[HowTo] Update baseband & other firmware

livrecinq

@flohack Many thanks for your advice. So I will try manually asap.

flohack

@stefano Currently all ports are running on an Android 5.1 base as I remember.

flohack

@stefano No this is maybe valid for Android but not for UT. When we talk about firmware then its files and drivers written into special partitions that are loaded by kernel drivers during boot. But this is not integrated with the OS at all.

livrecinq

Successfully followed your instructions to manually "update baseband and other firmware" on FP2. I have to test now.

Stefano

@advocatux I tried to update the firmware on Pro 5, latest modem on Flyme is CHNOPEN MZ41
So I flashed Flyme 6, then wiped it, installed UT(16.04)
and I've checked the modem version installed now and it says CHNOPEN MZ 024
So it did not update the modem at all? Should I just flash modem.bin file with Fastboot? Or?

flohack

@stefano I dont know what Flyme is doing in the background, but UT does not flash any firmware right now, so no idea. You can flash it manually but I cannot tell you the right partition name. Be very careful with that, you can brick smth probably if you hit the wrong partition.

Aloys

Hi,
After the upgrade from 15.04 to 16.04 (OTA 5 on FP2), great improvement!
With 15.04, I had many reboot with the browser, this was almost unusable.
After around 3 weeks of use with the 16.04, I did not have any reboot when using the morph browser and the battery consumption is far better when mobile data is enabled (it seems similar to consumption with mobile data off).
I do not known if this improvement is due to 16.04 or to the FP2 firmware upgrade (or both).
I am very happy to use the 16.04, Thanks to all the UBports team !

tera

@stefano On Pro5, all drivers seems/are stored in the Android Container File System whereas the FP2 and N5 have some dedicated partitions for drivers.
That might explain why an Ubuntu reboot during a call on FP2 do not close the call (modem running on its own or something in that direction!).

Luksus

Just want to leave two possibly useful links here:

Firmwarefiles of current FP2 OS release:
https://github.com/WeAreFairphone/modem_zip_generator/releases
Explanation:
https://forum.fairphone.com/t/fp2-modem-firmware/35374

But I am not sure, if the firmware did really change from one release to another...

Ingo

The most recent real change was included in the April 2018 update.

One of the next updates will likely include a change to fix a bug about not being able to turn the phone on while charging.

tommiedom

@flohack nice work! I got the OTA-7 update now. Again a more stable and faster FP2!

Is a firmware update included in this and/or previous OTA updates, or is it still worth it to flash new firmware manually and follow this howto?

flohack

@tommiedom No, I think the firmware update was still held back due to concerns about stability. We cannot risk flashing devices to their digital death

tommiedom

@flohack thnks
[edit] Update worked flawlessly. I had to change usb-port, because fastboot gave a message: waiting for any device... Changing usb-port worked.

My experience so far: no significant improvement. phone still reboots

if typing a text takes a while (half an hour) in browser, signal, sms, etc.
after a while if to many apps are used simultaneously.
Also, sometimes (a couple of times in a month) I find my phone rebooted in the morning.

Don't know if this is FP2-behaviour.

Now, I used the update package as given by @flohack. @Ingo said above that "The most recent real change was included in the April 2018 update." So I expect no improvement from using another more current update package.

RedXXIII

I flashed my FP2 from Android to UT in January 2019. Do I still need to do this manual firmware update?

flohack

@RedXXIII Well if you had a recent Android version with all updates then probably not.

Fla

There is a new firmware at https://github.com/WeAreFairphone/modem_zip_generator/releases since February 2020, did anyone flash it? How did it go?

A Former User

@fla I did it. It works well ! In fact I flashed the entire FP Open OS image before installing Ubuntu Touch, because with Lineage OS making calls was becoming trickier and trickier and I suspect the gap between the firmware and the image is the culprit.

But yes, it works well : I can call reliably, the battery life is longer (but I'm not a heavy user, so does it really count ?), and random reboots are really rare (like, once in six months or so). By the way do you have any news on Android 9 for FP2 ?

Fla

@luna are the instructions in the first post still up-to-date?

Ingo

The download URL in the first post is definitely outdated.

Edit: taking the archive from https://github.com/WeAreFairphone/modem_zip_generator/releases/tag/19.11.2 contains the corresponding images. The naming is slightly different as the image files are called like the partion they're supposed to be flashed to.

A Former User

@fla yes they are. But as previously said, I don't know how those firware images are linked with the Android kernel. You can flash them with the kernel you currently have, but maybe they won't work as reliably as with the kernel in the zip folder... that is what I tend to think. I hope that I'm wrong and it's just my FP2's top module that shows its age, but maybe you're safer with the full image and a clean reinstall of UT.

That implies a backup of your data - a backup of /home/phablet is sufficient for me.