1st January 2022. A new year, a new start.
What are your plans for the 2022 year? I've picked up Zombies Run again after a few years away due to its memory footprint inflating so much it wouldn't run on my S5 without causing Android to force close other apps. It works fine on my OnePlus 9 Pro though.
LineageOS has now gone to Android 11, and like most users, I went ahead and upgraded to it. But then I started hitting lots of problems. Predominantly on location.
Android 11 changed the way location is requested and this breaks functionality in multiple apps. Ones I have noticed this issue with:
Other location apps may have also had the same issue, but I didn't check those.
Waze did not have any issues locking on to location or tracking movement
Some non-location apps also broke. Fenix 2 (a Twitter client) and WeChat both stopped working and would not install off the Play Store, presumeably because of API differences.
I installed Plume instead (which I had previously purchased) and that installed and functioned happily.
WeChat I sideloaded by getting the apk from a mirror. That functioned okay, but could not log into Web WeChat
I decided to clean wipe and downgrade back to Android 10 (Lineage OS 17) to at least get things working again.
I formatted my SD card for Portable Storage, then took it to my laptop and saved the LOS flash zip, Open Gapps zip, and the latest Magisk.
I booted into TWRP Recovery and wiped, data, cache, system, ART and internal storage.
Switching to external storage, I then flashed LOS, OpenGapps, then Magisk.
I rebooted and let the OS do its thing until I got the welcome screen -- that's a good sign. I went through the setup but opted not to setup my Google Account yet.
Once through to the home page, I went and unlocked Developer options and enabled ADB, Local Terminal, Force Allow External Storage, and Force Close on Hold Back.
Then I plugged my phone into my pixelbook, allowed the debug connection and started up scrcpy which allows me to copy-paste text to and from the device.
I installed TitaniumBackup and the pro key so I can batch move apps to/from the storage.
The SD Card is still setup as Portable. So I formatted it as Internal. This took a few attempts as it kept erroring.
I went into Play Store and installed a few apps. A couple installed file, but the other errorred with a message:
"App requires external storage"
This was weird, I never saw that before, but checking around, I found this: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-requires-external-storage.4098673/ which describes fixing the storage permissions. I ran this:
adb shell su restorecon -FR /data/media/0
I reinstalled the apps again, and there were no errors. Fenix 2 installed happily this time, enhancing my suspicion of some API change breaking it on Android 11.
Also found out that Strava required Google Maps so I also had to install Google Maps.
WeChat finally did install, but was then told by the app that my account cannot use Web WeChat, and I should use WeChat for Windows or Mac..... and I'm running Linux, so both of those options are not feasible.
However, I did find this: https://github.com/qo6xup6/ubuntu-deepin-wechat which is a Wine wrapper around the Windows WeChat app. This seems to work well, although I did have to update the client using the instructions on the README.md
FitBit refused to pair with my Ionic (again -- it always seems to have this trouble whenever I have to reinstall the app). I eventually resorted to factory resetting my Ionic, and re-setting it up again. It worked this time, although the pairing took a few attempts.
Surprisingly, I was then able to add my Curve card to FitBit Pay, and the SMS verification worked.
All in all, it took me from around 7am to 12:30 pm to reflash, reinstall, and setup all the apps again, and reboot to make sure the apps still worked. So around 5 hours.
Today's been raining, windy, sunny, rainy again and repeat all day.
Managed to get a walk in between the rain and wind phases
Finished reinstalling my apps and had a few issues with location. Waze and Google Maps had trouble locking onto GPS and found out that even though the option to allow location "only while app is running" was available, I needed to set the permission to "at any time" otherwise they would lock on.
Citymapper had no issue
Just Eat still has issues and does not have a "at any" level for location permission, so I just use the postcode for that.
Most of the apps are now working. A few will not install from Play Store, presumably they're not built to support Android 11 yet:
For Fenix, I went back to Plume (I had previously paid for the Premium version and that works fine). I installed GBoard so I can put gifs into my tweets again (one feature I really liked from Fenix)
WeChat, I ended up sideloading from apkmirror and it worked fine.
Decided to finally action the upgrade notification on my phone and Lineage OS wanted to update from Android 10 to Android 11.
The upgrade went off without too many issues, but I then found out Open Gapps had no package fro Android 11, meaning I had to resort to MindTheGapps -- a minimal package that only allows Google Apps to work, but doesn't actually install any. Consequently the Google Apps I had installed via OpenGapps decided to stop working as a result. I had to uninstall and reinstall everything from Google -- Search, Notes, YouTube, Maps, Home, etc.
But fortunately everything else seemed to work. Camera MX decided to stop working, so I've gone back to CameraZoom
I also went round the torched fence and managed to get a pic of the new fence
My last logged walk was 23rd October. I've been slacking off logging runs since then, so this is my first logged run since then, even though I have been doing near-daily runs since then, so I'm skipping through to Day 191 since I've done 10 days of walks since then.
I've also got a few other updates.
My house purchase fell through a while ago so I have been actively house hunting a lot and my past few Saturdays have been spent house viewing. Viewing during the day is tricky unless I take time off to house hunt.
Dealing with different Estate Agents is a pain, with some not even bothering to give you the time of day, let alone
I also upgraded my phone to Android 10 LineageOS and I've been having quite a few issues with internet speed and stability. I'm seriously considering forcing a downgrade back to Android 9. In the meantime, I might switch from Adoptable Storage back to portable storage to see if that helps with stability.
Oh, and it's frickin' COLD.
Easy run today, made it to about 3k
12 minute fitness test today. According to Endomondo, I made 2.16 km.
Intervals run today – I decided to try walking the beginning and end since the target pace was just under 8mins but I struggled to find a good speed, since 8min/km is too fast for my walk pace and too slow for my jog pace
4.3k run today
Reset my Endomondo plan to reflect updated pace. Today’s run was a 3.8km run. Got to about 3km then dropped to a walk, but kept a pretty consistent pace until then.
Missed a run due to heavy rain.
Today’s run was a walk/run with 4 intervals
First day training back with @endomondo – more a walk today, but I ran a bit during the “fast-walk” intervals.
I used Endomondo for the voice prompts, but tracked the main workout with my fitbit. This led to my graph being a bit out of sync with the workout graph…
Next run is on Thursday. Well, it’s a walk rather than run…. But start slow, and build up, I guess
Did the 2x 10 minute runs today and topped 5km according to the ZenLabs app, but only hit 4.85km according to Fitbit (and I kinda trust FitBit more than ZenLabs in terms of distance tracking)
Set two Strava Segment PRs during this run
This run was done on Lineage OS 14. I downgraded back to 14 from 15 after finding a few quirks with that version that don’t sit well with me.
I might decided to try again at some point, but on a clean (empty) install.
[gallery type=“rectangular” size=“full” ids=“7121,7120,7119”]
Looking forward to when LineageOS can upgrade to Oreo. There’s a lot of new features that may make life a lot easier generally. Take a look in the article for details
We take a 20,000 word deep-dive on Android's "foundational" upgrades.
Source: Android 8.0 Oreo, thoroughly reviewed | Ars Technica
The Sims - as in the PROPER Sims being made for Android/iOS? Definitely going to look at this, but I bet it’s going to be online only which is pointless when your main commute is Underground.
[embed]www.youtube.com/watch
The actual game you loved—not like The Sims FreePlay.
Source: ‘The Sims’ is finally coming to your iPhone and Android phones
VERY useful feature to stop accidentally breaking out of an app. Useful also for people streaming from their phones
Ever needed to hand your phone to a kid? Even if you don’t want to, sometimes you’re trying to keep them quiet at a restaurant, or calm them down at the doctor’s. But handing over an unlocked phone is just asking for the kid to delete all your home screen shortcuts (or, worse, work emails). Fortunately there’s a way to fix this.
Source: Your Android Phone Has a Built-In Childproofing Feature
Meitu has been taking off – everywhere I look on my Facebook, Twitter, I see pictures run through the app.
But do you actually check to see what permissions it asks for? A crazy amount it seems. I just checked on Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mt.mtxx.mtxx) and these are the current permissions
Source: The Meitu selfie app unlocks your anime beauty and personal data
Cyanogen’s fork is beginning to take shape. Currently my devices aren’t showing but fingers crossed it will.
Few points worth noting from their site:
The build roster is ever growing, but we are supporting Marshmallow and Nougat capable devices.
- We’ll list the 80+ devices in a separate post.
Our release cadence will be ‘weekly’ by default (to be nice to all the donated hardware).
We will NOT be shipping root baked into the ROM.
- Root will be a downloadable zip based install similar to gapps installation (only need to flash it once).
- Home builders that want to bake su back into the ROM can use the command ‘export WITH_SU=true’ prior to building.
Our official builds will all be signed with a private key for authentication and signature permission control
This will not break, prevent or stop any ‘unofficial’ builds.
Key verification info can be found on the wiki Verifying Build Authenticity page
However, also notable and I’m really happy about this:
Regarding installation, we recommend that users wipe when switching to LineageOS, and reinstall their gapps. However, we recognize that this can be time consuming, so we are offering an EXPERIMENTAL (read as, if it fails, you’ll have to wipe anyways) solution.Given the EXPERIMENTAL nature of this process, we are going to remove this option in two months time.
- Alongside the ‘weekly’ release for your supported device, we’ll provide an EXPERIMENTAL data migration build.
- This build will allow you to ‘upgrade’ from CM to the signed LineageOS weekly
- This build may wipe permissions (you’ll have to re-allow app permissions), but should retain all user data
- This build will be watermarked with an ugly banner to ensure that you don’t permanently run this EXPERIMENTAL release, and upgrade to a normal weekly after.
- The process for this installation will be as follows:
- Install EXPERIMENTAL migration build on top of cm-13.0 or cm-14.1 build (don’t try to install LineageOS 13.0 on top of CM 14.1, that will not work).
- Reboot
- Install LineageOS weekly build
- Reboot
- Re-setup your application permissions
All systems operational
Source: Update & Build Prep – Lineage OS – Lineage OS Android Distribution
Open source Android ROM project dies, developers launch fork.
Source: Cyanogen Inc. shuts down CyanogenMod in Christmas bloodbath | Ars Technica
So, CM is dead, but like with most things in the open source world, things will be forked, especially if there’s a disagreement between the two. In this case, rather than compete, it’s a desire to keep the project going.
You’ve probably seen articles inducing panic around the number of android devices vulnerable to this Quadrooter bug. But read through the below first.
Another day, another overblown Android security scare. Who’s ready for a reality check?
Source: No, 900 million Android devices are not at risk from the ‘Quadrooter’ monster | Computerworld
Guys, gals, aardvarks, fishes: I'm running out of ways to say this. Your Android device is not in any immediate danger of being taken over a super-scary malware monster.It’s a silly thing to say, I realize, but we go through this same song and dance every few months: Some company comes out with a sensational headline about how millions upon millions of Android users are in danger (DANGER!) of being infected (HOLY HELL!) by a Big, Bad Virus™ (A WHAT?!) any second now. Countless media outlets (cough, cough) pick up the story and run with it, latching onto that same sensational language without actually understanding a lick about Android security or the context that surrounds it.
To wit: As you’ve no doubt seen by now, our latest Android malware scare du jour is something an antivirus software company called Check Point has smartly dubbed “Quadrooter” (a name worthy of Batman villain status if I’ve ever heard one). The company is shouting from the rooftops that 900 million (MILLION!) users are at risk of data loss, privacy loss, and presumably also loss of all bladder control – all because of this hell-raising “Quadrooter” demon and its presence on Qualcomm’s mobile processors.
“Without an advanced mobile threat detection and mitigation solution on the Android device, there is little chance a user would suspect any malicious behavior has taken place,” the company says in its panic-inducing press release.
Well, crikey: Only an advanced mobile threat detection and mitigation solution can stop this? Wait – like the one Check Point itself conveniently sells as a core part of its business? Hmm…that sure seems awfully coincidental.
TL;DR: A “mobile threat detection and mitigration solution” is already present on practically all of those 900 million Android devices. It’s a native part of the Android operating system called Verify Apps, and it’s been present in the software since 2012….. Android has had its own built-in multilayered security system for ages now. There’s the threat-scanning Verify Apps system we were just discussing. The operating system also automatically monitors for signs of SMS-based scams, and the Chrome Android browser keeps an eye out for any Web-based boogeymen.
Jack Wallen reviews the bq Aquaris M10 tablet and he’s impressed. If you’ve been on the fence about Ubuntu Touch, this might just assuage those unpleasant feelings.
Source: Magic happens with the Ubuntu tablet - TechRepublic
Canonical tried to do this with their last attempt to crowdsource their Ubuntu phone, but it didn’t make enough money. This one looks pretty good too. Now I wonder if I could run Android apps on there too. :D
So I updated my S5 to Android 6.0.1 using Cyanogenmod, and I’ve noticed some slight lagging. Apps tend to close themselves randomly, normally when less apps are running than on Android 5.1.1. Also, when using the tethered connection, there’s some lag there too, causing my online games to judder. Though that part is only hypothetical, I’m going to test this by downgrading my phone back to 5.1 and verifying whether there’s lag on my connection there. If there isn’t, I’ll report this as a bug.
Ran into a few problems with my Android phone recently that caused my phone to see -3000MB storage (e.g. 3GB less than zero space). Weird, but true.
So, I eventually tried a few solutions, none of which worked., eventually, I flashed up to Android Lollipop and things seem okay now. Some strange interface changes but nice features.
As you’re probably aware, I love to tinker with phones, especially Android ones, having been able to root several:
However, when trying to tinker with my dad’s S5, some really weird behaviour occurred. I first unlocked it using a SIM unlock code, and it started to randomly reboot. Regardless of whether or not you use an EE SIM or not (we tried EE, Virgin and Three SIMs – all were subject to the rebooting behaviour). So, I decided to take a change and rooted it and flashed Bobcat ROM (a ROM which I was running successfully on my own S5, which is the same model as my dad’s with the only difference being the network provider – I’m on Three, he’s on EE.)
The phone still randomly rebooted, so I turned on Logcat and tried to see if it recorded anything. No such luck.
So I tried a few different ROMs – Stock Samsung (Lollipop), Bobcat ROM, and Phoenix ROM. All still rebooted. So I took it to Samsung for their opinion. They said they couldn’t flash it because Knox was void (Knox is a warranty flag on Samsung devices which indicates whether you have custom flashed the device or not – I obviously have.) But they were nice enough to tell me that the behaviour described usually indicates the Firmware is wrong (which is something I didn’t flash).
So, since this behaviour started before I even did a deep-level tinker with the device (before I flashed anything), I can only assume EE either flashed an incorrect firmware, or did not flash the correct firmware - or maybe did not flash the firmware properly. I now need to find an S5 firmware to flash onto the device. Since my own S5 is working, I can check that firmware and try to find the same one.
..it seems that Jelly Bean devices are simply too old to support -- supporting old software versions is fairly unusual, after all. But in this case, he asks Google to reconsider, due to the wider consequences this security flaw could potentially unravel. Until then, however, it might be a good idea to upgrade to Android 4.4, or perhaps get a new phone altogether.
Google won’t fix a security bug that’s in almost a billion Android phones.
