SFOS 4.5 feedback thread

General
#347

Hello companions,
I did udpate 4.5.0.16 and 4.5.0.18.
I have Xperia XA2 - Dual sim
And I was on trip with this “miracle”.
Here are my experience:

  • bluetooth not working - (fixed with systemctl restart bluetooth)
  • as you recommended I installed navigations app Magic earth and Organic maps.
    And it is completely USELESS. Freezing all the time. The apps were able to run max cca 3 min.
    Then they freeze.
  • flashlight doesn’t work. Start working after restart. But then bluetooth stop working.
    And “systemctl restart bluetooth” was not helping anymore
  • thanks God I had people with normal working phones (not sailfish !!!) with me, so we didn’t lost.
    And they were asking me all the time, what crappy phone I have ? What should I say ?

So my question is, when this will be fixed ?
Or is there some way to revert these last two updates (without reinstaling whole OS) ?

2 Likes
#348

thank you for the nice info and explanation.
So we have jolla store, we have f-droid. but no, it is not enough.
We need some other repository …
Is there some “how to” install the pure maps and OSM Scout Server ?
I remember I already tried to install it via f-droid, and it was long, painful, buggy process with not working app in the end.

1 Like
#349

Also have an XA2 Dual; Very happy with it.
I’d recommend you to reflash the 4.5.0.18.
Here, BT ant Flashlight are working perfectly.
I don’t use Android so much but noticed the freezing with Waze a couple of times.

About Navigation, there are some threads that could be useful for the XA2:
https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/gps-stopped-working/1181/664
Especially this post if you don’t mind using Google to assist your GPS:
https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/gps-stopped-working/1181/425?u=ric9k
And, hardawre wise:
https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/hardware-xa2-gps-trial-to-fix-it-for-debuging/10133

Pure Maps and OSM Scout Server are what I use for daily navigation. They are great IMHO.
But they are native SFOS apps. In that sense, installing the Android version (really exists?) of these apps on SFOS is useless/nonsense.
You should install them with CHUM or Storeman.
Then, if your antenna board is still healthy, you’d be able to navigate,
Even with no connections as you can download the maps you want.
Good luck!

3 Likes
#350

I tried to install pure maps and OSM Scout server.
And encountered problems (I didn’t expect anything else).
What I did:

  • Installed OSM Scout Server from Chum
  • Scout Server complained about missing fonts part. It was not found on chum, I found on Jolla store. So I installed it from there
  • After that OSM Scout Server is able to run. I download maps
  • I installed then Pure maps. That one from Chum complains about something, so i installed it from Jolla store (yes, chaos/mess with repositories. why ? )
  • Now pure maps reports error HTTP status code 500
    Why ? How to solve it ?
4 Likes
#351

this is the first time ive ever had to downgrade permanently. i cannot get 4.5.x.x to be usable.

these are still broken for me:

  • no Element IM
  • no bluetooth at all ever (restarting services and rebooting the phone do not help)
  • no sound in notifications (with ANY other notification of any kind)
  • cannot send MMS at all (receive works fine, send+receive works in 4.4)

this is a shame, because ive been waiting for the MMS ‘waiting’ fix for over a year now and its finally here, except the regressions make it unusable

ive tried: downgrading alien-dalvik on 4.5 (breaks too much stuff), and ive tried upgrading jolla-messages and mms-engine on 4.4 (doesnt fix the ‘waiting’ bug).

3 Likes
#352

Bluetooth - Maybe helpful for troubleshooting, it seems to only affect 64 bit phones.

I can play music over a BT speaker using Xperia 10 / SFOS 4.5.0.18 without any problems using a (cheap chinese) standalone BT speaker that frequently failed on re-pairing on 4.4.0.72, but now pairing, playing music, disconnect and re-pairing without any problems.

#353

yes, 4.5 is really bad upgrade :frowning:

3 Likes
#354

Whereas I’m slightly disappointed by 4.5 upgrade of it not addressing some problems ( the no mobile data/invalid data status 4100 being one), I wouldn’t call it a ‘bad upgrade’. My experience is rather positive.

2 Likes
#355

I have not faced problems with BT headsets or speakers.
Instead my car always requires restating BT via SF utilities, even after a fresh reboot. At least v4.5 brought back the device name in the car’s device list (car displayed empty name when paired with 4.4, and would require removal /re-pairing after each disconnection ). My car’s BT implementation is … capricious , so to say, likely tuned for some specific old iOS version only. So won’t throw the stone to SFOS for that.

#356

I did find I had to delete and pair 4.5 anew to a recent cars BT

#357

i have no problem with a release not fixing long-standing bugs. they’ll get to them when they can.
this release introduced SIX horribly painful regressions for me.

i cant blame anyone for calling it a bad upgrade

4 Likes
#358

Two 10ii on T-Mobile USA. No obvious regressions or issues coming from 4.4. Bluetooth working, data consistency in Android is about the same. Most patches were easily ported. Battery life seems 5-10% worse, though the limit is set to charge up to 92% and resume at 75%. Sonar did not want to install without bypassing some dependencies. Call quality on VoLTE seems better and MMS is working very reliably lately.

1 Like
#359

Thanks for the heads up. Healing the broken system is unnecessarily complicated. The next OS update should not have this nuisance anymore.

1 Like
#360

It was probably released to soon and without sufficient testing. I thought that was, in large part, what the early access releases were for - to allow a limited group of brave real world testers to flush out these serious bugs and regressions so that they could be fixed before the product went to general release. But, certainly for the last few releases of SFOS, the gap between early access and general release has been a week - way too little time to do any proper testing, and certainly not enough time to fix anything serious that might be discovered. The fact that, just a mere week later, the early access release is then put on general release with no changes (certainly the .xx release number has been identical) seems to suggest the early access release doesn’t really serve any useful purpose now.

5 Likes
#361

I forgot to add that I did have to remove and re-pair bluetooth in my older (2004) Honda. My newer (2013) did not require this. All other paired devices (headset, speakers, Fujitsu-Tens Eclipse AVN unit) all worked without any effort.

I did notice a need for more swap, so I’ve bumped my sdcard swap file from 512M to 2048M. Sort of a nuclear increase- I probably could have got away with just bumping to 768M.

Also, registration to NordVPN using OpenVPN working more reliably. It used to fail occasionally.

#362

Frankly, for me 4.5 is the best release so far - I have yet to find regressions. (I am using two SFOS devices as daily drivers, a 10ii and a 10iii) Therefor, I am curious what the six regressions are you experienced. Further above, you mentioned for regressions that I do not have (mobile data is relaibly for me, Android support is even improved for me, notifications are fine and Bluetooth also works for me on both devices)
Apparently we have quite diverging experiences and I wonder why …

4 Likes
#363

the 6 regressions are on Xperia 10 III. i also have an XZc and an XZ2

  1. some android apps cant see sdcard anymore. sdcard isnt always mounted and available to coolreader when android starts. have to open it, close it, open it, and then try to select the sdcard dir. sometimes it crashes. (on 4.4, its just always there)
  2. media scanner/service use 100% cpu, forever, as soon as android boots. waited 5 days for it to finish, it never finished. i have .nomedia files everywhere, so i have no idea what its doing. i think maybe its hanging and busy-waiting because of the sdcard mounting issue
  3. element, and some other android apps, install just fine on 4.4, and crash on open on 4.5
  4. cannot SEND mms, at all (receive works fine, and the ‘waiting’ bug really is fixed)
  5. cannot bluetooth, at all (works fine on 4.4)
  6. when i have ANY notifications, at all, no further notifications make any noise (or unlock the screen, or show a banner) until i clear all notifications

the 3 android regressions i might be able to workaround by downgrading aliendalvik. i believe i can make this work
bluetooth and notifications i havent had enough time to debug, but i think i might be able to fix them or workaround. i can try bluez, and i can see look at the notification qml and dbs and maybe see whats going on.

MMS, i have little hope for. its virtually unused outside of the USA, and the only carriers that work on saiflish here do weird awful things for MMS. T-Mobile, my carrier, requires IPv6 for MMS, and doesnt work over wifi. sailfish is notorious for routing and DNS issues at the best of times, and mms-engine has some bugs about which rmnet interface it selects/etc. T-Mobile has a website where you can look at your messages which doesnt work on aliendalvik chrome or on the sailfish browser, or as an android app, so i have to log on to that website on my laptop every time i get an MMS, which is about twice per day. (MMS is abused for multi-user messaging here, and is by far the most common groupchat implementation)

2 Likes
#365

I have found that the T-Mobile USA “DIGITS” Android app allows me to view MMS messages perfectly and is very convenient. It’s also nice for checking voicemail. When I get an MMS and see that infernal Waiting… message, I just open the DIGITS app and can instantly view it. My only gripe is that it requires MicroG or full GPlay services to run correctly, but is better (for me, at least) than going to my laptop to login every time I get one.

1 Like
#366

I am posting my upgrade experience with 4.5. I have an Xperia 10 III with two different SIM cards installed that is my daily driver and an Xperia XA2 Ultra with NO SIM card that I only use for checking email, calendar, and web surfing at certain times. I will not use anything other than Sailfish and am overall pleased with the upgrade. I do have a few issues, though:

Battery drain is dramatically worse on both of my devices. I used to end each day with around 70% on my 10 III and now I end at 40%. The XA2 Ultra is not used as often but even idle drains 15-20% in a day.

My WhatsApp notification sound is extremely quiet now, it is not the normal Jolla chat notification. So I have to check for the light frequently or I’ll miss messages.

My 10 III stopped working at 100% during the update and had to be force rebooted with volume-up + power. No issue on the XA2 Ultra.

My Android icons on both devices disappeared at first reboot and re-appeared after 2 minutes, but in the wrong order and with my stacked Android apps moved out of their stacking.

That said, it’s improved several other things for me, most importantly the mobile hotspot on the 10 III is much more reliable, fast, and stable. In general mobile data issues have disappeared for me and I’m really happy with it. I use two different carriers from different countries and I’ve found it works great with both. Overall, I’m happy with the update and I’m not complaining. Sailfish is getting better and better with every release and every new device, I’m just sharing my experiences with others if it’s helpful.

#367

Xperia XA2 - Dual sim

  1. same issue. but after several restarts this problem is gone. So far now the applications see SD card. Hopefully it will not come back.
  2. I have this feeling also. Specially there is no navigation app which works for me. There were here some advice to install pure maps. So I tried it and it end up with fail as expected. Here is the thread about Pure maps and OSM Scout server instalation. So far nobody answer it. Which comes to main point. I have OS on my phone without navigation. Well done !
  3. MMS never works for me on Sailfish. But I was at least able to receive it
  4. I had also problem with bluetooth. At beginning helps command “systemctl restart bluetooth”. Then it stopped to work. Then also helps “Settings → Utilities → Bluetooth restart”. Sometimes executed several times.