May have to hard reset Hero....some advice/help?

[ToxicToastKatz]

OK, so I've come to the realization that I may have to hard reset this puppy! I REALLY don't want to, but as of late, this thing has been running like a DOG!! Everything runs slow. The Market often tells me there is a network problem when I'm connected to my work's WiFi (although, there is a good chance it is the actual WiFi that is the issue), The Market takes forever to load My Downloads, apps take a while to load, the phone takes a good 5 seconds to react after being asleep for any amount of time, the keyboard is laggy (moreso than before), Handscent's pop up notification moves at an absolute crawl and just today, I noticed that the phone is up 100% of the time. Granted, the awake time, I could care less about because my battery doesn't seem to be suffering as of yet, so if it sleeps or not bothers me not. I'm sure it's some app that's reeking havoc on the system, so I'll probably end up deleting one by one to see if that's the issue, but I'll probably just end up hard resetting and starting new. I haven't been pushed to the rooting route yet, as I'm not really sure I want to do that as of now. My question to the community are as follows:

1. Prior to hard resetting, what information needs to be backed up? Let me restate that, I know contacts/calendar/mail are all backed up in the Google Cloud as well as my company's Exchange Server, so I'm not worried about that. I use SMS Backup, so all of my text messages are stored in my Gmail account and I don't even have texts on my phone. I'm looking for some of the less obvious things that may be stored on the phone that could be overlooked while backing up, and I won't end up realizing until after I've wiped the phone (i.e. photos, app information, etc.?).

2. Since I'm not rooted, I don't think there is a way to get a screen capture of my scenes so that I can set them up similar to the way they are now. Am I incorrect in thinking this? If there is no way to do this, what are some methods people have used to record what their screens look like? I was thinking of just snapping actual photos using a camera to take pictures of the screens.

3. Can anyone else think of why all of a sudden the phone is acting up? Prior to this, the phone has been pretty stable. It actually has been soft resetting w/o powering down the past few days (almost like SenseUI is crashing and restarting) and today it actually did a full soft reset reboot all by itself. Google Voice Force Closed a few times today as well. I have installed a few things over the past week and uninstalled most programs, but things that I have installed and kept on the phone since I've noticed these issues are:

App Usage Manager
AppManager
Gigbox
Lookout Mobile Security
Midomi
Nesoid
Rhapsody (Beta)
Spare Parts
SMS Backup

Any insight is always appreciated.

[thacounty]

Maybe it is app usage or rhapsody. Those are 2 that are new or cause problems. I would think app usage may cause problems like these because it is always requesting info. Try removing them 1x1 and see if it changes b4 you hard reset.

[gangmobb]

if i took a wild guess i wild remove sms back up.. just for me to delete lik 500 texts each day takes about 5 mins or more to delete so storing them might not be to good..

[thacounty]

I also have to ask why you aren't rooted. It is a great way to be.

1. You are going to lose app info pretty much NMW. You could root and use A2SD2 then it wouldn't delete them, but it would also defeat your purpose of Hard Resetting. Most stuff will come back when you sign into Google. You will lose your playlists, if you use your hero as a Media Player.

2. You can save a scene, but I have no idea where it goes, so you wouldn't be able to use that. There is a way to get screenshots without being rooted, check my sig, I think I linked it in the Tips Thread. I, again, suggest rooting and using a screencap app though.

3. This is what I was trying to answer in my previous post. gangmobb may be on to something, I don't back up sms and I have never had this problem. I just noticed Lookout was on your device. I have heard of some lag with this app, I know it is a great app for what it does, but wavesecure does most of the same for free right now. Try removing that and see what happens.

Other than that I have no idea what would be causing this. I still suggest rooting and going fresh to see if that helps, and removing Lookout until its lag is fixed.

[ToxicToastKatz]

I will most likely try a few of the suggestions. Actually though, the SMS Backup should be helping, because it enables me to keep my SMS in my Gmail account. Basically, a text comes in and automatically goes into my Gmail account as an email. Texts from the same contact are kept together in conversation form, so it's essentially the same as threaded text. For the most part, as soon as i get a text, i read it, reply to it and delete it right off my phone. I currently have zero text messages on my phone.

I would figure that would help.

My biggest suspicion is that it's Lookout causing the problems, and possibly App Usage. Rhapsody will be coming off my phone as soon as my 7 day trial ends tomorrow (it's in Beta and I wanted to check it out, but don't have a subscription.)

I'll check back once I have a chance to investigate. Still a little leery about rooting

[esoteric1311]

Originally Posted by ToxicToastKatz

I will most likely try a few of the suggestions. Actually though, the SMS Backup should be helping, because it enables me to keep my SMS in my Gmail account. Basically, a text comes in and automatically goes into my Gmail account as an email. Texts from the same contact are kept together in conversation form, so it's essentially the same as threaded text. For the most part, as soon as i get a text, i read it, reply to it and delete it right off my phone. I currently have zero text messages on my phone.

I would figure that would help.

My biggest suspicion is that it's Lookout causing the problems, and possibly App Usage. Rhapsody will be coming off my phone as soon as my 7 day trial ends tomorrow (it's in Beta and I wanted to check it out, but don't have a subscription.)

I'll check back once I have a chance to investigate. Still a little leery about rooting

I have both lookout and smsbackup on my phone, but I am rooted. I would say think maybe lookout. when i first installed it, i noticed battery drain. a couple of reboots, new ROM, and clearing my cache, and its still snappy.

Like thacounty suggested, you should root it. It could be a combination of any of those apps along with the bloatware. It's not too difficult to do with Flipz kitchen. It will help you in the long run, in the sense that

• if something ever happens, you could revert to your backups and not have to do a hard reset
• if worse comes to worse, you can revert back to stock

[ToxicToastKatz]

Originally Posted by esoteric1311

I have both lookout and smsbackup on my phone, but I am rooted. I would say think maybe lookout. when i first installed it, i noticed battery drain. a couple of reboots, new ROM, and clearing my cache, and its still snappy.

Like thacounty suggested, you should root it. It could be a combination of any of those apps along with the bloatware. It's not too difficult to do with Flipz kitchen. It will help you in the long run, in the sense that

• if something ever happens, you could revert to your backups and not have to do a hard reset
• if worse comes to worse, you can revert back to stock

The biggest problem with rooting I have is, that I'm not that savvy and I'm afraid to screw something up. The other thing is, I'm not sure when I'll have the time to set aside and do all that work. Plus, once 2.1 finally arrives, there's no upgrading to it, correct?

[tokuzumi]

Originally Posted by ToxicToastKatz

The biggest problem with rooting I have is, that I'm not that savvy and I'm afraid to screw something up. The other thing is, I'm not sure when I'll have the time to set aside and do all that work. Plus, once 2.1 finally arrives, there's no upgrading to it, correct?

It will take longer to upgrade to the official Sprint version of 2.1 if you are rooted, but just like the most recent update we had, a workaround was found.

[epitaphromance]

What update? Link to work around?

[thacounty]

I had mine updated before most people had a chance to check on their phones. Immediately flipz had a rom with the fix. So I would say it isn't slower, its just not OTA. And it will definitely be possible or I would NOT be rooted! hahaha

Its pretty easy and when I have time this afternoon I can walk you through it if you'd like, I have helped a few others.