SMS messages of course.

The 'fix' for the problem is to turn the phone off and on a second time. If I then go into the settings, whether or not I entered it myself earlier, the SMS Service Centre number has magically returned.

So basically this means that if I need to turn my phone off, when I come to turn it on again, I'll have to turn it on, turn it off and then turn it on again. Not ideal.

The first person I spoke to about this at Virgin Mobile support said he had heard of this before, but since then, no-one has.

This weekend, I went in to Virgin Megastore at Bluewater and asked to try my SIM (and battery) in a new Lobster to see if the problem was the same.

In fact, it was even worse - on the new one (fresh out of the store room in a sealed box), I could not get the SMS Service Centre number to appear at all!

The assistant then suggested I try my SIM in the store demo Lobster handset that he had locked under the counter, which is much older than either of the other two. In this, no matter how many times we turned it off and on, it simply wouldn't lose the SMS message centre at all, i.e. the bug was just not present.

So, have any of you who own Lobsters seen this problem? Does anyone have a solution? Can anyone think what could be causing it? Do you think Virgin/Microsoft/HTC/whoever will be aware of it and working on a bugfix/firmware update?

I have until the end of this month to decide whether to use Virgin's 28-day money-back guarantee so I need to get to the bottom of this issue (and the headphone one - see link in first paragraph) all too quickly now! :)

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

P.S. Just had a frustrating call with Virgin's technical support people, who insist that they are "not aware of this problem" (despite me just having told them about it) so there's no prospect of it getting fixed any time soon, it seems. This is despite the fact that when I first got the phone I rang 789 with another query (having not yet discovered this problem) and the call centre person asked if I was having "the problem where you lose the Service Centre number when you turn it off and on", saying that he was speaking to someone who had that recently. Oh dear.

[Guest cmuir62]

Yes, mine has the same problem, plus a couple of other "features". I've just arranged to have the phone swopped on Saturday, so I'll keep an eye on it. What's odd is that it seemed very stable for the first couple of weeks. Then the licence to watch the TV disappeared. The second time this went, I tried to follow the link to download a new licence but found that I couldn't even connect to the Internet - confusingly the message I got was that Virgin Bites were not available then but to try later. Turned out the GPRS settings had disappeared, along with the SMS Service Centre number, so I also couldn't send texts. Switching on and off brings them back temporarily in various permutations for varying lengths of time, until I switch off the phone again. From what you say about the phones in the shop, I don't hold out much hope of improvement, but I'm willing to try once more...

Edited January 24, 2007 by cmuir62

[Guest bitoclass]

Yes, mine has the same problem, plus a couple of other "features".

Well I've figured out a possible solution which seems to work for me: get a new SIM. I tried my SIM and my wife's SIM in it and they are both quite old and they both had the same problem, but then I tried the SIM I got free when I bought the phone (they gave it free with no credit on it, as a spare or for a friend or something), and that one did not show the symptoms, no matter how many times I turned it off and on. So I asked them to send me a new SIM (with my old number on it), and it arrived today and sure enough it seems to have cured it! Amazing.

However, I now have a new problem. The TV app won't download licences (a bit like yours). It doesn't even seem to try to download them. Whenever it prompts me to get them I say Yes, but then nothing happens at all. I've tried a system reset back to factory settings but it still doesn't work. I'm waiting for Virgin tech support to get back to me about it but I don't hold out a great deal of hope, because the last time I spoke to them (about the SMS Service Centre issue) they just said that they weren't aware of an issue. I said that they were now because I had reported it, but they said they weren't aware of it and so on. Ridiculous. Good job I got to the bottom of it myself!

[Guest cmuir62]

Well, as you might have guessed, the replacement handset has the same issue - disappearing SMS Service Centre number which restores itself on reboot. So, I followed your lead and am now awaiting a replacement sim... I once had an mpx200 on Orange which misbehaved until its sim was replaced. Just a physical inconsistency which was enough to affect the reliability of the contact, apparently. Perhaps this is something similar... or maybe a whole new variety of flakiness.

Edited January 29, 2007 by cmuir62

[Guest bitoclass]

Meanwhile, I'm still without TV and Virgin haven't rung me back now since Wednesday. Not impressed with this now :)

[Guest VirginFriend]

Hi all,

Bit of insider infomation, If you are having these sorts of problems, Virgin do know about them.. trust me. However in 9/10 cases you can solve it without calling them, all you need to do is perform a factory reset, the instructions are as follows

Press the start key, scroll through the menu untill you find Accessories, then select 'Clear Storage' Once you select this a warning message will come up, enter 1234 and hit yes.

Leave your phone for about 10 mins (go and have a cup of tea or something). Once this is complete this should have resolved your problems.

Please save all ringtones, pictures, games and videos to a PC or memory card first (and take the memory card out before you do the procedure above)

Hope this helps

[Guest zenmaster]

I would advise against doing a system reset.

I did it today and when the phone rebooted the TV app was missing altogether.

Fortunately, Virgin are going to send me a new phone ;)

[Guest Tinov]

Hi all,

Bit of insider infomation, If you are having these sorts of problems, Virgin do know about them.. trust me. However in 9/10 cases you can solve it without calling them, all you need to do is perform a factory reset, the instructions are as follows

Press the start key, scroll through the menu untill you find Accessories, then select 'Clear Storage' Once you select this a warning message will come up, enter 1234 and hit yes.

Leave your phone for about 10 mins (go and have a cup of tea or something). Once this is complete this should have resolved your problems.

Please save all ringtones, pictures, games and videos to a PC or memory card first (and take the memory card out before you do the procedure above)

Hope this helps

Hi, VirginFriend thank you.  I have this issue on a 700TV that has been unlocked using a number officially supplied by Virgin after payment of £15.  I bought the handset secondhand but am trying to use it with a Virgin SIM.  Would you be able to tell me if the handset will be re-locked to Virgin if I do the factory reset? Also, does the reset clear calendar data, tasks, etc. 

I've got sympathy with you VirginFriend.  I used to work for a very big scandinavian phone manufacturer and we had to deny knowledge of known issues at times too. 

Tinov. 

[Guest VirginFriend]

Hi, VirginFriend thank you. I have this issue on a 700TV that has been unlocked using a number officially supplied by Virgin after payment of £15. I bought the handset secondhand but am trying to use it with a Virgin SIM. Would you be able to tell me if the handset will be re-locked to Virgin if I do the factory reset? Also, does the reset clear calendar data, tasks, etc.

I've got sympathy with you VirginFriend. I used to work for a very big scandinavian phone manufacturer and we had to deny knowledge of known issues at times too.

Tinov.

Hi Tony,

Glad I could help, I currently am no longer with Virgin, but I can tell you that resetting the H/s shouldnt cause it to lock again. However if it does the unlock code Virgin have supplied you is specific to your IMEI and so all you would need to do is reenter it. As someone has posted above there have been some software issues with applications going missing from the H/s, if this is the case contact Virgin and they should be able to sort you out with a repacement. As to the question over calender or tasks, Ive never checked thesefollowing a reset but I would imagine tht they would be wiped and you would need to reset them afterwards.

Virgin nolonger stock the Lobster 700 and many of the people there will not be familuar with it (due to staff turnover etc). If you have any problems I have one at home that I can play around with and attempt to answer any further questions that anyone may have.

Any probs let me know, always happy to help anyway I can

VirginFriend