Trying to revive 'ubtd' (Bluetooth file transfer)

domubpkm

@phandersson ok. I switched to dev channel and i tried to send a (big) file from my Volla 22 with UT to a Volla with volla OS with your last update : it works now. . But i found the transfer speed was very slow. Could it be improve or not ?

projectmoon

@domubpkm there is only so much data you can push over Bluetooth. Bluetooth file transfer will always be slow (sometimes very very slow).

PhAndersson

@domubpkm said:

@phandersson ok. I switched to dev channel and i tried to send a (big) file from my Volla 22 with UT to a Volla with volla OS with your last update : it works now. .

Excellent news -- thanks for the feedback.

But i found the transfer speed was very slow. Could it be improve or not ?

Could you be a bit more specific, please? From what I read online, typical Bluetooth transfer speeds are between 1 and 3 Mbps.

When I tested the app prior to releasing v0.1.1, I measured 1.3 Mbps when pushing a large file from my (Linux) laptop to the phone (Pixel 3a).

Do you get a comparable bandwidth, or something much lower? (to measure it, I simply time the transfer and divide it by the file size).

domubpkm

@phandersson I transferred a RAR file from UT smartphone to another with Volla OS, because no function to decompress RAR on UT. Did not work directly, extension not recognized. On the other hand, workaround by transforming the RAR extension into mp4: ok, worked. Then I put the RAR extension back in, and unzipped it without any problem. Just tested this. Make Ratatoskr recognize various extensions?

domubpkm

@PhAndersson 9 minutes for 130 MB from Volla 22 UT to Volla 22 volla OS.

gpatel-fr

@domubpkm

Well, if my calculation is correct that means about 2Mbits/s, it seems quite decent for Bluetooth.

PhAndersson

@domubpkm said:

@phandersson I transferred a RAR file from UT smartphone to another with Volla OS, because no function to decompress RAR on UT. Did not work directly, extension not recognized. On the other hand, workaround by transforming the RAR extension into mp4: ok, worked. Then I put the RAR extension back in, and unzipped it without any problem. Just tested this.

Thanks for the feedback.

Make Ratatoskr recognize various extensions?

Well spotted -- the main app will accept incoming files of any type, but the SharePlugin only registers itself as handler for a limited number of file types. For no particular reason, as far as I know.

I've created the following issue to track this: https://github.com/petroniusniger/ratatoskr/issues/34

PhAndersson

@gpatel-fr said:

@domubpkm

Well, if my calculation is correct that means about 2Mbits/s, it seems quite decent for Bluetooth.

Agreed.

PhAndersson

@domubpkm said:

Make Ratatoskr recognize various extensions?

I just wanted to give a quick feedback on this request. I initially thought it would be a simple matter of registering the BT SharePlugin for all file types. It turns out it's not as easy as that: as currently written, the ContentHub component of UT doesn't allow that (although it allows it for "destinations", e.g. when using FileManager to "download" a file). To make a long story short, if I register the BT SharePlugin for all file types, it no longer appears for any file type.

I tried another approach, which was to report unknown file types as Documents. This sort of works, but it has two shortcomings:

it only works from inside Ratatoskr, i.e. you could re-share arbitrary files that are already sitting in the app cache, but you could still not use FileManager to share them directly.
now, when sharing a raw binary file from Ratatoskr, the "share with" dialog also offers unsuitable apps like the editor.

Considering this, I'm rather reluctant to implement this "half-baked" workaround. There is already an enhancement request on the ContentHub's Gitlab to "cover all file types for the Share functionality", but it's open since 2021 and doesn't seem to be getting much traction.

lduboeuf

FYI, on 24.04.2 and 26.04 obexd is now auto started