Signal outage corrupts Android

I woke up in bright sunshine after a night with two hours' sleep loss. There was a short cloudburst while I was in the bathroom. More rain followed with dark clouds coming and going. The EE mobile phone signal came and went randomly causing both our phones to malfunction and reboot. Clare used the landline to call a taxi which took her to Penarth for her study group meeting after breakfast. I wonder how taxi firms were managing given drivers' reliance on mobile phones to direct them to new clients.

I went to Llandaff Fields to take daylight photos of the big tree branches that blew down yesterday. There was no sign of the city's tree management team at work. I imagine priority is given to clearing rural roads. It seems there was heavy congestion in and around Pontcanna in this morning's rush hour due to additional traffic light controls at road works.

By the time Clare returned home, I had lunch cooked and ready to eat. My lower back pain is almost gone. I didn't need an ibuprofen to get started today, but there's still lingering stiffness in my neck and shoulders. I lay flat on my back for half an hour with a book under my head, relaxing and gently stretching listening to a program about the legendary escapologist and self-publicist Harry Houdini.

My phone continued to misbehave throughout the day. The network outage report web page showed that EE had gone through a period of outage. EE's web page provided no meaningful data at all to indicate that I should have a 4G signal or otherwise. It was most confusing. The phone would start up, throw an error message and automatically reboot. I went for another walk in Llandaff Fields as I knew where I would be able to get a strong signal, but there was no change in the phone's behaviour. On several occasions I got a message telling me that an Android startup file was corrupt, and that a factory reset was required. 

I told the children the phone wasn't working properly and to use the landline using WhatsApp in the brief period after startup before it crashed again. Then I set the hour long 'factory reset' process in motion. It was nerve wracking as there were identity checks and sign-ins at every step during reinstatement of the operating system and app downloads. The appearance of the restored user interface is slightly different. An assortment of apps appeared which I'll never use needed deletion. It indicates a full Android update, which was probably scheduled for download when I switched on this morning, but failed when the EE outage occurred, corrupting the operating system leaving it an endless reboot cycle. It's a relief to have sorted out my phone. Clare's phone will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm exhausted now and need to sleep.