Technology: Motorola Atrix Phone Shut-Down Problem

I have a Motorola Atrix phone through ATT. A handful of months later, it was replaced by the Atrix II.

The phone has worked reasonably well. With any first generation device, it has some occasional buggy-ness. For instance, the phone would crash periodically much like the early days of the Windows operating system. But, overall, the Atrix has worked pretty well.

But, recently, my Atrix phone would power down by itself and attempt to restart but eventually powering down again during the restart cycle. If unattended to, it would keep doing this multiple times.

I was able to stop this behavior by interrupting the restart cycle by pushing the power button and doing a forced POWER OFF. The other thing I did was pop off the battery during the restart cycle which also stopped the repeated cycle. But eventually, the phone would have the same problem in a handful of hours and sometimes sooner.

A Google search of the problem seemed to indicate that many users think this problem is due to an APP on the phone and suggested removing apps to see if the problem went away. Another user thought it was the fingerprint reader.

The fingerprint reader idea seemed plausible since the power key is also the fingerprint identity detector. And if you compare the feature details of the Atrix II to the Atrix, the Atrix II dropped the fingerprint identity reader. One wonders if Motorola knew the fingerprint identity reader was buggy?

Anyway, I disabled the fingerprint reader feature and rely exclusively on the pin code unlock security system now. The phone hasn't gone into the power down restart power down cycle since I made the change a week ago.

So if you are having this problem on your Atrix phone, give the solution I attempted a try and see if that helps.

UPDATE: I still get the occasion power down power up recycle problem. I'm now deleting APPS that I downloaded within the last 6 months in the hopes that maybe its an errant app that is causing the problem. Of course, perhaps, there is some hardware bug in the phone. Anyway, we shall see.

UPDATE: The phone just ran a Android System update 2/13/2013 and the problem has gotten more pronounced. From this discussion forum, they suspect the WiFi could be a problem. I'm now only turning on the WiFi when I know I will actively use it. But it is striking how the Android System update has made the problem worse making me think it is some kind of software bug either with the system or its relationship to some of the apps I have onboard. We shall see if the WiFi shut off helps. Will also look at deleting more apps. This is "bleeding edge" technology I guess?