Strange screen issue

Help Fairphone 2
23

Hi @chrisse.

Thanks for the interesting information. I still have my old core module, so I’ll try downgrading to Android 9 Pie (LineageOS 16.0) and see whether I can get it working. I bought it factory-refurbished about 3.5 years ago and I always had some very mild dots on that core module but then the “screen splitting” started and after a few months it became unusable.

I have Android 10 (LineageOS 17.1 variety) installed on my “new” (second-hand) core module and it works without any issues, so that would mean there is a fault with the old core module that I haven’t got with the new core module.

I don’t know much about Android, but I’m wondering whether Android 10 uses parts of the hardware that Android 9 does not. There error message in the logcats I got would indicate that it might be graphics related. Would there then be a way to turn off whatever is different in Android 10 to get a working phone again?

Anyway, I’ll try Android 9 on the old module this week and report back.

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24

I have similar graphical problems and turned off the overall animations a few days ago. This makes Android (LOS 17.1) run smoother and I haven’t had any graphical problems since then (but as I said - only a few days ago).

My wild guess is that the overall animations in Android 10 quickly pushed the FP 2’s graphical performance to the limit, resulting in freezes and these graphical errors.

… I could be wrong, but feels promising :slight_smile:

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25

That’s what I had done on LOS and it helped. Not perfect in the end, but less problems and only with some apps (as where before I had problems with the clock app and the phone app…).
But in my case, I am really interested in the fact that just upgrading to Android 10 has such effects. What you say could be related to what @gapintheclouds thinks.
Thanks to both of you!

I will try to see this week how it goes. Right now, I have uninstalled my news app and I use their website instead. Much smoother and no problems so far.

2 Likes
26

I installed a number of distributions on my “old” core module and tried a number of things.

  • LineageOS 17.1: Just scrolling through the settings menu was enough to cause a crash.
  • LineageOS 16.0: Better, but it crashed after a minute or so watching a youtube video in the stock browser.
  • Fairphone OS 21.01.0-rel.0 (Android 9 release candidate) [with Google services]: This seemed more successful. Managed to play a whole 10 minute youtube video in Firefox. Streaming video in the BR Mediathek and BBC iPlayer apps stopped after about 30 seconds. Other than that, the phone seems stable for browsing. When I enabled ‘Hardware Acceleration’ in Settings > System > Maintenance, that then caused the youtube video to crash after a few seconds (but the sound continues).

Haven’t tried regular Faiphone OS (Android 7.1).

It’s pretty basic testing, but might be useful :slight_smile:.

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27

So, I am back on Fairphone Open OS (the new Android 9 release) and I think that it’s the best so far regarding the screen issue.
After a long time on Lineage 16 and 17, I had tried /e/, but after a promising start, the problems got back quickly. Signal froze often and so with the browser when I was reading the news. Nice split screens as in post #16.
On FPOOS, I notice some lag sometimes exactly when the apps would froze on /e/, but they don’t freeze, I can go on. Rarely, I have had an app restart, but much faster than the freezing process I had on Lineage and /e/.
The only problem I have encountered so far is with the clock app and the phone app when the screen is off. I had the same issue on Lineage, but not on /e/. I can see the alarm ringing (or the phone ringing), but the screen seems unresponsive. Sometimes, when trying to take the call or to stop the alarm, the lock screen pattern would appear at the same time than the phone app or clock app screen. I guessed that the problem could be related to the lock screen so I deactivated the pattern and only uses the swipe for now (to test). No problem so far.

It’s been only one week since I installed FPOOS, so problems could come back, but maybe others with the strange screen issue would like to give it a try.

3 Likes
28

I’m also seeing the same type of artifacts on my FP2. For me, they started shortly after my screen was replaced by FP support under warranty in March 2018. Since it didnt affect usability really, I just ignored the issues then. I suspect a software issue, since I could make screenshots of the artifacts.

Recently, I’m starting to see other issues. In particular occasional apps crashing and phone resets. I’m not sure if these are really related, but one issue does seem related: The clock app freezes up often when an alarm goes off. Until now, I hadn’t really investigated (it happened when I woke up, so I just force reset my phone to get it to shut up ASAP), but now I tried to reproduce it and noticed that the alarm UI starts up normally, then these artifacts appear and then the UI freezes (though the phone itself still responds very slowly, if I tap the screen, wait 10-20s it shows the “Clock is not responding” popup, if I click “close app” or so, wait another 10-20, the clock is killed and the phone becomes responsive again). I’m not entirely sure the artifacts happen every time it crashes, but 3 out of 3 times today. I think there are also other threads about the alarm clock issue, but for me it seems to be connected to the artifacts.

Given the artifacts started for me and the original poster after the screen was replaced, that would suggest a problem in the screen module, though some comments above (i.e. Strange screen issue - #11 by helmituuli) suggest that replacing the core module helps. Maybe there is a compatibility issue between old core and new screen module somehow?

I had also hoped that his would be some software/configuration issue, but today I switched from FP open OS 19 (Android 7) to Lineage 17.1 (Android 10) and the issue still occured on a clean install (no additional apps installed, only enabled adb and changed a handful of vibration settings). I’ve also done a thorough cleaning of all modules and their contacts, which didn’t help. I’ve seen the issue with and without a SD-card installed, with and without a charger attached, so none of those seem related.

Above suggests that GPU overheating might be involved, so I guess I’ll try stress-testing the phone and checking the temperatures and maybe disabling animations, though I’d be surprised if the alarm app would load the GPU so much (though it does display a fancy animation, and it does take a few seconds for the problems to start, so maybe…).

29

Hi,
About the clock app: do you have a screen lock pattern/nip? If so, can you try with only a swipe instead (you can put back the pattern/nip in the morning after the alarm), just to diagnose if the issue is related to the lock screen like on my phone.
I also have encountered issues with the clock app when using the stopwatch: when I use the “interval” function, the app seems to freeze (the count stops), but still works in the background, so that I can close the app and open it again and I notice that the counting had continued; then it seems to stop again, but works in the background; not super easy… BUT when I use the stopwatch without the interval, everything works fine.
The theory about the screen seems interesting, and it might work for me (I replaced mine before issues started, I think), but I wonder how the stopwatch issue could be related. I will try to put back my old screen to make some tests. I still works, but the right part is unresponsive.

30

Nope, just swipe lock now and also before.

I’ve seen issues with the stopwatch and/or timer before as well, which originally lead me to believe that timers or timer interrupts were somehow involved. However, my meditation app has not once failed to time its ring properly, so maybe it’s not that and it’s the fact that the alarm, stopwatch and timer use animations and/or fast screen updates maybe… Might also be that there’s multiple unrelated issues, of course.

What do you mean by “Interval” function of the stopwatch? The lap function?

Furthermore, to explore the overheating theoary, I tried running the “CPU throttling test” app, which ran without problems (core temps around 70-80° and 60% throttling, but no display artifacts or crashes). Might be that this just loads the CPU, not GPU, of course.

Next, I tried disabling animations, which allowed the alarm to work ok 3 out of 3 attempts, but then I re-enabled animations, and the alarm also worked ok 4 out of 4. I wonder if the charge level is relevant here, since the CPU test drained my battery from full to 79% (and the alarm problem usually occurs when my phone has been charging all night). I’ll fully charge my battery and see if that helps to reproduce the problem (though I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the screen artifacts also when the battery was not fully charged during normal operation during the day).

Update: Charged up to 90% (green charging light) and tried again, clock crashed again immediately two times (though without display artifacts this time). Then once (down to 89% now) artifacts where visible, but the clock didn’t crash. Then once more crash without artifacts…

Then disabled animations, and alarm worked without problems 3 times (battery 87%). Re-enabled animations, crash without artifacts once, no crash once, another crash without artifacts (battery 86%). One more crash without artifacts at 83%.

31

Yes, I wasn’t sure about the English translation, so I guessed they would call this function “interval”, as I have an app called “interval training”.
This app was also problematic in fact, it always stopped, either restarting the app or the phone.

On my side, I did some tests with my old screens and it seems to work better. I will have to keep it a few days to be sure it’s related before I can draw any conclusion. Most of my tests with the stopwatch were positive. Once or twice the app restarted, but quite fast and without the frozen effect.

32

I started an other thread in Sprinkled screen but I have exactly the same issue which was described with picture in this thread here above:

I tried with diverrent OS as well - no change. And after reading all messages here - seems there is no possibility to fix this problem because it is HW related in the core module which can’t be changed.

Well - FP2 comes to its end.

33

I’ve been running with animations disabled for a few weeks now (on Lineage Android 10), and with that, I’ve experienced zero crashes. In particular the alarm clock would crash pretty much every morning before, and has now been flawless.

It’s probably a different issue, but I also saw dramatic improvements in spontaneous reboots (from multiple times per day to two or three times over the past weeks), but that might have also been a switch from FP Open to Lineage, the resulting clean install, the thorough cleaning of the phone’s internals that I did or the fact that I did not reinstall all previous apps…

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34

Thanks to this tip I found this thread - which describes exactly my current proplem. Now I changed in developer settings the “Animationsdauerfaktor” (animation duration factor?) from 1.0 → disabled - and until now all the apps with animations which triggered before a crash doing this not anymore. Instead of the animation just a arrow is displayd - looks ugly, but functionality is not limited in my view and it doesn’t crash.
So I will try to keeping FP2 alive with this a little bit longer … 6 years and counting …

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