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Root [MetroPCS] [ROM] KitKat 4.4.2 NEW BETA 4

Masterchief said:
The kitkat ROMs don't have the drivers for your camera built in. This problem is due to the fact that lg never released an official kitkat update for this phone so it is much more difficult for the developers to get everything working smoothly. If there was an official kitkat update for the f6 they would probably have all the issues fixed a while ago. The best bet for fixing the camera issues (if I remember correctly) is to find another device that has the same front and back cameras, the same CPU, and an led flash, and kitkat. This isn't easy to do though.
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There seems to be suggestions that this ov5693 is used in the Nexus 7 2013? Or you mean ALL of the criteria (CPU, front and back cam) have to be the same, or just the camera?

Also there's a kitkat ROM on this board that is said to be ported from the European version of F6, which has OEM kitkat. Not sure if it's true.

Thanks for the reply.
 
seities said:
There seems to be suggestions that this ov5693 is used in the Nexus 7 2013? Or you mean ALL of the criteria (CPU, front and back cam) have to be the same, or just the camera?

Also there's a kitkat ROM on this board that is said to be ported from the European version of F6, which has OEM kitkat. Not sure if it's true.

Thanks for the reply.
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All of it has to be the same. Hroark13 built a kernel to get the back cam working but he based it on a tablet that had a different front camera and no led flash. Because of this, the flash doesn't work when you use the kernel and the front cam takes pictures that are blue and stretched.
 
I just installed the latest Tmobile ROM and found that it doesn't work either. SO I guess the OV5693 is unique to MetroPCS only? That probably further narrows the possibility of development. :(
 
Masterchief said:
You're talking about the official T-Mobile firmware?
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Yes! I got three of these phones, and only tested the ROMs on one. Turns out the other two are compatible with the two kitkat ports by hroark13 (for which I'm very grateful and wish the work will continue) and obviously has the more common camera module. Is that the IMX119 (as mentioned in hroark13's post about fixing compatibility with OV5693 but without specifics)? Or who makes that module?

I found out about the compatibiliy by simply installing the Tmobile official firmware (with LG KDZ updates). It does seem that Tmobile is only compatible with non-OV5693 phones, and not the one with OV5693. So it's likely only MetroPCS model has this camera?

The compability difference is a bit surprising because these phones are all MetroPCS and made around the same time (5/2014), so I assumed they would all be the same. However, they were picked up from different locations (OV5693 shipped to me and the other two picked up from store). It seems possible that they were mixing camera modules during the same production period.

After testing and confirming the cameras working with TMO firmwares, I installed a CM11 and now putting this Kitkat port on the other. Both cameras work. CM11 works well since last night, except when I put it to charge the screen goes dark and wouldn't turn on unless force-reboot. Just started on this one. So far so good, and I can connect to my BT speakers but couldn't with the CM11 for some reason.

Funny though but the white balance on the OV5693 is obviously much more accurate, but having kitkat seems to take higher priority. :p
 
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Update: After loading up the apps and playing around for a bit, it seems pretty stable. Encountered less glitches than the CM11 version while setting up. Will try to use this as a long term app for a few days.

That said, can anyone tip me on how to remove the boot animation sound? I managed to change the animation but the water sound remains. Can't figure out where the file is located or how to remove the sound, except disabling bootanimation all together (changing the name in /system/bin).

Thanks so much.
 
seities said:
Update: After loading up the apps and playing around for a bit, it seems pretty stable. Encountered less glitches than the CM11 version while setting up. Will try to use this as a long term app for a few days.

That said, can anyone tip me on how to remove the boot animation sound? I managed to change the animation but the water sound remains. Can't figure out where the file is located or how to remove the sound, except disabling bootanimation all together (changing the name in /system/bin).

Thanks so much.
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The boot sound is located in /system/media/audio/ui/poweron.ogg
 
To fix the problem with the screen becoming unresponsive you can raise the minimum CPU frequency from 384mhz to 486mhz or 594mhz. Try 486 first then if you still have the problem raise it a little higher. This worked well for me.
 
I raised the minimum speed to 594 on mine and the only way I had that problem was if I played music while extracting a large zip file and paused the music then immediately turned the screen off then back on. Basically if you're multitasking and the minimum CPU speed isn't raised a little higher than the default value it will cause the phone to freeze then reboot when the screen turns off.
 
I've been using this ROM for about a week now and found it pretty stable. However, can someone confirm if this ROM supports LTE? I see H and 3G sometimes, but never LTE. I understood that H/H+ is more like HSPA+ and not LTE. Or does it work differently with this eurorom? Many thanks.

update: found the thread about build.prop settings. I added
ro.build.target_operator=TMO
to the boot prop file, where there wasn't anything about this string before. rebooted and no LTE options. The build prop file also looks different from the thread post. Not sure if there's a new solution now.

Tks
 
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Masterchief said:
It depends which version you are running. Are you running beta 4?
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I got the latest from the original post, so I think it's beta 4. I also tried the *#*#4636#*#* method, and selected LTE/WCDMA as well as LTE/GSM/CDMA options. However, when backing out (couldn't find a save button), the network menu doesn't show LTE option. When going back to the
*#*#4636#*#*, the "phone info" section shows the selector back to "WCDMA Preferred" option..

Still trying to figure this out. Thanks for the help.
 
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seities said:
I got the latest from the original post, so I think it's beta 4. I also tried the #*#*4636*#*# method, and selected LTE/WCDMA as well as LTE/GSM/CDMA options. However, when backing out (couldn't find a save button), the network menu doesn't show LTE option. When going back to the *#*#4636*#*#, the "phone info" section shows the selector back to "WCDMA Preferred" option..

Still trying to figure this out. Thanks for the help.
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If you see the 4G icon in the statusbar that's LTE. You will also sometimes see H which is the 4g that isn't lte
 
Masterchief said:
If you see the 4G icon in the statusbar that's LTE. You will also sometimes see H which is the 4g that isn't lte
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I see H now, but no LTE. I thought you'd see a LTE selection in the network type settings? That hasn't showed up yet even after reboot.. Still trying..
 
seities said:
I see H now, but no LTE. I thought you'd see a LTE selection in the network type settings? That hasn't showed up yet even after reboot.. Still trying..
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Id suggest rebooting into recovery, formatting system, wiping dalvik cache, and doing a factory reset then reinstalling the ROM. A fresh install might help. Another thing id suggest is not to mess with any hidden menus if you get an lte connection. Also, remember, when you are connected to LTE the data icon in the statusbar will just say 4G
 
Masterchief said:
Also lte is working on this rom. Instead of saying 4gLte like the stock rom it just says 4G. When on hspa+(this is when the icon says 4G on stock rom) it says H. I know this because im getting download speeds of more than 2,000kB/s when the icon says 4G. Download speeds like this are only possible on 4gLte in my area. When im on hspa+(this is what metro calls "4G") i never get download speeds faster than 50kB/s.
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Masterchief said:
Id suggest rebooting into recovery, formatting system, wiping dalvik cache, and doing a factory reset then reinstalling the ROM. A fresh install might help. Another thing id suggest is not to mess with any hidden menus if you get an lte connection. Also, remember, when you are connected to LTE the data icon in the statusbar will just say 4G
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After messing with the build.prop, I just did this from completely fresh install, with everything wiped and fresh recovery installation. There's never 4G appearing in the network icon, which is why I've been looking for solution. I have been looking for H+ or 4G (which is marketspeak for HSPA+, or usually denoted by H+ but can also possibly be LTE, though LTE is almost always noted by an extra line), but there's only 3G and H appearing.

I thought the #*#* method would give me a LTE option in the network type setting menu, like the results from the build.prop, but so far it's as if the #*#* is only a status page, because the network type updates I made in there always reverts to original.
 
All I can tell you is that lte always worked for me on a fresh install. Also I remember someone mentioning a couple months ago that he turned data off and after that couldn't get lte to work. I've also had lte stop working after I changed too many things around. Not sure what exactly caused it.
 
Also in the #*#* menu, you can actually see the network type. I went in and selected LTE/WCDMA again, and watched the network type. It got stuck on HSPA (no +) for a while, and suddenly it jumped to LTE, and now I have a 4G Icon. Who knows why it didn't? But I'm happy now. :) Thanks for the help!
 
One more thing: Is the original LG camera available for this ROM? The LG camera is actually pretty good, and works perfectly in the factory ROM. Same can't be said with the latest Google Camera, whose over-simplification I never liked. It seems that Google's been placing function behind looks, and it's just annoying. CM11 camera works though, but no HDR. Just wondering, in case that apk is lying somewhere. Thanks.
 
Masterchief said:
You could also try Viperdink's kk mini which is based on this ROM with a few modifications.
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Cool, will look into that next. Right now I'm just trying to find a stable KK to get things started. CM11 was so not it, and by comparison this is so much better. Thanks for the tip. Wasn't sure about the "mini" in the name so I thought I'd start with the "full" version here first. I'll try that next.
 
Some updates: The 4G somehow stopped working (can't remember what happened but maybe a few reboots?) and I had to go into that hidden menu to get it back.
Also I tried to install the original factory ROM camera apk posted on some other thread here, and it wouldn't install. I guess it's not compatible with 4.4?
Something also noteworthy: None of the camera but the Google camera (like the one included in this rom but updated) comes out acceptable. All of them have really fussy and blotchy results, some even terrible white balance, or cropped picture despite showing 4.9MP in the settings. I've tried so far:

  • CM11 Camera2 (looks cropped despite 4.9mp. crashes when try to save to SD card. image quality bad no matter what setting)
  • Xiaomi Mi2 MIUI Camera (also very poor image quality despite settings. turns out it only shoots at 640x480 even with setting at 5MP. no option to save to SD)
  • A Better Camera Pro (works but HDR doesn't look HDR, images are all fussy and crappy. Lots of options, but saving to SD gives "Kitkat doesn't allow saving to SD" error message.
  • CM11 Camera Next (wouldn't boot)

So I guess Kitkat prevents saving to SD card? I wonder if Link2SD can solve that? I have a tone of space on the SD card and it'd be a shame that pictures and videos can't be saved to it, especially because I shoot a lot.

Another thing is that this simply can't run ART, which is a feature in 4.4 and became standard in android L? When I switched to ART, especially with all the apps I've loaded, it says that internal storage is busted, and it switched back to Dalvik automatically. That kinda defeats another purpose of 4.4 for me, because ART does run slightly more responsive on the Nexus 5.
 
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Solved the SD card image save issues with this:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/0...-android-4-4-kitkat-with-sdfix-root-required/
Turned out Google is getting stupid and now banning SD cards to make things "easier". Hate it when you dumb things down and take the fun out for the rest of us. With this change you can save to SD with camera apps that has this feature. Sadly Google's own camera app (again trying to be easy but making everything difficult) has no such option.
Going to try to find a camera app that does this. CM11's Camera app seems to work with this sd card now without crashing, but the frame still looks cropped.

I just realized that to be the problem with that version of Android camera (CM11 Camera2 is modified from that), that the preview is always cropped but the result is full. So this one seems to work well. OpenCamera works GREAT for both photo and video, especially when it comes to exposure and focus controls. The only shortcoming is that there's no HDR or panorama options.
 
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You might wanna try Viperdink's kk mini. Its based on this ROM but has all of the stock LG apps from the European f6. It'll take care of your camera issues and the problems with changing the wallpaper.
It isn't pre rooted but all you gotta do is use towelroot then install whatever superuser app you want.
 
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