Unresponsive Nokia Lumia 920 fixed by Nokia Lumia 800 soft reset guidance

As I posted a few minutes ago, my Nokia would not turn on this morning. I posted (here) expressing my knee jerk anger.

Being an IT Pro by trade, and a Nokia shareholder (there, I said it), I felt I should at least make some effort to fix the device. If it was a software or firmware issue, rather than hardware, I figured I should stand a fighting chance. If I’d tried all I could, it should also equate to an easier refund experience at Phones4U tomorrow.

Lo-and-behold, two Bing searches later I found some guidance on the two known methods of resetting the anatomically similar Nokia Lumia 800. How many ways could those crazy Finns allow you to control the phone hardware through an identical button layout?

Not that many it turns out! The soft reset procedure outlined at ukmobilereview.com brought my Nokia Lumia 920 back to life. To give more detail, the phone appeared dead, inert, brick like. Pressing the power button on the side left the screen black & lifeless. Connecting the device to a charger or USB port did nothing. The soft reset process made the handset reboot and things have been OK so far.

I hope this doesn’t happen to other less IT savvy consumers, who frankly may just return this flagship handset in frustration and purchase and iPhone 5 with their monies. I sense a firmware update in this device’s impending future…

There are 7 comments left Go To Comment

  1. Rob /

    Thanks. Worked for me. Amazon app caused a freeze and this fixed it. It appears to “flush” the cache and memory as the date and time was set to August 1, 2012. It quickly updated it and now everything works great.

    1. 2big4twitter /

      Glad to help. Great observation on the date reset. I noticed the time change a short while after I reset the phone, but the association didn’t click! I guess I was too excited to have my long anticipated phone functioning again. I just performed another soft reset for kicks though, and you’re spot on. Enjoy your Nokia Rob :)

      1. Fernando /

        Great info here. Thank you. I have the same problem. I’m probably on my 7th Bing search, though.

        I’ve been resetting the phone by pressing the volume down + power key until the phone vibrates. It seems to reboot and the AT&T logo shows on the screen, but after about 10 seconds it goes back to completely unresponsive.

        You said there were two ways to reset it, can you tell me what the other one is?

        1. 2big4twitter /

          Hi Fernando,

          A soft reset is achieved by holding down the volume down button and power button for about 3 seconds.

          A hard reset (goodbye contacts, emails and photos – I hope you are using SkyDrive) is achieved by the same sequence, plus the camera button.

          It’s all covered here –> http://ukmobilereview.com/manufacturers/m-nokia/reset-nokia-lumia-800/

          P.S. good luck with your unit. Remember, if in doubt back to your store to ‘shout it out’ :) Utilise your consumer rights FTW, unless you’ve dropped it down a latrine or something…

  2. Pingback: My Life With a Nokia Lumia 920 – One Week In « 2big4twitter /

  3. Rob /

    I love this phone but this has happened to me about 6 times in 12 days, it seems almost regular now. Going to have to take it back. My partner has one and is unaffected it seems.

    1. 2big4twitter /

      Hi Rob. I’m copping this about twice a day now. I now carry two phones – one for resetting the date and time on my Lumia! I should really blog about it 😉 I was toying with taking it back yesterday (day 14 of ownership, so the last day the store has any direct responsibility) but held off, as if it persists ill badger Nokia. I’m hoping for a SW fix as The Verge are stating that it’s a widely reported fault, even occurring on the HTC 8X.

      Microsoft support seem to think its a ‘bad App’ although the App I’m using most when it occurs is Nokia Music which I doubt is culprit.

      May I ask- does your partner have less Apps installed than you? I’d be interested to know if a ‘native-App’ only phone exhibits the same behaviour.

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