Help me get some more usage out of this phone :/ Asking basic questions!

Help me get some more usage out of this phone :/ Asking basic questions! - LG Optimus 4X HD

Hi guys!
So I'm probably not as good with phones as you, but I learned to install a ROM, I've tried many of them but then returned to CyanogenMod ROM that was offered on their site. The performance is not that good, it lags often and battery life is too bad! The questions I want to ask you are:
1. Which ROM do you think is the most stable and would be a better alternative to Jelly Bean CyanogenMod?
2. What ROM are you using and why? Experiences etc.
Thank you!

Kind of in the same boat, just three meters further out. Have been putting off buying a new pho.... embiggened touch-pad device with phone capability and less battery life, that should in a reasonable world come with a carrying case with a shoulder-strap, and a stock portfolio for the handset maker... for a few years. But finally caved in, and bought something on sale with a really good screen, a replaceable battery, and a 3,5mm jack not made exclusively out of conductive rubber.
But. Now that I had a new phone pad, I wouldn't have to worry about bricking my old phone. All that much. So I went through a bunch of excruciating testing and failing yesterday to get something without ram-crippling bloatware and google applications that essentially force the 4x to run constantly at max speed.
What I seemed to be running into was two types of problems: a lot of the roms (custom firmware) were made by someone who was simply testing something new at the time, experimented a lot, and then left the project behind (or simply focused on other handsets). That's not necessarily a problem, but it can mean that you have stability issues you might not expect, and that has not been tested or reported while the project was active. And that might actually stop you from getting far enough to install some app that changes cpu-governor, ram-handling, and so on (even things like the standard keyboard/language variant.. kind of essential that that works). Install instructions also tend to link to outdated bootloaders, or have workaround suggestions that worked at the time, but now are obsoleted completely. The second problem was the OpenGapps - some of the core apps conflict with the builds' own apps.
And then there's the fact that the kernel in these roms tend to be from when the project was last maintained. I can't seem to decipher exactly what's going on, but I think a lot of the early roms were based on an old kernel with inserts (like the original one from LG). While the older builds on new kernel branches tend to have better support, but then have certain types of functionality simply gone completely. I don't know why that is, but the experience with this on linux laptops and android devices is what made me hold off until I had something that could replace the 4x before starting to try out some of the experiment builds people have.
So I went through getting the bootloader unlocked, trying a billion different methods before realizing they were all workarounds for the non-eu handsets - just use the oem-unlock method with fastboot. It's really as simple as it sounds. Use the "all in one" thing on the forum, set up the drivers, get root, and things like that - and then install a new, updated bootloader. I think after one of the official LG updates, everyone can actually use the oem-unlock.
Then I chose the wrong bootloader, apparently.. the cwm touch thing - superb bootloader. But apparently has some quirks that prevents it from installing certain firmware packages. I think it has something to do with consistency checking. I liked the idea of a multiboot, and didn't see why that wouldn't be extremely easy on android (with a storage size vs. cfw package being basically infinite to naught). But apparently what you want(need) is the twrp bootloader, and it has to be the last version. I don't know why that is, but you really don't want to be stuck - after basically wrecking your only boot - with an uninstallable image on your sdcard. So if you try something else than the "best one", just be prepared for an exit strategy with a backup and things like that before trying to install new images. There's also no way on these bootloaders to simply run a test first, nor is there a very easy way to partition the on-phone storage without having to start configuring install packages, so this is kind of awful if you're not actually deep into the development toolchains already.
I'd really love it if some of the tutorials said things like: our build really doesn't need a thorough wipe, and you can happily choose the file system you'd like, and the one that actually makes sense. For example. Or "for this cfw, you can just install gapps later on, that's going to work perfectly - don't force the install before you get through our own intro stage", etc. Alas.
Then I went through slimkat, an aosp lineage based rom, an old 4.1 rom, a new 5.1 rom, which all had different game-breaking problems. One refused to install gapps (note: you'll need the gapps that fit with the android version - but some packages simply won't install, period), another build had no sound other than on the speaker. One hanged randomly, another didn't scale the processor cores.
The good news is that this isn't really a problem - once you're set up you can just keep wiping and installing new ones. But it might be a really good idea to make a backup of your initial rom/custom firmware, just in case (i.e., you root, install the bootloader, and once you're in the bootloader, you make a backup of your current "rom" that is installed now. Then you can just revert to that without any problems later. I obviously didn't do that, because I was just fumbling around).
Some of the issues I ran into also might have workarounds, but I don't know - how would I, there's no way to actually tell what the problem is, or what it's related to. The most useful ones in the end seemed to be Vanir 6.0-based, and the one I ended up with, something called Euphoria on lollipop/5.1. That one seems to have all the hardware functions and benefitting a lot from a later kernel. I haven't done incredible amounts of testing on it yet, but it seems to work a lot better than the original firmware ever did.
And when you choose a gapps package, just go with the pico version. You can install everything you need after that from the store (and it takes less time than pre-installing the infinite amounts of crap in the stock package).
In sum - while you can get pretty far with the 4x on just rooting it and uninstalling some of the infinitely memory-hogging google crap, along with installing a new governor for the cpu and things like that. You can actually get something extremely neat by installing a new "rom"/cfw, that doesn't necessarily have the "oh, but you just have to forgo feature X, Y and Z because open source" problems.
I'm sure a cfw-developer is going to see this one day and roll their eyes back in their heads. And will have some very sharp words about the kind of effort that went into making a specific kernel, insert and build combination to even boot. But the later kernels seem to work really well.
And thanks to that Euphoria thing, I'm probably not going to use my new padphone-thing as much as I would. Because that one is over the "just testing stuff, getting it to work" stage. There's things with the home-button bar lighting up when there's notifications, things like that, that kind of show someone who used the handset was maintaining the build.
Anyway - I really recommend that you try out some different types to find these really good roms that works well. I'm sure there are lots of unknown cfw packages out there that work.. you know, for the 300 people who use it every day. That might be some of the early cfw variants with old kernels. And it might clearly also be some of the new ones, which I really didn't expect. Honestly, was kind of expecting stripes across the screen and hangs, but that didn't happen.
Optionally, a dev who actually knows what they're talking about could maybe suggest a list of cfw that have the later kernels that work, or the same kernels that Euphoria has Really, trying to search the net now, and find possible candidates was not easy.

Related

[Q] Would you recomend flashing android?

Hi guys, as you can see from my sig I owned a few HTC in these years and I moved on from WM to Android about 2 years ago.
I'm writing this post as a request of suggestion from you as I don't have any experience with how Android behave on Tytn II and it's not for me but for my dad..!
He's been using his Tytn II for quite some time so far and I wanted to know if you would suggest me to flash for him Android on his device.
Please before answering considere that it's not for me, it's for a man of a certain age (around 60) that doesn't want any complication and doesn't have any time to dedicate to solve any issue that my come from the process.
So if this would bring him an increase of its device performance and usability I would definetely go for it, but don't want to hear him complaining all the time bout me having ruined his phone because of FC or random reboots or whatever ...
Is there any ROM free of issues and stable enough?!
I enjoy changing kernels, roms and radios of my devices, but you got what I meant before right? Once again: it's not for me..!
Thanks everybody in advance for your suggestions

First of all, before recommending anything.
I understand that your dad is as you say "a man of a certain age (around 60)". Is he savy on learning how to use new things? Meaning navigate his way around using things. IE: with his WM.
As far as if problems will arise, these things will happens (IE: FC, etc...) Depending on how he use it too. But it can be control to the minimum.
From my experience all ROMs are pretty much the same as far a being stable. It will depends on features and a few other things.

BeenAndroidized said:
I understand that your dad is as you say "a man of a certain age (around 60)". Is he savy on learning how to use new things? Meaning navigate his way around using things. IE: with his WM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well..he use his Tytn II as he would have used any "old style phone". No app or whatsoever installed a part from a navigator (which I installed..) ....and once that something was not working properly he didn't anything for about 6 months till I discovered it, PIM backupped everything and made a hard reset to get it back to its functionality...so I'd say: yeah if he need to he will learn, but he won't search by himself any workaround..
And the main problem is that we don't live anymore together, I'm currently at them just till Feb and then I'll b back to Athens where I live...so I won't be here to help him out..!
That said, he's quite tech friendly, he's on his PC all day long and part of his job is to build different sites for various committents...
But from your words I can understand it need far more attentions than I think my dad would like to give to this thing..

Best way is to ask him.

my 2 cents
Well, as far as I can see,
my TyTn II with android is faster, more reliable and overall most usable.
The touch screen feels more like a capacitive touchscreen rather than a resistive one (wich is actually what the TyTN has).
Regarding the "age" of your father, I think it's not a problem.
mine has the same age of yours and he's arguing with Samsung Bada Os every day...so I showed him how "easy" is Android regarding Bada and he was amazed.
the counterpart is that, if he want to move to Android, you have to set up the whole thing in every little piece:
Android version, htc overclock, hiding "dangerous" icons from the drawer (such as the root app ) so he can't cause any "damage" by hitting something wrong.
I'm currently running under Froyo on mine, and it's pretty faster as I said BUT...
sometimes it FC (well, I'm like an addicted to customisations, so it's pretty normal... xD), it freezes for a while, Launcher Pro will FC (I personally hate ADW), my battery drains fast (but again, is because I put all kind of custom on it...IE: live wallpapers, custom lockscreen etc etc)
IMO if you go to a pretty simple version (such as 1.6 or alike) it won't have any kind of problems...
I give you a tip:
google for simosoft project...
he developped an Android "emulator"... install it on his device and see his reactions... from there you can do everything: phone calls, text messaging, emailing (because it basically uses the WinMo programs ) and it's not a flashing rom, it's just a installable .cab file.
try and see
I think this is the best thing you can do to avoid any kind of "stress"...
otherwise, for instance, you can make a huge backup, flash a rom, make him try
and then, if in few days/weeks he can't go on with Android (wich IMO is impossible) you can revert it back to the useless WinMo
let me know :-D

Thanks for all the advices..I'll think about it & I'll let you know
Sent from my brain with Beats Audio using my psychic powers

I'd suggest leaving him with a good stable WM ROM. There are still newer ones but I my favorite was an old one by shifu. You might look for a WM rom that has not a lot of extras, good stability, and updated versions of any "aftermarket" apps.
Or, give him a haret install. If he likes it but complains that it is too slow, you can get more speed by installing nand. But don't do that until you know he likes it.

[Q] New to xperia, 6606 issues and questions

Okay, im new to the Xperia and xda, Ive been over at phandroid for a while because my previous devices only recieved support from the Unloved Devices Hit Squad. Ive been reading up and playing around for two weeks before posting any questions, as I find trial, error amd research is often the least annoying solution. I have the tmobile c6606, im dissapointed in the locked bootloader and slower processor, but the only other high end devices offered at tmobile lack sd card slots which is a deal breaker for me, and my baby likes to slobber on my phones so water resistance is a huge plus.
I have played with a few LB compatible roms, and have gotten comfortable with flashtool, as well as flashing over my baseband and fota to keep lte service when running 6603 fw.
I ran monx v5 for a while until I noticed that I couldnt activate wifi, and I started to get the "sd card is safe to remove" message. Its not a fried card issue as it works fine under recovery and other roms. At fitst I felt like monx was laggy, but getting rid of animations and increasing scroll speeds madenitnfeel snappy and I consistently had more free ram than on stock.
I tried the Glass themed rom, and it was fast, and gave me crazy better 3g reception (i live in a bad pocket for most spectrums) as well as better battery life, but thebtransparant theme made it.extremely hard.to read things, and retheming didnt seem to take as the trandparency was built in to the rom.
Now I would really like to try the existenz, konomi , and some of the other latest firmware based roms but im running into problems: most roms wont flash, I get the "could not read: error bad zip" notice on almost all the roms. Monx still flashes like a charm. I havr tried changing to multiple different stock firmwares, and I am currently running 423, rooted, Su, and with Nut dual recovery. Ive tried both twrp and cwm, and both say that /system is mounted but I still get the same error on all but a small handful of roms, and yes they are all listed as compatible with locked bootloaders, and I always flash my c6606 kernel and baseband over.
All I really want is a deodexes, zipaligned rom that is leaned down to the bones for maximum battery life and ram. I barely use any google apps except play store and gmail, and pretty much none of the sony apps. I usually uninstall all stock themes, bluetooth, anything and everything I can that I dont use regularly.
Now most of the roms that have given me the error are hosted on mega, but ive downloaded them several times on a pc thinking it might be a network or incompati ility issue. Any suggestions or comments are welcome.
I previously had an lg motion that cost me 100$ and could run circles around most galaxy s3,s, after it was given cm, leaned further, and overclocked, and a huaweibpremia that we never got cm support but was still able to impress phones twice the price. Granted each of those phones had exactly one hardware version, and the modding process required far less caveats.

konomi
Actually I forgot my question about the konomi rom, it says to download 2 rom zips..but only flash one? Does it mean download both, install one, reboot, then install the other, or just flash them on top of each other, or just flash the latest while having v5 on the sdcard and the installer takes.care of it? Nothing in the thread seems to spell ot out or show screenshots

Why does every ROM I try get worse with time?

Okay so once again, another ROM has got bad after 2 weeks. FXP 349 build has got to be pretty much unsuable, the unlock button doesnt respond, and the UI crashes for a laugh now. Getting very frustrated with this phone. Its getting harder to not smash the hell out of it with a hammer.
I must be doing something wrong, but every ROM Ive used just degrades in performance to the point where I cant take how laggy it is, Ive missed phonecalls because the UI cant wake up and show the incall UI fast enough. There has to be something deep in this phone which causes bad performance.
Im moving to VanirAOSP, as it says in the title of the ROM that its fast and smooth. Lets see if it can outlast any other ROM I've tried.
Sorry for ranting, I just dont get it, is there some secret setting that everyones using and not telling about? Ive tried stock kernel with CM, williams kernel with CM, stock kernel with CrystalPA, same again with williams kernel. Art or dalvik, it seems to make no difference, no matter what, the UI will bug out. Im not moaning at the devs because I know the work they do is hard and is much appreciated. I just wish I knew why this phone cant last 2 weeks without needing to be wiped!

Every ROM gets laggy after a while. Just use some app to clear cache and thumbnails and you should be fine.

donk165 said:
Okay so once again, another ROM has got bad after 2 weeks. FXP 349 build has got to be pretty much unsuable, the unlock button doesnt respond, and the UI crashes for a laugh now. Getting very frustrated with this phone. Its getting harder to not smash the hell out of it with a hammer.
I must be doing something wrong, but every ROM Ive used just degrades in performance to the point where I cant take how laggy it is, Ive missed phonecalls because the UI cant wake up and show the incall UI fast enough. There has to be something deep in this phone which causes bad performance.
Im moving to VanirAOSP, as it says in the title of the ROM that its fast and smooth. Lets see if it can outlast any other ROM I've tried.
Sorry for ranting, I just dont get it, is there some secret setting that everyones using and not telling about? Ive tried stock kernel with CM, williams kernel with CM, stock kernel with CrystalPA, same again with williams kernel. Art or dalvik, it seems to make no difference, no matter what, the UI will bug out. Im not moaning at the devs because I know the work they do is hard and is much appreciated. I just wish I knew why this phone cant last 2 weeks without needing to be wiped!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a feeling you are installing too many apps running in background at once. My phone is super smooth, fast and responsive. I just either close apps after I am done with them (kill process) or don't install trash. Deleting some in-build rom apps which you never use could also help.

kwitu said:
I have a feeling you are installing too many apps running in background at once. My phone is super smooth, fast and responsive. I just either close apps after I am done with them (kill process) or don't install trash. Deleting some in-build rom apps which you never use could also help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well VanirAOSP has sorted out my issues for now it seems. I dont really install many apps to be honest, I use the Micro PA Gapps package and I then remove Google Now Launcher, freeze the preinstalled launcher3, install Nova launcher. I have only 17 installed apps, Facebook is the only real hog app I think, I install messenger and then freeze it to get around the Facebook app not letting me use chat within the app. I do also play Marvel Contest of Champions, and I make sure to clear all running apps before playing games. I just feel like now on this ROM, the ram is clearing properly, swiping away apps is freeing up the RAM now.
I think the difference is that this ROM is based on AOSP, whereas before, I was using CM ROM's or Crystal PA which is pretty feature rich. Ill stick with this and see if it will last. This ROM just feels noticeably faster and the UI hasnt crashed once yet, even with a theme on!

donk165 said:
Well VanirAOSP has sorted out my issues for now it seems. I dont really install many apps to be honest, I use the Micro PA Gapps package and I then remove Google Now Launcher, freeze the preinstalled launcher3, install Nova launcher. I have only 17 installed apps, Facebook is the only real hog app I think, I install messenger and then freeze it to get around the Facebook app not letting me use chat within the app. I do also play Marvel Contest of Champions, and I make sure to clear all running apps before playing games. I just feel like now on this ROM, the ram is clearing properly, swiping away apps is freeing up the RAM now.
I think the difference is that this ROM is based on AOSP, whereas before, I was using CM ROM's or Crystal PA which is pretty feature rich. Ill stick with this and see if it will last. This ROM just feels noticeably faster and the UI hasnt crashed once yet, even with a theme on!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could give you a tip about Facebook app and Messenger. There is an app that lets you chat using Facebook app, meaning you can get rid of Messenger. Google it and you will find it, I can't recall the name now.

kwitu said:
I could give you a tip about Facebook app and Messenger. There is an app that lets you chat using Facebook app, meaning you can get rid of Messenger. Google it and you will find it, I can't recall the name now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the way im doing it, i dont actually use messenger, its installed but frozen/disabled so it isnt used, this allows me to chat inside the facebook app but the only downside ive found is that the chat notification dont seem to be working. This was a fix I picked up while browsing the net. Ill try out this app if I can find it, the name would make it much easier to find

donk165 said:
Well VanirAOSP has sorted out my issues for now it seems. I dont really install many apps to be honest, I use the Micro PA Gapps package and I then remove Google Now Launcher, freeze the preinstalled launcher3, install Nova launcher. I have only 17 installed apps, Facebook is the only real hog app I think, I install messenger and then freeze it to get around the Facebook app not letting me use chat within the app. I do also play Marvel Contest of Champions, and I make sure to clear all running apps before playing games. I just feel like now on this ROM, the ram is clearing properly, swiping away apps is freeing up the RAM now.
I think the difference is that this ROM is based on AOSP, whereas before, I was using CM ROM's or Crystal PA which is pretty feature rich. Ill stick with this and see if it will last. This ROM just feels noticeably faster and the UI hasnt crashed once yet, even with a theme on!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And? Are you still satisfied with this rom after a while?

Well the 'ROM decay' creeped back in. I tried to counter it by cleaning things up but I had a few problems, nothing was working, I tried fix permissions from ROM toolbox and then my phone stopped booting, tried hard reset with the button on the back, couldn't get into recovery, pretty much died on me. I eventually got into recovery and caches wipes and that didn't work, I tried reinstalling the ROM and gapps without losing my data, it just got stuck on the boot logo, then recovery stopped working again, I eventually got in and had to wipe data, reinstall ROM and I finally got the phone booting again.
I'm not satisfied to be honest, its frustrating that I have to wipe the phone or reflash the roms so often, never has a phone been this bad for me. I'm selling it and moving to the OnePlus One in a few weeks, this phone has been nothing but headaches.

donk165 said:
Well the 'ROM decay' creeped back in. I tried to counter it by cleaning things up but I had a few problems, nothing was working, I tried fix permissions from ROM toolbox and then my phone stopped booting, tried hard reset with the button on the back, couldn't get into recovery, pretty much died on me. I eventually got into recovery and caches wipes and that didn't work, I tried reinstalling the ROM and gapps without losing my data, it just got stuck on the boot logo, then recovery stopped working again, I eventually got in and had to wipe data, reinstall ROM and I finally got the phone booting again.
I'm not satisfied to be honest, its frustrating that I have to wipe the phone or reflash the roms so often, never has a phone been this bad for me. I'm selling it and moving to the OnePlus One in a few weeks, this phone has been nothing but headaches.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
IF you are going to stay or at least try for the last time, I suggest formatting /boot but please be careful as I dont really know what will happen if you reboot the device while /boot is empty.
As in PC, an empty boot partition will leave an inaccessible Operating System. If in phone they are the same then I guess it can be much repairable.
IF again it fails and you are still staying I suggest extreme formatting by using the PC Companion and start fresh.
These are still suggestions and I hope you will have a headache free adventures with One plus. Good luck

TechnoSparks said:
IF you are going to stay or at least try for the last time, I suggest formatting /boot but please be careful as I dont really know what will happen if you reboot the device while /boot is empty.
As in PC, an empty boot partition will leave an inaccessible Operating System. If in phone they are the same then I guess it can be much repairable.
IF again it fails and you are still staying I suggest extreme formatting by using the PC Companion and start fresh.
These are still suggestions and I hope you will have a headache free adventures with One plus. Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the advice, For me, its the lack of RAM on this phone which is my problem. After a reboot, i have about 300mb free ram, and as soon as I have more than one simple app running (or just one game), ill get a very slow UI, and I have to be very careful and patient with it or it will crash. To me, that is terrible, why would anyone think this is acceptable for a smartphone to just about be able to run an app and hold the interface together. When the System UI crashes, or the lockscreen, It frustrates me so much! The most important part of a touchscreen phone is the UI, without it, your just staring at a blank screen.
There has to be something deep in this phone (the kernel?) where its memory management is broken in someway, ive never experienced a phone be so unstable with 1GB of RAM. When I bought it, I was really hopeful it would be good, it was higher specced than my last phone, it had 4g, it had jelly bean updates coming out, and at the time, a future update to kitkat, and we had support from FXP and CM. What weve actually got is a half baked attempt at 4.3 by Sony, a cancelled 4.4 update, and weve been moved to legacy support by FXP when CM11 didnt even get to the stable point. We may have lollipop builds coming out which could be the savior for this phone, but im sick of waiting for something which might not happen. I just want to be able to rely on my phone and not spend half my screen on time waiting for something to crash and then restart.
Back on my Optimus L9, it has only 768MB ram and a lower clocked dual core CPU but that could run CM10 fine, I never ever had UI crashes, ever! I got lag from time to time, but nothing crashed. Thie SP has 100mb+ more RAM available and a higher clocked CPU but it feels so much more clunky and unstable compared to the L9, it should be the other way round. On my nexus 7 2012 which is similarly specced to the SP (apart from the tegra quad CPU) I again, had no UI crashes, I had lags, but at least things didnt crash. My friend has the Xperia L, which is lower specced than the SP and is only on 4.1, but again, he never gets UI crashes and generally, his phone can run games smoother than I can even though he has lower specs!
This phone, for me, just doesn't fit my needs. It cant really multi task how I would expect it to, and having the phone pretty much lock up if its writing to internal storage is a joke, installing an app from the play store, and not being able to bring down the notification bar to look at the progress without causing problems, to me just feels like something is seriously wrong. The lightbar was the only thing ive really liked on the phone to this day. At first, I was loving this phone, it was great, the only problem I had on 4.1 was that I couldn't play Injustice because it would close the game after a while. I thought, ill wait for software updates, hopefully Sony will fix it. Then the 4.3 updates came but they were buggy, but I held onto hope because at the time, 4.4 was in the pipeline. Then we got a few more 4.3 updates which did fix some bugs but this RAM problem was still there. So I gave up on Official software and tried out custom stuff. I've tried modified Stock ROM's where you get more features but the same inherent problems are there. Ive tried CM, but there hasnt been a stable release of 4.4 and the snapshot builds have also stopped. Vanir ROM is designed to be stable, its one of their highest priorities with their builds. And I definitely feel the difference, but this lack of RAM becomes more obvious with time, this week, I've seen my UI crash 4 times.
Ive done what you've said about fully starting fresh with PC companion Ive flashed stock FTF's and Ive done the PC companion method, Ive done that at least 5 times in the past. When I first do it, it seems like everything is okay. But without fail, after a month of use (usually less) the phone will bog down and the RAM issues return. Maybe my specific device has faulty RAM or something or maybe the storage is messed up. All I know is, this phone has not been enjoyable for me to use, lower specced phones are out performing it, and its value has plummeted in trade in stores like CEX, my old L9 that I traded into my local CEX is being sold for more money than an SP is.
Im sorry to rant but ive just had enough of this phone.
Ive got to flash the phone fully back to stock for when I sell it, so ill go back to full stock, and see if it will last.

donk165 said:
Thanks for the advice, For me, its the lack of RAM on this phone which is my problem. After a reboot, i have about 300mb free ram, and as soon as I have more than one simple app running (or just one game), ill get a very slow UI, and I have to be very careful and patient with it or it will crash. To me, that is terrible, why would anyone think this is acceptable for a smartphone to just about be able to run an app and hold the interface together. When the System UI crashes, or the lockscreen, It frustrates me so much! The most important part of a touchscreen phone is the UI, without it, your just staring at a blank screen.
There has to be something deep in this phone (the kernel?) where its memory management is broken in someway, ive never experienced a phone be so unstable with 1GB of RAM. When I bought it, I was really hopeful it would be good, it was higher specced than my last phone, it had 4g, it had jelly bean updates coming out, and at the time, a future update to kitkat, and we had support from FXP and CM. What weve actually got is a half baked attempt at 4.3 by Sony, a cancelled 4.4 update, and weve been moved to legacy support by FXP when CM11 didnt even get to the stable point. We may have lollipop builds coming out which could be the savior for this phone, but im sick of waiting for something which might not happen. I just want to be able to rely on my phone and not spend half my screen on time waiting for something to crash and then restart.
Back on my Optimus L9, it has only 768MB ram and a lower clocked dual core CPU but that could run CM10 fine, I never ever had UI crashes, ever! I got lag from time to time, but nothing crashed. Thie SP has 100mb+ more RAM available and a higher clocked CPU but it feels so much more clunky and unstable compared to the L9, it should be the other way round. On my nexus 7 2012 which is similarly specced to the SP (apart from the tegra quad CPU) I again, had no UI crashes, I had lags, but at least things didnt crash. My friend has the Xperia L, which is lower specced than the SP and is only on 4.1, but again, he never gets UI crashes and generally, his phone can run games smoother than I can even though he has lower specs!
This phone, for me, just doesn't fit my needs. It cant really multi task how I would expect it to, and having the phone pretty much lock up if its writing to internal storage is a joke, installing an app from the play store, and not being able to bring down the notification bar to look at the progress without causing problems, to me just feels like something is seriously wrong. The lightbar was the only thing ive really liked on the phone to this day. At first, I was loving this phone, it was great, the only problem I had on 4.1 was that I couldn't play Injustice because it would close the game after a while. I thought, ill wait for software updates, hopefully Sony will fix it. Then the 4.3 updates came but they were buggy, but I held onto hope because at the time, 4.4 was in the pipeline. Then we got a few more 4.3 updates which did fix some bugs but this RAM problem was still there. So I gave up on Official software and tried out custom stuff. I've tried modified Stock ROM's where you get more features but the same inherent problems are there. Ive tried CM, but there hasnt been a stable release of 4.4 and the snapshot builds have also stopped. Vanir ROM is designed to be stable, its one of their highest priorities with their builds. And I definitely feel the difference, but this lack of RAM becomes more obvious with time, this week, I've seen my UI crash 4 times.
Ive done what you've said about fully starting fresh with PC companion Ive flashed stock FTF's and Ive done the PC companion method, Ive done that at least 5 times in the past. When I first do it, it seems like everything is okay. But without fail, after a month of use (usually less) the phone will bog down and the RAM issues return. Maybe my specific device has faulty RAM or something or maybe the storage is messed up. All I know is, this phone has not been enjoyable for me to use, lower specced phones are out performing it, and its value has plummeted in trade in stores like CEX, my old L9 that I traded into my local CEX is being sold for more money than an SP is.
Im sorry to rant but ive just had enough of this phone.
Ive got to flash the phone fully back to stock for when I sell it, so ill go back to full stock, and see if it will last.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its okay and I have read all of your post
It quite saddens me that some people isnt actually having fun with their SP. Shockingly enough, my SP does not face those mentioned problems (heck most of those that appears in the forum) but some exceptions goes to Stock Rom bugs and game problems.
This is my first android phone, I actually always wanted one but i am a teenager - i dont make money. But since my dad bought me this lovely sp, I have finally gained so much knowledge about android and it somehow further strengthens my Linux knowledge.
Maybe I was just lucky. Perhaps. But who knows if something is still wrong with my phone
I understand things will get older - people will buy new phones, developer will stop developing, people who got bored of customising etc. In fact I have seen so much decline of SP since the discontinued 4.4 update.
This is my first smartphone and I love it. It has an awesome community and awesome devs, but now it is getting old. Which quite sad to me.
I am saving for Ara phone (i hope it doesnt fail like smartwatches do). Since you are quite involved with many developments (i mean you customise your phone much like others), I hope your transition to a new device is a breeze. And above all, doesn't have the bugs that SP has.

LOL, I thought I was the only one with a "faulty SP".
My XSP has the exact same problems as yours. It is very annoying to change ROMS (or wipe data) every month.
The RAM is SO BAD on my SP, even though it only have 1GB of RAM, it should be a lot better. I didn't have such problems on my Motorola Defy + as I have with the XSP.
I thank so much that we have very nice developers, always trying to improve our user exp., but for some people like me it's difficult.

TechnoSparks said:
Its okay and I have read all of your post
It quite saddens me that some people isnt actually having fun with their SP. Shockingly enough, my SP does not face those mentioned problems (heck most of those that appears in the forum) but some exceptions goes to Stock Rom bugs and game problems.
This is my first android phone, I actually always wanted one but i am a teenager - i dont make money. But since my dad bought me this lovely sp, I have finally gained so much knowledge about android and it somehow further strengthens my Linux knowledge.
Maybe I was just lucky. Perhaps. But who knows if something is still wrong with my phone
I understand things will get older - people will buy new phones, developer will stop developing, people who got bored of customising etc. In fact I have seen so much decline of SP since the discontinued 4.4 update.
This is my first smartphone and I love it. It has an awesome community and awesome devs, but now it is getting old. Which quite sad to me.
I am saving for Ara phone (i hope it doesnt fail like smartwatches do). Since you are quite involved with many developments (i mean you customise your phone much like others), I hope your transition to a new device is a breeze. And above all, doesn't have the bugs that SP has.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well atleast you have started on a better android device than my first one. My first was a ZTE Skate and this was back in the gingerbread days. 512MB RAM, Single core CPU, barely any internal storage. Im very used to using android in a minimalist way, but the SP just takes it to a whole different level for me, i cant take it! Im glad that you arnt having all the same problems Im having. The fact that not everyone is getting the problems is a frustration because unless its a widespread problem, people wont really be pulling together to fix it because they dont understand/experience the problems. It has to be some kind of manufacturing defect, maybe certain batches of RAM/Storage chips used in the SP are defective/bad performers.
I hope the XSP continues to work well for you!
Bruno_Puzoni said:
LOL, I thought I was the only one with a "faulty SP".
My XSP has the exact same problems as yours. It is very annoying to change ROMS (or wipe data) every month.
The RAM is SO BAD on my SP, even though it only have 1GB of RAM, it should be a lot better. I didn't have such problems on my Motorola Defy + as I have with the XSP.
I thank so much that we have very nice developers, always trying to improve our user exp., but for some people like me it's difficult.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its a very weird problem, but its definitely RAM/Storage related.
I agree with you about the devs, I appreciate their hard work, it is great having all these ROM's to choose from when trying to solve the problems. It just seems it doesn't matter which ROM you are on, the problems will always be there. The problem must lie within the hardware or deep in the software side of things, beyond the ROM's like in the kernel or something. I dont know enough about those sides of a phone, but I can see just from using the phone, something isnt right.
It sucks that you are facing the same problems, but its nice to know im not alone in my experiences, its not just me.
If only we knew what the issue was, maybe there would be a chance to solve the issue.

I have the same problems with my phone exactly and am going to smash it with a hammer when I get a new phone. It is indeed so frustrating, I expect much more from sony!

i stopped to mess up with custom kernels, stock 207 is the best option.
Ondemand cpu governor + underclock to 1500mhz + greenify
Battery life + perfomance
My usage:
4 hours online gaming per day
+ some skype calls

[Q] The Fatest

Hi guys, I've tried a lot of roms that are developed for the atrix hd, but still I hesitate for any in specific, so honestly Boys: What you think is the most stable and / or fast for atrix hd rom?

This kind of question - traditionally - is so loaded that even asking it or hinting at asking it becomes like walking in a minefield of sorts. The only good answer is try all the available ROMs and see which one appears to be the most stable and the fastest for you and how you happen to use your Atrix HD.
Some would say the stock ROM is the fastest since it (most of time) has gone through the ringer given AT&T's fairly tough testing period before they put out an update - the original factory stock ROM may not perform as well as a first update might, and so on.
As for other ROMs, they can match and sometimes exceed the performance provided by the stock ROM for a variety of reasons: "trimming the fat" to cut down on somewhat excessive services in use (meaning more resources are available), potential overclocking (even to small degrees like 10% or so is by definition faster, obviously), and other aspects (RAM tweaks, filesystem tweaks, etc). Stock ROMs have to be created as a lowest common denominator where everything works as expected - it's not meant to be a "barn burner" in terms of performance; it's just supposed to work without major problems of any kind and usually does that without issues.
The stock ROM(s) are fairly lean from the gitgo as well since Motorola started stripping out a lot of bloatware and assorted crap that bogged down prior devices in the past - yes AT&T does add their own bloatware and crap after they get it of course but that's just how it goes. With root you can debloat a stock ROM using something like Titanium Backup and removing the stuff totally (my preference) or just freezing it aka disable it so it's not using resources other than storage space.
But really, the only way you're going to find out what might be the most stable or the fastest for you will be testing out what's available - that's how it always is, in every situation since every person is unique and has different needs and requirements.
So get some ROMs and see what works...
ps
You should be able to edit your post and alter the title so it says "The Fastest" proper - when I saw it I knew what you were asking but even so, some people might not get it till they open the thread (if they choose to do so).

Some hand holding with firmware upgrades, running LOS+microg

I have been running LineageOS+MicroG on my last 3 phones but am mostly a novice. LineageOS just packages things well enough that getting it installed is pretty easy. Most recently, I updated to 17.1 on my Payton device, and voila, I've got a problem where the phone reboots after powering on. Happens much faster with the radios on, much slower with safe mode and airplane mode on. So the obvious answer is usually "flash back to stock and try again". Here come my questions... Please keep in mind I also run Linux.
1. When people talk about going back to stock, doesn't this always entail losing your data? How do those of you who use your phone as a daily driver manage this? I've not heard great things about doing TWRP backups, and the amount of configuration I have to do at new-install time is crazy.
2. While running LineageOS or other such custom ROMs... How do you get "hardware updates": upgrades to things like modem/radio firmware that are outside the realm of the OS (if there is such a thing). I've had a few problems (including the current one) that I _suspect_ are related to running old "firmware" as I would normally call it. The solutions that I _think_ I've seen for this look like they are Windows-specific and also require going back to stock or losing your data. It's puzzling to me why updating hardware would require going back to stock, unless you need to let the stock OTA updates install in order to actually GET that firmware.

1) To my knowledge and at least for me, 'we' are using Android 9 firmware with Android 10 OS. I do not expect any further firmware updates.
2) I've been told that LOS is running slower on X4 compared to other ROMs such as Pixel Experience, but I can't speak for either as I use HAVOC. I can't speak for the rebooting issue though, I haven't looked at the X4 LOS thread much.
*3) LOS to my knowledge woln't work with MicroG because it doesn't allow for spoofing. HAVOC does, and personally I was using Android 9 w/ HAVOC and MicroG so I could use the GCam but due to personal reasons I had to install GPlay and so at the same time I also upgraded to Android 10. One point at least in my experience, the phone was getting more and more difficult to use over time but rebooting the phone fixed it completely. I almost never rebooted my phone back on 9 so it caught me off guard personally.
It sounds like you might be trying to go down a more privacy centered phone like I was until recently. Personally, I liked the Android 9 w/ HAVOC and MicroG. I can give you my list of apps I used but you probably know most of them (Simple Mobile Tools, OSMAND, K9, Fennec, NewPipe, VLC ect.) The launcher would get a little buggy (context menus would stop working after a while on app icons) and for some reason the audio would start for a split second, pause, for a sec, then continue. Other than that, it was great. I used that config setup for a year.
On a completely unrelated note, AT&T will most likely not work with the unlocked X4 after a couple of years, doesn't affect me but just a heads up.

Database Develop

welcome