How not to handle a pushed update

This morning, my Android phone (HTC Incredible, Verizon) announced that it had an upgrade it wanted to install.

One very lengthy reboot later (hey, I was out on the trail with no signal anyway), I had... build 4.0.mumble of Android 2.3.4.  So, the phone hadn't transmogrified into an Ice Cream Sammitch in my pocket.

And what's new with it?  Not much obvious except:

This minor upgrade reset all my screens to more-or-less factory-default.  Looks like all (or at least most) of my downloaded apps, and their data, are still present... but I'll need to repopulate the screens with app icons and widgets where I want them.

Really, Verizon?  I expect KDE to do that sort of thing, once in a while, after an update in an -unstable distro (and, alas, in -testing these days), but production, mass-market software being pushed by a carrier should bloody well leave my configuration alone.

Update: more worser.  The following morning, 0200ish, I was awakened by "DROID".  Then it did it again a few minutes later.  Then again a few minutes after that.

Reboot loop WTF???  Turned the bugger off, and went back to sleep.  On waking up properly, I did a bit of searching, and found this: seems there's a humongous update in process involving multiple reboots over a 3 hour span.  From 0200 to 0500, when, yeah, the typical customer won't be trying to use his phone, but might very well be trying to sleep... and having the phone loudly announce that it's rebooting, repeatedly, is bound to cause alarm.

And, y'know, the update that installed yesterday?  Asked for permission to install itself and reboot.  Though it wasn't altogether housebroken about installing itself.

Update 2: the morning after the previous update, the phone spent roughly 0200 to 0500 chanting "DROID" to itself.  This time, I didn't interfere, except for turning the sound off, after which it continued playing "Main screen turn on" every few minutes.

After all this hubbub, it's at Android version 2.3.4, kernel version 2.6.35.13, and build number 4.08.605.15.

No, I don't remember what the version numbers were a couple of days ago, before this all started.

Update 3: Saturday night, I put the phone on silent, to avoid awakenment by any further droidery-chantery.  Being sporadically awake anyway during the interval of interest, I didn't notice the phone being lit up, so maybe it's done being peculiar.

Comments

[Greg]

Since letting the 0200 to 0500 update reboots run undisturbed, has your phone calmed down and stopped rebooting each night, or is it still having issues?

[Eric Wilner]

Well, it's now Saturday morning, being the end of the third night of this, and as of about 0435 it was still in its reboot cycle.