Wouldn’t it be better to fix what’s been broken than to downgrade into an older version?
There’s no such choice 
This is a user forum and as such none of us have that option. For each disgruntled user the options if they cannot find a workaround are a) to wait or b) the option to try a reset or downgrade.
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There might be a third option: Fairphone, because of being a small firm, tends to be significantly more dependent on the loyalty of the single customer. Maybe Fairphone should ask itself which customers they want to attract, when the bottom line is: Support su***, quality control is not working etc. An update like that might work for Samsung or Apple, with the latter mostly because due to ideology and propaganda, with first due to market power, but small firms have been broken because of smaller issues with their policies.
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The target must be those that care more about thoase that do the work than the product, which is unusual and difficult to access.
Given the increased sales I imagine things are working quite well and given the global problems it is surprising they can survive ~ they have clearly hit on a big enough audience.
So I don’t know who you are refrring to or what caused such a downfall but the problems occuring with updates are trivial on who is being used and abused to provide fancy phones.
But given the popularity of ‘smart’ phones they are unlikely to downgrade to make support easier as it probably would ‘break’ the ‘firm’
This topic is about the Update and workarounds or acknowledgment of it’s success or otherwise.
This discussion is well off topic so will end it at my end.
All the best
Yes, this works around the issue, but is not a fix.
Bugs in version n-1 that were fixed in version n, but re-occur in version n+1 are a symtom of poor engineering and even poorer quality control. Each new version becomes a Pandora's box ("What is going to be broken (again) when I install this patch?"), which is definitely not the way it should be.I also strongly detest the (very common) ‘but we have a workaround’ attitude, because it puts the workload to get the system to function properly on the customer (and forum members) instead of the developer where it should be.
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A thought … how feasible, I don’t know, but a thought nonetheless 
…
The Fairphone 3 is an A/B device. It holds two OS installations at a time, after an update the old version is still there. User data is shared (not doubled).
The cool thing is … users should be able to switch the OS slots and thus boot the old version (by disrupting the boot process into the new version a few times intentionally, if more convenient methods are unavailable with a locked bootloader?).
The “uncool” thing is … rollback protection. With obvious good intentions, this mechanism breaks the possibility to simply fall back to the old OS version in case of obvious trouble after updating, because if the old version is on an older security patch level (which it usually is), a factory reset will be needed to boot the old version, user data as well as user-installed Apps and their data will be deleted.
This kind of bugs me, conceptionally.
The result of this protection is that a quick and practical fix for users in case of serious issues after an update is disabled for a gain many affected users would legitimately consider much less important, if given a choice.
What if OS updates could be split into updates which do substantial changes while keeping the same security patch level date as before … and later updates which only raise the security patch level date?
This way, after a feature update the possibility to fall back to the old OS version in case of obvious trouble would be left intact, because rollback protection wouldn’t kick in?
And a later update ideally just raising the patch level date wouldn’t break stuff and could be started by users once they are sure they don’t need to fall back?
I don’t know whether the deed of only raising the date is left to the discretion of the OS vendor, or if raising the date would have to be bundled with actual security patches. In the latter case, leaving 1 patch undone until the date-raising update should do the trick.
Wouldn’t this be possible?
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New problem seemingly related to this update
@formerFP.Com.Manager WPA3(SAE) networks are not shown anymore and no (auto)connection possible since update.
@Cookie WPA3 was already not supported on Android 10 and the previous Android 11 releases (only some Android 11 beta versions had WPA3 support enabled, which was a mistake). FP3 is not certified for WPA3, therefore we cannot enable it.
WPA3 was already possible with Android 10 release versions on the FP3 and was disabled with update 8901.3.A.0077.20201221.
See: Is WPA3 officially supported? As it does no longer work
Facing the same issue with Bluetooth earphones with the FP3 after this update. Is there any fix for it?
The only things we can do are:
- wait for an update
- downgrade
- switch to /e/OS or that other one
- get a new phone without that update installed
No workarounds or fixes are known. We’re stuck with this issue for now. Devs apparently are aware of it but there’s no timeframe when we get an update solving it.
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I noticed another issue:
I’m using Tasker to do various little things for me. For instance, Tasker sets the audio-level for media to the highest value and sets the ringer volume to zero, activating vibration mode. Tasker has done that when I connected the phone to a bluetooth device (box, headphones, car).
Now, after the update, Tasker no longer sets the media-volume to max.
Maybe someone could try and verify/falsify.
Thanks in advance
In addition: I have made some tests on Tasker and the bt-functuonality.
I let Tasker get the weatherforcat and read it aloud when connecting to my car via bt. I do the same for calender entries. The phone connects to the car bluetooth and both things work. I get the weatherforcast and the calender is read.
Then music should start either via FolderPlayer or via VLC. But… nothing. Not only is the external bluetooth communication down when it comes to media control, but there is something broken internally, too, because music wont start automatically.
Maybe this helps to narrow down what happend.
Issue with diminished audio volume on Bluetooth devices after updating to 8901.4.A.0016.6
Same here! I was wondering now since two weeks until thought of checking the forum. 
It seems to be a general problem, before this update everything worked fine…
I can report a couple of other problems with Bluetooth.
-
most of times the phone doesn’t connect with the Bluetooth car system by itself, I must go in the car settings, select the Fairphone and click on “connect”;
-
always in the car, the “recent call” list is no longer sent to the car system. I can only make calls by selecting a number in the contact list, I don’t have any list of recent calls to choose from.
This is annoying.
I’ve quickly checked the forum and I can’t find any information from Fairphone about when a fix will be made available.
This is really annoying.
Ciao,
Max
That’s not unusual as they don’t predict when they can fix an issue and they are no doubt responding to support complaints, of maybe of a more pressing nature, and are not ‘readers’ of this forum.
If I were Fairphone I’d just write something like “We read about the issue you reported, we made an analysis and we find there is a problem in the last update we released. We’re sorry for that, we’re working to solve it. You’ll get an update by end of this month”.
It doesn’t cost much time, it’s not a contractual agreement to solve the problem by 30th Sep 12:00PM, it makes you feel there is someone working on your problem, it would probably prevent tens of people to open support tickets that cost time to manage that they could better use in solving the problem, and gives you that feeling of “community” that I’d expect from a company such as Fairphone (and that I’ve already found many times in these two years as a FP user).
It’s just about paying little attention to those little things that can make a difference in your relation with customer.
Ciao,
Max
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Why would they read about your issue? Surely a user would contact them and not rely on the forum.
I doubt they have made an analyisis to pin the problem to the last update, especially if they have to red the forum to know some users do have > how many > all the variables
So they are not working on it most likely so why say they are. They probably haven’t found the ‘problem’ software wise
When you say update do you mean a software update or just an indication that analysis is gathering momentum. ?