Remark edited afterwards: This post was pulled out from another post thread and branched into this new thread. The headline also had to be edited. (before it was: “Downtime” what is it and how can we make it stop?)
Looking at your recent hard bug these days I am afraid that the buglist ( remark: only “bugs” that makes the FP2 device unusable for a given time frame due to downtime definition, see below) didnot diminish even though 2 updates appeared. Yes, the other substitutes OSes are available but are not better in case of reliability. Looking back I would say in january we received some kind of beta state phone. It is almost a miracle how since then the communitiy increased rather than it declined.
Look at the bug with the reboot of your phone only while using GPS steadily. Why does your phone reboots even without GPS-on twice a week while my phone - after full repair returned from NL - doesnot ?
I don’t have a clue what was all or really repaired in only 1 week by this small repair team ? On the fact repair sheet only the display was exchanged and I still ask myself why couldn’t I have repaired it either ?
I ask myself for every weekly reboot your phone suffer from when will I open the thread “When will this phone ever get really stable ?”
Wow, please try to keep a sense of proportion! Sure there are some issues with the FP2, even some severe ones, but the DOA rate (number of phones that had to be sent back) is 1% which is about industry standard. Sure the number of not-well functioning FPs may still be a lot larger than with other phones, since FP users may tolerate more issues before they send the phone back… But happy FP2 users are still the vast majority.
That is simply not true! The FP team fixed some of the major bugs already (privacy impact, bluetooth and wifi issues, …) and more fixes are in the pipeline.
Hey, it is interessting what you call major bugs. I think that a short list of bugs who leads to complete outtage or significant downtime of the phone doesnot need many people or a huge list. It would need more people of the professional FP support. But we don’t have them yet as far as I see . If really severe problems with FP2 reappear with only some new phones delivered today then I would like to ask you when will downtime of these newly delivered phone be significantly reduced ?
I’m not sure if the answer is given by statistical management stuff . Statstic is for those only who requested it. (like Churchills famous proverb about statistic)
it’s a reboot every 2 weeks, not twice a week, its not so annoying ^^.
the previous update did a hell of a good job concerning all the issues that were making it a unreliable phone, now its just some “polish”.
Sorry if my reply was a bit pessimistic. Looking forward I am more optimistic than looking back. But I truely think that too many people are still waiting too long for urgent support. Means if newly delivered phones still show too many downtimes.
Downtime means not one of your “major bug list”. Downtime means that the complete phone is not available. (yes, I also think this cannot be categorized as one bug like others) This includes also times of arbitrary reboots even if it is only every second week. This also includes the case of Mrs Sandra Step yesterday who waits for really every live sign of her phone 3 seconds. (thread phone too slow) . All the problems with frozen or still crazy gone display that even happen after 1.2.8.
Yes, and also the unusable time while charging because the display becomes too nervous only because of charging. And yes, I think also the problem with dark screens while a phone call cannot hang up. Downtime is also the downtime for a user who has to search around for many days in the forum to find our/your forums workaround to solve downtimes. The downtimes until then are valid downtimes not only for thoose poor souls but should also be counted for a good incident managment.
I forget to give comment on your confirmation of a simple fact. But my statistics work the other way: Until no magical solution becomes available there should be more afford to improve stability or reduce donwtime of the phone. You can have less stable phones as long the support can cope with the customer care. If not another solution has to be found. Improving stability or reducing downtime must not need to be magical.
But I think you shouldn’t generalize here.
Yes, we can see that some people suffer from some problems, and personally I would have sent back my phone with some of the issue some people describe, in order to get a replacement.
But I need to use conjunctive, because my phone works fine! And not only mine, as we also know from the forum and the decent return rate.
And the few bugs I’ve had have almost all been fixed in the meantime (and those left are not hindering normal operation), so to come back to the thread topic, I think Fairphone did a great job on solving common issues, and even more, stayed well on track in implement Android security bug fixes.
I’m very happy with the performance of Fairphone support (at least in regard of quality; but I agree, the waiting times for support are far from satisfying).
I dont complain in General and I already apologize for writing maybe too ambigous. I want to seperate the downtime issue from bug list thinking in general. So i dont complain about too many bugs but about too much downtime. Not only on my behalf but also for my case between january and 20th April. Then my phone returned from repair FP/NL and … I have no downtime of my phone any more . Still lots of bugs but this not the same or hard problem. Downtime was (to me) and is still the problem oft FP2 to others.
Ausfallzeit, Nutzungsausfallzeit, Stillstandzeit, Blockade, (Vgl offiz. Überaettung) obwohl ich es exemplarisch an vielen Beispielen in E verdeutlicht habe, ist es offenbar als das größere Ärgernis im Vergleich zu Buglisten gar nicht verstanden worden. Warum eigentlich nicht ?
Yes, of course. When phones get back for repair everybody understands downtime rather as a defined expression for a time out. Downtime means instead when it starts you don’t know how long it takes to get the phone up and running again.
Ok so if understand you correctly you are talking about the time someone spends with his Fairphone without being able to use it. So adding the seconds during a random reboot or a screen freeze, the minutes searching the forum for a workaround and the weeks waiting for a replacement phone?
So coming back to your original question:
The only parameter within this “downtime” Fairphone can influence greatly is the support reply time. No company can guarantee that no devices are sent out that cause problems, leaving the user with an unusable device. That’s the DOA rate (the mentioned 1%).
So it will be reduced as soon as Fairphone will have enough employees to answer requests quicker.
PS: The “downtime” caused by actual software bugs was already reduced greatly with the 2 updates. Just look at how much time was spent by thousands of people (searching, posting, explaining, linking to the workaround) with the privacy impact bug, which is finally solved.
Well, I have no experience with how long it takes to get your phone back after sending out in for repair, but in combination with the long response time on support tickets I agree that there’s a huge potential for improvement. Though, I’d say these are mostly rather hardware issues and support problems than software issues.
Now I only try to save this thread due to its headline. The software future especially for the FP2 to my point of view should at first reduce downtime and increase stability and extend the availibility of the FP for their owners. I hope we agree here all that this is not self understood or for granted. If the FP team only focus on reducing buglists without monitoring how much time the people /customer loose in time with downtimes then the support team will never be sufficiant to keep customer satisfied.
Waiting for a phone beeing in repair cycle I already answered is to me a time out (not the technical timeout but the lingual general meaning , deutsch : Auszeit) At FP/NL there is no problem to get back his phone in even short period. I know there is a well performing process if it starts with a well done diagnosis which also works for most incidents.
Waiting for the support is a problem because it dramatically increases downtime, yes , we mean the same.
Your promise that it will be reduced automatically as a simple matter of time ? I hope it but let’s wait and see.
The 1.2.8 update : I agree with you in general because it reduced downtime and solved many bugs. Unfortunately in my case it was quite different. 1.2.8 let my phone break down completely including repair and the return of a completely solved problem.
I just have to correct my own starting posting: Looking at the discussion below it becomse clear that I didnot mean how the buglist remained or has not improved. Of course buglist has diminished. I meant instead the downtime for users not only because of bugs. The thread here deals with the difference and relations of bugs and downtime.
Könntest du mir mal auf Deutsch erklären, was du mit “Downtime” meinst? Ich check’s noch immer nicht.