Day: September 14, 2013

Bluetooth and Lumia 720 crashes

I have been quite happy with my Lumia 720 other than the Google contacts problem that I managed to solve recently. However, there is another issue that’s been bothering me – the phone freezes after I have used my Bluetooth headset with it. The sequence of events goes something like this:

  1. I turn on Bluetooth on the phone.
  2. I turn on my Bluetooth headset (Plantronics Voyager HD) and it connects to the phone.
  3. I have some voice calls on the phone through the headset.
  4. I turn off the headset effectively disconnecting it from the phone.
  5. I turn off Bluetooth on the phone and pocket it.
  6. Sometime later (a couple of hours or so) I take out my phone and find that either the screen does not turn on, or the screen turns on, but the lock screen is frozen with none of the usual information like calendar, battery status, signal strength etc. displayed.

The only way to make the phone useable is to reset it by pressing the volume down + power keys for 10-15 seconds. I am not sure whether this issue is specific to my handset or the Lumia 720 or Windows Phone, but have faced this problem quite a few times. My research on the web indicates that Windows Phone can have some issues with Bluetooth, Wifi and Airplane mode. In fact, one of my recent resets after a freeze had the phone stuck in Airplane mode that just wouldn’t turn off. Another reset thankfully set that problem right.

So far the only workaround I have found to this problem (not tested extensively) is to disconnect the headset from the phone through the settings before turning it off. This seems to keep the phone happy. Hope that the problem is fixed in a future OS update (Amber update for the Lumia 720 should be out soon), but till then got to keep in mind that Windows Phone does not like abrupt Bluetooth disconnects.

Have you been facing similar issues? Let me know in the comments section.

Windows Phone and the Google Contacts problem

Ever since I got my Lumia 720, I have had issues with missing phone numbers for some of my Google contacts. The same contacts showed up with all their details on my Galaxy S3. Since practically all my contact data are stored on Google this was a real downer in an otherwise excellent experience with the phone.

Thankfully, a bit of research on the web along with some experimentation led me to the problem and the eventual solution. The problem seems to be phone numbers that have been categorized as Main in particular on Google contacts. These are not recognized by Windows Phone and don’t show up in the contact details. The only solution to this is to categorize the number as ones recognized by Windows Phone like Home, Work or Mobile.

You can also see from the screenshots that while some categories are common to Google contacts and Windows Phone, quite a few are not. In such cases, you should opt for the Windows Phone option as Google contacts is quite flexible since it allows user defined categories (Android phones also seem to be flexible in this regard) while Windows Phone does not recognize ones outside its list.

A couple of other things to keep in mind:

  1. Windows Phone does not provide you a send SMS option from the profile view unless the number is categorized as Mobile or Mobile 2.
  2. If you create a number with a Windows Phone category not available on Google contacts, it will show up on Google contacts, but may have a different label. For example, Mobile 2 ends up as Car. So, don’t be surprised.