Are we forgetting the little bugs?
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I write this in the hope that it does not offend anyone and that it is just taken as a question.
Are we forgetting the little bugs in the race to something greater? Each time I download and install a new update, I hope that one of the old bugs (legacy) ones are fixed, but they do not seem to be.
These are a few examples of the issues I know about, I am sure other people have more that they hope will be fixed with every release. One PlusOne double boot on startup, camera not zooming, having to spend 5 to 10 times turning on hotspot before it does come on, unable to increase system text size, browser not working, needing a computer phd to set up a vpn, the last system update install date changing every time you check for a new update and so on.
I know we are a community made up of users who do it for the love of it, like I use UT because I love it, but at the moment there is no way UT can be my daily phone.
Like I say I do. Other want to upset anyone with this post as I am so grateful that UT Is still alive, but we really need to look at some of the older bugs, that are still giving us pain.
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I read your post and I felt your pain, which is mine too. I agree with you with the fact that many little bugs ( some of the bugs you reported don't seem to me very little BTW) could have been tackled before. However, we are a small community, and only a bunch of devs among all the community people are active in the development and we cannot expect miracles from them. For this reason, personally I'm struggling to find my way to help the development to improve, with the goal to start from the little bugs. I'm not a dev, I know some coding languages, but never developed for a phone OS. Like me, other people are trying to ride the same route with similar objectives. In the end, in my humble opinion, something is moving in the background, and maybe soon (that's my hope!) there will be self-taught devs who will be able to make this OS always better and better. For all the interested people, we have a discussion group on matrix named Bootcamp, where all the beginners are more than welcome
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@ukphil No one will be offended we all want Ubports to be the absolute best it can. That's why we're all here after all. These bugs are all being targeted and worked on. You can find bug trackers etc. on github, I'm on mobile only so it's a bit hard to sort out the links. The next OTA has I think 12 fixed issues and 5 to go and is due around the 12th of this month. If you can check out the issues have a look at the ubports milestones and github see if you can help even if its just confirming an issue. Every little bit helps. : )
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I think the main issue here is your false assumption that these things you've mentioned are all somehow "little" bugs. Not one of the issues you mentioned is by any means so trivial as your question suggests. Rather, I would say the little bugs keep getting fixed, because they are little. It's the big ones that are hard to fix and will take much time, such as all the things you've mentioned here.
You're also talking about a whole product which went from having around 200 full time developers/designers/QA/etc… down to having only a handful of volunteers who spend any significant amount of time on the project, most of whom are picking up the pieces and still don't understand how every little project fits together with every other project that makes up the whole. There are only one or two people working on the product anywhere near close to full time now.
So yes, it's going to take quite some time to get all of these quite large issues resolved, even more so for ones that are device specific (as several of your mentioned concerns are).
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... and, as far as I'm aware, it's still the most developed Linux OS for touch screen devices there is.
(It's my only phone.)
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@ukphil it is not easy to decide which bugs are being done in the next OTA and which not. In some way we must decide this from time to time, and those are not easy decisons.
But a few things are strange in your list:
- Double boot on OPO? Never had this, I use an OPO now for over 1 year, and its a smooth experience.
- Browser? See OTA-5, the new morph browser is in beta with the testers, and is the big change for this update.
- System update date is fixed in the next OTA.
So 2 of the things you mentioned are actually planned for in a few weeks, and one is new to me. That brings a better light on your demands
BR
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@flohack that is great news that two things are on the way and I look forward to seeing them.
Yes I have that issue all the time on my phone and sometimes I have the reboot on closing the phone (not pressing restart).
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@ukphil said in Are we forgetting the little bugs?:
Yes I have that issue all the time on my phone and sometimes I have the reboot on closing the phone (not pressing restart).
This sounds similar to something I occasionally have on both Android and Ubports:
It's a soft reboot - just the android container reboots not the entire system.
Seems to be triggered sometimes by turning the screen on and off with the power button and at other times I don't know what caused it.It's rare enough that I haven't taken the time to try and investigate it yet.
My first guesses are that it might be radio firmware related (I've only tried a couple) or maybe an old battery that is dropping voltage when the phone tries to power on or off multiple modules?
@UKPhil does this sound similar to the problem you mentioned?
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@ukphil Perhaps your reboot issue is a hardware problem then? Does OPO have similar power button issues to Nexus 5? Over time the power button starts to fail, and will sometimes stick in the wrong state causing reboot loops and such.
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Must admit I've had no reboot issue so far on my OPO on dev 16.04, and its second hand and not in the best nick case wise. Power button feels much better than on my nexus 5 which do feel quite flimsy. As @dobey said that is most likely to be the issue rather than Ubports itself.
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@dobey It is not a button issue as I use the screen to close it, so that makes me think it is software. True it could be a hdd issue though, but the rest of the phone is fine.
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@edc I have cut down most of the software on my phone to ensure that this was not the case, but in saying that, I may of missed something.
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@flohack I have, on my OPO, double boot on startup too
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@rocky58 thanks for commenting on this and confirming that you have the double boot and close down on your OPO. At least now I know that it is not just mine and that there is no hardware issue my side.
I had this happen again last night when I closed it down. The phone rebooted after closing it down via the System > Shut Down option.
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Hi all,
Valuable discussion, I think. I would concur with the comments above.
I also have OPO (16.04 dev channel) with occasional double boot. In my experience, the main issue by far is constant wifi drop-outs that make the phone unusable at home. But most people don't experience that problem so it won't be fixed.
Both these bugs are clearly not systematic and hard to reproduce, so we (user impacted) have to run investigations and provide more clues.
I don't think any of us is expecting miracles from a team with little resources. What I would hope is that people in the community would give me some guidance to investigate the bugs I am experiencing. This is where users (like me) that are not real devs, still can help improve the product... -
@truscellino This is exactly how we who are not devs can all help as you said. By helping each other trying to solve things and maybe helping point the people with the knowhow in the right direction on these annoying problems.
I still haven't had a double boot on the OPO so can't help there. As for wifi the only time I've had an issue was at the local hospital which has different wifi all over the place. Their free wifi keeps dropping out every time you move as what I guess are numerous signals of equal or stronger strength kick in. At home no issue with 5 signals show, hospital had over 12 at one time and had issues. Guess you've tried renaming your two channels to make them stand out from the wifi noise. -
One thing that I did think of yesterday with the double boot when closing, could it be my big fingers and the lines between the power off and restart being close together. So actually when I think I am clicking power off my finger is accentually clicking restart without me knowing?
So if this is the case would the power off and restart buttons be better slightly further apart? May be a very quick fix for what could be a user error....
This does not explain the double boot on start up though.
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@ukphil To clear that bit up when switching off just press and hold the power button till the screen goes black. Theres no buzz by the way when switching off.
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@lakotaubp held the power button down for a bit of time, the phone rebooted and then did a double boot up.
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@ukphil When double booting what screen order do you get? I get on start up hold power button till buzz. Then One plus screen followed by UbuntubToch screen, then ubuntubtouch screen with five dots (goes through dots twice) then boots through to sim pin screen and thats it. When yours double boots does it go right back to the One plus screen. I don't have an answer just curious to know whats happening.
When powering off with the power button then yours reboots on its own if you release the power button as soon as th screen goes blank after the switch off, reboot, cancel screen.Again just so I can understand what is happening as,I cannot reproduce this.
