List of bugs I've encountered...

pault

I'm not certain if this is the correct place to log these bugs, but here it goes...

I running Version 75 of UT on a PinePhone, using the "developer" channel. Overall, I'm very happy with what I'm seeing, and do understand that this is a "work in progress".

Here's a list of some key bugs/issues which are making it challenging to use the phone as a daily driver:

As of about two or three builds ago, the text message sort order became extremely awkward. The prior sort order was with oldest messages on top, newest messages on the bottom. With the current build, received messages are in reverse order (above ALL of my responses) at the top of the list, and ALL of my responses are in the normal order at the bottom of the list. What that means is incoming messages are at the very top of the list, and my responses are at the very bottom. I'm sure this is a simple sort order bug that was recently introduced. As simple as this may be, it makes using the system for text messaging very cumbersome.
I recently encountered an issue (with the stable build a while back) where MMS messages (with an image attached) no longer can be sent or received. It is possible that this is an APN configuration issue (I'm using T-Mobile through Ting in the US). I have carefully entered the parameters for the APN using an android phone (as UT does not show/provide access to all of the parameters specified by Ting/T-mobile), then popped the SIM back into the PinePhone. What I've found here is that (1) in order to initiate outgoing phone calls, I need to manually select the 2G/3G option instead of the 4G option (although it works fine for internet and incoming calls, and will sometimes work if I select 2G/3G first, then change it to 4G). (2) I've had better luck setting up two separate APNs (one for Internet, one for MMS) rather than the single, combined APN. The guide I've been following is here
I've tried repeatedly to add an account (generic CALDAV, CARDDAV, and google). When using the "add account" function, I simply see the wheel spin endlessly without any progress.
The music player will not play local files, and goes into an endless loop "discovering" all of the files in my music folder over and over again. When attempting to play a song (either by track, artist, or album), the "discovery" loop starts all over again and the file never plays. However, the "media player" app works as expected.
I believe this is already known, but the gallery function/app doesn't work at all for browsing for photos. It simply displays a white shell with a menu with choices for "photos" and "events".
I'm pretty sure this is a known issue, but the camera functions don't work at all (just displays a black screen with three expected controls at the bottom that don't appear to get anything working).
This may not fall under the UT umbrella, but Dekko is a bit of a trainwreck. When setting up an account, the input is not echoed to the display, unless you use the task switcher then jump back into the app. When an account is finally set up, message headers appear as (mostly) expected, but the message itself is not accessible (using either a standard POP3 or IMAP account).

On the wishlist, it would be great if the Morph browser would implement some option for saving passwords, as it and Tor do a lot of heavy lifting to compensate for broken/missing apps.

Despite all of these issues, I am looking forward to using the PinePhone with UT much more heavily, especially when it is rebased to Debian and more common Linux apps are more easily accessible. Thanks guys for all your hard work getting things working this well.

negations

@pault bug reports are over here I think: https://gitlab.com/ubports/community-ports/pinephone/-/issues

pault

@negations Thanks!

arubislander

Hi @pault,

Thank you for taking the time to list the bugs you found and the things that could be improved. They help advance the project.

@negations beat me to pointing you to the issue tracker. But there are a few other things I would like to mention.

@pault said in List of bugs I've encountered...:

This may not fall under the UT umbrella, but Dekko is a bit of a trainwreck.

Please be more sensitive when expressing your opinion on a piece of software. How would you feel if I were to describe your carefully composed post as a 'trainwreck'?
Dekko is a complicated piece of software that members of the community have gathered around to maintain, improve and expand after the original author was no longer able to do so.
Some (if not all) of the issues you experience using Dekko are due to systemic issues that need to be solved in Ubuntu Touch on the PinePhone. Multi screen applications loose responsiveness when the main screen looses focus. This is a known issue and is being / will be worked on.

@pault said in List of bugs I've encountered...:

especially when it is rebased to Debian and more common Linux apps are more easily accessible.

There are no plans to rebase Ubuntu Touch on Debian. Maybe you are thinking of Mobian, which is another distribution that can be run on the PinePhone. There are plans however to rebase Ubuntu Touch on Ubuntu 20.04.
How this will affect usability of 'common Linux apps' still needs to be determined. But my expectation is that nothing fundamental will have changed compared to now. The root filesystem will still be read-only, and using apt will still be discouraged. The recommended way to install 'common Linux apps' will still be using a Libertine container. It might be possible that more container types (lxd) will become supported, but we will have to wait and see.

pault

@arubislander Thank you for your responses. My comments about Dekko were not intended to disparage the work done on that project. I understand that programming an interface with mail servers is a lot of work; I've done some programming on projects that have to deal with those things. That being said, I do stand by my general point that the software is unusable for me on the PinePhone, forcing me to use Morph or Tor with a web-based interface. I would love to use it, but very fundamental things, such as displaying the content of messages are a dealbreaker. I'm not an expert on the Dekko project; the install on the PinePhone are my first exposure to it. It was a disappointment when basic functionality did not work properly, whether the issue is primarily caused by UT, the PinePhone hardware, Dekko, or some other cause.

I could have sworn I heard on one of the recent UBPorts Q&A podcasts that they were in fact planning to eventually rebase to Debian in the future and unhook as much as possible from the Android base. I could be wrong, but it was a mention that caught my attention, to the point I skipped back to listen more closely a second time.

arubislander

@pault said in List of bugs I've encountered...:

I could have sworn I heard on one of the recent UBPorts Q&A podcasts that they were in fact planning to eventually rebase to Debian in the future and unhook as much as possible from the Android base. I could be wrong, but it was a mention that caught my attention, to the point I skipped back to listen more closely a second time.

Ah, you are probably referring to getting Lomiri (formerly Unity8) which is the UI shell that Ubuntu Touch uses, packaged in Debian. This is an ongoing project, but will not impact the base of Ubuntu Touch being Ubuntu. What it will achieve is that for the packages that get included in Debian, these will (probably) also be included in upstream Ubuntu. This frees up the resources that are now tied up in hosting and maintaining the packages specifically for Ubuntu Touch.

pault

@arubislander Thanks. Well, there's always the hope that Libertine will help fill the gap.

dobey

@arubislander said in List of bugs I've encountered...:

What it will achieve is that for the packages that get included in Debian, these will (probably) also be included in upstream Ubuntu. This frees up the resources that are now tied up in hosting and maintaining the packages specifically for Ubuntu Touch.

Not exactly. Ubuntu Touch still will not follow the Ubuntu release schedule, and these packages will not automatically be uploaded into Ubuntu when Ubuntu Touch needs to make changes (ie, daily builds). This is really only about getting Lomiri usable on normal PCs.

arubislander

@dobey

I stand corrected . Thank you for clarifying.