The more time spent of fixing bugs in Android 5 takes time away from the Devs getting Android 6 completed, tested and out to the beta testers (and ultimately the release). Bugs that are non-critical are unlikely to be fixed in the short term due to the Dev of Marshmallow, which is nearing testing as I understand it.
6 Likes
This is ok, but in this case all i want is an official statement:
Dear FP2 User: We will not fix the critical bugs in the Android 5.1 because we want to move to Android 6.0. All this bugs will be fixed in Android 6.0
2 Likes
Because of this, presumably (this was regarding encryption and TWRP):
I can’t understand this your comment, @Stefan
What has encription and TWRP to do with the actual buglist?
1 Like
I have no “official” guarantee on this, but we should be talking a matter of the next few months. Beta testers will be getting the update first - once it’s with the beta testers then we know things are moving forwards and Fairphone should be able to give you a better indication.
1 Like
The more time spent in doing icon changes and camera stuff takes time away.
@explit you are absolutely right!
Are the moderators here so much more patient than we are? Please don’t feel attacked!
1 Like
In case nothing changed in the past half year, then possibly no one:
[quote=“douwe, post:12, topic:20050”]
The software team is on a steady path releasing timely updates and fixing bugs at a good pace at the moment. It seems they work better then expected without a manager and are really good at managing themselves. Therefor the need for this position [software team manager] has declined and we also now removed it from our website. [/quote]
2 Likes
No feeling of attacked here, but understanding that FP have priorities which are beyond are own is where I think we need to be looking…
FP is pushing for more partners to sell via (i.e. operators), and for that some of these smaller insignificant things need to be resolved.
There are competing priorities, and while the Community priorities are one thing, FP is having to balance that against other challenges
2 Likes
I agree. I don’t care about Icons. But crashes during phone calls should not exist. Not if you use a device which should be made for calls!
Since I taped the battery the phone crashes less but still about one to two every day. Sometimes randomly sometimes during calls. thats anoing.
1 Like
Nothing, I just wanted to explain what @Johannes was talking about. The first part of the quote, however, is true for any minor bugs.
Ok, to be honest, I have my phases of being impatient. But we have to remind ourselves that people out there are suffering and that won’t change with fixed bugs. If they rather use their (wo)manpower for impact in the supply chain than for software development, I completely understand.
1 Like
I have a feeling, that they need to push an Update every month to show, that Fairphone is “better” than the other Android Smartphone Vendors, who don’t push updates very often. Public Android Security fixes is a good idea, but the critical bugs need to be solved. When the software is buggy - security updates would not bring a value in the “better FP2 experience”
So again FP2-devs: Please fix the bugs, switch to Android 6.0, do something - but communicate with the community. So like the things a running now - its not ok. Changing icons and polishing the camera software is a bad idea, when the bug list is full…
5 Likes
The problem is: When they don’t fix the bugs now - they won’t have anything to sell over the operators.
I can imagine, one customer would buy FP2 with contract from an operator. He comes home, put his SIM-Card in, start the phone, run software update and try to call somebody. And than he see, the phone rebooting during the calls, battery is sucked out in 8h (in idle) and so on…
What would this customer do, what do you think?
He would give it back and get another phone from the provider.
And provider would not buy FP2s any more because of this problems.
So selling a product with bugs is a very risky terrain. I don’t want to know how many customers send their FP2 back in the first 14 days after they were annoyed from the bugs
1 Like
This sounds absolutely reasonable at first, but did you ever think that not every developer has the same skills? Sometimes it’s a much better use of your time to do what you have the right skills for then to help with the most important issues.
My guess is that the camera tweaks are a preparation for the new camera module which sounds to me like a different area of competence then porting or bug-fixing.
Hard to say: I never had big issues with the clock reset bug and for a while now I don’t experience it at all anymore. I also never experienced the battery drain bug nor random reboots. If I had any severe bugs who knows how patient I’d be? (Well, I think I do. ;))
I think I can speak for all @moderators if I say: We love heated discussions that get by without insults. 
10 Likes
Basically I understand your concerns and also agree with you, that I also think bug fixing should be prioritized over tweaking gadgets like the camera.
But I also think that there’s no need to exaggerate. In my opinion there are no critical bugs open at the moment. I know you are very dedicated to the proximity sensor issue, and you have my sympathy. But I also think that this bug basically only affects very few users with certain third party software. SFOS is not an official port (unfortunately!), so I can see why this bug does not receive much priority. And on FPOS it only affects a few users that run certain apps which utilizes the sensor. After all, the officially supported OSs run just fine.
Then of course the annoying clock bug, which has frustrated me several times, as I am frequently in areas without a signal, not even to mention WIFI. Yet, FPOOS has a small user base, and most people in urban areas will not often be affected by it either.
I could continue this list, but I think the point here is: Yes, there are open bugs that we would love to see fixed. In the end though I think we also shouldn’t exaggerate, as most of these bugs affect very few users, while for the vast majority of users there are no critical bugs in the OS, but the FP2 runs stable and reliably.
10 Likes
How do you come to this assumption ? Not everybody who has a problem will show up here. Some will report the bug to their operators, other people have probably never used an online forum. Even within the forum there is no way to gather statistics about who is affected by what bug etc.etc.
For you a non working clock might be frustrating, for me it can be critical. I would not mind if I discover a bug, lets say a month before the Android 6 release and they would say we wont fix, but here we are talking about bugs that are known for over half a year.
I have to say that it disappoints me too when I see developer energy going into polishing and face lifting, while the engine suffers problems.
1 Like
Does it really matter whether it was just discovered or it was discovered half a year ago but considered low priority and they never got the time to fix it? Fact is: Android 6 should be coming soon and slowing down the porting process to fix bugs in the old Android which will be discontinued anyway doesn’t make a lot of sense no matter how old the bug is.
6 Likes
I completely disagree: It does matter that these bugs where discovered a long time ago, because it shows that although users have repeatedly asked to have these things fixed, the user (customer!) was ignored in this case. There was not even a statement about these bugs. I have doubts that nobody had time to work on these. It took me an afternoon to find a (more or less) usable workaround for the clock-bug. And it disappoints me when I see that while people in this forum (myself included) try to find solutions, the devs, whose job should be to fix them officially put time and energy in cosmetics instead.
Android 6 will come out soon - soon is a relative word, it can mean weeks, months or more.
7 Likes
I also need to disagree. The actual buglist show that not only Fairphone Open OS has bugs. I used also stock Fairphone OS and i must say, its not stable as it should be. Fairphone Open has in my opinion less bugs because its more lightweight (because of the missing google services)
I don’t ask for wonders but the basic things like GSM/3G/LTE Modem, WiFi, Sensors and Power Management should work without problems. On every software release. I see much more inofficial ROMs for other Android Devices, compiled and maintained by only one person - working more stable than the official FairphoneOS Release.
I have no problem to wait - if anybody tell me, that all bugs on the list will be solved in the next releases.
That would be absolutely fine for me (and i think also for the others).
We are all human, we all have our problems and in most cases we can’t do things better than they are.
All what i want is a little bit attention from Fairphone to the community.
And i think, that should be possible.
Developers need to develop - not to write blogs. But i think @Douwe as Fairphone community manager can be here a middleman between Fairphone Developers and community. A bit more information for the community would be very welcome.
13 Likes
Of course I can further elaborate:
Take the clock bug. It is only present in FPOOS. I cn’t find the post now, but somewhere a FP staff member said how few people actually run FPOOS. I am almost certain it was less than 5%. if I am not mistaken I think it was not more than 2%. Out of this minority, only people without signal/WIFI are affected. Thus we are probably talking of affected users in the per mill range.
Take the battery drain because of proximity sensor bug. Only affects SFOS users (not an official port) and people who use certain 3rd party apps. Cannot estimate the percentage, but can’t imagine its a majority, beside I don’t think that the use case here is critical for operating the phone.
Take the language change bug (not fixed in over a year!!). Affects only dual SIM users residing in a country where they are not familiar with the local language. I am certain this is also just a minority of users affected, plus, while annoying, in most cases not crucial for operating the phone as in most cases you will be able to change back to the desired language.
So as I said above: Yes, I totally agree with you guys that these bugs are annoying and some users may even perceive them as critical. However, I am convinced that for the majority of users they are not, and probably most users didn’t even stumble over them or are simply not affected. And all basic things you need to run a phone[quote=“explit, post:37, topic:25400”]
like GSM/3G/LTE Modem, WiFi, Sensors and Power Management
[/quote] work.
Do I agree with the strategy that FP tweaks around with some shiny things rather than fixing bugs? No! Can I understand it? Yes. Because I could easily imagine that in absolute numbers there are more people happy with tweaking idiotic shiny things than there are people affected with certain bugs which get heavily discussed here. And that is what I meant above when I said: Yes, I agree with your arguments, but I don’t think there’s need to exaggerate on the importance of these issues.
15 Likes
All your arguments @freibadschwimmer seems very logical for me. But i doubt that majority of Fairphone 2 users are happy with the current Android base.
There are also several bugs, which are not very well documented or not reported at all.
One importand bug is: Reboots during calls and on GPS/Compass usage. I could reproduce this bugs on Fairphone OS several times. That seems, that this bug affect not all users and not all FP2 devices. Maybe it also affected only by some apps.
Unfortunately my FP2 is running under SailfishOS as my daily phone, and FP2 community device, which i used for debugging (Thanks @Douwe) i could use only for one week.
I hope, i get the FP2 community device again one time, so i can reproduce and report more bugs.
I also hope, things would be better with Android 6.0.
I don’t want to sound aggressive in the direction of Fairphone. I love the FP2, i see its potential, and i want, that we (FP2 users) have a cool, solid and stable device!
6 Likes
Lets
I am really not sure, whether that is the bug I am struggling a lot with: Sometimes my battery looses half of its charge within four hours, sometimes over night with flight mode switched on and 70% in the evening the battery is empty at the next morning and at another night it looses only 10 - 20% and at that night I had forgotten to switch into flight mode!
So I really don’t know what is going on within the phone at that dependency.
But the result is that I can’t relay on my Fairphone and therefore I have hoped very much, that this for month known battery bug would be solved, every update again, in vain!
For this issue, the way to deal with it and for the huge deficit in Fairphones communication to its customers I am not able to recommend this phone to anybody, and if it goes on like that in the end I will sell my phone and buy one I can lean on, unfortunately.
3 Likes