Class-Action Lawsuit Targets LG Over Legendary G4, V10 Bootloop Issues

For those affected by LG's infamous bootloop issue with the G4 and V10, you might find some joy in this: several (upset) owners of these devices have lodged a proposed class-action lawsuit in a California federal court. They claim that a repeating bootloop issue "renders the phones inoperable and unfit for any use." In other words: bricked. Ars Technica reports: Thousands of complaints about the G4 have been highlighted on Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube. There was even an online petition to "launch a replacement program for defective LG G4s." Not to be outdone, the V10 has been the subject of many online complaints as well. One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit (PDF) filed Wednesday said that LG replaced his G4 two times and that his third G4 constantly freezes. The new phone, says the suit, is "manifesting signs of the bootloop defect and is unmerchantable." A year ago, LG acknowledged the problem with the G4 and said it was the result of "loose contact between components." The company began offering replacement devices and fixes. The suit said that even after the January 2016 announcement, "LG continued to manufacture LG Phones with the bootloop defect." The suit claims that both models' processors were inadequately soldered to the motherboard, rendering them "unable to withstand the heat." Initially, the phones begin to freeze, suffer slowdowns, overheat, and reboot at random. Eventually, the suit says, they fail "entirely."

Old "news"

[nigelo]

The article on the V10 is from Aug last year asking 'does the V10 have problems?'
Well does it? Was this the only mud you could find, because that doesn't look like evidence to me.

Disclaimer: I've had a V10 since before Aug and it has no problems, fwiw.

Re: Old "news"

[Prod_Deity]

I literally just had my V10 returned to me because of the bootloop. My wife had one right before Christmas. Worst thing is, they tried to charge me when they didn't charge her.

Re: Old "news"

[Prod_Deity]

We both have had our phones since the promo of a free charger and SD card back in October 2015.

Re:

[danomac]

I've had my LG G4 since in came out locally (June 2015?) and haven't had any problems with it at all. For a supposedly legendary problem, I'm hearing about it for the first time right now...

Re:

[pagebt]

Just replaced my V10 last month because of boot loop issue. Verizon records showed that it was 4 days out of warranty. Luckily, the tech was able to override and get a replacement, but if it happens again...

Re: LG G4

[Doloresanto]

The problem is not "kikes" but people being dismissive letting the "kikes" do whatever they want when proper defense mechanisms by the state are so available.

Re: LG G4

[Doloresanto]

So? Is there no trade commission in your country?

Bootloops

[sjames]

Follow your nose!"

RoHS

[manu0601]

Another victim of RoHS [wikipedia.org]-compliant soldering?

Re: I had a G4 that did this, I went out and got a

[Doloresanto]

You got a phone from a company with equally bad support.

Nexus 5X

[asavage]

A whole generation of LG phones have been plagued by this bootloop issue. It is from faulty soldering, possibly on the ram module. I have a Nexus 5X from LG and many other owners have had their phones bootloop. They extended the warranty to 15 months.

Re:

[peshooo]

Yeah, the Nexus 5x was total disaster. When I browsed nexus forums and reddit it seems like every second 5x had a bootloop. Including mine, which they didn't fix because I had a damaged a little bit the glass. Never again an LG.

Re:

[chrisvdb]

I had the same issue with my Nexus 5X... like many others (https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=220971). After much discussion they finally replaced the device, but with one that is likely prone to the same issue (judging from the manufacturing date of the replacement device). In a few months I'll most likely experience the exact same issue, but then outside of the warranty period. Not cool!

Most likely bad power management design

[occamboy]

It turns out that in managing batteries and booting there are a ton of oddball cases that cause things like this to happen. For example, there may be enough power available from the battery to start the boot process with the CPU in a low power, but once some peripherals start turning on the power draw bec omes more than the battery can support, a voltage rail drops to low, and a reboot happens. Shameless plug: there's a chapter in my book on product development that covers some of these issues and solutions

My LG Nexus 5X

[guacamole]

My LG Nexus 5X is running the stock Nougat firmware, with no root or any mods, and it does occasionally reboot itself, maybe once a couple of weeks.

Can I join?

[piojo]

Can I join if I bought my phone outside the US? What if I'm currently residing outside the US (but have a US address)?

LG has refused to repair my boot-looping phone in the past. Have they changed their stance? Is there any way I can push them to reconsider? (It's long out of warranty by now, but the fact remains that they sold me a badly defective phone.)

Re: Can I join?

[Doloresanto]

You can join.

ugh, i smashed my v10 because of this issue

[phik]

you probably can't get in on it if you destroyed the phone in anger. sigh.

My G4 was repaired past the standard warranty

[Wheels17]

I had a G4 die from the bootloop problem. I went into the large red store for replacement, since there was an insurance plan on the 14 month old phone. They told me that the insurance did not cover manufacturer's defects. So I asked if I went outside and threw the phone against the wall and came back in, it would be covered by insurance? They replied it would cover the physical damage.

My ethics would not let me do this, so I contacted LG. The first time, they said that there was nothing they would do.

I loved my G4 but the bootloop soured me on LG

[kalpol]

Two G4s, one bootlooped and the other quit connecting to the cell network. They were both the international unlocked versions - LG would only replace them with the locked US version so while they did replace them, the replacements were locked to my carrier with all its bloatware, uninstallable Facebook apps, etc. And AT&T apparently used a different wireless charging system than everyone else, so now my wireless charging back doesn't work any more either. LG had a real competitor here with the G4, a bea

I'm surprised it doesn't include G3

[jim_deane]

The LG G3 experienced two problems that lead to non-functionality and eventually death. First was a failure to recognize the SIM card, which can sometimes be repaired with a new sim card tray. The second was the flicker and fade screen failure. Probably actually a chip or solder failure in the video subsystem.

In my opinion, the common cause of these is faulty soldering or faulty solder. Perhaps they have not adequately perfected RoHS lead-free solder profiles. Lead-free solder is a disaster overall and is