Android KitKat (4.4.4) for FP1

urs_lesse · May 20, 2019, 4:58pm

That would be my first recommendation, yes. You can find the necessary files (2nd download first for getting back to your previous OS, 3rd file then to unify the storage partition) here:

https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/201189497

Torsten_Romer · May 20, 2019, 5:01pm

That was a quick reply…! So I will do it like that and report back how it went.
Thanks!

Torsten_Romer · May 21, 2019, 2:34am

It was a bit bumpy ride, but it worked. Now I have 14 GB internal memory + my SD card with Android 4.4.4 which is very nice because that does not only solve the issue that Signal Messenger would have stopped working in a few days but that I have much more memory available now. I completely missed out on that unpartitioned storage…

The bumpiness was that I had to try to downgrade and upgrade incl. wiping SD card more than once until the OS came up, once installing from SD card didn’t work so I used adb sideload, and of course I had to flash the recovery image again before the final update.

So far all seems to work fine - so thanks again to everyone here for the great work and for sharing!

Since the battery is still okay I think I can hope now the FP1 will make it until there will be an FP3!

TobiasF · May 21, 2019, 9:54am

Off-Topic: Is there already a date known when Signal will stop working on Android 4.2? My mother still has a phone with Android 4.2. In the case Signal stops working, I will have to urge her to a new smartphone (which she already bought).

Jikstra · May 21, 2019, 1:15pm

Not sure about signal, but i’m using DeltaChat which is a fork of the Signal UI and they have trouble keeping up with the ui stuff for 4.4.4 and newer devices because some things changed. So it seems to be hard to support both android versions. Maybe signal puts more effort into this, but the core problem will be the same for them. Highly offtopic, maybe ask them on their github repo?

Torsten_Romer · May 21, 2019, 6:11pm

I started a topic regarding Signal messenger here: Signal Messenger will stop working soon

TobiasF · May 21, 2019, 7:15pm

So, I have researched: Signal expires 90 days after creation of the APK. For Android 4.2 users, there is a version 4.36.2 with disabled expiration.

Torsten_Romer · May 21, 2019, 8:56pm

Just wanted to mention:

IMEIs did not get lost at any time during my upgrade - downgrade - upgrade mess
Media playing works just fine (VLC)
Very nice: Voice messages sent with Signal to an iPhone that were completely garbled with the official 4.2.2 OS sound perfect now
Since the last freeze with battery removal the phone is stable so far
I found my old ringtone back

I’m very happy the old FP1 is now usable without limitations again!

Torsten_Romer · May 22, 2019, 2:00pm

Another thing I’d like to mention is that I think restoring certain settings with Titanium Backup caused quite some trouble as part of the upgrade:

Restoring phone settings seemed to either make the phone function and SMS/MMS disappear or crash in an infinite loop
Restoring some system settings (unfortunately not sure which one) put the phone in a state where it was not possible to install most apps, regardless how (Play Store, F-Droid, Titanium Backup, local APK, …) with the error that there is not enough space/insufficient storage. Only restoring apps + data does not cause the issue.

And, when trying to add this widget to a screen, it crashes with the following exception:

I/ActivityManager(  688): [AppLaunch] Displayed Displayed com.android.settings/.AllowBindAppWidgetActivity: +105ms (total +31m12s910ms)
D/ActivityManager(  688): AP_PROF:AppLaunch_LaunchTime:com.android.settings/.AllowBindAppWidgetActivity:105:21509098
E/ActivityManager(  688): mtprof entry can not found!
E/ActivityManager(  688): java.io.FileNotFoundException: /proc/mtprof/status: open failed: ENOENT (No such file or directory)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at libcore.io.IoBridge.open(IoBridge.java:453)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.java:78)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.java:105)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at com.android.server.am.ActivityRecord.mtProf(ActivityRecord.java:1156)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at com.android.server.am.ActivityRecord.reportLaunchTimeLocked(ActivityRecord.java:911)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at com.android.server.am.ActivityRecord.windowsDrawn(ActivityRecord.java:948)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at com.android.server.am.ActivityRecord$Token.windowsDrawn(ActivityRecord.java:298)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at com.android.server.wm.WindowManagerService$H.handleMessage(WindowManagerService.java:7917)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:110)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:193)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at android.os.HandlerThread.run(HandlerThread.java:61)
E/ActivityManager(  688): Caused by: libcore.io.ErrnoException: open failed: ENOENT (No such file or directory)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at libcore.io.Posix.open(Native Method)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at libcore.io.BlockGuardOs.open(BlockGuardOs.java:110)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       at libcore.io.IoBridge.open(IoBridge.java:437)
E/ActivityManager(  688):       ... 10 more

Probably because the Mediatek mtprof driver is missing?

siltaar · May 27, 2019, 7:56am

Did un upgrade from unified 4.2.2.
Had to wipe cache and data.
Experience an odd behavior:

the device can last as long as needed in recovery,
the device reboots within the 1st minute of normal usage.

So the usability gets limited.
I tried both z3ntu images 0.0.2 and 0.0.3-pre5.
Any idea what it could be ?

urs_lesse · May 27, 2019, 8:35am

Did you update to 0.0.3-pre5 “on top” of 0.0.2 (i.e. you did not go back to 4.2.2. in between)? If yes, then maybe I’d try another “clean install” instead.

If you do so, I would appreciate if you could test my observation about the (in)effectiveness of the CWM recovery wipe.

siltaar · May 27, 2019, 11:18am

I did find back in 4.4.4 a photo made with 4.2.2 (already at the 1st attempt).
But as it did not boot as long as I did not wipe the data, your observation is verified.
(for the record I 1st tried to wipe the cache, and then the data and I verified the md5sum of the download 0.0.2 and 0.0.3-pre5).

Then, I confirm that using 4.2.2 (1.8.7) on the my suspicious unit is working for many minutes without reboots.

Back on 0.0.3-pre it’s rebooting again after around a minute of usage.

I tried CWM format option for /data and /cache, with an effective loss of settings , but no improvement in the wake-up time.

Stefan · June 5, 2019, 5:22am

I installed 0.0.3-pre5 last night and I still get the Error message "SSL handshake aborted" in an app … What could be the issue?

Stefan · June 8, 2019, 3:39pm

GPS doesn’t work here. SatStat shows 0/0 satellites and TTFF (s) 0. It doesn’t even seem to be searching for satellites… I use Unified NLP and network location is fine.

Before the upgrade GPS was working fine (I was able to use it a week before upgrading). How can I find the issue?

Edit: GPS works fine. It just takes ages for the fix, as usual.

Hasgar · July 28, 2019, 12:20pm

Got a bit silent in here…

@z3ntu: Are you still developing? No grouching, just asking!

I did some testing and ran into a problem getting tor to work (orbot app). Neither the recent version nor the older (15) build will connect properly, worked seamless on stock.
Probably me stupid, but might point to some problem.

Furthermore I also tested GPS (with Osmand) and found it working alright. It took less than 15 min to first fix.

z3ntu · July 28, 2019, 4:31pm

I should do a 0.0.3 version sometime soon… I’ve actually started working on a tool last month to backport the national roaming configs (as mentioned at Android KitKat (4.4.4) for FP1): https://github.com/z3ntu/national-roaming-translator , but it still needs some work.

Uno · July 29, 2019, 11:45am

Thanks @z3ntu for ROM 4.4.4, it’s wonderful to have the Fairphone updated!

Thanks @urs_lesse for the tutorial

Version 0.0.2 works perfect for me.

I had problems with version 0.0.3-pre5 when playing mp3 (with Pulsar, Vanilla, and other sound APPs), and when making Signal voice calls, the APP crashes. But version 0.0.2 works perfect.

In case it helps someone, I could not do tethering and I solved it by installing an APK I found in this forum: https://www.htcmania.com/showthread.php?t=1005116 (It needs BusyBox installed)

I have also noticed that the remaining battery life indicator gets stuck and gives problems when I turn on the FP1 after being off for a long time (with both 0.0.2 and 0.0.3-pre5). The solution is that the FP1 is always on (turn it off a short time or never turn it off)

Thank you again.

Rob_van_der_Does · September 7, 2019, 8:47am

Although version 0.0.2 works fine for me (good to see such a recent security patch on my old FP1!) I would like to know if work on a next version/security-updates continues.

z3ntu · September 7, 2019, 9:11am

It would be nice if you could test the 0.0.3 pre-release version, as the media security patches contained there are planned to be released as part of 0.0.3.

z3ntu · September 7, 2019, 9:13am

Could you send me the mp3 which doesn’t work? From my limited testing I didn’t find any problems.
Could you give me the logcat output when these crashes happen? Thanks.