What's wrong with my cell phone?

Factual Questions
1

It’s a 2 year old LG ENv (the original design, not the 2nd generation). It serves me well and I’m not in a hurry to replace it.

But - a couple of days ago, I noticed that the front screen would periodically light up, go dim, then go blank. I noticed this in the middle of the night - happened to be awake and looked that direction and saw my purse lighting up. I turned it off for the rest of the night.

I checked in the morning and it was still doing it - but this time, I could see a message displaying when it first lit up: “Bluetooth Hands Free Device Disconnected”.

Only… I wasn’t using anything Bluetooth with it at that point. I thought it might perhaps be because I’d left the bluetooth dongle on the desktop computer 20ish feet away and it had connected to that - but to the best of my knowledge, it shouldn’t be randomly trying to connect. Today, I removed the desktop’s bluetooth adapter and verified that my laptop and PDA’s bluetooth were both off… and it’s still doing it.

I’ve tried *228 (we’re with Verizon). Option 2 to update roaming did nothing. Option 1 to program the phone sat and fiddled around for a bit and then said “unable to update”. Which I think makes sense, that’s usually something only done when the phone is new.

Googling the problem doesn’t give any information so I thought I’d throw it out to my fellow Dopers to see if anyone has ever heard of anything like this.

Mainly I’m concerned that this will chew up the batteries. Not a problem when I’m at home, but if I’m out and about it could be a big pain.

2

My phone has a master reset which takes it back to factory settings. Perhaps you should look for something similar on your phone. Or, just take it to the place where you bought it and ask for a repair station.

3

No master reset that I can find. I’ve also tried removing and replacing the battery, but it’s still acting up. I’ll be taking it by the Verizon store tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve disabled Bluetooth on the phone entirely, which seems to have stopped the flashing at least (though it means I’ll have to manually enable it every time I want to use my headset).

4

It is somehow pairing with something. Perhaps you did not turn off your headset. If the headset was in a different room perhaps it barely connects and then disconnects the connects etc.

5

The headset is in the car, at the other end of the house (40ish feet away, maybe more). Though it’s certainly possible it’s connecting, shouldn’t it also say “bluetooth connected” just before it disconnects? I will double-check the headset, though.

6

Who knows? Perhaps it did, but that was 15 minutes ago when you were not paying attention to the phone.

7

Thanks! I checked, and it definitely did not. I would sit and watch the phone and see this sequence:
Blank
…
Light up, “Bluetooth disconnected” displayed.
Message disappeared, to be replaced with regular background (picture, time etc.).
Screen blank
… (for a minute or so)
Light up, “Bluetooth disconnected” displayed.
Message disappeared, to be replaced with regular background (picture, time etc.).
Screen blank
… (for a minute or so)
Light up, “Bluetooth disconnected” displayed.
Message disappeared, to be replaced with regular background (picture, time etc.).
Screen blank
… (for a minute or so)

So it was repeatedly “disconnecting” without reconnecting to anything in the interim.

I brought in my headset from the car - verified that it had been turned off, and turned it on / connected it. It started making beeping noises then started playing static in my ear so I turned it off. I got a usual “disconnected” message on the phone… then it went back into the cycle repeated above.

I turned off Bluetooth again, charged my headset, then turned it back on (and turned bluetooth on the phone again) and it connected fine with no funny noises. After an hour of leaving everything on, the flashing was no longer occurring at all.

So in hindsight, my theory is perhaps I left the headset on, then the phone got confused when the headset battery futzed out or it got removed from sensing distance, and the phone’s circuitry just couldn’t straighten itself out until it got correctly connected to a headset. Weird that even a battery-ectomy didn’t reset that.