Develop Bugs

Most Power Saving Radio Rom?

Can anyone please recommend some REALLY power saving Radio rom?
I'm currently using 1.54.30

I like 1.54.07.00. Its a good compromis between power and battery drain.
I think 1.47 was the version with the lowest battery drain for me yet...

1.47.00.10 seems to do the job for me.. moderate usage of voice & data (UMTS 2100)..

thank you so much for responding... i will try 1.54.07...

yes, 1.47 is the best radio I also have used.

i'm trying 1.54.07...using it now...will see how is the battery drainage...
what is so good about 1.47 anyway? just to compare...

2 cents on this topic - the observation of battery drain is somewhat subjective. I'd suggest someone do an extended test where the phone has a current drain logging program and track drain for each phone mode - data connection - transfer / phone use / idle and do a statistical comparison.
With a lack of good data? I'd think that the latest rev would have changes for some reason - hopefully a good one.
I'm using the latest 1.54 without performance issues.

hi all
I am using 1.54.07.00 radio, I use to get call from my gf every night for straight 3 hours. All these time my wifi is also active. Most of the days I get 40-50% of battery after I finish the call. So I think it is pretty impressive, isnt it?
Cheers
Jish

I'm working on a way to evaluate this.. I agree with mattk_r that it will probably vary drastically by region, usage, configuration, network, etc. But at least for my case, wi-fi is almost always off and my phone is in 'sleep'/'suspend' with Flexmail email running an IDLE (PUSH) IMAP email session in the background. Just a note, the way this works, the phone still gets to sleep and anytime a packet/data is received over the GPRS/3G connection the phone is woken up in unattended mode (no backlight) so that the maill app can process the message and notification then the phone returns to sleep state. So my goal is to pseudo-scientifically figure out which radio works best for my use.
To figure that out I have written a pair of programs that simulate the IMAP IDLE connection of an email client. (Why not use the real thing? I want the experiment to be the same everytime I run it, I can't guarantee that with email and software that I don't know the intricacies of.) One half runs on the phone to simulate the phone email client, and one half runs on a server that sends periodic messages to the phone to wake it up. When the phone is waken up it sends its current estimate of the battery life remaining (as reported by Windows API) to the server for logging.
In order to run my tests, everynight I have/plan to do the following procedure.
Flash a new radio to the phone for test
Charge the battery fully
Soft-Reset phone
Run my program
And then in the morning I dump the server log and generate a nice pretty graph of battery remaining v. hours on. This has obvious deficiencies such as
The phone never actually moves, it is on my nightstand so this won't simulate an active day where the radio is having to select the best tower.
When I wake up my battery is not dead, so I am not able to measure time from total charge to total discharge.
Even with these deficiencies and possibly more, I believe that this will give a decent benchmark as to which radios perform better than others. (in terms of battery life) So far I have conducted this for 2 nights and 2 radios, both running in 2G mode. The next two nights I will probably re-run the tests for 3G enabled just to see if that causes a significant change in the result.
So see this pretty graph to see what's happened so far... I'll post updates as I progress.
Oh yeah, I'm on ATT/Cingular Network in USA/TX.
Results in summary:
So far, I have tested radios 1.47.30.10 and 1.54.30.10 and gotten practically identical results for battery life. In my day of use for each radio, I have not noticed any call quality issues with either radio.
Other techniques: ?
There probably are other techniques to accomplish this, such as a program that measures battery discharge current. My gut feeling is to not trust these for this analysis because those programs typically have a low sampling rate and I don't know where they get there information and if that is a reliable source. And the other problem, I haven't found any such programs that can do it when the phone decides to go into the sleep mode and radio is having to maintain an idle but yet present connection to the cellular network.
Feedback anyone? Ideas?

dear experts, i've flashed 1.54.07 radio rom, but i soon discovered that i've lost my HSDPA connection to network. now i can only have 3G connection. Even though i tried to enable HSDPA in Schap's Config...but still no result...
Help please...or please suggest which radio rom which has got HSDPA enabled...
p/s: i think 1.54.07 is power consumption friendly becoz it has disable HSDPA connection...
what do u guys think?

HSDPA is enabled in that rom. Been using it with pandora naked rom with no issues whatsoever.

that's weird...hmmm....I'm using Schap's 3.57a ROM...previously have HSDPA b4 i upgrade to this rom...

mattk_r said:
2 cents on this topic - the observation of battery drain is somewhat subjective. I'd suggest someone do an extended test where the phone has a current drain logging program and track drain for each phone mode - data connection - transfer / phone use / idle and do a statistical comparison.
With a lack of good data? I'd think that the latest rev would have changes for some reason - hopefully a good one.
I'm using the latest 1.54 without performance issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
INDEED !!!
I was go with 1.54.30... then I have a trouble to find "3G" (somethimes it was hard to find "E") then I switch back to 1.50.00... and everything is ok (I mean from the same place I live, I found "3G" successfully). The battery drain should be have relation with the connection and that's vary in other country IMHO

Still on 1.43 and seem to be doing just fine with battery life. Maybe I will try the 1.47

Switch to 1.50.00....HSDPA returns...
So i can presume that 1.54.07 has got no HSDPA enabled for power saving...
What say experts?

Need some suggestions for my Tilt 2

I'm 25, a business guy (though I use my phone for personal use only) and have been looking over the forums for the best way to get the most use out of my phone. Right now I've just got the stock rom with only a couple of cabs installed. I've got my e-mail set up on it (though I have some issues with the send/receive not occurring when it's supposed to) and installed a few games. What I really want to be able to do with my phone is web surfing. There's some website I like to frequent.. a lot.. but it seems with the stock settings the internet is pretty slow. I do a lot of texting and e-mail replies as well. A few free games here and there would be nice too. I'm in a pretty stable 3G area, don't have any bluetooth devices hooked up nor do I use the wi-fi (haven't found a reason to use this really yet)
Looking through the forums I've gotten somewhat overloaded as to what I should get for my phone in terms of performance enhancements. Any suggestions to help with the above would be great.
note: I've never messed with my phone's registry or have flashed a rom, but would be willing to do so if the information could be provided.
Thanks in advance!

Hi Demonic, welcome.
I'll break it down based on what you need and where you can find it.
E-mails:
I really really really like seven beta for e-mails. I've posted the CAB here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=634213
Internet:
TP2 has a feature called push internet, basically you can set websites to be automatically updated so the next load will be much faster. Browse to the internet tab in sense and set up the websites you frequent most often. I've heard it wastes battery life so I do not use it.
In terms of internet speed, I actually think we aren't full 3g on TP2 network. Here are the specs of the TP2 and a phone with full 3g. As you can see under data the tp2 is not the fastest available device:
http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/HTC-Touch-Pro2-CDMA-phone-p_3710.html
http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/Palm-Pixi-Plus-phone-p_4308.html
its the same for all carriers btw.
Flashing rom/registry
Based on the overview you have given I would say registry tweaks and flashing a custom ROM isn't needed, although I love Mighty Mikes 6.5 much better than VZWs.
If you have more detailed questions feel free to PM me.

Thanks for the quick reply! I'm downloading seven now and will give that a shot!

forgot to give you all my fun links....check these out for games etc:
http://mobile.blorge.com/2009/04/25/top-40-best-free-windows-mobile-games/
http://mobile.blorge.com/2009/06/06/top-40-best-free-windows-mobile-games-to-download/
http://www.bestwindowsmobileapps.com/category/app-store/games

Thanks for those links. I installed Seven and love the push feature that it gives for my e-mail. It works like a charm, however there's an issue I'm running into. It seems that in order for Seven to work it needs to stay running constantly, and it won't let me close it. I'm also now having issues closing any other app that I run by holding down the "X". Between these two issues, and my phone not going into sleep mode as much as it should be my battery is already down to 30% (and it's not even 5pm yet =/)

Demonic240 said:
Thanks for those links. I installed Seven and love the push feature that it gives for my e-mail. It works like a charm, however there's an issue I'm running into. It seems that in order for Seven to work it needs to stay running constantly, and it won't let me close it. I'm also now having issues closing any other app that I run by holding down the "X". Between these two issues, and my phone not going into sleep mode as much as it should be my battery is already down to 30% (and it's not even 5pm yet =/)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've heard push internet can really tax on the phones battery life, not sure if you are using that feature though.
Seven works perfectly fine for me having it running all day...I went a full 24 hours and was at 30%, I have 4 e-mail accounts synced through Seven.
Do you know what your phone RAM idles at? Try downloading and installing SSK TP2 Dynamic Resource proxy, it may help out with some of your problems.
I'm not sure what the closing issue is...could just be that your phone is using too much RAM, which the SSK cab should fix.

SPB mobile shell 3.5 is the best program for nonROM Cookers. Here is the link. Download the trial and PM me.
I use it the backup and various other things I found on here.
The SMS notification is a major annoyance so download the cab to disable it.
After you use your phone for a while- trust me, XDA will become a favorite to find tweaks to make your phone seem new again.

Demonic, based on the fact that you like to use the internet a lot I would highly recommend moving to a cooked rom when you feel comfortable. At&t doesn't open up the phones true potential with their "stock" rom. It's locked to 3G and a cooked rom will activate HSDPA which will double or triple 3G speeds. I can sustain download speeds over 2000kbps. Also the whole phone will be much more responsive.
There's a bit of reading needed and a learning curve but I'm sure you can handle it. I'd never even knew what flashing was in the fall of 08' and a year later I had flash my Fuze at least a 500 times. I've had the Tilt2 since Nov and it's been flashed over 50 times already
Here's a link to get started.
Flashing your First GSM Rhodium Rom (For Noobs)
After reading that if you have any questions ask them here and if it's not me here 1st I'm sure you'll still find all the help you need. There's a lot on talented people here on xda.

BTW, SPB Mobile Shell:
http://www.spb.com/products/mobileshell/
Its a great product with many intuitive features...for me it required a restart everyday though....which wasn't acceptable.

So now I'm having some issues with Seven... I have a good 3G signal, have restarted the phone multiple times, but it will only stay connect for a short time. When I go into the Seven settings I'm seeing a yellow broken symbol for the connection. I have to manually refresh all the data for the e-mail account in order for it to update. Some times it works great, others.. not so much.

bojangle said:
SPB mobile shell 3.5 is the best program for nonROM Cookers. Here is the link. Download the trial and PM me.
I use it the backup and various other things I found on here.
The SMS notification is a major annoyance so download the cab to disable it.
After you use your phone for a while- trust me, XDA will become a favorite to find tweaks to make your phone seem new again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the spb mobile shell on my old phone (Epix) and loved it. But I don't think I could spend the money to put the newer version on my Tilt2. =/

anit77 said:
Demonic, based on the fact that you like to use the internet a lot I would highly recommend moving to a cooked rom when you feel comfortable. At&t doesn't open up the phones true potential with their "stock" rom. It's locked to 3G and a cooked rom will activate HSDPA which will double or triple 3G speeds. I can sustain download speeds over 2000kbps. Also the whole phone will be much more responsive.
There's a bit of reading needed and a learning curve but I'm sure you can handle it. I'd never even knew what flashing was in the fall of 08' and a year later I had flash my Fuze at least a 500 times. I've had the Tilt2 since Nov and it's been flashed over 50 times already
Here's a link to get started.
Flashing your First GSM Rhodium Rom (For Noobs)
After reading that if you have any questions ask them here and if it's not me here 1st I'm sure you'll still find all the help you need. There's a lot on talented people here on xda.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What ROM's would you recommend for faster internet usage? Do they drastically change the appearance of the phone and/or do they inhibit some of the features?

Demonic240 said:
What ROM's would you recommend for faster internet usage? Do they drastically change the appearance of the phone and/or do they inhibit some of the features?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, most ROMs will be fairly similar, with minor visual changes, some feature changes, and different programs installed by default (usually the chefs favorite programs)
AT&T speed fix: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=584409
Nice Roms:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=553506
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=569507
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=571892
and the ROM forum sorted by most views:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=490&daysprune=-1&order=desc&sort=views
With Seven, make sure you don't have quite time on. In seven, hit the Menu soft key (bottom right) and click general settings. Then click the quiet time option and set the hours you do not wish to receive messages.
I think if you paid for the old version of Mobile Shell you can get the new version as well, try e-mailing one of the devs over there to help you out.

burtonsnow8 said:
With Seven, make sure you don't have quite time on. In seven, hit the Menu soft key (bottom right) and click general settings. Then click the quiet time option and set the hours you do not wish to receive messages.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have all of the quiet times turned off except for when roaming or low battery. When I unplugged my phone from the charger this morning it updated my e-mails like it normally does. I checked my phone again around 9:30 and the Seven settings said that it was last connected at 8:30 this morning and showed the "not connected" symbol. I had to manually refresh all data in order for it to re-connect.

If your mailserver supports IMAP I would try Schedhandler made by Camro on these forums it does IMAP IDLE great and doesn't hardly use any battery.

So I noticed Seven losing the connection again today. I then went to my connection settings and attempted to disable Data Connection. When I attempt to do this it automatically connects again. When I then go back to Seven it shows that it's trying to re-establish a connection and MAY connect.
Does anyone know why my e-mail will sometimes stay connected and then drop off irregularly?
@dalavar
I've tried many different settings (POP3 and IMAP4) using the basic MMS functions with windows 6.5 but have had issues receiving e-mails on a regular update basis. I had the same isssue with 6.1. Some times e-mails will work properly, other times I have to reboot my phone, or pray for my e-mails to receive. Even after doing a Send/Receive I still won't get e-mails on my phone at times.
I'm using sbcglobal for my e-mail, but if this keeps up I'm thinking of switching back to hotmail or gmail =/

anit77 said:
Demonic, based on the fact that you like to use the internet a lot I would highly recommend moving to a cooked rom when you feel comfortable. At&t doesn't open up the phones true potential with their "stock" rom. It's locked to 3G and a cooked rom will activate HSDPA which will double or triple 3G speeds. I can sustain download speeds over 2000kbps. Also the whole phone will be much more responsive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, I'm really surprised no one's been able to do a registry hack in terms of the HSDPA function.
And yeah, I agree...there's some really good chef's with cooked ROMs that blow the Death Star's crap and crippleware laden ROM to "Hades in a Longaberger". Unfortunately I've not had my phone 30 days yet, so I'm a little hesitant to flash yet. (even though I flashed my Kaiser/Tilt quite regularly once it was out of warranty)
As soon as the 30 days expire though...you bet it's gonna get flashed.

Wolfhawke said:
Actually, I'm really surprised no one's been able to do a registry hack in terms of the HSDPA function.
And yeah, I agree...there's some really good chef's with cooked ROMs that blow the Death Star's crap and crippleware laden ROM to "Hades in a Longaberger". Unfortunately I've not had my phone 30 days yet, so I'm a little hesitant to flash yet. (even though I flashed my Kaiser/Tilt quite regularly once it was out of warranty)
As soon as the 30 days expire though...you bet it's gonna get flashed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to your browser and type "about:config".
Find your connections and up them, the stock is like 4 connections and 6 max. I changed them both to 128 and change the page update delay to 0.

Demonic240 said:
I'm using sbcglobal for my e-mail, but if this keeps up I'm thinking of switching back to hotmail or gmail =/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See if another email provider has this problem. I currently am connecting to the following and have experienced no errors since install:
Exchange Server
Y! Mail
gmail
POP3
Seems to be sbc related as both seven and your normal mail have issues connecting.

Sorry for the late response. SchedHandler seems to handle misconfigured or poorly configured IMAP servers very well you might want to give it a shot on your SBC account. And the author of the program is very active and makes changes sometimes daily.

Kaiser 110 problems

Greetings all --
I am posting this request for help because I've exhausted just about every other resource. The community support and documentation is great and I have learned quite a bit in a matter of days. You all are great!
Here's my situation. I have the HTC 8900 (KAIS110). Not the 8925 like most seem to have. It is my understanding that 3 versions of the "Kaiser" were made, or at least submitted to FCC for approval, and that the 8900 was to go to AT&T (branded on phone), but was canceled in lieu of the 8925. This is the non-camera version.
For reference, the following information is listed in the battery compartment:
HTC 8900
KAIS110
FCC ID: NM8KS
SKU: 64760
P/N: 99HCY091-00
Made in Taiwan
Currently:
HardSPL 3.56
Radio: 1.71.09.01
Myn's Warm Donut RLS5
kallt_kaffe's kernel 2010-06-06 (kaiser/240x320/donut/panel 2/tilt options used in LoserSkaters NBH Editor)
Problems:
1. Installing OS (Sys+Data on NAND), dmesg output shows "Block 711 is bad". Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be a problem as the OS would remap to a new block. This could also be an issue with yaffs, or a few other things, and not even be bad. But the question remains, is this causing problems?
2. Attempting to run Calibrate Screen results in error with the following message: "The application Calibrate Screen (process org.isageek.dasbrennen.CalibrateScreen) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again. [Force close]". I have not seen a recent post in response to whether this problem persists with all builds, or if I am just lucky like that.
3. GPS does not want to play nice. From the app store, I install GPS by Andrea Baccega. Sometimes I get a single satellite to display, once I saw 3 on screen. Unfortunately, none of the other fields (long/lat) were populated which tells me something is wrong.
Dmesg output:
GPS:env_mask=0
GPS:date=00002000
GPS:time=000000 hlat=0 llat=0 hlng=0 llng=0
GPS:speed=0 bearing=0
GPS: has been tickled!
4. Using the phone on T-Mobile, why can I not get 3G working? It keeps going back to EDGE. I have the Android data plan as well.
5. Voice search is quite flaky. Sometimes it works great once, maybe a few times in a row, and then it just stops working and presents me with the Try Again / Cancel screen, after which, there is no longer audio for phone calls. From what I can tell using Dev Tools, looks like VoiceSearch is hanging due to an issue with Mediaserver. I recall seeing this issue, or a similar one, surface in the forums but there was not much information pertaining to it that I could find.
6. The following errors appear in the dmesg output; I am posting the list just in case one or more messages are beyond the scope of normal operations:
mmc1: host does not support reading read-only switch. assuming ite-enable.
Init: cannot open '/initlogo.rle'
[RR] ERROR no local ept for prog 02000031 replying anyway!!
audio_enable()
audpp: DMA missed
audio timer expired
audio_disable()
audmgr: DISABLED
binder: send failed reply for transaction 5448 to 149:221
7. As stated above, this phone lacks a camera. The slot where the camera goes, just has a cover over it. Looks like I should be able to pop a replacement in the spot. Anyone know the part number of the rear camera, or where I might find one? I can only seem to locate the front-camera on various web sites.
Thanks all!

1. bad blocks are common, yaffs reports them, and marks them as unusable, they have no effect on running Android, ( one of my kais130's has about 10 bad blocks, works fine).
2. Thats normal also, not sure if calibration app has ever worked, although i think there is a console based one that does, never had to use it though.
3. GPS may or may not work properly depending on a number of factors, which build and NBH are used, also which gps software is used also, best combo I have found so far are the Kallt_Kaffe NBH's and Myn's warm Eclair, with GPS test (free or pro). Also note that initial fixes take some time, up to, or over 5 minutes, depending on conditions, etc.
4. Not sure, could be a number of factors again, build, local 3G coverage, APN setup, etc.
5. Never used voice search, but it is known to be pretty flakey, again build plays a large part.
6. I know that there are normally errors on boot, the audio ones are not normal however, could be due to using an older radio, or perhaps some rare kais110 issue, can't actually recall anyone reporting issues with kais110 hardware.
7. Not sure if it's possible to just add a rear camera, it'll depend if the supporting electronics were fitted to allow it to work or not, also unsure where to look for one, although you may be able to get a part number off the service manuals, ( should be in the xda-wiki pages ).

TMobile and AT&T use different 3G frequencies, so an AT&T phone such as your won't do 3G on TMobile. The EDGE will work fine, but slow of course.

purpleonyx said:
3. GPS does not want to play nice. From the app store, I install GPS by Andrea Baccega. Sometimes I get a single satellite to display, once I saw 3 on screen. Unfortunately, none of the other fields (long/lat) were populated which tells me something is wrong.
Dmesg output:
GPS:env_mask=0
GPS:date=00002000
GPS:time=000000 hlat=0 llat=0 hlng=0 llng=0
GPS:speed=0 bearing=0
GPS: has been tickled!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use GPS Test (chartcross ltd), free version from Market. Configure it to not turn off display (keep it from going to sleep). Plug in a charger (if you wan to) and leave it near a window.
Within 5-10 minutes you should have a fix. After that, getting a fix normally happens within seconds. Depending on how much time has passed since you last used your GPS and also the distance you moved it while having it turned off also affects the time to get a fix.
Also blocking the top of the phone with your hand is not a good idea as it seems to be an effective way of blocking the GPS signals.

kallt_kaffe said:
Use GPS Test (chartcross ltd), free version from Market. Configure it to not turn off display (keep it from going to sleep). Plug in a charger (if you wan to) and leave it near a window.
Within 5-10 minutes you should have a fix. After that, getting a fix normally happens within seconds. Depending on how much time has passed since you last used your GPS and also the distance you moved it while having it turned off also affects the time to get a fix.
Also blocking the top of the phone with your hand is not a good idea as it seems to be an effective way of blocking the GPS signals.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response -- I had tried that over the past 2 nights, but it never took. It just did however, during the day, which is odd. I also switched to a 1.64.08.21 version of the radio today, and it worked. Previous attempts were under 1.71.09.01, 1.70.19.09 and 1.70.18.02 that resulted in failure. Odd.
Is there a way to view all roms installed, for everything? OS, kernel, radio, splash/boot, etc? I am wondering if something got hung up during flashing, or something didnt get wiped out.
Thanks!

purpleonyx said:
Thanks for the response -- I have done this several times (left it going for 10+ hrs at the max time), and it picks up 4-5 satellites, but nothing ever occurs. It sits there with the yellow light, and all of the numbers show in the 20's to very low 30's, which seems like it's a very weak signal, or a high signal/noise ratio. Could this be a radio issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
20-30 actually should be enough. Anything above 40 is excellent and not seen very often. And I'm using the same Radio so that should be the problem. Don't know really. Does it work in WinMo?

kallt_kaffe said:
20-30 actually should be enough. Anything above 40 is excellent and not seen very often. And I'm using the same Radio so that should be the problem. Don't know really. Does it work in WinMo?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had no problem working under winmo before i flashed android to nand. It had no delay in picking it up either. I just rebooted the phone and launched google navigator, and it's taking forever again, searching for gps it says.
If you want to use me as a guinea pig, feel free. I ended up ordering the nokia n900, as i need something working now. I am considering keeping the kaiser 110 to screw around with though. It would make a good backup device anyways. I tried Myn's Warm Eclair on it, but it dragged its legs and had too many problems. Myn's Warm Donut however, functions near perfectly and is quite fast. I've oc'd the processor to 450 MHz which provides a noticeable speed boost. I'm using your latest 2010.06.06 kernel with it. I've been questioning whether or not display 2 and 3 are the same on this model -- sure behaves the same.
-update: Phone comes to a crawl, and then locks up when GPS is used. Both the GPS Test and Google Nav.

GPS Fix ... soooo slooowww...

Anyone know why my GPS fix is so slow? It takes at least 10 minutes to get a fix..
I'm running - VaniljEclair RLS6
TW,

It really depends on the weather. If you look up and see clouds, it's going to be a while. If it's raining then it may never connect.
It also helps the have the best tools for the job. Use kallt_kaffe's latest kernel, and download and use "GPS Test" for connecting your GPS.

Dukenukemx said:
It really depends on the weather. If you look up and see clouds, it's going to be a while. If it's raining then it may never connect.
It also helps the have the best tools for the job. Use kallt_kaffe's latest kernel, and download and use "GPS Test" for connecting your GPS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's clear outside so its not weather related.
I'm curious what the"GPS Test" tool actually does? and just exactly what the phone is doing causing it to take so long.
Thanks,

The way GPS works is as follows.
In order to know your position on a 2 dimensional plane, you need 2 coordinates, X and Y, however in order to know your position on a 3 dimensional object, you need 3 coordinates, X, Y and Z, what we need to know is our position in a 4 dimensional space, which requires not only X, Y Z and V, so that's a lot of data right there, and to further complicate things, the satellites themselves are in motion, also in 4 dimensions.
Ok if that hasn't messed with your head, consider this, your phone only receives GPS data from the satellites, it does not transmit anything, so how does your phone know where the satellites are? simple, the satellites transmit their position, the time, their velocity and heading, ( actually it's slightly more complicated, but I'm not getting into orbital mechanics, lol).
So in order to be able to fix a position, your phone must download this data from each satellite in view, process and compare it with all the other data in order to get an initial fix.
As if this was not complicated enough, you must also realise that the satellite data is continually transmitting in an updating loop, so if the receiver gets bad data from one sat, it must discard that set and start again.
Once the initial fix is made, it's a simple matter to continually update the devices position, but once the gps is turned off, it may take some time to resynchronise, especially if the user has moved to another location before restarting gps.
To operate with reasonable accuracy, (within a few tens of metres), you must have a good signal from at least 4 satellites, more just refines the accuracy.
So why ten minutes? Well there are a number of factors, weather does play a part, but not as much as some think, typically you will lose lock on the weaker satellites, giving less accuracy.
Surrounding buildings and trees are actually great at blocking GPS signals, so in wooded or built up areas, expect slower fixes, less accuracy, and dropped locks.
Movement, this is actually the biggest problem, if you are in motion during the initial fix period, there is a high probability that your own motion will cause problems, since the gps data may be changing too fast for the device to cope with, which will cause it to continually discard data that may be valid.
All in all, the best practice is to find somewhere stationary, away from buildings and trees, turn on GPS, and just wait for it to lock, it will usually take 5 minutes from cold start, perhaps up to 10 minutes in some cases.
Once the initial fix is established, it takes less time to refix after gps is turned off, since the last data is kept in the device for future reference, (which is why it can take more time to fix if you turn off gps and then move 10K or so before turning it on again).
Winmo has a few advantages over Android for gps, since on WM you can download a 'snapshot' of the satellite data in order to 'jump start' the gps to get a faster fix, that plus cell location and agps make it much faster to get up and running compared to Android on our hardware, which lacks cell location and agps.
What GPS Test does is simply show you a lot more data than you would normally see, satellite positions, signal strengths, number of sats visible, number in use by you. Basically it lets you see that some data is actually being received by your device, how strong the signal is, and if the device has locked to a satellite. I highly recommend getting GPS Test from market if you use gps, used it on WM, and the Android port is just as good, ( I got the paid version, but the free one is excellent too).
Any questions?

zenity said:
The way GPS works is as follows.
...
Winmo has a few advantages over Android for gps, since on WM you can download a 'snapshot' of the satellite data in order to 'jump start' the gps to get a faster fix, that plus cell location and agps make it much faster to get up and running compared to Android on our hardware, which lacks cell location and agps.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Terrific write up!
So, GPS Test won't help speed up the positioning so therefore there isn't a need to download it unless your curious about any of the other settings, thanks.
Since the WM version was a bit quicker in getting the position by downloading a file is there something in the works to try and incorporate this process into Droid?
After it finds a fix, if the handset suspends is there a need to re-aquire the sats or wait again for the same process?
Thanks,

Well GPS Test won't speed up the initial or subsequent fixes, but it does give a good indication that gps is actually working, and receiving/processing the data, and once fixed, you just close that and start your preferred gps app, which will fix almost instantly since the data is current.
I don't think we have anything for android that does the same as the WM gps app, could be wrong, but have not seen anything yet.
The slowest is the initial fix, after that it usually fixes faster, suspended or powered down, only reinstall/wipe data will usually require such a long fix time again, however as I said, there are a number of factors, movement being perhaps the biggest cause of delay.
However once fixed, Android is comparable to WM, even better in some cases, since I never could get my all time favourite GPS software (trekbuddy), to work in WM, it is great in Android though

I don't think we have anything for android that does the same as the WM gps app, could be wrong, but have not seen anything yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i also looked and found nothing
The slowest is the initial fix, after that it usually fixes faster, suspended or powered down, only reinstall/wipe data will usually require such a long fix time again, however as I said, there are a number of factors, movement being perhaps the biggest cause of delay.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mine also takes forever every time unless i havnt moved and switch apps within 10 minutes.
However once fixed, Android is comparable to WM, even better in some cases, since I never could get my all time favourite GPS software (trekbuddy), to work in WM, it is great in Android though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i lose gps on the highway, unlike when i had wimo
i still think its odd that i can see 6, 7, 8 sats for 2 or 3 minutes before getting a lock

Thinking about trying this on a friends Eris, but other android devices get a lock very quickly. The other devices have working tower location, so does the android gps system use the tower location to speed up gps lock?
I'm going to take my friends Eris and turn off all radio functions, then run GPS test to see what happens and how long a lock takes...

Ok, tried a few things on the Eris. In airplane mode, launched GPS test in a lock in under 10 seconds. Restarted the phone, still in airplane mode, and immediatly launch gps test and a lock in under 10 seconds.
Do these other phones have GPS chips have almanac caching or does the OS have some way of storing almanac data to assit the GPS.

As far as I am aware, from previous experience of GPS devices, the last ephemeris data is cached in the device chipset, allowing a faster start up, provided the user has not moved too far, or left gps off long enough to make the data too old. However I do not have enough information to make more than guess that it is hardware based rather than OS based caching.
Cell tower location allows GPS to establish a 3 dimensional fix, (remember gps needs more than 3 dimensions to establish a true fix), not enough to be totally accurate, but within 20-50 Metres, which is ideal for 'seeding' the incoming gps data from satellite, allowing even faster start up, since the gps chipset does not have to do nearly as much calculation and correlation on the data, since it already knows roughly where it is.
So the delay we experience in getting a gps fix with Android on our devices has one main cause, lack of cell tower location, and it's possible that the ephemeris data cache may not be getting processed, if this is indeed cached by the hardware, and not by the OS.

Some of you may have noticed a file called gps.conf in /system/etc
It looks like this:
Code:
NTP_SERVER=north-america.pool.ntp.org
XTRA_SERVER_1=http://xtra1.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
XTRA_SERVER_2=http://xtra2.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
XTRA_SERVER_3=http://xtra3.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
SUPL_HOST=supl.google.com
SUPL_PORT=7276
NTP is a protocol for getting accurate time from servers on the internet.
xtra.bin is asfaik the satellite almanac.
SUPL_HOST is for AGPS.
My guess is that a "real" android libgps uses this information to do a few things to help the GPS out.
1. Give it the current time
2. Prime it with the almanac
3. Use the AGPS data to provide it with correction data etc.
We could do some HaRET magic to monitor what the QuickGPS software send to the GPS chip and make our own QuickGPS tool for android or even build that into libgps.so. It's possible but is it worth the time? I don't know. I would give it a go if I wasn't allready lacking time to do everything I want to do.

kallt_kaffe said:
Some of you may have noticed a file called gps.conf in /system/etc
It looks like this:
Code:
NTP_SERVER=north-america.pool.ntp.org
XTRA_SERVER_1=http://xtra1.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
XTRA_SERVER_2=http://xtra2.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
XTRA_SERVER_3=http://xtra3.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
SUPL_HOST=supl.google.com
SUPL_PORT=7276
NTP is a protocol for getting accurate time from servers on the internet.
xtra.bin is asfaik the satellite almanac.
SUPL_HOST is for AGPS.
My guess is that a "real" android libgps uses this information to do a few things to help the GPS out.
1. Give it the current time
2. Prime it with the almanac
3. Use the AGPS data to provide it with correction data etc.
We could do some HaRET magic to monitor what the QuickGPS software send to the GPS chip and make our own QuickGPS tool for android or even build that into libgps.so. It's possible but is it worth the time? I don't know. I would give it a go if I wasn't allready lacking time to do everything I want to do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, that makes sense, since Agps uses an internet server to prime the gps chipset, and if I recall correctly QuickGPS is similar, but provides the weeks Ephemeris data. Ephemeris, Almanac and Time are the three main data components of GPS, ( almanac being the one I tend to forget about....).
Perhaps changing a few server addresses in gps.conf may provide us with some aggps functionality, but I am now wondering if perhaps agps is 'broken' in our builds, or perhaps I have never noticed any data activity.
Just had a look at the website address http://xtra1.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin, which allows me to download what I assume is the data file, so what we need to complete the puzzle is, what uses gps.conf, and where does it put the data file?, Also does anything use that data file if present?

GPS is currently pretty much useless in that it just never gets a fix, today I waited 10 minutes and still nothing - I went back to WM to use GPS, so any development in this area would be sweet!
TW,

Not sure exactly what is going on there, last night I installed the latest nbh from kallt, plus his RLS7b eclair build, this morning I started gps for the first time, using gpstest I got a first fix in under 3 minutes, which is faster than average.
Sent from my HTC Kaiser using Tapatalk

zenity said:
Not sure exactly what is going on there, last night I installed the latest nbh from kallt, plus his RLS7b eclair build, this morning I started gps for the first time, using gpstest I got a first fix in under 3 minutes, which is faster than average.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using the same setup at the minute, tried GPS this morning and it got a fix on the move in about 5mins which isn't bad, my girlfriends HTC Hero got a fix in under a minute though and it's the first time it has connected and it's true that WM is much faster when quickGPS is updated. Any improvements here are very welcome, maybe i'll have a look into it too.

you could edit gps.conf according to your own pool server
a list of these servers can be found here. May make a small difference for some people.
Please post if this helped getting a quicker fix
http://www.pool.ntp.org/en/
Update:
i used the appropriate time server for my country (netherlands),
i used a fresh device (android had never ran on it, though the android on sdcard has been used on other devices)
i went to the toilet very quick, when i came back there was a fix.
So please go see if this makes a difference for you, and post your experiences in here

I seriously don't think it will matter what you put in gps.conf at the moment. What we need to know is how this is used on a "real" android phone.
I've tried to find some GPS code in the Hero kernel source in the past but found almost nothing and the libgps for HTC devices are asfaik closed source so I guess it's in libgps all the "magic" takes place. (I fact, for Kaisers the it would be more "right" to do our NMEA parsing in libgps instead of doing it in the kernel but since libgps evolved around the Vogue it was made in the kernel to make it appear just like the vogue gps data to libgps.so.)
So I'm guessing that a "real" libgps.so reads gps.conf, get's some data and feeds it to the GPS. Likely with AT-commands. It is possible though that it is the ril interface that does it. We have the source for our ril lib and our gpslib and I know for sure we don't do any prime:ing in the our libgps. (The sources are here: http://androidhtc.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb-index.cgi?p=gitroot/androidhtc/bootenv/)
It is possible to do dump stuff with HaRET when you for example enable the GPS (I've done it in the past following instructions from dzo) and also when you run QuickGPS and try to match the information sent with the information in xtra.bin. I also expect we should find it sending the current UTC time which by it self propably could speed up fix times.
Once we know what to do we either build it into libgps or we make an Android app similar to QuickGPS.
In fact, I found some dumps laying around....
At boot WinMo sends the system time to the Radio with this command:
[email protected]=2,21,43,2010,5,12
I would say the format is H,M,S,YYYY,M,D even though values are a bit strange because the files are dated 2010-05-11 but it's possible that the WinMo clock was a bit f*cked up at the moment.
Perhaps our rild is allready sending this (someone should check the source)
Otherwise you could try this and se if it helps:
echo -e "[email protected]=x\r" > /dev/smd0
(replaceing the x with the current time and date of course)

Just tried and it was going on 10 minutes with no fix...
TW,

Have you tried gpstest to see if it's actually receiving a signal at all? It is possible that you have a hardware issue, perhaps a broken antenna connection?

If that were the case then it shouldn't work in Windows and it does... ???
Strange...
Does Android require a data connection when getting a GPS fix?
TW,

[Q&A] [ROM][UNOFFICIAL][WIP] Cyanogenmod 11 (4.4.4 - kitkat) for fairphone FP1

Q&A for [ROM][UNOFFICIAL][WIP] Cyanogenmod 11 (4.4.4 - kitkat) for fairphone FP1
Some developers prefer that questions remain separate from their main development thread to help keep things organized. Placing your question within this thread will increase its chances of being answered by a member of the community or by the developer. Thanks for understanding and for helping to keep XDA neat and tidy! :smile:

Bluetooth functionality
Hi, Chris,
amazing work! I am so glad to see that finally someone managed to get CM 11 running on our Fairphones! One question: Is it correct that Bluetooth functionality is still missing? Just asking because the WIKO Stairways, which you also seem to take care of, has a very similar hardware architecture and as far as I understand, the CM 11 ROM provided by you already offers bluetooth functionality. Is there a big difference between these two devices?
Apart from the missing bluetooth functionality I am very tempted to try your ROM ...
Keep up the good work and thank you!

Next steps and what can we do?
Thanks, Chris, for your great work. It's awesome to see that CM on Fairphone is possible after all.
The list of known bugs/missing features still includes some items which are a show stopper for many users. I'm one of them. Therefore I'd like to see some progress in these regards. IMHO it would be of great help for potential contributors if there was some sort of coordination on what has to be done.
Chris, do you mind elaborating what the issues with the known bugs are? What are areas which you already work on? What are problems which someone else could tackle? And, most importantly, where should one start?
I'd like to try and give it a go. However I know already that I'm not likely to get very far unless I can discuss issues and get some help. So, what are you currently working on and what do you suggest to start with?
Regards,
jftr

Error during installation of Cyanogenmod11 on Fairphone 2nd batch
Hi,
I have a Fairphone 1 but the second batch (FP1U)
I follow the install process of Cyanogenmod11 here but I had this error during flashing :
HTML:
set_metadata_recusrive: some changes failed
E:Error in /external_sd/cm-11_FP1-ota-UNOFFICIAL-FULLOFBUGS-0.2.zip
(Status 7)
Installation aborded
(you can this the attachment)
I could restore a backup, but I'm ready to restart flashing if you have idea to pass this error

Spheerys said:
Hi,
I have a Fairphone 1 but the second batch (FP1U)
I follow the install process of Cyanogenmod11 here but I had this error during flashing :
HTML:
set_metadata_recusrive: some changes failed
E:Error in /external_sd/cm-11_FP1-ota-UNOFFICIAL-FULLOFBUGS-0.2.zip
(Status 7)
Installation aborded
(you can this the attachment)
I could restore a backup, but I'm ready to restart flashing if you have idea to pass this error
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A short Google search suggests to update Clockworkmod to the latest version. Have you tried that?
Here is more information regarding the issue (Unfortunately I can't post any links yet, so you have to remove the space after http)
http ://android.stackexchange.com/questions/62982/flashing-cm-11-i-get-set-metadata-recursive-some-changes-failed
http ://stackoverflow.com/questions/19860479/set-metadata-recursive-failing-on-android-install

"set_metadata_recursive: some changes failed" : solution
I have found the solution in a french forum : remplace the "update-binary" file inside the ROM : /META-INF/com/google/android/update-binary with the version on the forum below
forum-generationmobiles.net/t73067-astuce-regler-le-probleme-du-message-d-erreur-dans-le-recovery-set_metadata_recursive-some-changes-failed-25112013

Settings crashing and other bugs following
I have a series of problems at hand with my FP1 that has Cyanogenmod. I would be very grateful if anyone here could help me out with any of them, as FP zendesk etc. couldn't.
Firstly, the Systems settings menu and now even Manage apps -menu don't open. When I try, they just flash quickly on the screen without allowing any time to even read them. This problem started smaller last winter and then disappeared, but now it has come back and is getting worse and causing other problems. First it was just the system settings menu. But now it concerns also manage apps. I can't even make a downloaded new app work because the phone doesn't let me allow them any superuser rights from the settings.
-The first time this happened I could reformat my phone. But the problem now is that I don't want to loose all my stuff, so I want to do backup first. However: - the phone doesn't detect the SD-card that is inside. -I have Cyanogenmod instead of Google, so backing up using cable+Google Plus is not an option. I downloaded MyBackupPro for this, but the phone doesn't allow me to grant it superuser rights so I can't use it. So is there any other way to backup my phone?
-Now another problem that costs me actual money (I hope that my operator will compensate it later) is that some bug is "sending" non-existent SMS to some Finnish numbers and to one number abroad. In reality there are no SMS sent but on the bill it shows as if I had sent for example 2-4 text messages at the same time. Avast! Mobile security virus scanner didn't find anything. I aimed to remove some of the apps I had lately installed, in case that some of them had brought a bug along, just to notice that I can't even access the apps menu anymore in order to do so.
After schecking detailed call reports from my operator, I also noticed that all the sms that are a couple of rows longer, are sent as 2< messages. So even when I think I sent one longer message, at the bill it is counted as two or more..
Fortunately I could create a bugreport, which I will try to attach here asap (apparently need to compress it first...). It is a few days old, but soon after that I took the simcard off so & haven't used the phone much offline, either, so I guess the report should still be quite up-to-date (?).
So it would be great if someone that can interpret the report/ othwerwise has a clue what this could be about, would tell me their advise in terms of where I might start solving this bunch of problems!
(Should be the last time when person like me who doesn't understand much about software buys an alternative phone and installs an even more alternative operating system for it..and then finds herself in a mess like this with no idea how to get out..)

I'm sorry to hear that. It seems you thoroughly infested your phone with malware. I strongly suggest you reflash to get rid of the malware in its entirety.
Regarding backups: If you feel comfortable using the command line, you could try to connect to your phone from your computer using adb. There is a backup command and you can just copy files directly.
Good luck

Thanks for your reply!
I only use command line when I have step by step-instructions for it, not independently. . . Fortunately the link you gave seems to have quite clear instructions. I'll check that soon!

Try with Helium
AinoV said:
Thanks for your reply!
I only use command line when I have step by step-instructions for it, not independently. . . Fortunately the link you gave seems to have quite clear instructions. I'll check that soon!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would use Helium for you backup. It can use cloud storage as backup destination. This solves your SD card issue. You also can use your PC to enable the backup without having root. This solves your root issue.

Thankyou for your expert tips!
I couldn't install neither Helium nor Android SDK that is needed for ADB , because as I said the phone settings don't open so that I could have allowed any app superuser rights.
(Actually in safe mode the settings do open but that, in turn, doesn't show any appstore available so that I could download anything new.....)
But fortunately I could upload all my photos into Dropbox and eventually managed to download and use a simple app for SMS-backups --> Dropbox. All the rest doesn't matter so much, as the apps I'll need I can download again.
So, now the backup problem is solved and I can proceed to the reformatting phase. It's probably wiser that I choose the default platform (Google ) this time in order to avoid further headaches that easily come when going too alternative with too little skills for that!

Thanks for this nice work! I was waiting long for CM on my fairphone.
Unfortunately I had to change back because of issues with the SIM management. It was not possible to switch on or off a SIM card except by going via Airplane mode and there were issues with connecting to a data network on both SIM-slots. Smaller issues were the missing BT and worse battery life than before.

Impaired battery
Summing up my problems / experiences with the battery performance after using CyanogenMod for a couple of weeks on my fp1: Over time (especially after upgrading to m11) I noticed a steadily growing loss of battery performance over time. The rear part of the device often seems hotter, especially when charging or when extensively using my phone. I can compare with my gf fp1 who uses the original FP OS. Compared with hers, the battery now seems bloated, significantly lasts shorter, shows inaccurate battery percentages (at the beginning dropping from 20 % to 0 in no time. Now even dropping from 40 - 50 % to 0).
I tried to calibrate the battery a couple of times with various apps, but the main problem with that is that I am not able to charge the battery with the phone shut down, as the phone automatically switches on when connected to an active charger. A short search revealed, that it's probably due to a kernel issue with the costum rom. Trying out other types of chargers didn't solve the problem.
Another thing I noticed, is that FPOS as well as CyanogenMod display strange MV values (2 - 4 mV while a fully charges battery should display up to 4200 MV - again see attached picture) in the app Battery calibration.
In order to figure out whether the battery is really impaired, I switched batteries with my gfs FP1. Both have been in use for the same time and both were charged with the same charging cables as well as used in similar patterns.
My battery lasted significantly shorter in my gfs FP with FP OS compared with her normal battery. Her battery worked better in mine, still it didn't lasted as long as her phone.
Another strange thing I found was that sometimes the battery doesn't only drops dead, it sometimes also gets stucked at 1 % for quite a while (see attached files). With no way to resolve this by calibrating the battery.
In all likelyhood no problem with CM as it seems to have appeared with FP OS as well see https: // forum.fairphone.com/t/battery-problem-after-cherry-1-6-update-battery-might-be-dying/

I would be interested if we could issue a bounty for @chrmhoffmann to get him working in the port again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=56379896&postcount=19
I was just thinking the same thing.. maybe using www dot bountysource dot com ?

I too would be very glad to pay and/or to contribute with testing or code in order to get Android 4.3 or 4.4 on my Fairphone.
I need it because of the Low Energy Bluetooth feature, which would enable FP to talk with fitness tracker devices...
Is @chrmhoffmann or anybody else in here still interested in pursuing a full (or at least working) port of CM to FP?
Please note that at present days, there is not defined upgrade path for FP... so this would be quite an effort but also a very nice solution for the future of FP software.

Hi,
has anybody tried to build a custom rom using the SDK provided by Media-Tek?
I've downloaded the four SDK packages granted by Media-Tek. You get the SDK packages only on request from the MediaTek Support, if you are already registred at the MediaTek-Lab.
Kind regards