Samsung Galaxy SIII advice needed please.

[Jester]

So I have a Galaxy SIII. And it's awesome.

A week or so ago, I got an alert letting me know there was an operating system update available. So I updated.

And now, my custom ringtones appear to be gone, and the phone has reverted to its default ringtones, which I hate.

And I can't seem to figure out how to get back my ringtones and get them how I want them. Specifically, one for calls from numbers I know, one for calls from people I don't know, one for text messages, and one for an alarm.

Help?

[Chromatix]

Mmm, this is why you should do a backup before updating.

I don't have an S3, but I do have the roughly contemporary Galaxy Note. So let's see if it's done the same way on both. It should be.

I suspect there are two separate parts to the problem: the ringtones themselves, and associating them with the correct numbers.

Association is done by editing the relevant contact. One of the entries is for the ringtone to use for phone calls, and another is for text message alerts. The contacts are accessible via the Phone app, the Messaging app, or the dedicated Contacts app.

You might find that your ringtones are still there, and just needed to be associated. If not, I suggest trying to remember how you got the ringtones in the first place. You may be able to re-download them without paying again, for example.

[mathnerd]

I don't have that phone, but I feel your pain. When I updated to iOS7 I had to go in and physically reset all my custom ringtones, as EVERYTHING had been reset to factory defaults. Not one of my finer moments, when I realized that had happened. I was not a happy camper.

[Jester]

I do need to see what I can do about that, but something else I've noticed since the update, which I forgot to put in the OP, is that the battery seems to run down MUCH faster than before, and oddly, seems to recharge when plugged in much faster as well. As I don't make a habit of carrying my charger with me when I'm out and about, this is a bit annoying. Anyone else seen this, have any thoughts on it?

[mathnerd]

Does the new Galaxy update have any animated icons that weren't there before? Those things can run a battery down. The fancy icons with my latest update almost halved my battery life. I turned them off. I don't have any thoughts on recharging faster though.

[Jester]

The icons all look the same. And I don't have a problem with the faster recharging but the quicker discharging of the battery sucks big time.

[mathnerd]

Just general tech stuff:

Go through and make sure there aren't any background apps set to run continuously.

Make sure that any apps that use location services have such services turned off (unless you really need them to be on). You'd be surprised what stupid apps use location services, not just things like map apps and FB and such.

By "animated" icons, I meant stuff other than things actually moving. If they have a 3-D effect instead of a flat screen effect, they might be drawing more power.

Lastly, power cycle the phone. Every once in a while I have a device that just starts draining power like it's going out of style. Not sure why it works, but power cycling them seems to work to get the battery life back up to normal.

[Chromatix]

Ah yes, sometimes the calibration of the battery's capacity estimates goes wonky. It's not actually charging or discharging more quickly, it just thinks that there's less power in reserve than there actually is.

To fix it, you have to run the phone until the battery is almost dead - ie. to below 5% - then let it charge to 100%. Ideally, do this with the phone in low-power mode (GPS and Wifi turned off, powersave mode enabled, screen blanked), which will probably take quite a while but will give you the most accurate calibration. It's inconvenient, but does the job.

[Chazzie]

Honestly I haven't figured out any way to downgrade after an update. I love this phone a lot but as soon as I got it I updated it, and the entire photo gallery changed for the worse. I use the Ringtone Maker app free from the Play Store and it stores it like music files, so the only thing I can really suggest is to either recreate them that way or re-load them if you've got them back onto the phone. As for setting them to specific people, you can do that by going to contacts, selecting the contact, and from there assigning your ringtone and message alert.

As for your battery, by bringing down your pull down menu you can set it to power saving - scroll right on the top set of icons. I have it turned on all the time and it helps a lot! Also in the pulldown menu you can adjust your brightness and set it to auto to save a lot on display power.

Also in your settings you can click power saving mode and check the boxes to know what exactly it'll do and allow/disallow certain settings.

Something else I do to save on cpu power is holding down my home key and closing all my windows, then doing it again and going to task manager and ending all tasks that I'm not using. you can also reach your ram manager from there and clear out the memory. It's a bit of a pain, but after a while you start unconsciously doing it out of habit.

Oh yeah- if you have your data turned on, or if you have your wifi turned on with nothing to connect to, the battery drains like CRAZY. Always check from your pull-down menu. Doubly so if you have both on!

Hope that helps!

[Seshat]

Sorry - I got nothing other than what the others have. Except for this:

Check your applications list. Go through and disable any applications you aren't using, set the ones you are using to sleep except when you're using them.

For things like stuff that checks your email, facebook, etc, get them to download as rarely as you're willing to live with, and to pull down only the headers (ie, minimum information) until you're actually trying to read the email/facebook page/etc.

Short form is that you're telling everything 'unless I actually want you, don't pull any power'. Which means no calculations, no software running, no communications other than the basic 'if someone calls me, ring'.

Oh, and also? Everything the others said.


This will make things have to 'wake up', so they're going to be marginally slower at the moment of first use, every time you use them. They're also going to cause you to actually (gasp) WAIT while they pull down emails, facebook pages or whatever.

In the highly competitive world of phone selling, with the market being led by people who are more and more impatient, phone manufacturers are under pressure to make their phones seem faster and faster. So updates sometimes add new settings which enable apps to pre-load more and more stuff, or to stay 'awake', all of which leads to the perception that the phone is faster (it's not, it's just already awake/already loaded).
BUT this comes at the cost of using power and data and memory ... which a lot of the people who are driving the market don't care about. (OOooh, new shiny phone! And more data storage! And more active memory! I WANT IT! It's SHINY!)

Those of us who just want a phone that works are left sighing, and turning all these new settings OFF so that our phones continue to function. But since we're not in the market for a new phone ... we're not the ones driving the sales.

[pzychobitch]

I don't have that phone, but I feel your pain. When I updated to iOS7 I had to go in and physically reset all my custom ringtones, as EVERYTHING had been reset to factory defaults. Not one of my finer moments, when I realized that had happened. I was not a happy camper.

Not to mention ios7 looks like utter shit compared to 6, but that's just me.

[Kagato]

So I have a Galaxy SIII. And it's awesome.

A week or so ago, I got an alert letting me know there was an operating system update available. So I updated.

And now, my custom ringtones appear to be gone, and the phone has reverted to its default ringtones, which I hate.

And I can't seem to figure out how to get back my ringtones and get them how I want them. Specifically, one for calls from numbers I know, one for calls from people I don't know, one for text messages, and one for an alarm.

Help?

I think I may be able to give you a hand with restoring your ringtones (or at least helping you re-upload them to your phone), but I need to check what OS version you have on your phone.

Can you please:

Go to "Settings"
Go to "More"
Go to "About Device"
About halfway down the screen you will see "Android Version" - Reply or PM with what version number you have and I can go from there.

[retro]

I'd like to offer my congratulations to everyone here for this thread. Other forums I've gone to would have replied to the OP question with a simple 'Ah, should have bought an iPhone' before the conversation degenerated into a school playground style 'my phone's better than your phone because your phone's poo', etc.

You all have my respect and I know I'm going to like it here.

[Ophbalance]

Jester, if you end up not resolving this, I'd try hitting up XDA-developers. There's a dedicated device forum over there for the III, and it's typically broken out by carrier. It will have a sub-forum for general QA that should answer questions like this as well. I've got an S4 and generally XDA is a very helpful community.