Report from the bleeding edge: calling / texting

[jmorris]

Well things took an abrupt turn for the bad on Thursday.  Update and reboot, no call audio.  Can play with alsamixer and hear it but that is pretty useless.  Have been trying to roll back updates and nothing has worked yet.  Purged alsa, pulse and pipewire config from home dir, rebooted and still nothing.  Multi-boot card to the rescue.

Can anyone else confirm the problem or if you are on a fully updated Edge and have audio, that would point me toward some local issue.

[jmorris]

Ok, rolling back callaudio and phosh got it working again. And it is now pretty stable. Don't normally use a phone a lot, but the last week has been a flurry of calls and texts due to a death in the family and it has been rock solid.

So it is finally getting reliable!

[jmorris]

There are only a couple of long standing issues that keep me from recommending others to adopt PP+PMOS at this point, depending on their app needs.

1. Still seeing random lockups every couple of days, even with daily manual restarts (usually due to updates)
2. Headphone detection. Headsets work, headphones do not. Mobian has this fixed we just need somebody to figure out what bits to grab.
3. Bluetooth is almost working. Switch on a keyboard and it won't be seen until you turn off BT and turn it back on or simply enter the BT settings pane.
4. No 2FA solution.
5. A map solution that doesn't require continuous, reliable, online Internet access.

Note that if Anbox can be stabilized it would solve both of the last two items.

A few more items that would vastly expand the potential userbase:

1. Video recording. Still photos are now pretty good but a lot of people love video.
2. To go with the above, support for any video conferencing network.
3. Solid video playback, with acceleration. VLC ain't getting the job done.
4. Convergence is a potential killer feature.

[DylanVanAssche]

Headphone detection.  Headsets work, headphones do not.  Mobian has this fixed we just need somebody to figure out what bits to grab.

Both work fine here on postmarketOS, I just tested it again as I made the fixes so I was surprised.

No 2FA solution.

Numberstation is your friend

A map solution that doesn't require continuous, reliable, online Internet access.

PureMaps can be combined with OSM Scout Server to achieve this.

[jmorris]

Headphone detection.  Headsets work, headphones do not.  Mobian has this fixed we just need somebody to figure out what bits to grab.

Both work fine here on postmarketOS, I just tested it again as I made the fixes so I was surprised.

No 2FA solution.

Numberstation is your friend

A map solution that doesn't require continuous, reliable, online Internet access.

PureMaps can be combined with OSM Scout Server to achieve this.

Curious, If you run evtest on Mobian there are two, Headset and Headphone and only headset on PMOS still, but it now does the right thing so winning!  Scratch that jack detection off the list.

As for numberstation, not seeing it on Edge.  Digging around I do see it listed as a major new app in the release notes for 21.03 SP1.  See the source repo.  So will keep poking.

Looked at PureMaps, looks like a fair bit of hoops to jump through to get permission to use it.  If nothing else works out, will have to dive in and get it going.

Waydroid is now getting really close to being usable.  That would solve several problems.

[DylanVanAssche]

@jmorris 

Numberstation is in edge testing: https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/package/edg...berstation
If you run a stable version, it is not available as testing is only available with edge.

[jmorris]

@jmorris 

Numberstation is in edge testing: https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/package/edg...berstation
If you run a stable version, it is not available as testing is only available with edge.

Looks like it made it to edge, still have to move keys into it but looking like another big "must have" is solved.

Still seeing modem unreliability though, rebooting often causes an otherwise hidden SMS to suddenly appear from as much as a day or two back.  Gotta get that basic phone functionality rock solid before we can recommend it outside those of us willing to accept the pain of being on the bleeding edge.  Been carrying for around a year now though, and things are greatly improved over that first few months.

[bcnaz]

> I Just downloaded a recent release of PMOS/Phosh and flashed to an sd card, then did available updates.

Phone calls, sms texting, and cellular data worked 'out of the box ' for me, Using a PMOS edition Pinephone.

Camera and viewer apps also 'work' ... after sitting on charger overnight, I did lose call audio, but a restart fixed that.

[jmorris]

Ok, been too long since an update. Things are painful right now. Power management is broke, a few hours away from the charger and it is dead. The screen wakes itself up. Lockups requiring a forced power cycle are at least daily. An incoming call while on a call results in losing both calls. There are as yet no exposed controls to disable the second call.

Guess it is a sign that a lot of things are changing so once it settles back down there might be new things to report working? Trying to see a glass half full here.

The other good news is that while ATT tried to banish my PinePhone in the great 3G shutdown debacle, the modem is Chinese and has the usual regard for IP of Chinese products. Swapping in a Moto IMEI has kept me from having to jump carriers.