Bounty for Pixel 3a/Halium 9 stability
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Bought a refurbished Pixel 3a XL and successfully installed Ubuntu Touch on the device.
UK based - standard phone calls seem to be working
I've documented my steps here: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/6396/pixel-3a-xl-experience
But we should converge all documentation in one central section. It's not been easy for me to install it at all. I worried I irreversibly crashed it at some point.
I'd be keen to help with any sort of development, so will see if I can find some resources or maybe join the Telegram group.
The state of art is "huuuuuge potential, lack of everything" at the moment. If you consider I rarely use the phone to make audio only calls, there is a lot of work to do.
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Good news! Over the last few days we enabled initial support for SMS & MMS on the Pixel 3a & 3a XL on US carriers. A bunch of other fixes made it into the current release candidate to perfect it but this is the big one.
SMS work reliably on 4G now and MMS partially work (lacking proper Group MMS support right now). The phone doesn't trip off the carrier with its incomplete IMS support too.
If you want to make sure you can reliably receive MMS please make sure your APN settings are compatible, either by changing the settings or, if the system-settings GUI doesn't work, by editing the
/var/lib/ofono/<number>/gprsfile manually, or by disabling the Internet APN completely. Staying off WIFI is also reported to work reliably. -
@fredldotme Wait, do you mean better stability for the AT&T and T Mobile support we've already had for a while, or do you mean VoLTE support for UT to work on Verizon?
My main plan is with Verizon so I got a cheap pre-paid to mess around with on AT&T, but does Verizon now work on Pixel 3a with UT?
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@heyspencerb sorry to disappoint, but I don't think anything has changed regarding Verizon (lack of) compatibility. The AT&T and T-Mobile support, up until the fixes @fredldotme mentions, are for US users who would not get incoming SMS reliably (ONE would come per boot, but then it turns out once the phone advertized it could handle "IMS" then the carrier switched over to delivering SMS via IMS, which in UT meant they went into a black hole: disabling IMS on the phone means the carriers still send SMS the "old school way" and they reliably come).
Also, at least for several of us, we would not be able to receive or send MMS. Part of this was confusion on setting up APN entries, and some bugginess in the APN gui etc. But with a bit of tinkering with APN entries it is working reliably for us now (but NOT with wifi enabled, only when on cellular data). There is a separate bug about MMS not working when wifi is on, this is not just for the Pixel 3a.
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@rik Totally, makes sense, I've been following the progress of VoLTE and I was thinking this was a pretty big step forward all of a sudden. Still, good to hear! I'll try out my new AT&T sim when I get home and see how it goes!
Was a bounty ever set up for the VoLTE? If so I'd like to contribute if I can
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@heyspencerb See last weeks UBPorts Blog Q&A. UBPorts is asking for steady contributions to pay for the work regarding VoLTE
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@rocket2nfinity Thanks, I just set up a 10 euro per month donation like they asked for.
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Pixel 3a XL here on development channel. Cricket wireless. After mixing and matching multiple apn solutions to get mms working, I figured I'd share my fix. Hopefully it'll save someone the heartache I just went through, haha.
WIFI off
2g/3g/4g connection type
APN stuff. Modify existing two and save
-Cricket Internet-
Used for
Internet
Name
Cricket Internet
APN
Endo (think this was the main fix from default ndo)-Cricket MMS-
Used for
MMS
Name
Cricket MMS
APN
ndo
MMSC
http://mmsc.aiowireless.net
Proxy
192.168.196.78I believe changing the Cricket Internet to Endo helped with a conflict of both mms and internet being stock set to ndo? Not sure, but that was the last thing I tried before giving up, and it started working.
Hope that helps -
Update. Everything worked. Everything. Now it appears to be denied access. Sigh.
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Apparently the verizon access point cell booster in the faraday cage-like place I work kicked me. Walked outside and got it back.
So the fix works so far! Just not the darn access point here. Will play more with it.
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Further update. With no changes, the access point now accepts me. I guess I was initially kicked for being a suspicious new device? Idk how those devices work. Stable now, though.
So with further testing, it seems you can swap ndo and Endo interchangeably between Cricket Internet and Cricket MMS, as long as they're one or the other, and not both the same.
Initial testing sees slightly faster speeds with ndo on Internet, but the ip address location isn't accurate. Which is actually kind of a good thing imo
Also, I changed the MMS entry to mirror the cricket website apn settings.
So my current loadout on Release Candidate branch is this
-Cricket Internet-
Used for
Internet
Name
Cricket Internet
APN
ndo-Cricket MMS-
Used for
MMS
Name
Cricket MMS
APN
Endo
MMSC
http://mmsc.aiowireless.net
Proxy
proxy.aiowireless.net
Proxy port
80Sorry if this is all total common knowledge, but I couldn't find a straight answer for my particular situation. Here are my findings. Hope they help someone
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Wish I could get MMS to work, but only MMS does atm. Red Pocket GSMA service on GP3a.
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@melu9wuv Meant to write that SMS works, but not MMS.
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@melu9wuv I would definitely look into your apn settings and how they apply in ubuntu touch. Maybe what worked for me would work for you? Loosely adapted principle of my fix, I doubt your apn settings would look the same as mine
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@esoteric I will look at them again and see if I can mimic your process with red pocket...the difficulty I find is whether to use RP or AT&T (base carrier) settings.
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@melu9wuv I would go with red pocket's, but you may have a bit of testing ahead. Post any good fixes you find for others. Very niche problem that specific answers would be nice to find
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@melu9wuv im getting sms and mms on red pocket (at&t) here's my apn settings
MMS
Name: Red Pocket
APN: PRODATA
MMSC: http://mmsc.mobile.att.net
Proxy: 172.26.39.1
Proxy Port: 80Internet
Name: Red Pocket
APN: PRODATA -
I'm trying to get MMS going on a new install. Trying the developer channel. Using Google Fi SIM card. This works well in my Nexus 4, and apparently MMS works there. In my Pixel 3a, though, it automatically sets the carrier as Google Fi but the APN settings have two T-Mobile entries. I have the known problem that I cannot add another APN, however if I edit one of the T-Mobile entries and name it Google it creates a third one! However, when I set that for Internet and MMS, it always changes itself back to Internet only.
Another thing is that I cannot edit /var/lib/ofono files. Permission denied. The directory is user "radio" and rw only for that user, so user phablet cannot cd there.
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@lsitongia said in Bounty for Pixel 3a/Halium 9 stability:
Another thing is that I cannot edit /var/lib/ofono files. Permission denied. The directory is user "radio" and rw only for that user, so user phablet cannot cd there.
System files on Ubuntu Touch are, for security reasons, read only by default.
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@keneda fredldotme suggested editing those files directly, previously in this thread. Does that explain why we cannot add a new APN, because the files are not writable?
