[Release notes] Struven ketju 4.5.0.18

[jovirkku]

Many thanks to you our active contributors for your feedback and proposals.

Table of content

Table of content

Version history of the OS release

• 2023-02-02: OS version 4.5.0.16 was released to Early Access subscribers as an over-the-air update.
• 2023-02-09: OS version 4.5.0.16 was released to all users as an over-the-air update. Installable images are available in the Jolla Shop
• 2023-02-16: OS version 4.5.0.18 was released to all users as an over-the-air update.

Stop release

This release is a stop release .

– Is 4.5.0.18 also a stop release?
– Yes. We have switched the rpm compression from xz to zstd on 4.5.0. In addition, 4.5.0 moves AppSupport to Android 11 API Level. 4.5.0.18 replaces 4.5.0.16 as a stop release.

So far, all Sailfish 4 releases have been stop releases. Because of this, if there is a reason to reset an Xperia device, please do not do it with “device reset” but, instead, re-install Sailfish - see the comparison .

Important notice

Please read about the upgrade of Android AppSupport before you start the OS update.

Jolla Blog

Read the new blog about this 4.5.0 OS release, please. It contains not only technical details but also some background for the strange nickname of this release, “Struven ketju”.

Device models supported by Sailfish X

The supported Sailfish X devices are listed in this table.

The instructions for installing Sailfish OS to Sony Xperia X, Xperia XA2, Xperia 10, Xperia 10 II (mark 2), and Xperia 10 III (mark 3) devices are here - covering Windows, Linux, and macOS computers.

Read this, please, to learn about the Sailfish X licence.

Release highlights

The list below contains examples of new features and bug fixes added to Sailfish OS, compared to the previous public release 4.5.0.16. All Sailfish OS release notes can be found here.

Browser

• Issues with the playback of video and audio clips fixed

Lock screen

• The location of the text about an ongoing call fixed

Middleware

• Package libxslt fixed

Device-specific changes

Sailfish OS Forum: issues reported by the community fixed in this update

• [4.5.0.16] Video playback in browser not working
• SFOS 4.5 feedback thread - #45 by dumol
• https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/4-5-0-8-lock-screen-layout-issue-with-ongoing-call/14229
• [4.5.0.16] Package libxslt does not provide libxslt.so.1

Technical changes

The detailed changelog is here.

Updating your device

Android AppSupport is upgraded to Android 11

OS release 4.5.0 contains a major upgrade of the AppSupport, from Android 10 to Android 11. This upgrade brings in modified and relocated app launchers, different access rights for the data directory of the apps, optimized apps, new app icons, and other changes.

When the phone has rebooted at the end of the OS update, AppSupport will start running a migration script transforming the Android apps for Android 11. While the script is running there are no Android app icons on the app grid. This is not a defect.

If there are plenty of Android apps installed on the phone, the migration process may last for several minutes.

Please wait patiently.

As soon as the new Android icons appear on the app grid, the migration is complete.

Note that it is important to keep the AppSupport installed and enabled over the OS update. Only then can the migration script do its job correctly.

If you have accidentally turned the phone off during the migration, simply turn the phone on again. The migration process should resume automatically.

OS release 4.5.0 is a stop release. This release cannot be skipped over when updating a phone from an earlier release to a more recent one.

The usual update process

Your device must be connected to the Internet and signed into your Jolla account.

Start the update from “Settings > Sailfish OS updates”. Avoid running updates on the command line, please.

We warmly recommend making some 3-4 GB of free space for the internal storage of your device ( /home ) before starting the update. Processing an OS update of almost 1 GB requires a good amount of work area. Move your pictures and videos to the SD card (or to your PC or cloud service).

This is the usual drill before attempting to update your devices:

Take a backup of your data before attempting to update your device and save the backup to an SD card or to some other off-device location (PC, your cloud service). Note that videos and images are not included in cloud-based backups. Do not reboot the device while the update is in progress. Do keep the phone connected to a battery charger during the whole process. The device screen may blank out during the update process; you may wake the display with a short press of the power key to monitor the progress.

For detailed instructions on updating software, read our help article in Sailfish OS Documentation.

NOTE 1:

Sailfish OS does not support downgrading. Never try to downgrade the OS as this would break your device.

NOTE 2:

After downloading an update and selecting “Install” in the pulley menu, the device runs a restart first. You will need to type the security code before the actual installation can start. A horizontal progress bar appears on a black background, under the Sailfish OS logo. As soon as the other end of the bar has been reached the phone will restart automatically. If it doesn’t, please wait for 15 minutes. If it is still stuck at the 100% point of the progress bar it is time to perform forced power off. Next, turn the phone on with the power key and check the OS version at “Settings > About product”.

Notification concerning apps from Open Repos

The apps below have been reported to cause problems when installing the previous OS updates. We recommend that you uninstall them before proceeding to the OS update. At least, read the recent comments on those apps.

• GetiPlay has caused problems to some users - see this post.
• If you’ve previously installed the RIME input engine from Open Repos, please remove both that and its version of libyaml-cpp before upgrading, as the latter will cause the upgrade to fail
• If you use Privoxy, be sure to disable it before downloading the update, especially if you have configured the HTTPS-inspection. The latest update is from September. There is no information about compatibility with Sailfish OS. See author’s instructions .
• If you use Aliendalvik Control, see the author’s instructions . It says there “Application has no support for SFOS 4 and later”
• If you use Phonehook be careful. The latest update (32-bit) is from October 2020. The 64-bit version (Xperia 10 II) was published in May 2021.
• If you use OKBoard (a.k.a. Magic Keyboard), update it first to version 0.6.34 which has the fix for the “Installation not complete” error. Also, read the author’s advice , please.

Known issues

We have relocated the known issues to a table in Sailfish OS documents.

How did the upgrade go?

• I had no issues during the upgrade process
• I had small issues but was able to handle them
• I got into serious trouble when upgrading my device (please help!)

Help articles

The Sailfish OS help articles, previously kept in Zendesk, have been moved to Sailfish OS Documents repository.

[BruceTanner]

Thanks for the “quick fix” update - went fine (XA2). For me I still can’t play BBC News videos. But not the “missing codec” error - the video starts but then freezes after about 2 seconds, but the sound continues. If I skip to another part of the video the same thing happens. I have got slow broadband though (but I can play the video on my laptop ok).

[Caluna]

Strange, but since the update from 4.5.0.16 to 4.5.0.18 I cannot download any pictures in Whatsapp anymore. I already checked permissions of the android_storage folder. The message I get in WA is (somehow - I have to translate):
Download failed. No internal storage available. Please inactivate it as extenal storage and try again.
Before the update everything worked as expected.

[davidrasch]

Similarly to your issue, I do not see any pictures in Threema Libre any longer.

[direc85]

The Finnish https://www.radioplayer.fi now works, thanks for the fix!

Youtube 1080p/60 content is also butter-smooth now! (Browser still tends to crash after ads.)

[fingus]

I´m still on 4.5.0.16 and wait for the approval/update for the tama port (https://github.com/sailfishos-sony-tama/main). With 4.5.0.16 Videos on Twitch.tv doesn’t work anymore, on Youtube they have often Problems starting or just restart itself and on 9gag.com the videos are stuttering in terms of Framerate.

I hope the 4.5.0.18 could fix that like it was before the update to 4.5.0.16, because the SailfishOS-Browser is my Daily-Driver in terms of Webbrowsing.

[thigg]

New pictures? Because i see existing ones.

[davidrasch]

No exidting pictures. Even background is gone.

[thigg]

It would be helpful if you could gather logs (see Collect Logs with Logcat | Sailfish OS Documentation) and create a bug report.

[Caluna]

Hi, stopping Android support, navigating to the android_storage in the terminal (devel-su), deleting
.privilege_migration_done
and
.storage_migration_done
and starting the Android support again helped.

[silta]

I had the same issue when updating to 4.5.0.16. There were only placeholders. One day later they were miraculously back again. Maybe they were new indexed by tracker or so…?

[davidrasch]

So I will just wait and see if it starts working agsin, thank you

[davidrasch]

Indeed all pictures in threema including background returned after a few hours.

[chris7chris]

In Tidings video stream was broken, after the update to … .18 it worked again. May be this helps a little.

[chris7chris]

Thanks, it helped to throw (hopefully) unnecessary data away.
…only my own pictures are missing. Hope they will appear like the others did.

[olf]

@jovirkku, you might want to rectify the broken link in the section “Important notices” with the text “the upgrade of Android AppSupport” to https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/release-notes-struven-ketju-4-5-0-18/14656#android-appsupport-is-upgraded-to-android-11-14 (from the broken https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/release-notes-struven-ketju-4-5-0-18/14656#android-appsupport-is-upgraded-to-android-11-47, note the incorrect final two digits), because it really is important that this link works.

Additionally you may rectify the incorrect plural “Important notices” to singular “Important notice”, because only a single notice follows and people might wonder if there are missing notices.

Thank you!

[jovirkku]

@olf

you might want to rectify the broken link

Thanks olf, that was a good catch. A stupid copy-paste error from my side. Fixed now.

[thigg]

This was the first update in a long time that i didn’t have to force reboot.

[Edz]

190 mb update to 4.5.0.18 from 16, downloaded quite quickly, update installed just as quickly. I noticed (again) my phone did a little double reboot after installation, meaning I saw the “your bootloader is unlocked” message twice…otherwise though, update was smooth and quick (that’s what she said!).

[WT.Sane]

Works here. 10 III 4.5.0.18 Threema Libre.