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WARNING: Never Change Radio Band

TomKay
Visitor

WARNING: Never Change Radio Band

Perhaps this warning will save some users a lot of painful hours.

I just spend hours on end to get my phone back to normal because I had accidentally changed the radio band to "USA band" and there is no easy way to revert that.

Now one could argue I should not have accessed the testing menu in the first place, but the phone was getting a bit warm at the back and I wanted to check the temperature. I had forgotten where to look exactly so I looked around a bit and once I saw "radio band" I was curious which options would appear.

After selecting "radio band" only one choice popped up "USA band". Now had I not been still a bit stressed from a phone call and been a bit too tired, I might have figured out that I should have pressed anywhere outside the button, but, PLEASE, if there is only one option, how can it be a wrong one way street?

I had to backup the phone, factory reset it, restore the data and recreate all my settings and app icon arrangements. I couldn't choose the firmware I had been happy with but had to jump to 157 (with unknown consequences). I had issues with some applications which updated to newer versions without my approval so some saved game states won't load back anymore. Luckily, I could revert to an older version of Chrome which does not ignore bookmarks placed on the homescreen (why do bugs like that not get fixed? But I digress). I had to find a workaround for my phone being unable to pair with my PC anymore and luckily I found an answer on this forum.

Fortunately, I anticipated that my app icons won't reappear at their previous positions despite the fact that I tried the phone back up and a PC companion backup, and had taken pictures of my home screens before the factory reset.

I literally spent six hours just because my finger was a split second quicker than my brain when I was faced with a "one option"-choice while searching for the temperature reading.

I appreciate that a testing or a service menu must be approached with caution, but even experienced technicians make mistakes from time to time. AFAIC, there should be no way (I'm sparing you the expletives here) to essentially render your phone useless with one touch of a button 

  1. without an explicit alternative being offered (implying the one choice must be OK), and
  2. without being asked for confirmation (for such a significant change), and
  3. without an option to go back and reconfigure the correct band (why make it a one way street?).

It leaves me puzzled how anyone could set up a combination of all these three factors, be it in a service menu or not.

43 REPLIES 43
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Uliwooly
Expert

That's quite interesting, how did you "accidentally" change the radio band ? did you flashed a different frmware or baseband or custom ROM, I wasn't aware that we could change the "radio band" that's new to me

TomKay
Visitor


@uliwooly wrote:

That's quite interesting, how did you "accidentally" change the radio band ?


I went into the (EDIT) testing menu (dialer -> *#*#4636#*#*) because I was looking for the battery temperature. When you first choose "Phone Information" and select the three-dot menu at the top right, you'll see "Select radio band".

If you select it, you'll get the one "select USA band" button. Don't press it unless you live in the USA or want to have a lot of fun to get your phone working again.


@uliwooly wrote:

did you flashed a different frmware or baseband or custom ROM, I wasn't aware that we could change the "radio band" that's new to me


That's the shocking part. I run a stock rom. My bootloader is locked. My phone is not rooted. I only went into the service menu and was slightly too tired to avoid pressing a one option button.

I'm now still "having fun" with the new version of Google Play Service (or Google Search, I'm not sure yet) periodically activating the GPS even though I explicitly turned off all location reporting and location history.

I'm so not in love with Google right now as they keep draining my battery against my explicit refusal of consent to let them.

EDIT: It may be the "Location-based Wi-Fi" option in 14.4.A.0.157 that activates the GPS (even though according to the description it should only use the network based location information). I'm not a 100% sure yet who the culprit is. I know for sure that my previous 14.4.A.0.108 firmware never activated GPS unless I explicitly used a respective application.

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Uliwooly
Expert

You can't change it, it does NOT make sense. 

TomKay
Visitor


@uliwooly wrote:

You can't change it, it does NOT make sense. 


Sorry, I made a mistake earlier when I referred to the "service menu" because I meant to write "testing menu".

Use your dialer to enter *#*#4636#*#*) and then choose "Phone Information". You'll see a three-dot menu at the top right of which the first item is "Select radio band".

I suggest to not even go there, but if you want to see which bands you can select from, make sure you do not press the soft button that will appear if it is only one (wrong) option.

ratacit
Contributor

Checked it on my Hong Kong version z1c and USA is the only choice
Anandps
Visitor

can somone please provide me the steps to revert this issue, is i ned to factory reset then how to do that as i have reset my phone with the reset option in setting menu -> backup and reset, but the problem is still same, no network signals..... plz plz plz reply me asap

Feek
Visitor

hi, if you're an android user, install mtk engineering mode app from google play. Open app>MTK settings>telephony section>find BandMode> select sim you are usng>check all boxes that are available in GSM and UMTS and thats it. Desclaimer, dont play around with other settings if you dont know their function. unstall it after using to keep you from tempting to play with it. please reply if it fixed your problem ty
puneet0009
Visitor

I am in the same condition. My Xperia z and z2 are not reading SIM. Please help, its very serious.

1bit
Visitor

Have same  problem as @TomKay

selected by mistake in Testing screen - Phone information - Select radio band - Set GSM/UMTS band - USA Band (I was curious if there are any other menu)

My phone is locked to LTE only network (no 3 and 2G), here in the UK, no VoLTE and with three.co.uk no decent LTE coverage Slightly_frowning_Face

Installed MTK Engineering Mode Start on my Z3 Dual 5.0.2 Build number 23.1.1.E.0.1 (Import from HKG) and I am unable to enter MTK Settings in the app (Cannot find EnginneerMode App msg. appears at the bottom of the screen).

Anyone has any idea hot to fix it?

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