[Release notes] Suomenlinna 4.3.0

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

Table of content

Table of content

Update version history

  • 2021-11-03: OS version 4.3.0.12 was released to Early Access subscribers as an over-the-air update.
  • 2021-11-10: OS version 4.3.0.12 was released to all users as an over-the-air update. Installable images are available in the Jolla Shop.
  • 2121-11-19: Instructions related to packages ‘gittin’ and ‘git-minimal’ added in chapter “Known issues - generic”.
  • 2022-02-10: OS version 4.3.0.15 was released to Early Access subscribers. This supplemental Suomenlinna release contains the fix for the recently found vulnerability in the polkit package (CVE-2021-4034) and it avoids some potential problems when installing the upcoming 4.4.0 release. Improvements for SDK.
  • 2022-02-16: OS version 4.3.0.15 was released to all users as an over-the-air update. Installable images are available in the Jolla Shop.

Size of update

The download size of the update depends on the device type and on the OS version currently in the device. Some typical values are below:

  • Xperia X from 4.2.0 to 4.3.0.12: about 510 MB
  • Xperia XA2 from 4.2.0 to 4.3.0.12: about 740 MB
  • Xperia 10 from 4.2.0 to 4.3.0.12: about 480 MB
  • Xperia 10 II from 4.2.0 to 4.3.0.12: about 880 MB

From 4.3.0.12 to 4.3.0.15: about 300 MB

Stop release

Yes, 4.3.0.15 is a stop release. It replaces 4.3.0.12 as a stop release.

Jolla Blog

The blog about Suomenlinna.

Device models supported by Sailfish X

Jolla Phone is not supported anymore. OS release 3.4.0 was the last one for this device launched 7 years ago. The lowest supported kernel version of Sailfish 4 in the remaining Sailfish OS devices is 3.10. It is in Jolla C, Jolla Tablet and Xperia X.

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

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

The supported Sony Xperia 10 II models are:

  • 10 II (mark 2) single-SIM: XQ-AU51
  • 10 II (mark 2) dual-SIM: XQ-AU52

The supported Sony Xperia 10 models are:

  • 10 single-SIM: I3113 and I3123
  • 10 dual-SIM: I4113 and I4193
  • 10 Plus single-SIM: I3213 and I3223
  • 10 Plus dual-SIM: I4213 and I4293

The supported Sony Xperia XA2 models are:

  • XA2 single SIM H3113 (also H3123, H3133)
  • XA2 dual SIM H4113 (also H4133)
  • XA2 Ultra single SIM H3213 (also H3223)
  • XA2 Ultra dual SIM H4213 (also H4233)
  • XA2 Plus single SIM H3413
  • XA2 Plus dual SIM H4413 (also H4493)

The supported Sony Xperia X models are X single SIM F5121 and X dual SIM F5122

The supported Gemini PDA models are x25 and x27.

Contributions from Aurora OS [Until 2021-11-03]

Here are some of the key features contributed by Open Mobile Platform to the Sailfish OS:

  • The new Browser menu can be closed with a drag gesture
  • History settings now display website icons and additional actions
  • Camera setting added to browser permissions
  • Leaving private mode is allowed also when no tabs exist
  • Several browser fixes and improvements
  • Tracker3 taken into use
  • Several sandboxing improvements and fixes

Jolla appreciates the collaborative efforts of its partners and community to make Sailfish OS even better.

Release Highlights

The list below contains examples of new features (and some bug fixes) added to Sailfish OS, compared to the previous public release 4.2.0. The release notes of 4.2.0 can be found here.

3rd party APIs

  • A new API to the list of Harbour-allowed APIs: Amber Web Authorization Framework. Amber Web Authorization Framework is a library that allows applications to interact with remote services which use OAuth Framework for authorization.
  • All SDL application s need to be fixed because of a fix to touch input coordinate handling.

Ambiences

  • Fixed the generation of the ambience colour

Android App Support (Xperia XA2, 10 and 10 II)

  • Android apps can now be used to open files and web links, according to declared filetype, URI scheme and URL domain associations [beta]
    • some apps appear on this list unnecessarily and some even twice (Opera) - will be fixed on OS release 4.4.0
  • Android apps also appear in the Sharing menu [beta]. For instance, sharing from Gallery to Whatsapp is easy.
  • Android system image is signed now. Many apps that previously complained of a rooted system work now.
  • Android App Support updated to September 2021 security patch level (10.0.0_r58).
  • Mobile data works for Android apps right after installing Android App Support
  • Meeting windows of Zoom videoconferencing app are shown now
  • A fix helping Android apps to connect back to a WLAN network (from a mobile network) added

Browser

  • The new Browser menu can now be closed with a drag
  • Showing address search results on Google map fixed
  • History settings now display website icons and additional actions
  • “Do not track” setting moved to browser Settings from “Clear browsing data” page
  • Camera setting added to browser permissions
  • Paused and hidden (screen turned off) Youtube playback can be resumed
  • “Search the web” option of the Top Menu fixed: it opens up the Browser and the keyboard now
  • Trying to save a web address with an incomplete URL to App Grid leads to a warning
  • Leaving private mode is allowed also when no tabs exist
  • Updates to terminology: 1. “Default home page” was renamed to “Start view”. 2. “Custom website” was changed to “Web page”
  • If “Close all tabs on exit” is in effect: the Home page (if set) or the “Start view” will be loaded when the Browser is started the next time
  • A bug was fixed where the login page was not shown when connecting to a captive portal

Calendar

  • Several fixes to improve the Calendar [thank you Damien Caliste)]
  • Deletion of cancelled occurrences on Exchange calendar handled better which makes event removals appear on Sailfish phone, too.
  • Fix opening of Calendar to show event page when there is already an event shown

Camera

  • Boosting of the camera (startup) added back (earlier removed by sandboxing)
  • Flash modes of video camera fixed

Connectivity

  • Mobile data fixed to work also right after installing Android App Support from the Store
  • Two separate fixes for “IPv4 not being enabled on mobile data when it is used in dual mode”
    • After device boot up IPv4 did not get assigned on some devices (X10 II, for instance)
    • When mobile data and WiFi are switched on/off and networking changes (typically, when shutting down WiFi while mobile data is enabled)
  • Improvements to the functionality of mobile certificate (of Finland)
  • Autoconnect round started with a back-off timer now

Device managment (MDM)

  • AutoStart API regression fixed (used to automatically start selected apps on boot)

Email

  • Email startup boosted again (earlier removed by sandboxing)

Flashing (installing) OS to device

  • USB auto-suspend prevented when flashing with Linux

Gallery

  • Playback of H.265 video fixed

  • Video controls not showing for video files opened from outside of the Gallery app fixed

Haptics

  • Lack of vibration feedback in various apps fixed

Home screen

  • An issue fixed where unlocking with Quick Events gesture setting enabled using fingerprint opened to Events view instead of Home

Location

Media indexing

  • Tracker3 taken into use on Sailfish OS

Messages

  • Group matching fixed. Incoming messages do not end up in group chat when they belong to private chat
  • Send MMS page landscape layout fixed (4.2.0 regression)
  • Send MMS page now pops the page after sending the message

Middleware

  • Allow D-Bus activation only through systemd

Multimedia

  • Playback of H.265 video fixed

  • Video colour format converted to a supported one before encoding (video calls on Browser). Changed API used for getting the list of supported colour formats.

NFC

  • Fix for checking the presence of an acquired tag (which prevents the possibility of the NCF system from locking up)

Phone

  • Dimmed phone cover getting stuck fixed

Sandboxing (app isolation)

  • Default sandboxing of all apps exists but is not enabled on 4.3.0 yet. It will be enabled on 4.4.0. On 4.3.0, the feature exists but it’s not enabled in the configuration file. By creating an appropriate config file you (a developer) can enable it to test the feature.
  • Improved security: many permissions dropped from the platform apps now that the sandboxing happens out-of-process
  • Browser, email and camera apps are sandboxed on release 4.3.0 and their startup is boosted
  • Several improvements and fixes

Security

  • Multiple security improvements, including Android security fixes, Web Auth API and sandboxing improvements
  • Support for OpenSSL 1.0 removed. This release no longer ships OpenSSL 1.0 libraries. So, if you are a maintainer of an app that uses OpenSSL 1.0 libraries, now is the time to upgrade to OpenSSL 1.1.
  • Vulnerabilities fixed:
    • c-ares v. 1.17.2: CVE-2021-3672
    • curl v. 7.78.0: CVE-2021-22922, CVE-2021-22923, CVE-2021-22924, CVE-2021-22925, CVE-2021-22926
    • fribidi v. 1.0.10: CVE-2019-18397
    • glibc v. 2.30: CVE-2021-38604
    • libtiff v. 4.3.0: CVE-2011-0192
    • libxml2 v. 2.9.12: CVE-2021-3541, CVE-2018-9251, CVE-2018-14567, CVE-2018-14404
    • openssl v. 1.1.1l: CVE-2021-3712, CVE-2021-3711
    • pcre v. 8.45: CVE-2020-14155, CVE-2019-20838
    • polkit v.0.105+git8: CVE-2021-4034
    • ppp v.2.4.9: CVE-2020-8597
    • python3 v. 3.8.11: CVE-2019-18348, CVE-2020-8492, CVE-2020-15523, CVE-2020-15801, CVE-2019-20907, CVE-2021-3426, CVE-2020-26116, CVE-2020-14422, CVE-2021-3177
    • taglib v. 1.12: CVE-2018-11439

Settings

  • Remorse is now shown when toggling “Store debug symbols to home partition” in Settings > Developer tools

SIM

  • An issue fixed where SIM kit features (used for e.g. mobile authentication by some operators) could not be accessed for certain SIM cards

Sharing

  • Android apps shown in sharing menu [beta]
  • Sharing menu colouring improved for better legibility on certain ambiences
  • Email sharing is no longer offered if the Email app is not installed
  • Bluetooth sharing progress bar flicker fixed

Text input

  • Unicode issues with the word prediction fixed on Xperia 10 II, which caused the prediction to offer wrong suggestions with certain languages like French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc.
  • Number keyboard not responding to touch in landscape orientation fixed

Tutorial

  • Skipping Tutorial allowed, for example when getting a new device but are an existing Sailfish OS user
  • Tutorial pulley menu chapter colouring issues fixed

UI components

  • Detail items (DetailItem) now support links

VPN

  • Credentials are kept safe when disconnecting from a network
  • Add IPv6 disable/block VPN settings for preventing data leak
  • Better support for ProtonVPN (and OpenVPN in general)

Weather

  • Temperature forecast line does not dramatize nearly constant temperatures anymore

Device specific improvements

Xperia 10 II

  • Text prediction fixed for certain languages like French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc.
  • Ensured that HW codecs are loaded for Android apps, too

Gemini PDA

Sailfish OS Forum and T.J.C: Issues reported by the community and fixed in this update

Technical changes

Changelog

The detailed changelog is here

Updating your device

Your device must be connected to the Internet and signed into your Jolla account. If your Jolla account is registered for Early Access releases you should receive an OS update notification when an update is available. If you have decided not to take the Early Access registration then you will get the OS update typically one week later.

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 to 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 waken the display by a short press on the power key to monitor the progress.

For detailed instructions on updating software, read our help article in Zendesk.

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. In the case of a device with the user-space encrypted, you will need to type the security code before the actual installation can start.

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 autho’s instructions.

  • If you use Aliendalvik Control, see the author’s instructions. There is no confirmation if this app is compatible with Sailfish OS 4.n. Also, there is no 64-bit version.

  • If you use Storeman please read the author’s instructions at Storeman Installer. Compatible with OS 4.2.0 but not yet confirmed to work with 4.3.0. You will probably need to uninstall your existing Storeman and then install it using the new “Storeman Installer” app. Also, see this post.

  • 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 “Installation not complete” error. Also, read the author’s advice, please.

About SD cards

  • Encrypted cards must be unlocked by the user to make them available for Sailfish applications.

  • Non-encrypted cards are mounted automatically when the device is turned on.

  • Encrypted cards can be formatted only when they are locked. Formatting removes the encryption in this case (the card becomes unencrypted and unmounted). You can then format it again with the option to encrypt if needed.

Location service

Support for MLS offline data is available as installable apps in Jolla Store (see below). Install the data app of your area to make the phone get the location coordinates faster.

  • Positioning - Australia
  • Positioning - Eastern Europe
  • Positioning - India
  • Positioning - Northern Europe
  • Positioning - Southern Europe
  • Positioning - Western Europe

Recommended location settings on the phone:

  • Settings > System > Location > Custom settings: ON
  • Settings > System > Location > Select custom settings:
    • GPS positioning: ON
    • Offline position lock: ON
    • Online position lock: OFF

Known issues - generic

  • Bluetooth devices are not supported by Android App Support with exception of speakers.
  • Signing into Dropbox works via Google account linking only. So, after triggering the sign-in at “Settings > Accounts > Dropbox” and the browser page dropbox.com appears, tap “Sign in with Google” (if you have a Google account).
  • Try to avoid selecting the 0.6 camera when having the flash turned on in the video mode as this would turn the viewfinder black and hang up the camera app. Should this happen, switch the app to the still camera mode and then restart the app. To be fixed on OS release 4.4.0.
  • Phones updated over the air starting from OS release 3.1.0 (or earlier), may still have the packages gittin and git-minimal (which were later removed from Sailfish repositories). Now, when going to download the 4.3.0 update, Sailfish issues a warning on those two packages as if they might cause problems. This warning can be ignored, i.e., you can proceed with the update without removing the said packages. They are removed from your phone during this OS update.

Known issues to Android App Support 10 - Xperia 10 II, Xperia 10, and Xperia XA2

  • Sometimes, Android apps may not be able to use Internet connections via a mobile network. If there are connection problems later on (either WLAN or mobile data), stopping and starting the Android service at “Settings > Android App Support” should help. Toggling the connection off and on is another trick to try.

Known issues specific to Xperia 10 II

  • Top edge swipes in landscape orientation may not work very well
  • Sidetone feature is not perfectly calibrated, and sidetone volume can be a bit high in wired accessories during voice calls
  • There is no partition for the factory-reset image on Xperia 10 II. Therefore there is no option for the factory reset in the Settings. Instead of resetting the phone, it can be reflashed.
  • Mobile data does not work in 2G and 3G networks on SIM #2.

Known issues specific to Xperia 10

  • Features not implemented: FM radio, double-tap wakeup, support for dual camera, RTC Alarms.
  • Rarely, audio playback and sensors (display rotation) may stop working. If this happens, please restart the device
  • In some cases, the acceptance of the PIN code of a SIM card may take up to 5…20 seconds
  • The phone may not turn off by applying the Power key or the Top Menu. A forced power down goes like this: press both the Volume Up and Power keys down. Keep them down for 20-30 sec until the vibrator plays 3 times - now release the keys.
  • Transitions related to network switching 4G > 3G (call begins) and 3G > 4G (call ends) may take time on some networks. Getting the data connection via 4G back might require extra actions in the worst cases. Normally, in most networks, these transitions take a few seconds on Xperia 10.

Known issues specific to Xperia XA2

  • Features not implemented: FM radio, double-tap wakeup, RTC Alarms (XA2 does not power up when alarm time has elapsed )
  • Bluetooth: there are problems in connecting to some peripheral devices
  • Flashing Sailfish X to XA2 might still fail (so far seen to happen on Ubuntu 18.04 when using USB3 port). Please read this article.
  • With v17B Sony vendor image we observed a decrease in the perceived signal strength of the 5 GHz WLAN access points (investigations ongoing). Version v16 may work better in this respect. Therefore we would not recommend flashing v17B for the time being if you use WLAN networks in the 5 GHz band. You can reflash the vendor image of your choice by following the instructions in here.
  • Some XA2 devices suffer from the loss of audio during voice calls. Reported here.

Known issues specific to Xperia X [ no changes here ]

  • Features not implemented: FM radio, double-tap wakeup, step counter, RTC Alarms
  • Issues with mobile data persist on some SIM cards. Turn the Flight mode on and off to reset the network setup. Reverting the device to Android and re-installing Sailfish X has often helped. See our support article.
  • [camera] Force autofocus mode for photos, and continuous for video. After this, camera focus is still not ideal - as the camera stays out of focus when it starts until you either tap or you try to take a shot - but the pictures seem to be better focused now
  • Bluetooth: problems with some car equipment, some audio devices and computers may appear
  • The loudspeaker volume level cannot be adjusted very high
  • Not all SD cards are recognized and mounted.
  • There is a green stripe on the lower edge of the Camera viewfinder. This does not prevent taking pictures, though.

Known issues specific to Jolla Tablet [ no changes here ]

  • There is no progress bar during the installation phase of OS upgrades. This makes it difficult to follow if it makes progress or not. However, if there are no problems the device will restart itself in the end - please wait patiently. If you feel that you have waited enough, wait for yet another 20 minutes before you turn off the device to allow some more time for it to complete the job. Interrupting too early may break the tablet.
  • Taking screenshots is broken. Pressing the VOL keys together seems to create an image but it cannot be viewed in Gallery.

Known issues specific to Gemini PDA [ no changes here ]

  • Features not implemented: double-tap wakeup, RTC Alarms
  • Gemini Screenshot Button Fn + X does not work
  • Not possible to answer calls when Gemini is closed with a side button
  • Horizontal screen in Gemini is not supported by all 3rd party apps.

Know issues specific to Jolla C [ no changes here ]

  • If there are issues with the camera of Jolla C, do the following

/usr/bin/killall minimediaservice

and then start the camera again.

29 Likes

nice - I guess we have to wait a bit before seeing it? I can’t see it on my 10 II (I’m an EA subscriber) and asked someone else who also is, and he doesn’t see it either

The roll out is still ongoing. Xperia X has it already. Sorry, I published these note a few minutes unnecessarily early.
And this is for the Early Access subscribers.

thanks, and no worries, we’ll just wait :slight_smile:

Once again I get a long list of packages I should remove or revert, as they could cause problems during update. With most of them it’s no issue, just removed them and (try to) reinstall later. However these packages claim to break the system if you remove them:

  • glib2
  • libselinux
  • openconnect

Should we just ignore the warning?

I would like to confirm, that I can now copy text from web page to clipboard with Firefox and Vivaldi browsers (and by extension, I guess many other apps benefit, too). Hooray, thank you so much for finally getting it working!

Likewise, sharing images and screenshots from Gallery to Android apps now works! This makes my daily life a lot easier, not having to jump through hoops to get images visible on the Android side!

Other notes:

  • Storeman (via storeman installer) was and is installed during the update, and seems to work with 4.3 (after a few pkcon refresh runs)
  • Netflix still doesn’t work :frowning:
  • WhatsApp still co-operates :smiley:
  • Taking a screenshot (X10II) still results in Lipstick chugging ~15% of CPU time until reboot

Overall the system feels more snappy, which is a nice change, since 4.2 was a bit sluggish for me. Thanks for the update, more feedback to come :slight_smile:

13 Likes

@jovirkku - could you elaborate a little on this particular comment;

Weather * Temperature forecast line does not dramatize nearly constant temperatures anymore

Is this connected to a bug report by me for ZERO temps shown as ‘feelsLikeTemperature’ ?

Also I can now open urls with both Android and Sailfish browsers from Android and Sailfish apps, which is very convenient!

2 Likes

@Edz
The bug report has this description:

“Having forecast for the upcoming hours as list 9, 9, 9, 8, 8, 8. The line gets normalized so that 8 is the very bottom of the line view, and 9 is the top.
We could perhaps have some minimum scale on the line, e.g. at least 5 degrees.”

In other words, the graph on 4.2.0 and earlier exaggerated small changes in temperature. On 4.3.0, the graph resulting from {7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8} is almost a straight line.

2 Likes

Seeing { 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7 } right now, it sure looks only like a slight increase :slight_smile:

Ah, okay, I didn’t realise this was for eventsview weather, I don’t always have that enabled, so out of sight, out of mind.

Thanks for the clarification! :slight_smile:

When an upgrade is found, the list of installed packages that would be affected by the upgrade (they will be upgraded or uninstalled) is checked against the previous repository contents. If any aren’t found there, then they are flagged as potential troublemakers and listed. If you know that you haven’t replaced any of those packages, then you’re probably safe to do the upgrade. It’s certainly safer to do that than remove Jolla system packages.

Why some people end up with so many unresolvable packages is still an open question. In 4.1.0 we introduced an extra step to refresh the old package cache before upgrade, in case someone lost the old cache for any reason. But if you’re still getting this now then something else is going on. Do you ever change your ssu or zypp config?

1 Like

It seems that I removed too many packages, unfortunately. I would have expected that any crucial package is marked as a system package.
Anyway, the update failed. After the reboot moste apps didn’t start anymore. So I logged in via ssh and verified with version that I’m still on 4.2.0 and run version --dup that failed due to failing scriptlets of aliendalvik-control. So I uninstalled it via rpm -e --noscripts aliendalvik-control and re-run version --dup which installed some packages that I uninstalled earlier such as

  • deadbeef
  • libopusfile

Since the following reboot I’m stuck with the Sony boot logo.
Not sure how to get out of it.

I had to disable mobile data (I just enabled flight mode) to download the update. First try needed 1 hour to download less than 50%…

Hi.

Hummm. Still no luck with the total ausence of sound in my Xperia 10 ii …

Best Regards.

Update went smoothly in the first go. Switching from WiFi to Mobile Data and vice versa seems to behave a bit better but needs more testing to confirm.

2 Likes

Nice ! is that possible to set a browser by default ? or do we have to click each time on the browser we want to open the link with ?

Thanks fo the update!
This has also been resolved if the Tutorial can be obviously skipped now:

3 Likes

That is not supported.

Hi all,

Update didn’t work correctly on my end on an Xperia 10 II previously running SFOS 4.2. At the end of the update process I had an error message saying that the update couldn’t complete successfully and that I had to reboot my device. After the reboot, SFOS claims to be running version 4.3.0.12. At first I thought everything was fine after all, despite the error message, but then I noticed some applications refused to work. In my case: the phone application (I can’t make or receive calls), camera, gallery, media player, documents application starts but is empty.

Jolla shop tells me 6 updated applications are available (calendar, documents, mail, media, notes and Open Forti VPN) but I just can’t install them. Is the shop still online at the moment ?

Please tell me what to do to get out of this mess :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Samuel