Complete noob - how to I update my phone past Android 6? - Moto G 2015 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi
I have a Moto G3 from 2015 bought in the UK.
I have Android 6 on it, since that's the latest one I can update to. Some of my apps stopped working with this version though and require 8.0 or newer. I also noticed that when having things like Firefox, VLC, etc. open at the same time, apps are extremely slow and sometimes crash. I need to go into settings>apps and force close stuff to make the phone usable.
I know this is a terrible phone by 2023 standards, but I only use it for calling, texting, videos, and the occasional app. If it's possible to keep it alive for a while longer instead of buying a new one, I say why not.
I know nothing about Android, ROMs, rooting, or anything like that. All I know is I need a newer version, and some of the apps I use require Google Play to be active (eg. Sleep) and access to Location and some other permissions.
I saw some ROMs on this forum, like several versions of LineageOS, but I don't know if that's what I should get or not. I just want the lightest possible OS that can do everything that my current stock Android 6 can do (or, was able to a few months ago).
Any helpful pointers as to where to start?
Thanks

Related

While awaiting Android N for our Pure (XT1575)...

I decided to try out simplifying my phone and reduce issues that I've come across when using various custom ROMs, modified stock ROMs, etc... and used the Restore-To-Stock tool found in these forums. I then updated the phone via Settings, About, System Updates... then once that was done (Several times...) I was fully updated and ready to go. I flashed the latest TWRP & then installed the latest SuperSU for MM via TWRP... went into the file system and removed the APPs I did not want or need on my phone, wiped the caches and rebooted... I did this a few days ago and am insanely impressed by it. I forgot what stable and issue-free felt like... There's no fancy custom edits, no oddball quirks randomly from whatever was modified from various ROMs and after I installed xPosed, a few basic modules, setup Nova Launcher and all my APPs (Did a full fresh no restore of anything run through of it all)... I am the happiest I've ever been with my Moto X Pure (XT1575).
Once N pops in, I'll go through the whole process again, of course... but I think I might start sticking out simplified setups from here on out. I wanted to get the next Google "Nexus" phones released this year, but after seeing the Pixels and the prices... no thank you, I'm staying with my Pure for a while. I'm VERY happy with it... Dual front facing speakers are pretty much a necessity now for me. Internal Storage and Removable Batteries (prior to my Pure) are no longer my requirement. I've adjusted to pretty much using Google Drive and Google Play Music for all of my Files & Music with T-Mobile's no-data-cost of Google Play Music Streaming, I download my favorites (All I ever need would fit on a 32GB phone easily)... and Google Photos auto-backup has prevented me needing tons of storage options anymore... Battery you say though? No... I've YET to have a phone I wasn't able to charge on-the-go or even have a battery go bad.
Rambling here, this post was probably more for me than anyone who might read it, lol... I wanted the Moto Z so bad... but if I can't get an unlocked one that has the shatterproof display to use on T-Mobile... I don't see myself getting one at all. I want my next phone to have a fancy AMOLED hopefully shatterproof display with dual-front facing or at least a mod for sound / speakers like the Z and perhaps smaller top / bottom bezels. Not sure if I care about a fingerprint sensor yet or not. Anyway, have a great day everyone!!!
Have you compared debloated stock to tru pure x?
I've been thinking about doing something similar for the last few days. I've been running the latest TruPure since it came out several months ago. It might be the longest I've ever had an Android device without doing a clean flash of something, and things are degenerating.
I've always been a huge fan of TruPureXMM but have run into a few minor quirks here and then over time and definitely feel this is proving to be a much more stable experience. I removed (debloated) pretty much everything TruPureX did when it comes to APPs, but I believe TruPureX had a lot more going on than just that, which is what prompted me to go this route.
Since we're all sort of waiting for the official N, and we all know it won't be here amazingly fast... I've opted for this route to stay with the official run of things until N is stable and available through the official channel. I'll go through the full official update process and then TWRP and Root after... I'll be able to stay away from xPosed at first simply because the only things I'm using now are making MM more like N and I won't need to do that with N. I'm hoping once I can TWRP, Root and debloat by deleting the many APPs I don't like... things will be great!
CJ-Wylde said:
I've always been a huge fan of TruPureXMM but have run into a few minor quirks here and then over time and definitely feel this is proving to be a much more stable experience. I removed (debloated) pretty much everything TruPureX did when it comes to APPs, but I believe TruPureX had a lot more going on than just that, which is what prompted me to go this route.
Since we're all sort of waiting for the official N, and we all know it won't be here amazingly fast... I've opted for this route to stay with the official run of things until N is stable and available through the official channel. I'll go through the full official update process and then TWRP and Root after... I'll be able to stay away from xPosed at first simply because the only things I'm using now are making MM more like N and I won't need to do that with N. I'm hoping once I can TWRP, Root and debloat by deleting the many APPs I don't like... things will be great!
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You've made me interested in trying this out as well. Is titanium backup the best way to remove system apps or is there a better alternative?
HaggisIV said:
You've made me interested in trying this out as well. Is titanium backup the best way to remove system apps or is there a better alternative?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What I've always done is go into TWRP and remove them myself. Going full fresh no restore means no real need for Titanium. Return-To-Stock first, then OTA your way up to current... THEN TWRP and SuperSU... then boot in, make sure everything is working and jot down on a piece of paper or Google Keep from your computer a list of the APPs you don't want.
Then power off, get into TWRP and mount /System, go into Advanced, File Manager and within /system/APPs and /system/PrivAPPs (Or something like that, memory just blanked) and find what was on your personal list... enter the folder for it, hit button bottom right, choose delete, done, go back and do the others... then wipe Cache / Dalvik and power off / boot up for the absolute freshest experience you can have with a stock ROM.
The trick is to NOT restore ANYTHING... install all your preferred Google APPs first, do the whole Google Phone install if you removed the stock Phone app, etc... (I remove it and the messenger, and a bunch of other stuff like the gallery, mail, etc... because I solely use Google services now).
I removed my case cover and have been carrying the phone around bare.
It's like I bought a whole new phone.
Have you guys tried a quality AOSP based ROM like Dirty Unicorn or BrokenOS?
Super stability. Nothing at all like running a CM ROM.
Testing cm14 now. Hashbang is doing a great job getting it daily worthy.
nobreak1970 said:
Testing cm14 now. Hashbang is doing a great job getting it daily worthy.
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Click to collapse
cant get it to recognize my sim
unitz0mbie said:
cant get it to recognize my sim
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Click to collapse
10/11 build will I bet. :highfive:
What apps/services did you remove? I'm running stock rooted myself and honestly I only see a couple of things I'd get rid of, nothing that would have any real impact on battery/storage though. This phone's stock ROM really is close to AOSP.
same too what apps did you remove tnx.. im not rooted .. tried uninstalling apps and guess what it got temp bootloop.. did hard reset using stock recovery and got fix again started tru welcome menu.... may i know guys what apps not to unistall tnx
Did a side by side comparison of apps in TruePure and stock. I counted 39 apps deleted from TruePure.
Android Live Wallpaper, Basic Daydreams
Bubbles, Calculator
Cloud Print, Com.Android.wallpaper.holospiral
Com.Motorola.audiomonitor.helper
Com.Motorola.bug2go
Com.Motorola.motgeofencesvc
Com.qualcomm.atfwd
Config Updater, CQATest
Demo mode, Device help
DiagMdlog Settings , Entitlement
Google Indic Keyboard , Japanese Input
Google Launcher Config , Korean Input
Pinyin Input , Play Movies
Play Music , Hangouts
Input Devices , Messaging
Moto Care , Moto Care int
Motorola Boot Services , Motorola Checkin
Motorola Notifications , Motorola One Time Init
Motorola Update Services
Native Drop Box Agent , Phase Beam
Rescue Add-on: Motorola
Sheets , Slides , Talk Back
I only deleted the extra Keyboards, Play Movies, Music, Hangouts, Sheets, Slides and Talk Back to be sure I had enough space for Xposed.

Installed CM11 - everything else seems to work great, Chrome crashes immediately?

So, I'm obviously not remotely an expert when it comes to Android mods, but I'm finally fed up with being stuck on Android 4.1 - since it doesn't appear we'll ever get any upgraded qwerty phones ever again, I figured I'd try diy'ing it.
I have successfully flashed TWRP, rooted the phone, and installed what I believe(?) to have been the most recent version of CM11 (I figured it'd be cleanest to keep the phone closer to what it was designed for - I've seen tons of apps require 4.4 at minimum, not too many that require 5+): cm-11-20150626-SNAPSHOT-XNG3CAO1L8-moto_msm8960_jbbl.zip. Was the most recent version I could find, anyway?
I booted it up and for the most part, everything seemed to be working. Everything except Chrome, which crashes reliably and immediately. I tried clearing all the caches (the app's cache + data, and the phone's, from recovery), uninstalling and reinstalling Chrome, I tried the beta version (crashes), I tried a fork, Brave (crashes). Other browsers are working fine, but I like Chrome.
One weird thing I did notice: I was thinking it might be a gapps issue, but weirdly, the Play store, gmail, maps, everything else just installed and seem to work out of the box before I did anything with gapps? I did also try flashing the most recent base 4.4.4 gapps zip from what I could tell (gapps-444-base-20170209-1-signed.zip), but I'm not sure how to tell if it actually did anything? It said it flashed successfully, but (other than having to wait for all my apps to recalculate because I cleared all the caches), nothing noticeably seemed to change on the front-end as a result, and yes, Chrome still crashes. Should I be using a different gapps install than that for the Photon Q? Or anything else I should check/try? Thanks!
Yay! Answered my own question, with sufficient digging!
Answer seems to be basically: the newest version of Chrome (v55) exposed some sort of weird incompatibility with CM, so the easy fix is just not to use it, at least for now. I sideloaded Chrome v54, and it stopped crashing, yay! Source: https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=70762641&postcount=198
Just FYI, the latest version available for this device is CM13.
They are working on Lineage.
Edit - seems you found the CM13 thread already
Yep - I'm glad to see people other than (and smarter than) myself recognize the Photon Q's unique place as being the final and, sadly, best qwerty slider available for our use, and that it therefore needs to be actively maintained even if Motorola won't... I just figured it'd be better to use an OS closer to the one the device was intended to be used with. Once I'm done testing CM11 out on my old half-working phone (re-purposed to a test phone) and push it to my new fully-functional one, I will probably at some point upgrade that first phone to the latest to try it out (probably once a Lineage build comes out, so I can be on a build that's actively being maintained). For right now, though, I figured I'd stick with CM11. Any case, looks like CM13 exposed the same Chrome issue, anyway.

Are there any usable ROMs?

Are there any ROMs that work well/ respond to touch quickly?
I recently pulled out my old tf201 to try to start using it again. I was able to get the last version of HairyBean working.. But it is really really slow. Like I'll click a button and maybe 30 seconds later it will respond (or tell me the app isn't responding). I mostly use it for my kids to watch shows. Once the show starts it works great, but just navigating the menus and apps to get to the shows can be excruciating. Also, I know thisdevice has WiFi issues just due to the all metal construction, but I feel like the WiFi is even slower than what it used to be when I actually used this 5 years ago or so.
I flashed a couple of other ROMs and either had a lot of bugs, or couldn't get root, or something. Does anyone have any recommendation for a ROM that works well and is actually usable? Thanks!
Anyone??!! I recently put kashmellow (tduros android M). Gapps no longer works so I didn't install that. Many people say its fast w/no gapps. But mine is barely usable. So slow. What the heck happened to these devices? Thing used to be a beast! Believe it came with ICS
I use KatKiss timduru site and xda thread, it is Android 4.4.4 ROM and it is quite fast an somewhat usable. I also have old Google Play Services 10.5.42 that mostly do not crash so even Play store works. However many new apps either cannot be installed or crash because of missing NEON support, sometimes older apk versions work. Basically I keep it for lot of old stuff that still works but don't update anything (or keep Titanium backup of apk+data and often restore back to old version when newer one crashes or needs newer play services).

A little help for an oldschooler excepting the future would be much appreciated

Hats off to everyone on this forum. It's been awhile since I been on here and I am happy to see it still going strong.
I am new to the S8+ and new to modding in 2019. I haven't messed around with this stuff since the "getting the evo to work on boost" days. I am looking for some advise/recommendations on what to choose as far as roms, etc., from the gate from someone who may have had an experience in what I'm trying to achieve rather than going through hundreds of rom post to find the answer I'm looking for. I stepped away from "smart" phones for awhile and came back only when I found out I could lock them down as much as possible using programs like bk disabler (rip). Even root at the time didn't list the "apps in the background" (if you know what I mean) for me to edit or disable them.
I am looking to root (if needed anymore) my device and install an ultra slim/lite rom, no extra apps on it that don't need to be there, especially social media apps. Not sure if roms still come with a separate gaps install option but not having them is fine as well as I will not be signing into any account on my phone and will only want to use youtube as far as the only goog service used, so i wont be able to use any of them anyway besides tube (unless of course there is now a way to use maps and such without signing in?). If theres such a rom out there of course it would need to be stable. I do not want android 9 as none of the apps I actually use (like bk disabler/acr/etc) work with pie from what I have read. Goog wants all the tracking to themselves now I guess, hence why I am looking for a rom that is as slim as possible. I just want to make calls, text, browse the web and use the tube without having all kinds of accounts and sign ups for any of it. I am really tired of big tech but going back to a black and white nokia in 2019 is not an option anymore.
So a few questions I have would be.. Whats the best root process? I see Odin is still a thing so which version should I be using, also which kernel should I be using? Are different roms still based off different kernels, if so which is better? And lastly what rom should I choose or which rom creator is now the person to look out for?
I know I'm oldshool at this point so please bare with me on these questions. Any help in pointing me in the right direction would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

Not super happy with perf after installing LineageOS 19. Are Android 10/11 ROMs always going to be snappier on this device?

Hi there. I recently installed LineageOS 19 after being with MIUI.eu for over a year. The main reason was that I wanted to try Android 12, thinking I'll get whatever latest security patches and possibly performance improvements.
Though I'm disappointed with the downgraded performance of regular apps. Things I use regularly like Google Maps, Firefox, and even my SwiftKey keyboard, takes a good few seconds longer to load and be usable. I don't play games or use any super intensive apps, I'm just looking for a ROM which lets me load and use basic apps without needing to wait a few seconds for things to be usable
I tried installing custom kernels, like Stormbreaker, which seemed to help a bit but things are still not as snappy as they were before.
Am I better off "downgrading" back to something older like LineageOS 17?
Thanks for your time!
Hi. I have the same problem. I'm still using Android 10, it's super fast. (xiaomi.eu_multi_POCOX3NFC_V12.0.9.0.QJGMIXM_v12-10)
I tried to update but newer releases are very slow.
Same thing with LineageOS, I tried a lot.
poltak11 said:
Hi there. I recently installed LineageOS 19 after being with MIUI.eu for over a year. The main reason was that I wanted to try Android 12, thinking I'll get whatever latest security patches and possibly performance improvements.
Though I'm disappointed with the downgraded performance of regular apps. Things I use regularly like Google Maps, Firefox, and even my SwiftKey keyboard, takes a good few seconds longer to load and be usable. I don't play games or use any super intensive apps, I'm just looking for a ROM which lets me load and use basic apps without needing to wait a few seconds for things to be usable
I tried installing custom kernels, like Stormbreaker, which seemed to help a bit but things are still not as snappy as they were before.
Am I better off "downgrading" back to something older like LineageOS 17?
Thanks for your time!
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Click to collapse
Hi. I have the same problem. I'm still using Android 10, it's super fast. (xiaomi.eu_multi_POCOX3NFC_V12.0.9.0.QJGMIXM_v12-10)
I tried to update but newer releases are very slow.
Same thing with LineageOS, I tried a lot.

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