Random Screen dimming (while brightness slider stays at 100%) after A12 update

[R2D2]

• deleted for false information -

Edit: I falsely assumed I installed a new fairphone patches. Turns out, it was only CalyxOS patches. So actually nothing new on the Fairphone side of things.

[Razem]

Wait, are you sure that you have the July update? AFAIK, it hasn’t been publicly released yet. The topic you commented on is actually about the June update:

Software update: FP4.SP29.B.069.20230510

Edit: already had the version installed and actually didn’t install sth new from fairphone. My bad. But the below still holds true for me It’s a bad sign when an update arrives and you think “oh no, please don’t get worse! Don’t get worse” instead of “great! Fixes for issues and new features!”. And yet, here we are. Anyway, lets hope we get june and july patches soon including some bug fixes for their most annoying bugs.

[R2D2]

you’re right of course. I got an update, but it only was the calyxOS kernel update. I just assumed it included a fairphone update without actually checking. The vendor and firmware versions are still on May 5ths, so nothing has changed there. Well, this means there still is hope … Thanks for pointing that out!

[O.o]

Now it’s gone really dark and the brightness isn’t returning to normal. The phone is quite cool and I’m in the shade. Rebooting ain’t fixin it. It’s been like this for 2 hours now.

Really quite annoying. I’m willing to tolerate this and more because I’ve internalized that there is sadly a price to pay for the right to repair one’s property, and escape Google’s fascist corporate surveillance a little in 2023. Had I not, I’d be returning the phone at this point.

[O.o]

Fixed: I went to the bar’s bathroom, put the phone in a plastic bag and ran cold water on it. It went back to fulll brightness in seconds.

If the problem is heat, it sure doesn’t take much.

Fix please Fairphone! Pretty please…

[LukeSkywalker]

Hi everyone, I’ve made some other tests and debug yesterday.
Can confirm that it’s related to the quiet-therm-usr sensor.
With an sh script like this:

for VARIABLE in $(seq 0 95)
do
	cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone$VARIABLE/type
  	cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone$VARIABLE/temp
  	cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone$VARIABLE/trip_point_0_temp
done

I have got all the name, actual temperature and threshold of the sensors.
The list is long, but quiet-therm-usr is:

quiet-therm-usr 39416 43000

So, 39,4 C° actual temp and 43 C° the threshold.
Then I’ve tried to poll data while using the phone and the display dimmed when this sensor hit the threshold:

quiet-therm-usr
40046
43000

quiet-therm-usr
40178
43000

quiet-therm-usr
42570
43000

quiet-therm-usr
41695
43000

quiet-therm-usr
43105
43000

When the threshold is reached this sensor send an uevent and trigger a “cooling_device” called:

panel0-backlight
255
168

When the display is at full brightness is like this:

panel0-backlight
255
0

The value 255 is the “max_state” and 0 or 168 is the “cur_state”.
To fix this there is a thermal-engine.conf in the system folder, that actually is empty.
Or probably there is some configuration in the ROM firmware or proprietary blob.

Anyway I have updated the issue in Gitlab and asked if it can be fixed/patched with the next beta release.
Hope they are not on vacation, because now with high weather temperatures it’s dimming even indoor, when the air conditioning is off.

[O.o]

Thank you!

[Razem]

Thank your for this analysis, that’s awesome! If they don’t fix it by the next update, it will be completely inexcusable.

[LukeSkywalker]

Yes, hope that it can help them to resolve the issue quickly.
Anyway it’s only an analysis of a user, probably there’s is some other related issue under the hood.
Because from what I have read it started with Android 12.
So, I don’t know if something changed on the OS side.
E.g. : Android Dynamic Performance Framework

But for now, like Bon Jovi said, I will “keep the faith”.

[GraceK1536]

Same issue. So annoying in bright sunlight. Please fix asap

[facetto]

@anon64862762 , would be great to have an update. again many days have passed with your idealistic customers tolerating issues which are actually pretty unacceptable.

Thanks.

[anon9989719]

@GraceK1536

Please fix asap

Hi You are not communicating with Fairphone really, so ‘Please fix’ goes over the heads of support, but I’m sure they are on the case

[O.o]

I have a question for those who know - first time for me with an alternative ROM, so I don’t really know how this goes.

My Fairphone runs CalyxOS. Since Fairphone 4s running stock Android or /e/ are also affected, I presume the issue is either with one of the drivers or with AOSP.

Assuming it’s a driver: will Fairphone push the fix as some APK to install? Or is it done through a system OTA update in all cases? If the latter, do I have to wait for the CalyxOS folks to pick up the fix and push an update of their own my way?

[yvmuell]

@O.o

Or is it done through a system OTA update in all cases? If the latter, do I have to wait for the CalyxOS folks to pick up the fix and push an update

As far as I know yes and yes

[UPPERCASE]

Your last messages about debugging motivated me to do some stuff as well. I found this requesting nits when no mapping exists line interesting as well and when I Ducked/Googled it I got back to this topic

I see the error pop up quite often. When the screen times out and when the screen is turned on again. But also indeed when the brightness error is triggered when e.g. calling. Which I guess relates more to the issue below. But might also be completely unrelated since the error line seems to happen all the time, but not one of the those bugs themselves occur.

Proximity sensor goes crazy in sunlight (WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook Messenger, Stock Dialer, WaveUp)

Hello, I came across a curious bug today. I use WaveUp to turn the screen on/off using the proximity sensor. Today when I was on a walk, the screen just kept turning on and off like crazy. I noticed that it happens only when the sun shines directly on the phone. If I am correct, the proximity sensor uses IR light to detect objects. So I suspect it’s badly calibrated, but unfortunately (as far as I know) there is no tool to recalibrate it. Note that it works flawlessly inside and outside in the …

So then I tried my old Google Pixel 3. Ran the same command and filtered only for the Error log level and above that with adb logcat -s *:E, as I also did with my Fairphone 4. And wow, the difference is day and night. On the Pixel there are hardly ANY errors. On the Fairphone 4 you get to see so many of the error tags it’s almost as if it’s a demo of logcat or as if I enabled a low level debug mode. But even worse, I excluded info level logs and such… I knew Fairphone was bad, but jezzzzz.

Anyway, will dig into this more some other time. Maybe I have to setup an Elastic Search cluster to make sense of this amount of errors

[O.o]

Okay thanks!

[facetto]

[quote=“amoun, post:297, topic:93195”]…
but I’m sure they are on the case
[/quote]

Since when you’re sure about this? As now also for this bug several month have passed without FP finding a solution, I am pretty sure that FP has other priorities than customer satisfaction.

[anon9989719]

@facetto

Did you see the post from Fairphone?

@anon64862762

Regarding the dimming screen, our Software team is currently investigating a couple of different root causes.

1. Temperature - I can confirm that the screen is dimmed when one of the temperature sensors reports a high temperature. We are looking into adjusting the temperature threshold so it stops triggering under normal operating conditions.
2. Proximity - We’ve received reports that sometimes direct sunlight causes the proximity sensor to report a near object, even when it’s completely unobstructed. This can be especially annoying when using apps that turn off the screen when you hold the phone by your ear (for example during phone calls).

[LukeSkywalker]

@UPPERCASE

Maybe I have to setup an Elastic Search cluster

Managed on cloud or on prem?

Anyway I’ve also got this requesting nits when no mapping exists a lot, not only before the screen dims, mostly after a bunch of seconds in loop. But didn’t know is related with the proximity sensor.

Actually I don’t have other Android phones to check, but from the log you have got the Pixel 3 is optimized, for sure.

[LukeSkywalker]

About this I can say that today a Fairphone employee replied to the Gitlab comments.
They have got the logs and info that I have updated yesterday and passed to the dev team.
Let’s see what happens next.

I am a user like you, so I am not taking sides or defending anyone.
I am optimistic, though, because I think the solution is close.