Samsung Galaxy S4 Lollipop upgrade

[Daveo]

I upgraded to lollipop yesterday and I have to say it's rubbish. Wifi is unstable, colours are horrible and cannot be changed, touchwiz keeps crashing for basic operations. I've basixally been left with an expensive brick. So I feel I have two options;

1. Wait for the next firmware upgrade so hopefully all these issues are fixed (the issues posted above are by no means exhaustive)

2. Downgrade to 4.4.2 somehow, amd go back to a stable OS.

I must say I am most annoyed. The reason Vodafone give for delaying firmware upgrades (like they have with lollipop) is to make sure everything works and is stable. Could someone from Vodafone please tell me why this isn't? And also could you confirm for me, based on my above 2 options, 1 - when the next firmware update will be released to fix these issues and 2 - how do I go about downgrading to 4.4.2 if necessary?

[jeffkinn]

Have you performed a factory reset? If not you need to do that as it will almost certainly cure all the problems you're seeing.

A factory reset is always recommended, even required, after a major upgrade to Android.

[Daveo]

Appreciate the advice jeffkinn but really? This isnt my first android and not the first major update I've had to do either, but never had to do a factory reset before. Don't fancy having to back up my entire phone to get it to work, and I don't know how this will solve the colours? Do you work for Vodafone?

[jeffkinn]

No I do not - a customer just like you. With Samsung phones particularly a factory reset after a major update is always necessary.

You can backup pretty much everything to your Google account and Samsung account and, if you feel quite brave, Kies.

[Daveo]

Thanks Jeff kind. The factory reset has sorted out a majority of problems.....but there's still some bugs.

The WiFi keeps disconnecting and reconnecting randomly.
The WiFi timer option has disappeared.
There's no options to change the colours on the menu or have a dark theme. I swear the white and bright backgrounds massively reduce battery life. Overall still not very happy. Anyone from Vodafone care to respond?

[jeffkinn]

No one from Vodafone will respond and if they do all they'll be able to say is that you could send it for repair.

I can't comment on the wifi issue but have you tried other launchers that offer all kinds of themes and colours. The popular ones are Go, Apex, Nova and the Google Now launcher.

[Chevaline]

Other than being unable to read text messages everything else seems to be running like a well oiled sewing machine.
I'm sure a fix for the text issue will be forthcoming, in the meantime I'm using Textra which in my opinion is better than the stock messaging app anyway.

[SimonWilding]

Mine is working fine, even texts, although I'm not using the stock app

[Daveo]

Texts work fine for me.....notifications are messed up and wifi is unstable, all using stock. Some settings have disappeared like wifi timer. Did a factory reset as recommended above kindly by Jeffkinn but have been using for a week now and wish I hadn't updated. I can see absolutely no benefit whatsoever, only unresolved issues that have been caused by the update.

[loftysaltmarsh]

After updating I've noticed the battery app thinks the wifi is switched on when it's not.