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Root [ROM] Sleipnir v2.4.0.5 - 10/24/13 - VM & SPRINT

saidiadude said:
Wow, very sorry to hear about your job loss. Everything else is secondary, so take care of your family. Best wishes for finding a new job, coming your way!

Sorry to hear about your phone as well. This is going to hurt us much more than you as we will lose a very talented and gracious developer :-(

- Great news about the GPS - thanks very much for digging further. Hope it works out as you've described under the best case scenario.

- Text message app: I'm using the generic one that came with Sleipnir. I'll try ChompSMS as you suggested. Would it be worth putting Chomp in your Sleipnir build?

Once again, sorry to hear about the job loss. Take care of yourself and your family.

BTW, Cyanogen just received some funding. I'm sure they'd love to hire a talented developer such as you, especially after they see your track record on this ROM (hint hint if anyone from Cyanogen is reading this post).
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I appreciate the suggestion and the kind words, thank you :)

I had a hunch that the (slightly modified) stock MMS.apk might have been the issue. It doesn't handle group messages well, and I have considered switching it out for something else.

With regard to development, I still intend to support and finish what I've started with the Optimus Elite, no worries there :) When the magical power of water had it out with my OE, it lost, and that was a couple weeks just after pretty much everywhere stopped carrying units. Dang-it.

Feel free to test out v2.4.0.4 with the GPS update, and let me know how it goes - it's out now (though I'm a little mystified that the title of the thread didn't update, even though I can see that I edited it and saved the changes correctly) :)

On that note, there are a few other changes I made over time as well. There's a full list in the changelog :)

redace said:
I have been using Hello as an alternative and the best one i have found without adding tons of bloat. It also has a unique tabs for msgs and best of all, it combines messages that are disjointed in regular messaging app
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hellotext.hello&hl=en
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At a glance that looks pretty awesome - I'll check it out :)
 
One small request. In stock version of the rom, the battery icon in the status bar shows when it is charging, sleipnir does not although it has the feature of showing battery percentage. Can that be added?
 
redace said:
One small request. In stock version of the rom, the battery icon in the status bar shows when it is charging, sleipnir does not although it has the feature of showing battery percentage. Can that be added?
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I'll add that to the changelog - proper charging animation is in v2.4.0.4, I just looked through both framework-res.apk and SystemUI.apk to confirm that the proper charging icons are there :)
 
I just noticed the new birthday image of Sleipnir on the first page of this thread :-)

Installed 2.4.0 a few minutes ago. The GPS lock on IN MY HOUSE was 3 seconds!!! Unbelievably fast! Artine, your work and dedication is amazing. Thanks so much for fixing this issue. With this fix, this has to be the best ROM out there for newbies to upgrade to.

BTW, I noticed that upon boot, the text read "AUTUMN" - any particular reason?

Just noticed a bug: Notifications not showing up at the top (Text msg or email). Can't see battery icon, etc either. Looks like entire top row is not there.
 
saidiadude said:
I just noticed the new birthday image of Sleipnir on the first page of this thread :-)

Installed 2.4.0 a few minutes ago. The GPS lock on IN MY HOUSE was 3 seconds!!! Unbelievably fast! Artine, your work and dedication is amazing. Thanks so much for fixing this issue. With this fix, this has to be the best ROM out there for newbies to upgrade to.

BTW, I noticed that upon boot, the text read "AUTUMN" - any particular reason?

Just noticed a bug: Notifications not showing up at the top (Text msg or email). Can't see battery icon, etc either. Looks like entire top row is not there.
Click to expand...

That's great news about GPS! It appears as though my hunch when editing the file was correct :-)
Hopefully the signal remains strong like it did on v2.4.0.3; it sounds like we might have the best of both worlds finally.

Thank you very much for the feedback - that sounds like the bug I encountered when trying to get CM swipe notifications to work. I'll get on that immediately! As for "Autumn", that was the boot animation for me when running test builds - easier to tell the versions apart when flashing back and forth between builds. I had left that in there by mistake, I'll have that fixed ASAP.

EDIT: Done and... done! v2.4.0.5 is up and ready for testing. Both of those issues should now be taken care of :)
 
Just downloaded and installed 2.4.0.5. Notifications are now visible again. Battery icon is green/white though but I have an older version of BlackIce - not sure if this is a bug.

Looks great! Will report back as I use it a bit more. Many thanks for the quick turn around.

Edit: Pardon the Noob question, but how do I delete a theme? I'd like to remove BlackIce and play with the default included in Sleipnir (to help out with identifying bugs). Is there a way to temporarily disable it or is it better to delete it entirely considering that I do plan on installing it again after a days or so (or after StarkRaving releases his final version)?

Edit 2: GPS not locking on as quickly at 2.4.0.4? I tried it a few times at lunch and it seems to be a lot slower to lock on. Were there any changes to the GPS files between 2.4.0.4 and 2.4.0.5?

Edit 3: GPS exhibiting strange behavior. Sometimes it locks on super fast (2 or 3 sec). Other times, it takes 30+seconds. Still much faster than the 50+ seconds that we were seeing originally. As an aside, battery icon is back to blue now after I rebooted the phone.
 
saidiadude said:
Just downloaded and installed 2.4.0.5. Notifications are now visible again. Battery icon is green/white though but I have an older version of BlackIce - not sure if this is a bug.

Looks great! Will report back as I use it a bit more. Many thanks for the quick turn around.

Edit: Pardon the Noob question, but how do I delete a theme? I'd like to remove BlackIce and play with the default included in Sleipnir (to help out with identifying bugs). Is there a way to temporarily disable it or is it better to delete it entirely considering that I do plan on installing it again after a days or so (or after StarkRaving releases his final version)?

Edit 2: GPS not locking on as quickly at 2.4.0.4? I tried it a few times at lunch and it seems to be a lot slower to lock on. Were there any changes to the GPS files between 2.4.0.4 and 2.4.0.5?

Edit 3: GPS exhibiting strange behavior. Sometimes it locks on super fast (2 or 3 sec). Other times, it takes 30+seconds. Still much faster than the 50+ seconds that we were seeing originally. As an aside, battery icon is back to blue now after I rebooted the phone.
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Between .0.4 and .0.5, I only changed out SystemUI.apk and framework-res.apk, the GPS.conf file is the same as it was in .0.4. That does sound a bit strange with the lock-on behavior, I do agree. To get a lock-on, it does of course depend on the weather and area you're in (that's what I've noticed, anyway) - though I'll take another look at the file :) One thing I have noticed on XDA with regard to GPS file changes, is "letting Android learn the new GPS file" (a quote from the many posts about modifications to it on XDA, lol). This entails clearing the AGPS data, which can be done through the GPS Status app easily by hitting the menu key -> Tools -> Manage A-GPS state, then leaving Android connected to GPS for about ten minutes. Mileage may vary.

With regard to the theme, it's replacing a few files in /system. After flashing Sleipnir over it, the theme should be erased and will need to be applied again, because /system is wiped and then written to afterwards. Glad to hear that a reboot solved that mystery :)

EDIT: FWIW, mileage may vary and even on stock, out of the box, GPS can take its sweet time to get a lock on. In very cloudy weather, it sometimes took me upwards of ten minutes while driving around to get a lock-on. That, and it also depends on what satellites, and how many, you're connected to as well (for the numbers, GPS Status has a nice showcase). Fortunately, though, with the edits that have been made the efficiency has gotten a boost, which should help with the timing (speed) of lock-ons and strength of lock as well :)
 
Thanks Artine. The GPS was having trouble locking on in perfect conditions. Clear skies, large parking lot, plenty of satellites in range. Strangely enough, it would lock on quickly at times but would take a long time sometimes. My wife's stock phone would lock on in less than 10 secs every time.

I cleared the AGPS data as you suggested and used it a few times today. It seems to be working fine and usually locks on 3 secs or so. I still get the occasional delay but it's much better now (down to 10 secs or so). I can certainly live with this small delay and am very satisfied with the fix you provided. Your hard work is appreciated :-)

Another issue popped up, but I'm not sure if this is a Sleipnir issue. The GPS doesn't state street names anymore. Example, instead of stating 'turn left on abc street', the instructions are now 'turn left'. Anyone else notice this? I'll check the stock ROM on my wife's phone tomorrow to see if it's a Google issue.

Major bug in GPS (I mentioned this on the BlackIce thread also): use 'speak destination' and say something generic like 'store'. The menu that pops up: 'Did you say'... is black text on grey. Also happens with text input: 'Did you mean'...

Small bug: battery indicator turns green (from all blue) at around 75%. Not a big deal.
 
saidiadude said:
Thanks Artine. The GPS was having trouble locking on in perfect conditions. Clear skies, large parking lot, plenty of satellites in range. Strangely enough, it would lock on quickly at times but would take a long time sometimes. My wife's stock phone would lock on in less than 10 secs every time.

I cleared the AGPS data as you suggested and used it a few times today. It seems to be working fine and usually locks on 3 secs or so. I still get the occasional delay but it's much better now (down to 10 secs or so). I can certainly live with this small delay and am very satisfied with the fix you provided. Your hard work is appreciated :-)

Another issue popped up, but I'm not sure if this is a Sleipnir issue. The GPS doesn't state street names anymore. Example, instead of stating 'turn left on abc street', the instructions are now 'turn left'. Anyone else notice this? I'll check the stock ROM on my wife's phone tomorrow to see if it's a Google issue.

Major bug in GPS (I mentioned this on the BlackIce thread also): use 'speak destination' and say something generic like 'store'. The menu that pops up: 'Did you say'... is black text on grey. Also happens with text input: 'Did you mean'...

Small bug: battery indicator turns green (from all blue) at around 75%. Not a big deal.
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Ah, so all that was needed was for Android to learn the new file - that's great! Hopefully the strength of the lock-on was improved as well to truly get the best of both worlds. It can take some time to link up with the satellites, so the time naturally varies a bit, but ten seconds sounds ideal to me too as a maximum :)

With regard to the street names, did your navigation app of choice just get an update? It sounds like that may have been the case, as I'm not sure why else the street names would be omitted since the audible feedback is based on the data being received, like your position, the length of the street, and the street's name. It's been a month or so since I last had to use Google Maps myself, so I'm not sure if in any recent update Google might have nixed the speaking of the street names.

As for the speaking of destination, and getting that weird menu coloring, v2.4.0.5 uses the same framework-res.apk as v2.4.0.3 does, and the only thing I can remember having modified with the SystemUI.apk between the versions is the adding in of the quick link to System Settings in the notifications panel. In other words, the the UI, menus, colors, etc., should be identical to how they were in v2.4.0.3. Whether it's an issue with my build, or the alternative theme, one way or another we'll get things sorted out :)

About the battery indicator - that's how it was in v2.4.0.3, lol. Quick reference via color and percentage to know approximately where the battery stands - the blue might be a tad odd, admittedly, though there isn't really a better color I could think of once you've used up green, yellow, orange, red, and black, and trying to keep things more or less proportional. I'm always open to suggestions, though :)
 
Hmmm - took 30sec for a lockon this AM but subsequent lockons were fast.

I'm using Google's GPS software and maps. Not sure if either was updated recently. I'll check the timestamp. Edit: can't find time stamp but version is 6.14.4

UI: the bug was there for a while but I reported it on the BlackIce thread only as I thought it was specific to that theme.

Battery indicator: thanks for clearing up the issue. It's fine the way you've set it up.

BTW, just to be clear, I'm not trying to be overly picky but rather trying to contribute in some small way by reporting bugs.
 
saidiadude said:
Hmmm - took 30sec for a lockon this AM but subsequent lockons were fast.

I'm using Google's GPS software and maps. Not sure if either was updated recently. I'll check the timestamp. Edit: can't find time stamp but version is 6.14.4

UI: the bug was there for a while but I reported it on the BlackIce thread only as I thought it was specific to that theme.

Battery indicator: thanks for clearing up the issue. It's fine the way you've set it up.

BTW, just to be clear, I'm not trying to be overly picky but rather trying to contribute in some small way by reporting bugs.
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No worries, things like this should be analyzed; pickiness is where the ideas of improvements come from! This is a community project first and foremost, after all, so I welcome the feedback - it's much appreciated :)

It's interesting to note that Google pushes out different versions of apps for different distros of Android. My girlfriend's OE has the same version of Maps, whereas on my Galaxy Victory I have v7.30 of Google Maps. I don't remember reading anything about Google ceasing Maps support for Gingerbread, but its certainly possible.

I took another look at the GPS.conf file, and I spotted some possible redundancies and other oddities that may be hampering things. I can tell you that at this point, the file is almost identical to the stock one, just with AGPS support for better accuracy, strength, efficiency, and hopefully speed as well. I'll keep looking, but I have a feeling that this newest revision might do the trick (or everything will explode - hopefully not; I just made tea).

Would you be willing to test another build with the newest revision? If so, theme-friendly or odexed for Virgin?
 
Yes, I'd be happy to test another build. I'm currently using the de-odexed version of the VM ROM.

Wifey stepped out, so I can't check the Maps version on her stock ROM at the moment.
 
saidiadude said:
Yes, I'd be happy to test another build. I'm currently using the de-odexed version of the VM ROM.

Wifey stepped out, so I can't check the Maps version on her stock ROM at the moment.
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Appreciate it :)

Here is the link to the test build: DevHost

After the normal installation procedure, I would wipe AGPS data, download new AGPS data, let GPS stay on for ten minutes while Android learns the new file, then you should be good.

Also, I found some good reading material concerning GPS and AGPS :) That can be found here, and here.

I should clarify that by "support" for AGPS, in my earlier post, I meant that AGPS is actually configured. This phone can take advantage of it, and LG left in some partial instructions for how to do so, but by default it doesn't appear to be configured. It also seems that with AGPS, the lock-on time can initially be a little slower, but subseuent lock-ons are faster it seems like this is an inherent property, for which a few additional seconds make sense considering it is also connecting to a server in addition to satellites.

Let me know how that build works for you! Thanks for testing it :)
 
Thanks Artine - downloaded and installed 2.4.0.6, wiped AGPS data, etc.
We'll be out and about tomorrow (Sunday) so I'll field test it and report back on Monday or so :-)
 
Played with the GPS lock on quite a bit. Still have the same issues and the wife's stock ROM was much faster to lock on initially. However, I turned off AGPS (clear data, turn off and reboot just for good measure) and got excellent results. I'll leave AGPS off for now and keep playing with it.

Interestingly enough, street names are still not being stated. Wife's has Maps 6.14.4 and street names are stated.

Edit: deleted Maps and downloaded it again. Street names work now, so that 'bug' has a work around solution. Maps version is still 6.14.4. Very fast system with AGPS off now. Checked with it on quickly and it was still slower than with AGPS off. Will play with it some more. Edit: this changed, see below.

Edit2 Mon nite: More data with batteries at 90%+ charged for 2 phones. Rebooted after each test below. Showing average of 3 tries.
- Stock ROM, no GPS Status (GS) installed: 5 sec to lock on
- Sleipnir, no GS installed: 30 sec
- Sleipnir, GS fresh install, no 'learning' or reboot: 8 sec
- Sleipnir, GS after 10min learning and reboot: 11 sec

Note that I left the default of 1 day for AGPS data download. The times above are very reasonable for Sleipnir. Only problem is that every once in a while, GPS on the Sleipnir ROM takes 30sec+ to look on. I can't find a way to consistently reproduce the conditions that cause this problem (Edit: this changed, see Edit4 below). Note that the stock ROM is pretty consistent at about 5-7 secs. BTW, after the last test on Sleipnir (initial lockon performed) subsequent lock ons are very fast and are in the 2-3sec range.

Edit3 Tue 7 AMish (phones off overnight, tried 1x, not average):
- Stock 8sec
- Sleipner 5sec

Edit4 Tue 9AMish. About 10 miles from home where GPS Status should have last picked up data. Did not have the Stock ROM with me. Large open parking lot, clear skies.
- Sleipner instant lock, no hesitation. Was facing same direction as home (North?)
- Waited 5 minutes and faced opposite direction (South) and blocked North view with my body. Sleipner took 10 seconds to lock on.
- Think I found a way to reproduce the anomalies. Tried an hour later and Maps took about 30 secs to lock on. Fewer satellites in view but Stock ROM had locked on pretty fast in this area before. Reset AGPS data and after download, lockon was just under 10 seconds. Stock ROM seems to pick up signals when there are fewer satellites in view.

If any other anomalies pop up, I'll post them. So far, 2.4.0.6 is running pretty well after I removed and re-installed Maps. I just noticed that an additional GPS like symbol pops up in the status bar at the top when I run Maps (one on the top left and one on the top right). I don't recall seeing 2 of them before I reinstalled Maps. I'm OK with the occasional 30sec hiccup when fewer satellites are in view, although it would be nice to increase the sensitivity so that this time drops to 10-15 seconds (i.e. times comparable to the stock ROM). This situation often comes up when you are driving and there are few satellites in view because of the car roof, direction you face, etc.

Only remaining issue would be the UI bug. In the Maps menu that pops up: 'Did you say'... is black text on grey. Also happens with text input: 'Did you mean'...

As an aside and a general note, I've noticed that our now aging phones don't have the best screens in bright sunlight. The themes have to be of very high contrast to make the phones even more useful (white on black, etc) in sunlight or in the dark (in a car at night, etc). This comment is not aimed at anyone in particular - just an observation.

Sorry about the long post. I've been using it as a log to keep track of the testing :)
 
Thanks for the update!!! I've been having a tough time with 2.4.0.4, constantly slow and crashing non stop. I was just about to give up and switch to a different ROM or back to stock when I saw the update. So far it's been running soo much smoother, thank you, thank you, thank you!

is there a recommended CPU settings app that I should be using?
 
ifytbairz said:
Thanks for the update!!! I've been having a tough time with 2.4.0.4, constantly slow and crashing non stop. I was just about to give up and switch to a different ROM or back to stock when I saw the update. So far it's been running soo much smoother, thank you, thank you, thank you!

is there a recommended CPU settings app that I should be using?
Click to expand...

First page shows the recommended CPU Setting 1612 max and 245 low
 
redace said:
First page shows the recommended CPU Setting 1612 max and 245 low
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I left the default setting and it's been working fine for me. Ifytbairz, I agree, Artine has done a great job with this ROM. He's very responsive to questions and issues brought up and the ROM is rock solid.
 
Artine it wont let me go to tagged.com it always says webpage not available wen it is i check it from my other phone and it comes up
 
Artine, I want to say "thank you" for your hard work and best wishes to you.

I seem can't dl the file. It kept saying missing "plug-in" and "video play". I did not have this problem with 2.4.0.3. Please advise.

Thanks,

KTH
 
Sadly, that's the problem with Send space, etc. You've clicked on the wrong link and it's trying to install malware. Don't install the 'plugin'
 
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