My XZ3 is very unreliable

[KitsuneAway]

 Hello, 

I just got my Xperia XZ3 brand new shipped with Android Pie. 

Right out of the box, I had 1/5 chance of an app crashing upon launch, then others will follow. 2 weeks later, it has stabilized but once in a while an app (every app, the last one was the audio recording app) will malfunction, crash and every running app will follow suit.

It also affects the micro SD card detection, it sometimes disapear and i have to restart the phone to get it detected.

I'm slowly more in more concerned, this is a brand new flagship, and I am a used costumer since my experience with Sony dates back to the Xperia U, and since I can't afford to replace it nor send it back I'm going to have to deal with instabilities. Never before I had to reboot a brand new Xperia phone every day... 

Is that normal ? Can it be fixed ? Is it linked to Pie just being deployed ? Thank you for reading, have a nice day!

UPDATE : Okay this is now getting very serious, the music app, gallery or anything as 1/2 chances to malfunction without any mean of recovery, and this is litteraly crippling to the point that I'm back to my last phone (which is a Galaxy Note 3, and I never had these types of bugs ever in 5 yers of continuous use) .I'm honnestly upset, I cracked my savings for thing things... I believe this is not unrepairable, I'll hope for an update.

[skycamefalling]

Maybe it's the SD card, that disappears from time to time, causing the crashes. I suggest you try without it for a while.

Also, some incompatible Apps with Android 9 can cause issues.

I'd try without SD card first because it's the easiest to try.

If this doesn't help, safemode and -as a next step- a firmware repair with Xperia PC Companion may be a solution.

If nothing helps there might a hardware defect with your phone which should be covered under warranty...but usually it's the software causing trouble, so don't worry.

I can say that your phone's behaviour is not normal. I'm using the XZ3 since October and didn't encounter such issues, the XZ3 runs rock solid for me, meaning it should run rock solid for you too

[KitsuneAway]

Thank you for your reply! I will experiment that way. My SD card is a Kingston 32 GB I bought back in 2014, have standards changed? 

[najodleglejszy]

standards haven't changed, but it's possible that an SD card bought 4 years ago is failing.

[skycamefalling]

No, standards are the same but it may well be that the card controller is damaged after all this time.

I'm not saying that the SD is definitely the problem, but it's worth a try.

If this doesn't improve the situation please report back and we'll guide you through the next steps.

You have paid a lot of money for a flagship-phone and you deserve a good and reliable experience

[KitsuneAway]

Okay so I've tried with another SD card, one that is class 3 and I can tell there is some improvement. I don't think I've tried it enough to know if the SD card was failling, but actually I do not store apps on the SD card. Sometimes apps that are not multimedia-related fail to, and I'm starting to think about wiping the cache partition entirely. Does Sony let their newest devices boot in recovery mode ? 

[skycamefalling]

You don't need to store apps or data on the SD card to cause issues. The SD card is permanently checked by system tasks in the background, if it fails then the system is affected and apps might crash, even though they don't use the SD card.

I don't know if Sony allows wiping the system cache but I don't expect this to solve anything. 

I would try with the other SD card first for some time.

If issues still occur then boot into safe mode to rule out 3rd party apps going rogue: /t5/FAQ/How-to-boot-your-phone-into-safe-mode/td-p/348008#gref

If nothing helps the start the Xperia PC Conpanion and do a "Software Repair". 

This will flash the whole firmware anew and create all the required partitions. So the cache will also be wiped. Be aware that all your data will be lost so do a backup before! 

[skycamefalling]

Good morning.

A recovery mode is not included in the system by default. There's an option to flash the recovery image with EMMA to enable custom ROM functionality. If you are interested you can find information here: https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/#overview-content

I would refrain from doing so, however, because probably you'll lose the warranty.

My recommendation is:

• Try with the other SD-card for a while
• Boot into safe mode (switch off the phone as usual but long-press on the shutdown-icon). This will disable 3rd-party background tasks. If the problems are gone in safe-mode it seems that a 3rd-party App is the culprit.
• Use Xperia PC Companion to "Repair Software". By doing this the full system image will be flashed again including system partitions. If any software issues exists due to an update, they will be solved.
  After the software repair all the data on the phone is gone.
  If the phone doesn't run stable and reliable after the software repair you should contact your local support because a hardware defect is most likely.

[KitsuneAway]

Okay thank you. I'll let my phone run this week, if it havn't recovered by the end of the week i'll notify 

[Lord_viridis]

I have a strong feeling it's gonna be the old SD card.

Good catch @skycamefalling