Android Subsystem Crash when Changing / Losing Network Connection

Bug Reports
1

REPRODUCIBILITY: 100%
OS VERSION: 5.0.0.72 (Tampella)
HARDWARE: XPeria XA2 (Dual SIM)
UI LANGUAGE: English
REGRESSION: Yes, I remember this behaviour previously (possibly OS version 4?) but it was reintroduced 1 or 2 updates ago.

DESCRIPTION:

When an Android app is transmitting or receiving a lot of data and Wifi or mobile data reception is lost, the Android app crashes along with every other Android app that’s open while the phone searches for a new connection. Attempts to restart the app then give the notification that it will launch when Android App Support has started. However, it never starts. Using Settings→Stop and Start doesn’t restart Android App Support; only a reboot of the device will restore functionality.

Native Sailfish apps continue to work as normal, including networking. If transfers aren’t taking place at the time, Android apps will continue to function as normal too, including networking once a new connection is established. The same behaviour can be seen across many Android apps.

PRECONDITIONS:

Android app that uses network data transfers.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

  1. Launch an Android app that will transfer data, e.g. a messenger app (WhatsApp, Telegram etc.), Facebook, radio streaming apps… I’ve noticed it with Facebook Lite, Discord, AllRadio (the old version, not the new cash-grab version), Telegram, Signal.

  2. Connect to a Wifi network.

  3. Start a transfer, e.g. uploading or downloading a large file or streaming video or audio.

  4. Walk away from the Wifi base station until connection is lost and the phone switches to 4G

EXPECTED RESULT:

Interruption of transfers, with the app either reconnecting automatically and continuing the transfer or the user restarting the transfer manually.

ACTUAL RESULT:

Crash of Android App Support requiring a reboot to restore Android functionality.

MODIFICATIONS:

None.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

2

That’s exactly the issue solved with 5.0.0.73. What is the purpose of creating yet another thread for it?

1 Like
3

That’s exactly the issue solved with 5.0.0.73. What is the purpose of creating yet another thread for it?

  1. I checked for updates on my phone and none were found. I’m not on early access as I’ve been bitten by issues following updates before.
  2. I can’t see any mention of my issue in that 5.0.0.73 post you linked to. Could you please point to where my issue is listed as I seem to have missed it.
  3. I couldn’t find any threads regarding this issue as a regression, or anything matching my setup, but again, maybe I’ve missed it due to poor choice of search terms, so I’d appreciate if you could point to all the other threads already mentioning this issue so I can get a better understanding of it.

Thanks for your help :slight_smile:

4

The issue of appsupport requiring a reboot is described here:

AppSupport randomly crashes until device reboot

[10 III] [5.0.0.71] Android App Support does not start when “Start Android App Support when device starts” is enabled

The cause of the crash (changing networks, especially in a wifi mesh environment) was also mentioned somewhere in these threads.

1 Like
5

Treating the symptoms isn’t a fix for the root cause; AppSupport requiring a reboot isn’t the issue I was reporting. I will still have much the same issue if the issue of requiring a reboot is fixed, it will just take a shorter length of time to recover from the AppSupport crashes that will still happen. I also don’t have any issue with AppSupport not starting when the device starts, which again is a different problem statement to mine.

Please show me in the 5.0.0.73 thread where the issue switching networks causing app crashes is addressed in that update, and not the issue that AppSupport crashes require a reboot as the update notes appear to be talking about.

6

Both of those issues describe the same thing you do, it’s just that the original authors (myself included) didn’t know at the time of creating that it’s network related. If you read through both of those, you’ll find out it is.

E.g.: [10 III] [5.0.0.71] Android App Support does not start when “Start Android App Support when device starts” is enabled - #47 by slalomsk8er

And: [10 III] [5.0.0.71] Android App Support does not start when “Start Android App Support when device starts” is enabled - #50 by Rikudou_Sennin

7

Indeed, I did read that. But my points remain: first off, the main problem statement doesn’t match my bug report, even if other posts in the thread do: AAS starts with my phone software just fine.

And the second, more serious point is that, while these issues might be various different manifestations of the same issue with network switching, it doesn’t look like that’s the issue that has been addressed in the 5.0.0.73 update. I would be delighted to be wrong about this, as it’s a very annoying issue that currently means crashes 2-3 times a day for me. But a “fix” that says I can restart the AAS subsystem through the menu instead of rebooting the phone is not a fix for my bug report at all. It’s just moving the work-around from one menu to another.

8

Well, not a single crash of AAS for me since the .73 update. Can’t guarantee it because this phone never had the offending .72 update (I intentionally stayed on .71) but everyone else says the issue has been fixed as well.

1 Like
9

FWIW, I run an OpenVPN server at home and have this VPN connection permanently enabled on my XA2. So the Android container never sees a network change - it’s always VPN, whereas the VPN connection itself switches to other networks without problem.

Added bonus: extra privacy wherever you go.