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So I'm looking over the current options and right now it's not really looking like it's promising. I have my Galaxy S3 rooted and with the help of tools like TitantiumBackup I've managed to clean up the stock ROM pretty well. Another thing of note is I actually get some surprisingly good sound quality out of my SGS3. I realize the US models aren't supposed to have the Wolfson DAC, but somehow mine sounds absolutely incredible with no noise that I can hear or anything (it's enough that I've been wondering if Samsung might have slipped the Wolfson into this one and perhaps there is variance in the DACs actually being used.) It even drives my headphones (modified HD555s -- basically you can consider them to be like the HD595s since of course I did the foam mod, but with the soundstage mod and a custom cable they're actually a bit better possibly) extremely well. It's worth noting that I have frozen the built in equalizer or whatever it was that I thought seemed like it was meant to mess with the sound (I like my devices to produce a relatively neutral sound.) Despite some complaints out there, I actually like the sound out from my US model SGS3 better than things like my Cowon D2 (which, btw, has a Wolfson DAC) and don't even use my CMoy (which has an AD8620 OPAMP that makes it sound far better than a typical OPA2132 CMoy IMO at only the cost of a bit of battery life) which I love the sound of because to me it sounds amazing on its own.
I only mention all of this because while I'm not a true audiophile per se, quality is of extreme importance to me all the same and I'm reading of issues with sound in the current custom ROMs which is not something I'm ok with. I want it to continue to sound this amazing. The idea of losing sound quality with a custom ROM bothers me. I like the idea of a few of the updates like Project Butter (though it's worth noting that mine does run fairly smoothly since I keep the number of programs running all the time as minimal as I can) and I really like the idea of having a custom ROM where I could maybe tweak more things (perhaps including better battery life options like maybe a better CPU governor built in? It drives me crazy how much my phone can run down over just a few hours while the screen is off even with SetCPU set to set the CPU to 384MHz and switch to the powersave governer with WiFi and mobile data both disabled and me not receiving any calls or texts.) For that matter, even while on it's not helping as much as it seems like it should, but I can't help but to notice that there are some more advanced CPU governors that I don't seem to have as an option and I wonder if perhaps a custom ROM could even help there as well. Plus I just plain like being able to tweak more things to my exact preferences instead and again a custom ROM helps. But, if I have to give up that sound quality that's a big problem. I think also it might be a problem to lose the camera. I don't use it a lot, but every now and then I really do kind of want to have it. Especially it would absolutely suck to lose the ability to scan QR codes or to have to do so via the front camera, but every now and then I do take some actual photos to share.
So my question is, have any of the custom ROM options out there reached that level of stability and quality to actually be worth updating and without losing those two things? The SGS3 has been out a fair while now, so it's hard for me to believe that there hasn't been a bit more progress along these lines, but I realize that it's no simple process to create a custom ROM all the same. (In fact, I only think more progress would have been made than what I've read thus far because the SGS3 is just so very popular. If it had been a less popular phone I wouldn't necessarily expect that much, but between its features, hardware, and etc, it's a pretty popular phone.) I want all the benefits of a custom ROM, but what I've read so far of them says to me that it's just not worth the trouble. Once I find one that really works I kind of want to stick to it as much as I can as I have a lot of apps installed and configured just so for my preferences. It sounds like I'm going to have to wait a good while yet though. Or have any of the custom ROMs finally "gotten there yet"?
ive been using CM10 roms for daily use and tehy do everything i need them to do without any limitations.
i suggest you make a nandroid of all your current setup and play with some custom roms. you can always revert back if you dont liek it or cant configure them match your usage. it made my S3 experience much better, btu everyone is dfferent.
---------- Post added at 08:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:07 PM ----------
there are also sound mods and stuff that are accessible with ROMs. ive never tried them but some people swear by them
You don't have any sound issues of any kind? Does the rear camera work perfectly?
BTW, I don't want any sound mod that actually changes the sound. I want it to basically leave the sound alone and produce it as well as it can without modification. None of that Beats or whatever like some do (I think that was what HTC was pushing?)
beats is a sound thing, yeah. it hink its just an equalizer though. i have used audio through headphone jack and over bluetooth to my headphones and the quality is fine for me. im not an audiophile though. it all kinda sounds the same to me lol
the only sound issues i have with my ROM are after flash some sounds do not function until you slide the volume slider from 100 to 0 then to 100 again. Its these types of quirks that come with custom rom sometimes.
my camera is working perfectly. its not as good as the touchwiz one however.
edit: heres a sound mod that might/might not interest you
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1883262
long as you do a nandroid you can always revvert back to your preferred current setup. you should also backup your IMEI
There are roms that are optimized stock. Maybe CleanRom. Don't think he adds sound mods but may be wrong. You may have used app to underclock CPU and it shows UC but probably not actually working on stock kernel as clocking must be enabled on kernel. Know this is true with overclocking.
I actually prefer to avoid all sound modifications whatsoever. Even equalizer. I like the results of a relatively neutral sound being fed to these headphones, it comes out just perfect for me. That's part of what I was worried about as some of the custom ROMs sometimes try to have stuff like that built in (and I guess that equalizer or whatever it was was Samsung or Verizon kind of doing that in the stock ROM even.)
About the camera, I actually have a commercial camera app anyway. If the only problem people have been having was the built-in app, that's a non-issue.
What's this about sounds not working until you go to zero and back though? Does this interfere with anything such as receiving phone calls (eg does it sometimes not ring because the sound isn't playing?)
BTW, where do I actually find the "official" CM10 for this phone?
no the sound works all the time after the adjustment. it takes 2 secodns to do. open volume, slide them all to 100, then all to 0, then all to 100 again.
http://get.cm/?device=d2vzw&type=snapshot
i think that these M builds are the monthyl most stable ones.
Personally I'm waiting for something built on the official VZW JB release. And yes I know I have months to wait... :-\
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
There is no DAC from Wolfson but yes it sounds kick ass! Qualcom is a beast! There S4 chip is there pride and joy so they didn't want to lag behind when it comes to quality audio! God does it sound so much better then my galaxy nexus. Qualcom is making the best arm chips right now. Can't wait to see how insane the 4 core S4 is!
I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH MY FELLOW MEMBERS WHEN IT COMES TO AVOIDING ALL THOSE STUPID AUDIO MODS LIKE BEATS AND SOME OTHERS OUT THERE. THEY SUCK AND DISTORT THE AUDIO!
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
ddurandSGS3 said:
no the sound works all the time after the adjustment. it takes 2 secodns to do. open volume, slide them all to 100, then all to 0, then all to 100 again.
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Ah, have I misunderstood? Do you just mean it only needs this to be done after the initial flash of the custom firmware itself? That's definitely no big deal at all...
prdog1 said:
There are roms that are optimized stock. Maybe CleanRom. Don't think he adds sound mods but may be wrong. You may have used app to underclock CPU and it shows UC but probably not actually working on stock kernel as clocking must be enabled on kernel. Know this is true with overclocking.
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Well, I want to try to do this just once or at least no more than minor updates after this hopefully, so if I'm going to go ahead I want to go ahead and go straight to Jelly Bean.
I think SetCPU wouldn't be sold as only requiring root access to do its work if it required a custom kernel. It probably just works with the internal power management features that should be built in more or less by default.
mike216 said:
There is no DAC from Wolfson but yes it sounds kick ass! Qualcom is a beast! There S4 chip is there pride and joy so they didn't want to lag behind when it comes to quality audio! God does it sound so much better then my galaxy nexus.
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Interesting... I do definitely wonder why some people have complained about hearing noise and such then. Perhaps a bad setting and/or that MusicFX app (finally had time to dig through the list to find out what exactly it was called and that's the one that I just assumed was probably an equalizer/effects processing thing that would modify the sound, but honestly I never had any use for it even if it's not and never bothered to try it.) I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who thinks that the US SGS3 actually sounds good. I was beginning to wonder if my ears were maybe just getting that bad somehow even though I'm still far pickier than everyone I personally know, lol.
Let me ask you this, is the so called "Voodoo Mod" any good at least? I was never clear on exactly what it was supposed to do for audio. I know things like Beats probably mostly rely on a bit of processing to increase bass and probably play with things like stereo separation or something, but I've never been clear on what that one was trying to do exactly other than that people claim it's actually an improvement for many devices.
Anyway, back on the topic at hand, I think I'm more or less convinced to at least go ahead and give CM10 a shot. I'll use that newer monthly build from earlier this month after clearing enough space to make a full backup. (Besides CWM's backup option I've already backed up my apps and settings using TitaniumBackup, so in a worst case scenario it shouldn't be too painful if things go wrong and I have to go all the way back to a stock image with a factory reset or something. Is that option in CWM the correct thing, or must I use something separate for a Nandroid backup?) Also, it may sound silly, but how exactly do I backup my IMEI? I was looking for that already upon digging through a large tutorial thread a while back and it seemed to require something I couldn't get to work (when I try the numbers mentioned in the dialer I don't get any hidden menus, just a dialtone. Other than that I could only find something about manually restoring it if it has been completely damaged or lost which wasn't a fun looking process.)
Nazo said:
I think SetCPU wouldn't be sold as only requiring root access to do its work if it required a custom kernel. It probably just works with the internal power management features that should be built in more or less by default.
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It is sold that way. Depends on the manufacturer of the device. On stock HTC kernel it will lock 2nd core at max speed, kill battery life and cause heating problems. That is why I said it may not work correctly and without another app to monitor CPU you don't know what it is doing. How it works with Samsung I wouldn't know as I run custom kernels when possible and don't worry about clocking on stock kernels as they are under performing already.
Don't restore system apps with titanium backup! Only data apps (apps from the market)
CM is great good choice. I love the theme engine CM10 has and all CM10 based roms.
I'll tell you a super easy way to backup your IMEI! Need Root!
Download (terminal emulator)
Enter these commands. su (hit enter)
reboot nvbackup (hit enter)
It will reboot and create the backup on a built in backup partition on your SD card. The only way you could delete the backup is if you formated your SD. Super easy I just hope it works lol....
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
Two quick questions before I take the final plunge.
1. Is the CWM backup to external flash function sufficient, or do I need something further for a true backup? (It says "Nandroid" in one part, but otherwise I'm not sure if it's truly "Nandroid." It seems like it just backs up each individual file or something and I get the impression that Nandroid is more of an image of the firmware? If it isn't sufficient, what should I use?
EDIT: Found this tutorial. Basically that's what I've done except instead of bothering with Odin I used the EZ-Recovery app to flash CWM directly from the phone itself (along with EZ-Unlock 1.2 from here to unlock the bootloader) as per another tutorial. The other tutorial just didn't call it a "Nandroid" backup, so I wasn't sure.
2. If anything goes wrong, is there a stock ROM image I can use for the Verizon SCH-I535 with Odin? So far my searching has taken me to a site that practically has every stock ROM for the SGS3 but that one... (Or at least if it has that one I couldn't find it on there, which isn't saying much since every single region was listed separately...)
The best way to get recovery is to get the latest recovery from the man who's created them all from the very beginning.
Get rom manager and flash the latest straight from that app. You must make sure your bootloader is unlocked. If you took the latest OTA from Verizon it locked your bootloader.
As long as your unlocked and rooted you can go straight in rom manager and flash touch recovery especially for your Verizon galaxy s3.
I've been using the latest touch recovery on my D2tmo, nexus 7,galaxy nexus and Asus infinity and it's worked perfect.
Make a backup of your current rom for safety before flashing. You can create a backup and rename it to whatever you want straight from rom manager!
I personally wouldn't back up to the external. It might work fine but when it comes to backups I just go straight to the internal
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
---------- Post added at 08:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:26 AM ----------
I soft bricked my phone because after taking the latest OTA it locked my bootloader! Recovered it fully from here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1840030
I seen the take to your local Verizon store bla bla bla.
Got in download mode at 4am and recovered in 15 minutes.
I wish I had someone that knew what I now know and that's why I'm here to help my fellow members!
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
Hehe, funny thing about that. It tried to automatically update without bothering to ask. I presume because I had the FWupdate app frozen (for I guess fairly obvious reasons) it utterly failed and then complained, then demanded that I update again after a while, giving me an option to defer it. (I never did figure out how to get it to stop pestering, but I guess that's a non-issue.) So I didn't ever get a locked bootloader simply because it failed to do what it was trying to do.
Anyway, I've installed CM10 and so far so good. Well, I gave myself a good scare by forgetting to do a factory reset (*sigh* I wish I didn't have to do that, but, after all, it's a significant change going from a highly modified VZW infested ICS to a cleaner custom Jelly Bean) and it sat there stuck on the boot logo until I reread the instructions and rebooted to fix it (at least CM doesn't wipe out the CWM recovery like the stock ROM does...) I still have a LOT to do to get everything all reinstalled and reconfigured. I'm not going to be able to finish it all tonight, so won't really be able to comment about the results of the switch until tomorrow I guess. It's not helping that it's taking absolutely forever to download the Google Play package and all (and then I get to redownload a lot of the apps, though hopefully TitaniumBackup can safely restore a lot of it.)
EDIT: BTW, is it just me or do they really REALLY need to provide basic info on how to do simple tasks like the actual installation process itself, installing Google Play, and etc? I'm no stranger to googling for info, but wow what a pain to figure this all out (especially it never occurred to me that the gapps zip would have to be installed using CWM. I thought it was for the firmwares themselves only, not them and apps...)
EDIT2: Oh wow. I had no idea how much work this was really going to be! I said before that a full ROM install is something I wanted to do once. Well, I definitely want to never do this again. I'm having to fight all sorts of things. Google didn't even want to recognize my phone at first despite successfully connecting my accounts and registered apps such as, oh, I don't know, Titanium Backup Pro just for instance weren't showing up as already purchased... -.- I think I finally got it all restored and they now properly show up as owned, but I've lost hours just fighting with all of these various things...
It also seems to have serious issues with my WiFi. I haven't figured out what is going on exactly, but it seems like I'm having to turn wifi off and on a bit to get it to properly connect again -- I've put in my password so many times I'm about to go absolutely insane (unfortunately, for various reasons I'm still stuck on WEP 128-bit, so I have to type in a large hexidecimal encryption key and I'm just about ready to go postal.) Hopefully once everything is finally all setup and configured all will be well, but at the moment I've lost a pretty good bit of sleep while fighting this and barely have it up and running. I probably should have waited for an off day to do this.
Nazo said:
Hehe, funny thing about that. It tried to automatically update without bothering to ask. I presume because I had the FWupdate app frozen (for I guess fairly obvious reasons) it utterly failed and then complained, then demanded that I update again after a while, giving me an option to defer it. (I never did figure out how to get it to stop pestering, but I guess that's a non-issue.) So I didn't ever get a locked bootloader simply because it failed to do what it was trying to do.
Anyway, I've installed CM10 and so far so good. Well, I gave myself a good scare by forgetting to do a factory reset (*sigh* I wish I didn't have to do that, but, after all, it's a significant change going from a highly modified VZW infested ICS to a cleaner custom Jelly Bean) and it sat there stuck on the boot logo until I reread the instructions and rebooted to fix it (at least CM doesn't wipe out the CWM recovery like the stock ROM does...) I still have a LOT to do to get everything all reinstalled and reconfigured. I'm not going to be able to finish it all tonight, so won't really be able to comment about the results of the switch until tomorrow I guess. It's not helping that it's taking absolutely forever to download the Google Play package and all (and then I get to redownload a lot of the apps, though hopefully TitaniumBackup can safely restore a lot of it.)
EDIT: BTW, is it just me or do they really REALLY need to provide basic info on how to do simple tasks like the actual installation process itself, installing Google Play, and etc? I'm no stranger to googling for info, but wow what a pain to figure this all out (especially it never occurred to me that the gapps zip would have to be installed using CWM. I thought it was for the firmwares themselves only, not them and apps...)
EDIT2: Oh wow. I had no idea how much work this was really going to be! I said before that a full ROM install is something I wanted to do once. Well, I definitely want to never do this again. I'm having to fight all sorts of things. Google didn't even want to recognize my phone at first despite successfully connecting my accounts and registered apps such as, oh, I don't know, Titanium Backup Pro just for instance weren't showing up as already purchased... -.- I think I finally got it all restored and they now properly show up as owned, but I've lost hours just fighting with all of these various things...
It also seems to have serious issues with my WiFi. I haven't figured out what is going on exactly, but it seems like I'm having to turn wifi off and on a bit to get it to properly connect again -- I've put in my password so many times I'm about to go absolutely insane (unfortunately, for various reasons I'm still stuck on WEP 128-bit, so I have to type in a large hexidecimal encryption key and I'm just about ready to go postal.) Hopefully once everything is finally all setup and configured all will be well, but at the moment I've lost a pretty good bit of sleep while fighting this and barely have it up and running. I probably should have waited for an off day to do this.
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Strange that you are having so many issues. First off, when I flash a new ROM I put the ROM and the latest GApps on the sdcard. Do a factory reset, clear dalvik cache, install the ROM then the GApps. As far as wifi, I didn't have a problem when I ran CM10, but maybe there is something messed up in the latest version. Are you running the nightlies or the M versions?
The M version from the link above (the 2012 10-11 one.) At first I thought the issue I was having was the one from before where it would decide that my network with the hidden SSID was out of range automatically the moment it lost connection (either me leaving the area or turning off WiFi) but I not only tried to use the hidden SSID enabler, but also even went so far as to just re-enable the SSID broadcast on the router, so it's no longer hidden. It seems like it's having troubles initializing the WiFi. Maybe I somehow managed to freeze/remove an app that did something or other along these lines (though I just can't see how given that it can work, it just has issues.) I'm having to turn it off and on once or twice to get it to finally reconnect. I guess it's not bad since I have the power widget in the notifications tray that makes this a bit easier, but that doesn't make this any more fun at all to deal with. EDIT: In fact, whereas the hidden SSID issue I ran into previously had it just show up as being out of range after it lost the connection until I "forgot" the network setting and reconfigured it again, it looks like nothing shows up at all until I turn it off and on -- but I don't have to redo the network setting, so this is definitely a completely different issue. I think actually it's like it's just not correctly enabling the wifi on startup if it was left on when I rebooted so I have to turn it off and back on to get it to truly turn it on in the first place.
And yeah, I cleared the cache and did a factory reset before installing. Well, bear in mind that it naturally was showing up as a different device and all. So some initial configuration was definitely going to be required to even get started, and I was switching from ICS to JB (and completely different sorts of ROMs besides) so some initial fight was inevitable even if CM10 were the most established and stable build ever made just going from the one to the other. Actually, one interesting feature of Titanium Backup Pro (once I finally got it to recognize that I had the Pro version in the first place) is apparently the ability to change the device ID to seem to be the same as far as installed programs and such go, so now Google Play among other things thinks this is the same exact device as before now as opposed to being a new device. It's actually weird because the "new" one doesn't even show up on Google Play's settings anymore (and Google still hasn't gotten around to fixing it such that we can remove devices, so I still have my old Archos 43 PDA listed in there for instance.) Between everything, Google now is letting me once again access my software without re-buying or relying on backups (which is especially good because a few things seem to just get stuck when I try to restore them -- it just sits there forever, not ever really installing.)
BTW, I lost all the Verizon-specific special numbers such as *86 for voicemail. Apparently CM10 doesn't bother to list them (but then as they are vendor specific I guess that's not a big surprise.) Is there any sort of list of the numbers Verizon uses out there -- maybe even including whatever special numbers that might be more specific to this phone itself (such as that hidden menu or whatever)?
EDIT: Ok, so far things are starting to come together slowly but surely. One oddity though, I noticed at the end of my work shift that, rather than the usual 10% or so of battery time lost, it seemed to have lost about 20%. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's double -- it might be more like 15% many times -- but it is very odd all the same. I thought I was seeing a bad trend along these lines last night, so went ahead and put SetCPU back on there with the profile to do powersaving and serious underclocking when the screen is off and in both cases I used the "conservative" CPU governor for the normal use with the maximum CPU speed at about 1GHz (conservative is supposed to be like ondemand with a better tendency towards power saving at the expense of taking longer to scale the CPU upwards when needed.) As this is CM10, there should be no room for doubt that the CPU is being scaled down -- in fact in the performance menu I often see the CPU at a mere 384MHz (which is my minimum setting) -- so I'm just not sure what to think just yet. The settings menu for the battery life shows mostly just basic system processes like the screen, idle, and etc being the main culprits for battery usage, so again odd since the screen is the main thing yet is off during my working hours (with the very short exception of my breaks.) I don't think the automatic brightness setting is any higher or anything either and, in fact, configured it to use generally lower settings until the maximum brightness.
Guess more tweaking and testing is needed to be sure, but it's odd all the same. If anything CM10 is running LESS all the time by way of hidden services and such (though as far as things that actually show up in the likes of Android Assistant I'm having to fight far more things including an "analog clock" that isn't even in the app list so I'm hoping is just the normal clock despite the fact that "analog clock" in normal firmwares is actually a separate extra thing.) Guess I'll still have to wait and see to some extent.
Edit2: Haha, I just read that you have to recalibrate the battery meter after flashing, so it'd probably just not being very accurate is all. I grabbed an app to help do that so hopefully this is all that was going on (and if I go by Android Assistant's voltage status I'd say that it definitely is off.)
Edit3: (Just kind of adding as I go along here.) Now that all the basics are in place and I had some time and the desire to drain the battery more quickly (as part of the recalibrate process you're supposed to drain it until it automatically shuts down) so I plugged in my headphones and started listening. So far so good. I was really hoping that one of the advantages of a custom ROM would be a more precise volume control (Google really dropped the ball on that one! Sometimes you're trying to get it just right and end up stuck between either a bit painfully too loud or annoyingly too quiet with no in-between) but other than some dissapointed wishful thinking, it seems sound-wise this release of the SGS3 CM10 is just fine. I don't really hear any bloat or distortion in the bass and in general the usual modifications that they do to the sound just aren't there (or at least if they are they are subtle enough to fool my, let's say "bronze" ears since I'm definitely at the bottom of the audiophile chain, lol.) In one thread where someone asked how the Qualcom compared to the Wolfson sound-wise someone said it was a bit tinny, but if it is it's far too subtle for me to notice (and this is bearing mind that these are headphones with a slight bass roll-off, so it does seem like I'd notice any significant loss in the lower ranges pretty quickly. In this respect I'm happy or at least satisfied that nothing has gone wrong.
Also, one way or the other the wifi issue seems to have gone away. I'm guessing it was an app I had frozen that I reenabled, but that's just a guess. It's so hard to be 100% sure with these things unless you apply a long painful scientific process every single step of the way...
I'm STILL trying to figure out a way to configure the haptic feedback level. It seems to be all on or all off with no ability to reduce strength of feedback that I've found so far.
Another word to the wise, backup your imei. Not sure if that was mentioned yet
Also, your ROM will work better after a charging cycle or two. It will initially scam for media and such I believe which maybe part if the reason you're seeing slightly higher usage at first. Also, in general you'll get slightly less battery life on aosp. I don't find much use in most battery stats though. They're easily manipulated.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
Well, I had a small accident. I was replacing some fonts and manually selecting which ones to replace with what when I threw in Arial Unicode and another font that was still slightly large. I'm assuming because the font files were so big, but it completely stopped booting. After fighting with it for hours upon hours (and I have since found what might be a font zip file for CWM now that it's far too late to do me any good -- though of course it would have had to replace those particular fonts and it seems like most of my attempts to replace them ended up replacing everything but them.) I just couldn't get a driver to install for the phone while CWM was running (I don't know if you can maybe get an adb shell or what, but without the driver you obviously can't.) In the end, I ended up having to reformat and reinstall CM10 from scratch. So far (knock on wood) none of the real problems I was having before have really repeated. (And this time around I just kept my font changes minor and no gigantic overkill fonts.) Sadly, TitaniumBackup can't restore all apps it seems (it just sort of freezes on some) but overall I've managed to restore most of it. I was waiting to make a backup in CWM until I had fully gotten everything configured and running the way I wanted it. Guess I should have done one sooner, but now I'm close to the original goal of having it basically right where I want it before making the backup (thank goodness TitaniumBackup at least was able to get the bulk of the work. And I love how it can even restore the device ID so that as far as everything is concerned this is the same phone I've always been using.)
It does still have a worse battery life compared to the stock ROM, but I guess it's not too bad. Still better than most phones no matter how you look at it. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't the battery being somewhat at fault though. I was using a third party battery by Anker. By the feel of it, it actually is surprisingly dense for a third party battery -- it weighs about the same amount as the stock battery -- so it might actually have a pretty good capacity, but at the same time I'm not 100% sure it truly is every bit as good. At first it certainly seemed to be, but maybe it's starting to wear down more quickly overall. For now I guess I'll switch back to stock (my original plan was to just store it at some 70% or so capacity so it should last and then punish these two third party batteries, but now I guess I'll consider them to be the backups instead. I don't like that the charge goes as high as 4.33V or so though. 4.2V is supposed to be considered pushing things pretty hard as it is, so I have a bad feeling about the overall lifetime of these batteries...) Again I have SetCPU hopefully helping out a bit (I like that CM10 has options for this that it can set on boot, but it doesn't have any other options than that and I like how I can have SetCPU actually lower things much further while the screen is off. I don't care if some processes take longer to, well, process while the screen is off after all, so there's no reason not to use a lower CPU setting IMO.) Actually, I was beginning to become quite concerned because the battery was actually going down just doing a few basic things like restoring backups while plugged into the charger despite having the governor on conservative, the maximum CPU frequency at 1066MHz, and the I/O set to SIO (which at least one person claims is better, though I wasn't 100% convinced from what little I could tell -- if anyone has any suggestions for the best balance between battery life and performance in this respect I'm curious. I try to keep it on something that kind of scales so that games and such still work fine without me having to change it specifically for each or something while it could still at least not kill the battery when it's not being pushed as hard.)
Interesting thing about the whole WiFi thing. I read on one thread where someone suggested changing the device name (in the developer options) to no longer have a dash in it to stop the intermittent WiFi dropouts. It's kind of ridiculous and should have absolutely no effect whatsoever on this, but so far it actually seems like it might have worked. Again, knock on wood... It's odd though because I never had that trouble with the stock firmware (then again, for all I know it didn't have a dash in its default device name and I doubt I ever changed it if it was even an option though I can't really remember one way or the other if I could have.) I won't know for sure for a while as it was kind of random before, but so far it's looking promising at least. And I haven't had any trouble with it picking up my network yet either.
BTW, I forgot to do the IMEI backup before somehow. Is it too late to for it to be any good now? I know, I know, but I was a bit excited about the prospect of going to CyanogenMod 10 in the first place and just forgot along the way I guess. I went ahead and ran it ("reboot nvbackup" from the terminal anyway -- it sure would be nice if it actually properly shut down first instead of doing a cold reboot -- but other than some tiny blue text in the corner that might or might not have said something to the effect of that it was making a backup it just flashed by and booted up normally. I was expecting a recovery menu or something.) But I don't know if it's going to do any good to have run it now. Is there anything other than the IMEI itself contained in that data that I should be concerned about? I think the IMEI is correct still (I checked the numbers in the settings at least and they seem to correspond to what I wrote down from under the battery) but I'm not sure about anything beyond the numbers themselves.
Nazo said:
Well, I had a small accident. I was replacing some fonts and manually selecting which ones to replace with what when I threw in Arial Unicode and another font that was still slightly large. I'm assuming because the font files were so big, but it completely stopped booting. After fighting with it for hours upon hours (and I have since found what might be a font zip file for CWM now that it's far too late to do me any good -- though of course it would have had to replace those particular fonts and it seems like most of my attempts to replace them ended up replacing everything but them.) I just couldn't get a driver to install for the phone while CWM was running (I don't know if you can maybe get an adb shell or what, but without the driver you obviously can't.) In the end, I ended up having to reformat and reinstall CM10 from scratch. So far (knock on wood) none of the real problems I was having before have really repeated. (And this time around I just kept my font changes minor and no gigantic overkill fonts.) Sadly, TitaniumBackup can't restore all apps it seems (it just sort of freezes on some) but overall I've managed to restore most of it. I was waiting to make a backup in CWM until I had fully gotten everything configured and running the way I wanted it. Guess I should have done one sooner, but now I'm close to the original goal of having it basically right where I want it before making the backup (thank goodness TitaniumBackup at least was able to get the bulk of the work. And I love how it can even restore the device ID so that as far as everything is concerned this is the same phone I've always been using.)
It does still have a worse battery life compared to the stock ROM, but I guess it's not too bad. Still better than most phones no matter how you look at it. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't the battery being somewhat at fault though. I was using a third party battery by Anker. By the feel of it, it actually is surprisingly dense for a third party battery -- it weighs about the same amount as the stock battery -- so it might actually have a pretty good capacity, but at the same time I'm not 100% sure it truly is every bit as good. At first it certainly seemed to be, but maybe it's starting to wear down more quickly overall. For now I guess I'll switch back to stock (my original plan was to just store it at some 70% or so capacity so it should last and then punish these two third party batteries, but now I guess I'll consider them to be the backups instead. I don't like that the charge goes as high as 4.33V or so though. 4.2V is supposed to be considered pushing things pretty hard as it is, so I have a bad feeling about the overall lifetime of these batteries...) Again I have SetCPU hopefully helping out a bit (I like that CM10 has options for this that it can set on boot, but it doesn't have any other options than that and I like how I can have SetCPU actually lower things much further while the screen is off. I don't care if some processes take longer to, well, process while the screen is off after all, so there's no reason not to use a lower CPU setting IMO.)
Interesting thing about the whole WiFi thing. I read on one thread where someone suggested changing the device name (in the developer options) to no longer have a dash in it to stop the intermittent WiFi dropouts. It's kind of ridiculous and should have absolutely no effect whatsoever on this, but so far it actually seems like it might have worked. Again, knock on wood... It's odd though because I never had that trouble with the stock firmware (then again, for all I know it didn't have a dash in its default device name and I doubt I ever changed it if it was even an option though I can't really remember one way or the other if I could have.) I won't know for sure for a while as it was kind of random before, but so far it's looking promising at least. And I haven't had any trouble with it picking up my network yet either.
BTW, I forgot to do the IMEI backup before somehow. Is it too late to for it to be any good now? I know, I know, but I was a bit excited about the prospect of going to CyanogenMod 10 in the first place and just forgot along the way I guess.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No your OK you can get your IMEI underneath where your battery is. There's a tutorial on YouTube
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
We've managed to get this rooted (see other thread) but now after an adjustment I made, mine's bootlooping.
I did a ton of digging and while there's no apparent ROMs out there, this is a generically made tablet under several brands and makes beyond RCA. RCA and Voyager (RCA Tab parent) claim not to have the ROM for downloading, but that makes no sense for three reasons:
1) How did my tablet know if I had the latest firmware version, etc? It had to surf somewhere and do a check, why can't that also be public or can anyone determine it and we can snag a copy ourselves to distribute?
2) What're they going to do with it if we send it back for 'repair'? I haven't found anyone who has but I'd bet if you tracked the Serial # it'd just be different and they bulk the bricked ones back to China for reloading and resale as 'refurbished'.
3) How exactly did this sucker get MADE? If you had the ROM to load it, hand it built for you, why can't you get it (and back to the updating issue)?
I've discovered this is a Gigabyte based setup, they have a similar model showing but that doesn't mean they made it either - just the hardware states that's what it is. We can't do a ROM that doesn't work on an ARM7 CPU, so the Intel Inside stuff's worthless.
Here's a China declaration about this unit:
We company SHENZHEN ZOWEE TECHNOLOGY CO.,LTD hereby declares:
The product model(s):
DPM7828,DPM7827,DPM7826,TM7005,TM7006,TM7008,NB7856,NB7866 is
identical in the same PCB layout, interior structure and electrical circuits with
the model M7054 which tested in Shenzhen Huatongwei International
Inspection Co., Ltd, the only differences are the model name for commercial
purpose.
The trademarks TMAX, APEX, DOPO, NOBIS, DAGE, NUVISION will be
selected by different customers owing to commercial requirements.
I looked up all those models and brands, again similar stuff but customized for their resale and none have a ROM anywhere that seems to be close!
So any further info you find, tag it onto this thread and if anyone can find a ROM that'd at least get back to access I'd be grateful!
I can ADB, but only sideload.
I can use the microSD, can even push a load to the tab with something on the card but can't find anything.
Have done the wipes, etc. and regardless it keeps rebooting over and over endlessly.
Last change I did was to make Titanium Backup convert to a System file and force it thus I think that's what it's doing and I can't stop it. I'm not that experienced enough with Android (vs. Linux and servers, etc.) to be able to get to and edit some files others have noted that might get me back to normal booting, but without anything but ADB sideloading that may be kinda pointless anyways.
Open to any ideas, thoughts and otherwise! This is a nice, basic tablet with some decent power for the price so if you're hear to just bash stuff or make stupid comments please look elsewhere. Hundreds of us are looking so the solution finder would be a hero!
We've been discussing the root part of this here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/general/help/root-rca-7-voyager-rct6773w22-tablet-t2954669
Additional info on this unit from the other thread
Big thanks to another determined rooter/hacker on these RCA's!
n2locarz said:
Finally got my tablet today. Unable to root using Kingo. No way will I install iRoot. Google and AVG are detecting viruses.
My test setup:
- Windows 8.1 Laptop, USB 2.0 port - Detects correctly in Kingo, fails to root on reboot (WaitForDeviceTimeout)
Same results on USB 3.0 port:
- Windows 8.1 Laptop, USB 3.0 port - Detects correctly in Kingo, fails to root on reboot (WaitForDeviceTimeout)
USB View - Device Descriptor:
bcdUSB: 0x0200
bDeviceClass: 0x00
bDeviceSubClass: 0x00
bDeviceProtocol: 0x00
bMaxPacketSize0: 0x40 (64)
idVendor: 0x0BB4
idProduct: 0x0C02
bcdDevice: 0x0216
iManufacturer: 0x02
iProduct: 0x03
iSerialNumber: 0x04
bNumConfigurations: 0x01
Vendor ID is 0x0BB4
Here is some of my ADB testing.
Information: Checking ADB Status
adb devices
List of devices attached
YL9DDAF6RCIVNJ49 device
Information: Checking Fastboot Status
fastboot devices
Fastboot Status: Device Connected
Information: Booting TWRP Temporarily...
Bricked the tablet by putting it in fastboot, transfering TWRP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So far, no good...
At this stage it's just hitting walls and stuck in a bootloop. RCA/Venturer/ALCO 'support' is obviously screen-reading trained monkeys so you won't find help there. I've hit up the Hong Kong parent to see if I get really lucky, but everything I've tried is nothing but that bootloop.
I can add that I've found a ton of FCC filings by ALCO for this sucker including PDFs that show the insides, outside and everything they had to get US certified to import this specific tablet. The more interesting part of that is this thing HAS a CPU that includes WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and an FM radio receiver! And they're simply just shut off for this version whereas the 'deluxe' apparently has software that turns these other features beyond WiFi on. Also, this tablet was submitted as a 1920x and NOT a 1200x resolution! So there's more hiding in there too, possibly limited in hopes the quad core won't overload. Also I'm seeing news of that CPU being clockable at 1.5Ghz and possibly 1.7Ghz naturally so there could be hidden speed inside.
The pics show a stock tablet, nothing fancy by any means and it looks like many others with just a case switch compared to some. So there are other versions out there, but it's not clear if the boot ROM is specifically and unchangably programmed with all these limits or if the bootloader can make changes if we hacked that up. I believe in my case I told Titanium Backup to make a move that fouled my bootloader up. My understanding now is that while the bootloader can be editable and get modified, the Factory Wipe/Reload only takes all the data files out and puts Android back to stock. Thus the bootloader IS NOT Android and that feature's rather worthless if yours is bootlooping or bricked til we get that figured out.
There is a backup, but so far loading one up may not work because it may not be signed. If someone can run a backup on an unrooted tablet and get it up here, testing on that can happen but the ones I've tried fail immediately. Some were for comparable tablets as well. The 'apply update' seems to only apply to Android updates which won't really take out the bootloop or a bricked one.
Open to any and all ideas, contributions and more!
FCC files link (too big for here) of tablet
Use these links to get to the FCC files (PDFs) of the Interior (2), Manual and Specifications for this tablet!
Specs:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sfag3332vw2ahgf/RCA Tablet FCC Specifications.pdf?dl=0
Manual:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jik79ljfqwfrh0y/RCA Tablet FCC Manual.pdf?dl=0
Internal Images 1 of 2
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lrk9rcd6ov5alqu/RCA Tablet FCC Interal Images.pdf?dl=0
Internal Images 2 of 2
https://www.dropbox.com/s/75hkwijrqmaz60g/RCA Tablet FCC Interal Images 2.pdf?dl=0
Battery looks like a 1000mAh (or less). But it maintains pretty good (50% charge even after 3 days):
{
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"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
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"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
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It's said they underamped the battery to be cheap, but I've had the same results (when it was working) with longevity of the battery and that's with everything cranked up like the brightness, etc. to max. Standy's about the same, I can turn it on and leave it in sleep for hours on end and come back to a 60-75% charge. That's what kills me even worse that it's bootloped, I LIKE this stupid thing and loved using it! Hopefully we have a solution (another thread) and it may turn on other options hiding inside.
Big trick is the bootloader seems to be corrupted from the system app setting of Titanium Backup, so replacing it's the first hurdle. And as restricted as this tablet is for recovery booting, that ain't easy.
They might also have under-clocked the 1400 Mhz cpu (actual hardware spec) to 1300 Mhz to stretch battery life. But it is still faster than my 2012 Nexus 7 - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2304369
Happy holidays ppl!!!! :sly:
Nate2 said:
They might also have under-clocked the 1400 Mhz cpu (actual hardware spec) to 1300 Mhz to stretch battery life. But it is still faster than my 2012 Nexus 7 - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2304369
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually we've found the Cube GT25/GT27 version of this (same tablet) has gone up to 1.7Ghz and 1920x1200 resolution so I'm dying to get back inside!
PSCGOhio said:
Actually we've found the Cube GT25/GT27 version of this (same tablet) has gone up to 1.7Ghz and 1920x1200 resolution so I'm dying to get back inside!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The U25GT looks fairly identical - http://www.cube-tablet.com/cube-u25...-tablet-pc-bluetooth-gps-fm-hdmi-1gb-8gb.html
The U27GT uses a different processor and has a 3G radio - http://www.cube-tablet.com/cube-tal...ore-android-4-4-bluetooth-phone-call-8gb.html
Nate2 said:
The U25GT looks fairly identical - http://www.cube-tablet.com/cube-u25...-tablet-pc-bluetooth-gps-fm-hdmi-1gb-8gb.html
The U27GT uses a different processor and has a 3G radio - http://www.cube-tablet.com/cube-tal...ore-android-4-4-bluetooth-phone-call-8gb.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, my bad upon further digging;
The U27's are NOT the same and a different underlying MediaTek part that would cause issues with the ROM.
The U25 though, is an exact duplicate from the same manufacturer, the main difference being the outer case and the looks of the back with speaker holes, etc. Otherwise inside's the same from the docs I'm finding. That pic shows the HDMI port that we don't have, we're only missing the socket and the hole - the mobo's are duplicates. There's a GPS, FM and Bluetooth setup hiding in there to be released as well if we can and I've read others who have.
Still, the way mine's freaking out there doesn't appear to be a way to short-boot before the preloader or the dalvik cache to get a ROM in there or at least not an exact match from the RCA setup. The Cube may be signed differently and therefore not seeming to work.
I'm still after anyone who can figure that part out regardless of ROM, I hit up ALCO in Hong Kong and so far, nada. But I expected that too. At this point from what I've found on Androids, the core ROM portion that gets us to the Recovery only screen is hardwired but the NVRAM has the dalvik cache and the programming that cause the bootloop from some bad instruction/install. That could be modified, but we can't get shell ADB access to snag and push corrected files back. Far as I can piece together, there's 2 caches both the Dalvik and the running cache. When we factory reset and wipe the cache, we only get the 2nd one and NOT the Dalvik and that could be where the bootloop issue is.
I read through all 15 pages of the other thread as well as this one in hopes that someone would've come along and figured it out, lol. My girlfriend, sister and I all got one of these for Christmas, with only one fully working, which I gave to my girlfriend. My sister's loves to reboot, and mine has been in bootloop since day one. It had occasionally pushed past the loop, but when it got to the initial setup screen Google Play Services would immediately force close 4 times in a row and then restart. I tried factory recovery a few times but to no avail and ended up getting frustrated and leaving it on the charger for a few days, hoping some magic may happen. I pulled it out again today and now it enjoys freezing on the black RCA screen. It has made it to the startup screen a few times but touch appears not to work. It feels like an electronic photo frame that I can't load pictures into
I'm super anxious for any sort of fix to come out because of how great this tablet seems it could be. Thanks for all your research!
xChowderrrx said:
I read through all 15 pages of the other thread as well as this one in hopes that someone would've come along and figured it out, lol. My girlfriend, sister and I all got one of these for Christmas, with only one fully working, which I gave to my girlfriend. My sister's loves to reboot, and mine has been in bootloop since day one. It had occasionally pushed past the loop, but when it got to the initial setup screen Google Play Services would immediately force close 4 times in a row and then restart. I tried factory recovery a few times but to no avail and ended up getting frustrated and leaving it on the charger for a few days, hoping some magic may happen. I pulled it out again today and now it enjoys freezing on the black RCA screen. It has made it to the startup screen a few times but touch appears not to work. It feels like an electronic photo frame that I can't load pictures into
I'm super anxious for any sort of fix to come out because of how great this tablet seems it could be. Thanks for all your research!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry you're having the trouble! We've been trying to get this figured out and it's been frustrating. We HAVE rooted it in a variety of ways, but then you have to be careful with settings on the root tools afterwards not to send it flying into a bootloop.
The one that's rebooting, I'd return/exchange that! You've got 30 days if it came from WallyWorld, even online you can get a return form to print and take into a store (even though the price went up there, it's an even exchange). But that sounds fully mechanically defective, no doubt.
The one that's looping, yah that's just weird. They shouldn't do that and we've found a good percentage of them were damaged in shipping even though it wasn't obvious or defective and never tested in China. I believe some even just overheated in the container shipped over here as well or at least were banged around getting loaded and unloaded to cause some of this. If you can get a good one, never let it go!
Subscribe to at least this thread, we'll post more as we hopefully find some results!
PSCGOhio said:
... There is a backup, but so far loading one up may not work because it may not be signed. If someone can run a backup on an unrooted tablet and get it up here, testing on that can happen but the ones I've tried fail immediately. Some were for comparable tablets as well. The 'apply update' seems to only apply to Android updates which won't really take out the bootloop or a bricked one.
Open to any and all ideas, contributions and more!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can do the backup. I'm guessing you mean through adb right?
Xactot said:
I can do the backup. I'm guessing you mean through adb right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We're limited on ways to do it, so it'd have to be something that can be loaded through the Recovery menu.
In this case, there's a Backup and Restore option in that Recovery Menu that should work because the tablet won't know the difference (AFAIK). ADB will only work with sideloads and Updates. The lack of signatures to the 'update' you'd have to load via ADB, Cache or from the SD is why it's believed we're hitting the failures.
If you can run the Backup in Recovery mode and send that file, it'd be great! I believe it'll have everything you have so be careful of any personal data, etc. and PMing it or contacting me to send it by email is totally understandable to see if it'll even work. The only concern with a backup is that it may only cover the data portions that a normal wipe/System Restore would do and not fix the cause of the bootlooping and other errors some of us are getting.
There's instructions around here on doing a full ROM dump and turning that into an installable ROM that we would actually put in thru ADB or the other two methods, but no one's made one yet that's worked! LOL
PSCGOhio said:
We're limited on ways to do it, so it'd have to be something that can be loaded through the Recovery menu.
In this case, there's a Backup and Restore option in that Recovery Menu that should work because the tablet won't know the difference (AFAIK). ADB will only work with sideloads and Updates. The lack of signatures to the 'update' you'd have to load via ADB, Cache or from the SD is why it's believed we're hitting the failures.
If you can run the Backup in Recovery mode and send that file, it'd be great! I believe it'll have everything you have so be careful of any personal data, etc. and PMing it or contacting me to send it by email is totally understandable to see if it'll even work. The only concern with a backup is that it may only cover the data portions that a normal wipe/System Restore would do and not fix the cause of the bootlooping and other errors some of us are getting.
There's instructions around here on doing a full ROM dump and turning that into an installable ROM that we would actually put in thru ADB or the other two methods, but no one's made one yet that's worked! LOL
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just finished the backup now. I'm not too worried about personal data since I just started using it. What's interesting is that it (for me at least) appears a the HTC Dream in under ADB Interface in Device Manager. Could that help figure out anything?
Xactot said:
I'm running the backup now. I'm not too worried about
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, well thanks! I hope it works! I always like to mention the fine print though so nothing bad happens. My backup didn't work because it was after I got the bootloop, so it would've just put it back. I'm just dying to get back inside, rootings easy enough now that we know how and the FIRST thing on the list is ClockworkMod so I have a real backup in the future! And, of course, not doing stupid things like I did.
PSCGOhio said:
LOL, well thanks! I hope it works! I always like to mention the fine print though so nothing bad happens. My backup didn't work because it was after I got the bootloop, so it would've just put it back. I'm just dying to get back inside, rootings easy enough now that we know how and the FIRST thing on the list is ClockworkMod so I have a real backup in the future! And, of course, not doing stupid things like I did.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not even going to touch the idea of rooting when it comes to this tablet for the time being lol. I'll just stick to being content with my rooted EVO 4G until a recovery has been confirmed to work for sure. And yeah, I think it only covers what will be cleared by a Factory Reset; I have two of these tablets, one used one not. The backup size of the unused tablet is 82 MB while the backup of the used table is already 540 MB lol. I just uploaded the 82 MB one to my Google Drive and the link is below
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Yc110W0bfmVlFNQzVhX0k4elE/view?usp=sharing
Xactot said:
I'm not even going to touch the idea of rooting when it comes to this tablet for the time being lol. I'll just stick to being content with my rooted EVO 4G until a recovery has been confirmed to work for sure. And yeah, I think it only covers what will be cleared by a Factory Reset; I have two of these tablets, one used one not. The backup size of the unused tablet is 82 MB while the backup of the used table is already 540 MB lol. I just uploaded the 82 MB one to my Google Drive and the link is below
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Yc110W0bfmVlFNQzVhX0k4elE/view?usp=sharing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So far, no good. It's hitting a 'checksum compare fail' and I've researched how to screw with that - none have worked either. But in that search I found mention that this is just the user data, not the ROM which would relayer what's causing my bootloop situation and others who've bricked theirs as well. Looks like we're going to need a proper ROM to shove in there to have a shot, but I appreciate this effort! At least we can rule this one out. It may've worked wiping out the rooted stuff, but the MD5 blockade's the situation.
Side note on that, I got into that file - blanked it even - still mismatch. Then I decided to go for the actual backup.
CHINESE. 100% string of pure language symbols, so no way to even see patterns in it to attempt to make an MD5 replacement! Gotta love China junk.
I have a ROM, but it fails on the signature from RCA. I think. Might be the MD5 but that just errors out instead of a mismatch, I may hack on that a bit.
Alright,
Phone: Nexus 5 2013
Android: 5.1.1
Country: Canada
So I've started to get a lot of issues on my Nexus 5 that I ordered back in November 2013 (when it was released) and they are too big to be left alone. If I cannot fix them, I'll have to buy a new cellphone and there's none that interest me right now, nor that I want to change my current Nexus 5.
Issues:
My Nexus 5 doesn't connect to my cellular network anymore. I'll stay on "No service" and refuse to connect to any Operator Network stating that the network is unavailable at the moment, even thought it is. Sometimes, it'll connect to the network for 15 to 30 minutes, before losing it for the next 8 hours.
It becomes hot really, really quick randomly. The upper back part of it becomes hot, and according to the Nexus 5 architecture, the battery isn't even located there so I don't know what could make it heat up like that. This happens even without it being charged, and without me using it a lot (games, apps, etc.)
The phone will randomly restart for no reason, and sometimes stay stuck on a "boot loop" (Starting apps X of Y... before restarting).
The vibrate mode is messed up. It'll vibrate every 30 seconds for a notification (email, Facebook, SMS, etc.) despite the fact that there's nothing, absolutely nothing. Right now I disabled the vibration/sound mode to avoid that issue.
The battery gets drained really, really fast. Like overnight, while not being used it'll fall from 100% to 5%. It never used to do that. When I don't use it overnight, it would lose maybe 20%, even less than that. It started recently as well.
All these issues were present in past versions of Android, starting at 4.4 so I doubt the version is in cause here, but it's still a possibility I guess.
I got my SIM card changed for a brand a new one, troubleshooted the phone with everything I could find online before giving up and restoring it to it's default settings, but the issues are still present. I don't know what I should check anymore. If you have any comments, experiences or solutions I could try to solve my issues, please let me know since at this point I'll most likely try all of them. Also, if you need more information on my phone, system, etc. let me know as well.
Thank you.
Is your phone stock/rooted etc?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
There is a recognised problem with the Nexus 5 that a dead battery can kill something in the radio functionality. Since you have so many problems your best bet is to start with the software - a full refresh of the ROM. It might be worth waiting a few days for the release of Android 6.0 which is supposed to be coming in the next week (anything from 29th September to 5th October, but who knows...?). If you can't wait, save whatever you want from the device and install preview 3 MPA44I - it works very well on my N5, and since I'm not using it as my daily phone (I have a Nexus 6) the standby battery life is amazing. At the moment it shows 76% with 13 days 12 hours left.
firemaned said:
Is your phone stock/rooted etc?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It used to be rooted, but it's not anymore. Any way I can make sure that it's rooted or not? When I used the SuperSU app back then I realized at some point that it wasn't rooted anymore (it was telling me that this app can only be used on rooted devices). I think the bootloader is unlocked because when I open my device, it shows me the little lock icon, but it's open (unlocked). Also, it's freshly reset to factory default (from yesterday).
dahawthorne said:
There is a recognised problem with the Nexus 5 that a dead battery can kill something in the radio functionality. Since you have so many problems your best bet is to start with the software - a full refresh of the ROM. It might be worth waiting a few days for the release of Android 6.0 which is supposed to be coming in the next week (anything from 29th September to 5th October, but who knows...?). If you can't wait, save whatever you want from the device and install preview 3 MPA44I - it works very well on my N5, and since I'm not using it as my daily phone (I have a Nexus 6) the standby battery life is amazing. At the moment it shows 76% with 13 days 12 hours left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I already did a Factory Reset on my phone yesterday, so I guess I don't have to do another one? Right now, if I follow what you just told me, I should wait until the release of Android 6.0 (M) and upgrade to it then see if it solves my issues. I just hope that it won't take a long time to be pushed to my phone like it was with Android 5.0. Or your other solution is to flash the latest preview for Android 6.0 (M) on my phone and see how it goes, right?
If you've restored a ROM and lost root, and are back to 100% stock Android, then as far as I know the Android 6 upgrade will be provided over the air (OTA) and will work fine. Whether it resolves your problems is a different question. I myself tried everything to make my radio work again after the battery died, and eventually contacted Google, who were honorable enough to send me a replacement (refurbished, but effectively as good as new) which works perfectly.
dahawthorne said:
If you've restored a ROM and lost root, and are back to 100% stock Android, then as far as I know the Android 6 upgrade will be provided over the air (OTA) and will work fine. Whether it resolves your problems is a different question. I myself tried everything to make my radio work again after the battery died, and eventually contacted Google, who were honorable enough to send me a replacement (refurbished, but effectively as good as new) which works perfectly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was my original plan. I called the Play Store support this week and they told me that my phone was elligible for a replacement till April of 2016. I found that weird because it would make it a 2 years and a half guarantee but at least I had my backup plan in mind. Then I called today to order a replacement and the guy told me that my guarantee expired back in November 2014 (1 year after I bought my Nexus 5, which made sense) so now I'm stuck with this one. I don't know why, but since this morning (after creating this thread), the cellular network cameback. It still drops sometimes but only for a few seconds and if not, I enable/disable the Plane mode to make it connect again. However, the battery drain, phone heat, random restart and messed up vibration issues are still present. I can deal with them however until Android 6.0 (M) gets released. The most important thing was the cellular network. We'll see tomorrow how it goes. Still awaiting tips and tricks for my other issues if anyone have some.
For the battery draining issue, I think I have the paid version of Greenify somewhere and was thinking of using it to see if it helps, even though I didn't have that issue at the beginning.
Instead of a factory reset you should try using fastboot to flash the factory image for a fresh start.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Free mobile app
CalculatedRisk said:
Instead of a factory reset you should try using fastboot to flash the factory image for a fresh start.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And I imagine that the factory image is still present on the device? This is what I find weird, because when I "reset" my factory to defaults, it restores it to Android 5.1.1 even though the device came with 4.x. I come from the computer field, and a Factory Reset on a computer uses the manufacturer's image present on the CD, DVD, USB or partition given with the computer to reinstall the original OS that was present on it and the OEM software as well. If the computer was eventually upgraded to Windows 8.1 and came with Windows 7, Windows 7 will be restored, not Windows 8.1. So I can understand now that a "Factory Reset" doesn't really return the device to its factory state, right?
I would guess that you've had an OTA update to 5.1.1? You would have had to actively accept it - it doesn't install itself automatically. The factory image isn't (as far as I'm aware...) on the device, it just resets components back to default values - I may be wrong about this. There's obviously no way that a Kitkat device could mysteriously upgrade itself to Lollipop in any other way than a deliberate flash or an OTA update.
I use Greenify myself and it appears to do what it claims, but I wonder if it will become unnecessary when the new Doze function comes in with Android 6. Maybe the two will complement each other for optimum battery life. Any experts out there that can comment?
You mention that it's the upper back that becomes hot - I'm guessing that this is where the processor is. Mine does the same if it's running under load - for example when taking a TWRP backup. And anything that's creating heat has to get its energy from somewhere, hence the battery drain. If there is a rogue app that's running even when you're not using the phone Greenify might kill it - worth a try.
And final comment (for the moment... ) - the padlock with the gap means that your bootloader is unlocked, but doesn't mean that the phone is rooted. It does however mean that the phone can accept new ROMs and can be rooted.
dahawthorne said:
I would guess that you've had an OTA update to 5.1.1? You would have had to actively accept it - it doesn't install itself automatically. The factory image isn't (as far as I'm aware...) on the device, it just resets components back to default values - I may be wrong about this. There's obviously no way that a Kitkat device could mysteriously upgrade itself to Lollipop in any other way than a deliberate flash or an OTA update.
I use Greenify myself and it appears to do what it claims, but I wonder if it will become unnecessary when the new Doze function comes in with Android 6. Maybe the two will complement each other for optimum battery life. Any experts out there that can comment?
You mention that it's the upper back that becomes hot - I'm guessing that this is where the processor is. Mine does the same if it's running under load - for example when taking a TWRP backup. And anything that's creating heat has to get its energy from somewhere, hence the battery drain. If there is a rogue app that's running even when you're not using the phone Greenify might kill it - worth a try.
And final comment (for the moment... ) - the padlock with the gap means that your bootloader is unlocked, but doesn't mean that the phone is rooted. It does however mean that the phone can accept new ROMs and can be rooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did have an OTA update to 5.1.1, yes.
And I talked to one of my friend who's really into phones (used to work for Bell and he's usually the person I go to whenever I have issues with my cellphone), and he suggested me to wait until Android 6.0 comes out, and then to fastboot it on my Nexus 5 since OTA updates can be buggy sometimes. I could actually fastboot the phone right now (well tonight) with Android 5.1.1, but if Android 6.0 is to come out next week (or the one after), it might worth the wait, depending on whether or not I can keep the cellular network working. Otherwise I would have to go through 2 flashboots in 2 weeks and I can't really be bothered to do that
And I don't know where the CPU is in the Nexus 5 (I could look it up) but the zone where the heat is isn't where the battery is so there's that. However, my friend told me that the fact that my cellular network isn't working could explain why the battery is being drained so fast, but can't explain the vibrate mode and random restarts issues.
I was having battery issues on Stock ROM, but now I am using CM12.1 so battery is not draining very fast.
When I am inside my home or in some other house or building, the network disconnects very often. However, if I am outside, the network works pretty well.
The notification LED, when being configured using CM12.1 settings, shows blue color on green color selection and green color on blue color selection.
I had some of the same problems with my phone, it would reboot randomly throughout the day. With mine if I charged it overnight with it off when I turned it on in the morning it would only be at 85%. I ended up contacting LG and I paid $170 to get it fixed, they have replaced the mainboard twice so far. After the second time it had no issues, and that lasted a couple months but I have sent it back again to be fixed. If you bought the phone on a credit card they usually extend the warranty by a year, that's what I did, filed a claim and they sent a cheque for the repair cost, very simple actually. But I suspect it might be the same problem as mine, some hardware issue, especially if you've reset the phone.
Just for info, the CPU is indeed at the top rear of the phone, so this is undoubtedly where the heat is coming from.
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus+5+Teardown/19016 - see step 11 saying "The Quad-core, 2.26 GHz Snapdragon 800 SoC is layered beneath the RAM".
I reckon it's a rogue app, which I hope isn't a system app, running wild - a system app will be hard to cure.
A ROM refresh is probably a good place to start, and if you can wait for Android 6.0 then why settle for less...
Wiped my os on nexus 5 trying to install nethunter only comes on in twrp. very new to this be easy on me ive previously installed a vm lab with kali linux.
I have downloaded adb and fastboot
Using winace . Before this my pc would not recognize my device, "no drivers". But now it shows up on the pc control panel as active and found
However snap pea still cant find drivers although now it says are you fornatting your phone with only one option "yes" then it just dissappear. ... but before I downloaded adb, fast boot ... snap pea was simply saying no drivers found.... Please help. ..thank you.
Sent from my GT-I8190 using XDA Free mobile app
Here's an update on my situation: the cellular network is back at both my house and my workplace. The way it works, it seems that it takes it a day to "adapt" itself to the location and then gives me network. So at first after the Factory Reset, I didn't have network at my house, the day after I did. Now, when I went to work on Monday I didn't have network, but when I did on Tuesday, I did. My job is an hour of road away too, and at some places on the road I don't get any network, but it happens less and less as I travel back and forth.
The random restart and overheating issue are still present however. I didn't test the notifications (on vibrate) but I will soon. As long as I have my cellular network, I don't care about the other issues, until Android 6.0 (M) gets released and I fastboot it on my phone.
Now, since I bought my Nexus 5 using a MasterCard, I remembered that they have a promotion which double the guarantee on electronics (up to a 1 year), which means that I have a 2 years guarantee on my phone. So I called LG, and they have a promotion right now, $150 to get my phone repaired by their tech center IF it can be repaired. If they can't, they send it back and gives me a 50% refund (around that number).
My current plan of action is to wait for Android 6.0 (M) to get released, flashboot it on my phone and see how it goes from there.
Thank you for all the replies so far, they really helped me and still help me today
Good luck man. Keep us updated.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Free mobile app
Alright so, I fastbooted Android 6.0 on my Nexus 5, and it seems to have done the trick. I have network everywhere now, even on the road. I still lose it from times to times (a few seconds only), but this is a "normal" behavior considering the carrier I have. The notification issue is also gone, and so does the restart issue since I didn't have it once so far. But I only fastbooted it yesterday evening so it might be too soon to say that.
Now, I still have the "overheating" issue, but it could be from me playing Fallout Shelter, I really don't know. I used to play Clash of Clans alot, and graphically speaking, I think it's more demanding than FS, but I never had that overheating effect before. One thing I noticed however is that after fastbooting Android 6.0, my battery drops real fast, even when idle. I thought that Android 6.0 was supposed to improve the battery life. I'll try to see what process, app or activity is taking the most juice out of it, but I'm sure this isn't normal.
Alright so it took me an hour to go from my house to my workplace, and my battery went from 34% to 12%, while being on standby. This isn't normal I guess. I'll need to charge it to 100% once, and then use the Battery setting to see what's taking all the juice.
Might have spoke too soon. When going to work today, I went in a room where there's usually no signal (or the signal is very weak), and lost the network. It's normal in that room so I didn't pay much attention to it, but now I'm not able to get back on the network. Even searching for the Network Operator fails. Sigh, it really looks like I'll have to send it to LG for repair. I guess I need to fastboot it first to erase all my data, because they need to use my phone to test the repairs they make?
Hi!
I'm very satisfied with the latest (1 March) 6.01 stock rom with cata mod on top of it.
I have never encrypted whole phone, I need to hear some pros and cons.
For example, if I encrypt it, I couldn't use any more swipe to unlock, only pin, that's OK. If I loose the phone, I will have less worries if it was encrypted, that's OK.
But what about speed, will I loose some speed (in everyday work, boot time) if enc?
Most important, will I be able to perform backup and restore from TWRP?
If I choose to enc, what is the procedure, I understand internal sdcard will also be encrypted?
Thanks in advance.
I have only Nexus devices (5 & 6), so I can't answer your SD card question.
I have used a N5 & N6 both encrypted and unencrypted, and I've read the report saying that there is a 50% performance hit (or whatever the figure is - it's supposed to be enormous in statistical terms) but in real-world usage there is no difference whatsoever that I can see. No stuttering, no lagging, no slow startup, absolutely nothing. If it takes an extra second to boot, I can't see it.
On the other hand, my wife lost her unencrypted Galaxy S2 a couple of months ago, so some slimy scumbag somewhere has access to our photos. No big deal, nothing embarrassing, but nevertheless I don't like the idea of some filthy lowlife creep looking at our personal family photos.
I tried Android N for a few days and didn't like the many apps that didn't work (including root, now resolved with SuperSU v2.70), so I restored my TWRP M backup. No problems whatsoever.
Go for it. I unreservedly encourage everybody to encrypt their devices. An imperceptible 5% hit is nothing to pay for peace of mind.
dahawthorne said:
Go for it. I unreservedly encourage everybody to encrypt their devices. An imperceptible 5% hit is nothing to pay for peace of mind.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very useful experience, thank you. By internal sdcard, i meant internal storage, not sdcard actually.
Ah, in that case, yes. I wasn't thinking...
Since the internal sdcard *is* the phone's data repository, it wouldn't make sense to leave it unencrypted...
What's the deal with the Samsung Galaxy A41?
For reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_A41
https://www.samsung.com/A41
There is no XDA-Forum for this smartphone
There also seems to be no community for this phone.
Searching the internet for A41 compatible Custom ROMs ends in less than nothingness even in the darkest corners.
What's going on? The phone is on the market since March 2020. The phone is pretty good in specs (middle-class).
AND it is the ONLY phone under 200 bucks today that is NOT larger than 150mm in length and therefor usable in pockets.
I don't get it why it doesn't get the same attention as the other competitors in the same price class.
Can anybody enlighten me what's happening?
Please XDA mods and admins, if this is just a mistake, please open a samsung forum for the A41!
yepp - I have such an 'outbreak of hell' product - still struggling to root this beast. 90% of the references in the i-net are fake/copied from other Axx or just bla-bla.
Up to now odin (different versions) seems only to be able to flash Samsung CRAPROM (needed it several times after ended bricked)
- magisk patched boot img not working/ending up in boot-loop,
- magisk patching AP dies before finishing (img is 3.5GB instead 4GB)
Samsung - not a success story
avalanche1609 said:
Up to now odin (different versions) seems only to be able to flash Samsung CRAPROM (needed it several times after ended bricked)
- magisk patched boot img not working/ending up in boot-loop,
- magisk patching AP dies before finishing (img is 3.5GB instead 4GB)
Samsung - not a success story
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
omg.. I was hoping to be able to root the phone at least with magisk.. but what you say doesn't sound well. I saw all those copy-paste tutorials for A41 on the internet too.. thought at least something gotta work.
I still don't get it. this should be a popular phone by its smaller size, low price and good super amoled display.
unbelievable there is no community, roots, custom roms, or at least discussion threads.
friends are getting a few A41 phones.. now that'll be a funny mess to root and handle. :/
@avalanche1609 just curious, you said you let magisk patch AP and it dies before finishing (3.5gb/4gb).. why did you let it patch the 4gb AP file? isn't the way to root the phone with magisk like:
-> get the same original firmware that is currently installed on the phone and extract the boot.img.tar from it.
-> copy that to you phone, let magisk patch the boot.img.tar (about 20mb in size)
-> copy patched_boot.img.tar to you pc
-> flash patched_boot.img.tar from pc with odin back to your phone in download mode (using AP(!) not BL in odin) and that file is about 20mb, not more!
shouldn't that be it?
why did you let magisk patch a 4GB AP?
also: which odin3 version did you use? 99% floating around are fake and malicious, all these 3.14.4 verisons are fake.
If you can unlock the bootloader you're already half way there. Then boot into a TWRP using fastboot boot recovery.img and flash Magisk from there. You might also have to disable DM verity somehow.
Good luck
lebigmac said:
If you can unlock the bootloader you're already half way there. Then boot into a TWRP using fastboot boot recovery.img and flash Magisk from there. You might also have to disable DM verity somehow.
Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
unlocking the bootloader should be no problem as far as I heard. but I also heard there is no TWRP version that actually really supports the device (and encryption afterwards). installing twrp with fastboot could be possible, also booting TWRP with fastboot could be possible, but for what? just for installing magisk that way? Isn't the other way easier? -> installing magisk manager, patch the boot image, and flash it back? especially when there is no fitting TWRP version anyway?
Zirila said:
unlocking the bootloader should be no problem as far as I heard. but I also heard there is no TWRP version that actually really supports the device (and encryption afterwards). installing twrp with fastboot could be possible, also booting TWRP with fastboot could be possible, but for what? just for installing magisk that way? Isn't the other way easier? -> installing magisk manager, patch the boot image, and flash it back? especially when there is no fitting TWRP version anyway?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The samsung brick is rooted now - one successful act of self defense !
- the newest magisk from github (21410) is able to do the job of patching.
(feeding magisk only with an extracted boot.img doesn't work! six different odin versions (<3.14.4) are not able to flash the created boot-image tar file)
- Magisk definitely needs the complete extracted 4GB AP file from the stock firmware - and the canary/github version of magisk is able to patch it (without crashing) and created 4GB patch.tar-file which odin accepts.
fastboot isn't an option - the device is detected but nothing else works/is implemented by samsung
If there is a suitable TWRP around - let me know.
avalanche1609 said:
The samsung brick is rooted now - one successful act of self defense !
Spoiler
- the newest magisk from github (21410) is able to do the job of patching.
(feeding magisk only with an extracted boot.img doesn't work! six different odin versions (<3.14.4) are not able to flash the created boot-image tar file)
- Magisk definitely needs the complete extracted 4GB AP file from the stock firmware - and the canary/github version of magisk is able to patch it (without crashing) and created 4GB patch.tar-file which odin accepts.
fastboot isn't an option - the device is detected but nothing else works/is implemented by samsung
If there is a suitable TWRP around - let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's great news! So there actually is a way to get root on A41 and I'm glad it worked out fine for you so far.
I'm eager looking forward to root one of them for myself, I guess in a few days I'll have the chance to do so (I'll report then).
I'll take your advice and look for the latest magisk build from github.
It still looks very strange to me that magisk requires more than the boot image to patch. maybe it has something to do with dynamic partitions/ram disk the phone might use or the like. idk. maybe it then needs these files also. or probably the firmware is a little bit different from the one installed on the phone. I'm just guessing, not knowing. At least it works and when it takes to patch a 4gb file, well, then let it take that much.
That's the point where it'd be fine to have a XDA A41 forum with community and already people with experience, since it's a phone almost 1 year old now..
regarding the suppported TWRP version.. idk.. I would just trial and error things out. maybe it works with the latest version already. But better check it out before you plan to use the phone regularly..
I also don't know much about the fastboot options, I thought it works like usual as long as the bootloader is unlocked.. but flashing TWRP with odin or the twrp app itself could work too.
oh and the original question from the opening thread still remains open:
where is the community? where are the custom roms?
avalanche1609 said:
[...]
fastboot isn't an option - the device is detected but nothing else works/is implemented by samsung
If there is a suitable TWRP around - let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh right. I forgot that Samsung intentionally cripples the fastboot for its users... How awesome.
Hi all!
I have one of these since a couple of days and I have to say it is a really nice phone with a really bad issue: the jpg compression is super aggressive and photos that should look great given the lens and sensor look bland and smudgy. As far as I understand, there is no camera api2 exposed at all by default. All camera apps that I have tried produce worse images and gcam does not work (I have tried about 20 different ones, for Mediatek and otherwise). If Samsung could just let me bump up JPEG quality to 95% I would be completely satisfied with this phone, but I guess that would never happen.
I therefore wonder, is there any chance that your success rooting the phone could lead to bumping up the JPEG quality of the stock camera app, eventually expose camera api2 or somehow allow us to install a version of gcam down the line?
Cheers!
I bought a new Galaxy A41 for 180€ and I'm just setting it up.
I want to share my thoughts so far about:
the hardware, the software, things like rooting.
The Installation and Software:
The phone starts and already wants to trick you into signing data collection agreements (Terms of Service (not optional), marketing, analytics, 3rd party shares (3 optional)).
If you select by common sense and only check ToS you'll get fooled when you check the last radio button which says "I've read all of the above and agree (..)" which enabled all optional radio buttons again right before you click next. What a dirty play.
Also it is not possible to skip the WiFi selection screen ("skip" is greyed out) making it impossible to setup the phone without internet access. This has nothing to do with FRP, this is before anything google related is setup. Samsung clearly states it requires internet to setup the phone and install necessary provider software. Once it gets internet it gets activated and the "skip" option becomes clickable after the next factory reset. This practice makes me really angry. It's obviously the price you pay when you buy a low- to mid-range class phone - you'll pay the rest with your personal data.
I setup the phone without creating google and samsung accounts (I never got one of these anyways) and got to the home screen. If you havent enabled WiFi yet, there aren't many apps at all pre-installed, just a few useful and a few bloatware apps (like Facebook, MS Office, etc).
If you give it WiFi however, it kinda explodes with leeching, loading and updating Apps you never asked for. Only some of these can be "disabled" and only some of them can be "uninstalled" the normal way. Some of the unwanted you can't uninstall nor disable. (This is where you wish you had root access)
The phone had Security Patch Level installed from August 2020. Making OTA firmware updates 3x (about 1-3gb) will get you to Sec.Patch Level November 2020 which is the latest available OTA (we have February 2021 now). That's not a good sign IMO.. so it's already a few month behind the patch cycle..
So, software wise there aren't many useful apps for me installed, really just the utter basics and much more 3rd party bloatware and Samsung nonsense apps. It's not as much as with the Poco X3, but still much...
The Hardware:
The super amoled display is the biggest feature of the phone. and it's really great, the colors, the viewing angle, the brightness.. all top notch.
Battery is with only 3500mA/h not that big, but it's astonishing strong and it holds up the uptime it promises so far. I can only hope it stays like that even after a few years.
The size of the phone is what actually made me buy this phone. its the only phone under 6.5" under 200€ and not older than a year. all newer phones are bigger. The size is great, it's slim, but long. (6,1" ~15cm long)
I didn't expect it to be that heavy, though. well, the weight is not really heavy, but compared to older phones it is a good bit heavier.
The Camera is just Mediocre, I already knew this from reviews before but playing around with it and seeing the results underscores it. The final pics alltogether look always a bit washen out if you zoom in. There aren't enough professional advanced settings in the camera settings compared to open camera or mx camera. you have to stick with what you get. The Sensor of the camera is despite 48mpixels only mediocre. the widescreen lens is a nice feature but quality wise not that good either. Selfie cam is subjectively good enough though.
HDR setting and results are a joke compared to mx camera.
Rooting:
I actually planned to root the phone with magisk and installing TWRP. However, I ended up not rooting or installing TWRP at all. The reasons are various.
First, It's possible to unlock the bootloader in developer settings (after the phone called home..). You'll get a nagscreen every time you boot the phone up after it's unlocked. From this point on you might be able to root the phone with Magisk (following the advices a few posts above), but it'll probably trigger and brick KNOX status.
I decided to NOT do that and relocked the bootloader, because there seems to be no lively community for this phone, there are no Custom ROMs available nor any custom bootloaders. And I might want to sell the phone again if it doesn't fit my likings and that'll be more difficult with broken KNOX status. Also that way I can get OTA stock updates as long as the phone is supported.
There is also no supported version of TWRP for the A41. And TWRP on phones like this is tricky as you can read at the A40 TWRP page: TWRP A40 read chapter "This device uses system-as-root in an A-only partition configuration." Also the device is using File Based Encryption and not Full Disc Encryption. I don't know if TWRP works with that environment at all yet.
So currently the only benefits of getting root would be to be able to completely uninstall some bloatware. The rest (firewall, adblocker, backups, etc) is pretty much possible without root access.
I really hope this phone is able to get custom ROMs and community in the future, though.
korpenkraxar said:
Hi all!
I have one of these since a couple of days and I have to say it is a really nice phone with a really bad issue: the jpg compression is super aggressive
Spoiler
and photos that should look great given the lens and sensor look bland and smudgy. As far as I understand, there is no camera api2 exposed at all by default. All camera apps that I have tried produce worse images and gcam does not work (I have tried about 20 different ones, for Mediatek and otherwise). If Samsung could just let me bump up JPEG quality to 95% I would be completely satisfied with this phone, but I guess that would never happen.
I therefore wonder, is there any chance that your success rooting the phone could lead to bumping up the JPEG quality of the stock camera app, eventually expose camera api2 or somehow allow us to install a version of gcam down the line?
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I exactly know what you mean as I watch the pics I just made with the same phone. I don't know if you could change anything in this regard after rooting but it actually looks to me like it's rather the built in camera sensor that makes the quality not that good and not so much the jpeg compression. It doesn't really look like jpeg artifacts, it's more like a washen out painting. I doubt you'll get anything better by rooting the phone, but thats just guessing. Also: did you check out the Image format options? "4:3" vs "4:3 48mpixels"?
Hi!
I checked out all the various formats and played around with the ISO settings grabbing some indoor pics in a relatively poorly lit environment.
First, it is a shame that the HDR is inactivated when using the "4:3 48mpixels" mode or PRO mode because I kind of like that HDR effect otherwise. It seems to me like the aggressive compression automatically kicks in on ISO levels 400 and above, while levels 100 and 200 look alright to me: edges with high contrast look more natural and I find the "natural" pixel noise more tolerable than the washed out smudge effect from the compression.
A "4:3 48mpixels" photo with ISO 200 looks acceptable IMHO and with a little bit of tweaking in Snapseed, I was quite pleased with the result. More grain and a bit darker than what I get from a Zenfone 5 with GCam, but tolerable for a modern phone.
With "4:3 48mpixels" ISO 200 we get quite large file sizes and there is no pixel binning or HDR, but for those random pics that I would like to share with friends in social media, this mode is ok.
Overall, the screen and form factor of the phone is great and it is a fun and comfortable one to use, aside from the camera snafu. I suspect there are some artificial configuration restraints here put in by Samsung. I stand by my original remark that a higher JPEG compression ratio would be great. No idea if it can be configured via root.
As a side note, coming from a Pixel 1 and then a Zenfone 5, it is amazing how well GCam captures photos...
Has anyone rooted successfully?
Reading elsewhere, it's hinted people managed to do it.
Zirila said:
the ONLY phone under 200 bucks today that is NOT larger than 150mm in length
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The A40 is even better in this regard, but is sadly underspeced.
Zirila said:
currently the only benefits of getting root would be to be able to completely uninstall some bloatware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And call recording, I believe?
Got the phone yesterday (about 120$) and got it rooted with Odin and Magisk took a little back and forward.. been a while sines I have been on Samsung phone.
I like this small cheap compact phone, tired of the big bricks.
Was installing from a new phone with latest update from Samsung.
So wrote a small guide to help out..
Everything on phone will get wiped/factory reset , so take backup , you have been warned.
Take no responsibility of brick etc. (or typos!)
!PLEASE CHECK WHAT VERSION PHONE YOU HAVE MINE IS SM-A415F AND THE GUIDE WAS WRITTEN FOR THAT PHONE!
Quick guide:
1* On PC or phone download you stock firmware for you region: https://samfw.com/firmware/SM-A415F
My was NEE witch is Nordic Europe.
Unpack or Transfer the AP_* file to you phone, i used microsd so didn't unpack on phone.
(sd card need to be exFAT , you can format to that in Windows, so it cant handle big files over ~4GB)
2* Install lates Magisk manager from https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk/releases/latest (Used v22.0) on phone.
Install Magisk patch the AP_* file from before
Transfer it back to PC, we will use this later!
3* Start phone, (if new phone don't bother sign in google/samsung etc.. it will all be wiped/factory reset!)
Enable Developer mode:
Setting, about device tag 7 times on Build..
(If its not shown connect to the internet and wait ~5min..)
Check "OEM unlocking" , "USB debugging".
4* Turn off the phone, press volume +/- while you connect PC to Phone with USB-C.
When screen "WARNING...Custom OS can cause problems.." press and hold Volume +, and press Volume + to confirm what you are doing!
Let it reboot.
5* Enable Developer mode:
Setting, about device tag 7 times on Build..
(If its not shown connect to the internet and wait ~5min..)
Check to see if "OEM unlocking" is greyed out enabled , check enable"USB debugging".
6* Turn off the phone, press volume +/- while you connect PC to Phone with USB-C.
Press Volume +(don't hold like last time.)
7* On PC open latest Odin (used v3.14.4) from https://odindownloader.com/ (no sure it that the official site but what i used, please let me know if there is a better one.)
Unpack the folder to your PC hard drive and start Odin3*.exe, uncheck "Auto reboot" make sure "F.Reset Time" is checked.
Use the original firmware files from (1*) "BL, CP, CSC" BUT the AP_* that you transferred from Phone.
Press start and hopefully you will get a "<OSM> All threads completed. (succeed 1 / failed 0)" when it's done!
Restart phone.
I had to download magisk and install it again but everything seems to be working..
Cheers
Minuz said:
Got the phone yesterday (about 120$)
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Click to collapse
Only $120 ?!
hkjo said:
Only $120 ?!
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Click to collapse
128$ to be exact.
Samsung - Køb nyeste Galaxy telefoner her - CBB Mobil
Samsung har nogle af de mest populære mobiler. Find bl.a. Samsung Galaxy i stort udvalg, og få en ny mobil til Små Priser her.
www.cbb.dk
Don't think you can order from out side of Denmark. you can always move
@Minuz
Half the price? The ad there might actually be truthful: 800 DKK instead of the normal 1800. Not bad, unless you have to commit to the operator. Are they clearing the stock to make room for the disappointing A42?
Is Samsung's call recording enabled on the NEE firmware? Any idea if one can flash stock firmware from other regions?
@hkjoThey have similar deals every month, getting customers, cleaning storage for "older/cheap" phones witch are flooding the market atm.
No binding of to the cellphone company, but i'm pretty sure you have to be a danish citizen.
Can see any record options in call settings or phone options, but with root it should be possible to find a app.
-
Regarding of the experience so fare on the phone is great.. coming from a Xiaomi Note 9 Pro , Samsung S10+.
I really like this compact phone, it does everything i need.
The sound is not the best and the plastic back tend to vibrate with the sound from the speaker, but a case will help that.
Update : Had some problems with a danish authentication app Nemid but got it working!
Having some ustabile crashes witch is all on me trying to get a authentication app to work on root phone.. doing some less stable solution.
Got the authentication app working on previous rooted phones, but something is triggered on this phone/software.. With may be the reason for me not using this phone in the future.
(App Nemid)
Hopefully there will come some custom roms or workaround.
Well hello you all!
Actually I'm lucky to now finally find some other people with the same phone...
So about my little story in the Android universe:
--- Skip if not interested ---
Spoiler: Little story
Coming from a Samsung S3 to an OnePlus 3T. I rooted the OP3T and installed Lineage OS some years ago.. I traded it in for an iPhone 6S from my mom and giving the OP3T to my sister.. I just had enough of this Android because you often get stuck with something, the apps are less mature and it just all feals like you always need to be enthusiastic about the phone.. So I had a lucky year with the iPhone but somewhat I wanted to get an Android device again. Then I found a refurbished Google Pixel - 1st Gen, 2 years ago and bought it for 200€. The battery seemed to be pretty ripped since the phone had to be in the package for months or even years.. Since I didn't want to have the reseller sent me a new phone with maybe similar problems I decided to repair it on my own..
I then damaged the display in the process, needed to replace it as well with the battery and in the end spent about 350€ for the Pixel... I was kind of pissed but it was a nice phone.. Until I dropped it and the display was completly dead but wasn't shattered last year.. So then I just thought I had enough of smartphones and went with a rework of the Nokia 8810 (the 4G edition) and my iPad until I then decided in September 2020 that I needed a new phone. I somehow could still get the Pixel to work but didn't want to spend 150€ again for replacement parts. For the same phone which wasn't better since then.. But the chip the Snapdragon 820 is pretty neat, 4GB RAM enough and the camera great. Just the Display isn't that nice and modern looking... Maybe I should have gone that way..
--- End of my story what was before my A41 ---
So then I did some research - which phone looks nice for less than 300€, isn't big - since big screen phones are just bulky and you need two hands and I don't like that..
I found the A41 and thought since I don't do gaming and stuff on the phone, just a bit Twitter and messaging, it should be fast enough. Turns out after now several months of use since September 2020 it feels often slow.. I as well didn't like many Samsung Bloatware stuff but somehow got it configured that I don't bother that much now.. But I always wanted to have a custom ROM and it's just frustrating to do research on the device and just finding crappy articles as someone before mentioned.. You just get redirected etc... or find websites with auto generated content.
So to my experience so far:
Coming from the Pixel (and the iPhone 6S) I just have to say the camera is crap. I just don't like it and I think they shouldn't have gone with the trend and go for dual or even triple cameras. But with one lens and doing that one great. I share the criticism that the 48MP mode is somehow the one you want since the images look blurry when not using this mode. But then you don't have HDR as said, cant zoom in (software design isn't great here - you could switch to not 48MP here but now...) and images need to be taken with a calm hand because they often are blurred otherwise. And even then: The images are just in every point then those from the 12MP pixel. (In general this is easy to be explained bc each pixel has less light and is smaller resulting in less quality of the information per pixel. And if this is just really bad you need great software and often bigger sensors to don't just shrink the pixel size on the sensor..)
The chipset as mentioned: Ok, but somewhat sluggish... It feels pretty slow and everything in the UI seems to be a bit delayed on the screen.. But you just get used to this.. (Which still doesn't make this a good point)
I then had issues for months with my GPS module which often seemed to not work but then suddendly worked and I don't know why... Since then everything seems to be working fine regarding to locations.. It did work sometimes before and was pretty accurate but it just didn't work in 90% of the situations I tried it..
I actually like the display and battery. Both are great, I get maybe 60-70% usage per day and this is great. The display is also pleasing and I like the size although it could be a bit smaller..
The reason why I found this thread now is my latest problem though..
Since 2 months or so I tried to install an update but it just doesn't work. I somewhere found a OTA file (I think sammobile and I hate it that I needed to register there and Samsung isn't providing the files on their own).. And after booting into recovery and starting to sideload it... It just keeps stuck there as well with just 0%... I just hate this phone now and don't want to use it anymore since it just has no community, it feels sluggish sometimes, the camera isn't great and it's a Samsung phone with no possibility for a custom ROM...
What are your thoughts? Where do you agree - should I maybe try to just wipe it, sell it for 100€ on ebay and repair my old pixel? I just thought I might be luckier with that one ... Or maybe get an iPhone again but then.. those are even used that expensive, but just are so good usable in everyday use.. I am a pretty technical competent person, used Linux for like 3 years on the Desktop with no windows on dual boot don't have any problems solving most problems with software what so ever.. But I just don't want to run into problems with the devices I use daily and need to be reliable. If I want projects to waste my time I find them. I install software on servers and configure them.. But this phone and android in general... I sometimes like it, but then I feel like I need a brake and use something that has less bugs.. (up to the point that I like it again.. I'm pretty ambivalent on that topic)
@atriom
If it's working now, why waste time on trying to update?
Minuz said:
Can see any record options in call settings or phone options, but with root it should be possible to find a app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought it'd be easier to use semi-official means to enable recording, rather than root.
Found a thread listing Samsung country codes where recording is enabled, but the list is pretty slim. Intersecting it with the list of countries in which this phone is available (based on one of the firmware sites), I think there's actually no official version with recording enabled.
I'm not sure if that rules out official recording. Maybe CSC selection is generic and not per phone, so all countries would be available.