Ok, I have a work-a-round. It's not the best solution, but it's working at least. Through some trial and error my phone is working on 3g and not rebooting (so far). There are lots of suggestions out there that the problem is My Verizon apps or a problem with the network causing the 4g radio to make the phone reboot. For now, my belief is that the 4g radio is definitly involved, but wether it's a symptom or cause I can't say. Also, I can't guareentee that any of this will work for you, I just know that it worked for me. And one final note, I can not say whether any of these steps are absolutly neccessary and critical or if they are just ineffectual.
1) Download App2SD and move all the apps you can to your sd card.
2) Backup all your contacts via the Verizon Back Assistant.
3) Writedown or make note of the Apps you have and any special icons you have for your home screens. (Just makes setting everything back up easier).
4)Power off your phone. Take off back cover. Remove battery. Remove the SD Card. Remove the SIM card.
5). Replace the battery and power on.
6) Go to Menu/Settings/SD and Phone Storage/Factory Data Reset (Heed the warning: this removes most of the data on your phone and generally restores it back to Factory Like Settings. I say Factory Like because it does not revert back to the previous Firmware and it doesn't actually remove ALL the data. If you search your files you'll see that some files are still available. As a matter of fact I still had several Apps that remained installed in the internal storage. Passwords/User Data however recieves the kabash.
7) Once it reboots it asks you to go through some intial setup steps the same as when you first got your phone. You can skip these steps as you'll reset the data one more time. Ignore the No SIM card errors.
😎 At this point, if you try and put back in the SIM card, you'll notice that you'll probably have one of two things (both happened to me). You'll have 4g, but it starts rebooting again at some point and your battery will be sucked dry. Or you'll be stuck at 1x they way the phones did when Verizon had the LTE outage a while back. The next steps should fix that.
9) We are going to switch from 4g to 3g and force the 3g radio to revert back to the standard 3g signal. To do this you will need to get into a few of the internal settings. On your phone dailer key in *#*#4636#*#* You'll be taken to the Testing Menu. Tap on Phone Information. Scroll down and click on Set Preferred Network Type and select CDMA auto (PRL) then back button to your home screen. This switches you from 4g to 3g.
10) Next we want to set 3g to it use's the standard 3g protocol. Changing this forces the phone to remain in 3g mode instead of bouncing back and forth between 3g/1x. My expierence is that it just stays at 1x anyway. To change this, again, key in ##778# and press send. Select "Edit Mode". The password is 000000 and click ok. The EPST menu opens up. Tap on Modem Settings. Tap on REV. A. Now select Enable instead of eHRPD and click OK. Now tap Menu and and tap Commit Modifications. Go to your home screen.
11) Reboot the phone again. Once it powers back on repeat steps 6 & 7.
12) Before you power on the phone, replace the SIM card. Power back on. Don't worry the SD Card comes after we're done and we're ready to set up the phone with our settings. Once it comes back you will have the Intial Setup steps. Complete those now.
13) If all went well, the phone is reset to factory like settings and your Thunderbolt will be in 3g mode and you shouldn't have anymore annoying reboots, battery issues, or just wierd random behavior due to the major Over The Air (OTA) Software Update FAIL from Verizon.
14) You can know re-install the SD Card and begin setting your phone back up. If you moved all your apps to the SD Card they should start re-installing themselves automagically.
Some of these steps are my own and some are borrowed from others in the forums. I hope this works for you and keeps you going until Verizon and HTC can provide a real fix.
