Smart Ultra 6 Home Key issue

[Soupstone]

I've a smart ultra 6 and today it started randomly vibrating. 

Eventually noticed it's being caused by the home key activating. When I'm opening things, it's closing them again.
 Theres plenty of memory left in the phone, and I've tried deleting the cache and a hard reset, but still the same.  

 Any help appreciated

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi @Soupstone

If this is happening after a hard reset / factory reset and soft reboot by turning it Off and On then I'd suggest visiting a Vodafone Highstreet store for them to take a look and if necessary send it off for a diagnostic. 

Take time / date stamped pictures of the phone with one if it turned on to prove its aesthetic condition prior to sending it off. Make Sure the employees note its condition on their systems.

"Also make sure when sending your device for repair that you keep hold of your SIM. You also shouldn't send your memory cards, battery and/or back cover (if they're removable) - if these are included with your phone when it goes for repair we can't guarantee their return."

[hrym]

Bear in mind that memory and storage aren't the same thing.   When you look under Storage in the main menu, it's showing you the equivalent of the hard drive in a pc.   Memory (RAM) is the working memory and this can become full if there are too many apps open or some are leaking memory.  Try closing all recent apps and also going into Settings|Storage & USB and clearing all app caches (though this latter affects storage more than memory).

If this fixes the problem but it recurs, you'll need to do it periodically unless you can track down a specific culprit app.

[BandOfBrothers]

Good points @hrym

Shouldn't the phone be able to self manage ram by closing down automatically apps that are suspended in the background to allow others opened to work. 

[hrym]

Yes, and they generally do.   However, my geriatric and arthritic Samsung tablet now needs regular clear-outs if it's not to grind to a halt quickly.   It's got 1gb of RAM, of which about 750mb is on tap after OS overheads.   Samsung have a useful memory-management widget and I use the Clear button in that than it gets to over 600mb in use (even after closing everything and clearing recent apps).

[Soupstone]

Thanks for the replies guys. 
It's got 786 mb RAM avaliable right now.
The phone is only 3-4 months old, but unfortunately, I paid cash instore and can't find the receipt.
 I also bought it to use on EE, so don't even have a nano sim request logged with Vodafone, which might have helped a bit. 

 On a brighter note, the home key has now stopped working altogether, so I can use the phone again.
 

[hrym]

Have you asked about getting it repaired?   It's possible that the IMEI may record when it was sold/used.  It might also help if you can go back to the same store you bought it in - whether they would be better placed to trace things back, I don't know.   Whatever the outcome, it can't hurt to try and you certainly shouldn't have to replace it that quickly.

Not all shop staff are technically knowledgeable, but some are amazingly so.   If you're lucky, you'll find one of those and they may be able to suggest fixes for you.

[Soupstone · Accepted solution]

Sorry for the delay, it took a while to get to a Vodafone shop. 
 They were able to tell from the IMEI when it was bought and sent it away for repair. 
 Just got it back today, it said an Engineer had fixed the phone and they gave it a full service including software upgrade.
 No details on what was fixed, but the letter goes on to say most phones returned for repair were software or app problems. 

[Soupstone]

Unfortunately, it's still doing it. Must not have done it whilst they had the phone so they assumed it was a software/app issue. Back to Vodafone it is. 

[hrym]

Shame.   Your best bet is to start off with the phone vanilla, ie with no extra apps and see if the problem persists.  If it's OK, add your apps one at a time until the problem recurs and you've found either the culprit or the point at which the system resources become overwhelmed.   I'd have to say that it does sound like a resource issue.