Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drives You Mad

mariogrip

Hey everyone,

Starting a new bug fixing project for Ubuntu Touch called Smooth Edges (name pending). The idea is simple: fix the bugs that make people give up on UT or prevent them from trying it in the first place.

The Problem
Look, we all know Ubuntu Touch has rough edges. Some bugs are annoying. Some make daily use frustrating. And some make people pull out their old Android phone after a week. We need to fix those bugs first. I'm not talking about theoretical issues or edge cases that affect small amount of users. I mean the stuff that actually stops UT from being a usable daily driver.

How This Works
Instead of just going through the bug tracker randomly, we're prioritizing based on impact. Two questions:

What bugs stop people from switching to Ubuntu Touch?
What bugs make current users switch away?

Simple as that. Real-world impact over everything else.

Priority Levels
Breaking bugs down into 5 categories:

Priority 1: Core System Stuff - Boot loops, crashes, phone completely unusable. Fix immediately.

Priority 2: Basic Phone Features - Calls, SMS, WiFi, Bluetooth, notifications, camera. If these don't work, it's not really a phone.

Priority 3: Daily Use - Browser crashes, app store issues, keyboard problems, file management. The stuff you hit every day.

Priority 4: Polish - Like those tiny contact navigation arrows that are impossible to see. UI glitches. Things that make UT feel unpolished.

Priority 5: Nice to Have - Advanced features, edge cases, stuff that matters to specific users.

QtWebEngine Upgrade
This is a big one. The browser affects almost everything you do on a phone. We're planning to upgrade QtWebEngine, which should improve a ton of daily use cases.

Finding the Bugs, We're looking at:

Forum posts, support tickets, social media complaints
Comparing UT to Android/iOS to see what's missing
Actually using UT as a daily driver (dogfooding)
Testing

Timeline (really rough estimate)
Roughly 20 weeks broken into phases:
Weeks 1-2: Figure out what needs fixing and how bad it is
Weeks 3-10: Fix the critical stuff (Priority 1 & 2), start planning the QtWebEngine upgrade
Weeks 11-18: Fix daily use bugs (Priority 3), get QtWebEngine upgrade done
Weeks 19-20: Test everything, make sure we didn't break anything

What Success Looks Like

No critical bugs in stable releases
Phone features that just work
You can actually use UT daily without workarounds
People stop complaining about the same issues
UT becomes a real option vs Android/iOS

Not shooting for perfection, just want UT to be solid enough that you'd recommend it to someone.

Need Your Help
This only works if the community gets involved:

Tell us what's broken - What bug almost made you quit UT? What stops you from daily driving it?
Report bugs properly - Help us reproduce issues
Test fixes - Volunteer to test updates
Spread the word - Help gather more feedback

Tracking Progress
We'll measure:

Crash rate
Number of Priority 1-3 bugs
Boot time, battery life, app performance
Community feedback (less complains = winning)

So What Do You Think?
What bugs are driving you nuts? What would it take for you to daily drive UT? Drop your thoughts below.

gpatel-fr

@mariogrip said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drives You Mad:

make people give up on UT or prevent them from trying it in the first place

IMO these are very different points.
First point concerns advanced users who are trying advanced features.

Second, not so much. Here is where 'polish' has a much more important ranking than fourth. It's first I think. A phone is a status object, if you show it off to someone you must not have any reservation. If the someone points at an obvious defect on the screen, you are stuffed :-). Now on my Fairphone 5, the general first approach is very good: one can feel that good designers have worked on it. However, since the designers have worked, things have moved: the FP5 has a rounded screen, and there is a notch for the front camera. As a result the upper task bar is not displayed correctly.
This could be shown as a mere detail, however it can block an influencer to want to dedicate a part of one of their show to UT. Or worse, it can be part of a dressing down. We have a saying in my country: the first impression is alsways the good one, when it's bad.
I know that this is worked on, however there is only one developer, and it's a feature more difficult to get right that it may appear, so it's not yet there. I certainly would hate to make this appear as putting pressure on this person. All I am saying that it's more important for new users than setting wifi on or off randomly rebooting the phone.

Another pain point for first users is the installer. Again, it's mostly good software. There is some good design. However for an installer, it's not enough to get to 95% right. The last 5% of polish are enough to get or stop many thousands of potential users around the block. Even the last 1% toward perfection is very important. I have used it and my first try blocked the phone. I had assumed the process was hanged and I pressed on the continue button displayed on the phone. Bad move, that cost me a reflashing of Android. Could it have been avoided ? Possibly with some appropriate warning on the installer screen. Another gripe I remember is the displaying of raining arrows. I'd hasard after having completed a successful install, that the meaning for the developer of this feature was 'downloading in process'. Well, at the time I was baffled and did not understand what was happening.

domubpkm

Hello

@mariogrip said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drives You Mad:

QtWebEngine Upgrade

Hello Marius.
The work of all the developers contributing to Noble is titanic! Thanks for everything!

There are many bugs that annoy people and may deter them from continuing with UT.

But despite all these drawbacks, in my opinion (although it is not immediately blocking for me because I do otherwise), updating QtWebEngine and Morph-browser must be an absolute priority, because without an up-to-date browser, we don't do much! And I know there's a lot of work going on on it. My encouragement.

Mario.CH

Hi @mariogrip,

Thank you very much for all the work done by everyone involved to date.

Your suggestion in “Priority Levels” is sufficient for me, i.e. all telephone functions and Bluetooth are very important to me.
So:

VoLTE
SMS/MMS replacement RCS Rich Communication Services
The device port maintenance information is also very important, not just a note such as → Last commit on 10/4/2025, but also why or for what.
The backup function should be included in the UT installer, or at least a tutorial or other instructions.

That's what I would like to see.

Greetings Mario
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Ida_

This is an awesome initiative! I really love the idea, and how you see the potential in every community member to help with this project.

The one thing that gets me again and again is the keyboard crashing while I'm in an ongoing chat/SMS-exchange. That one really gets my pulse going.