Update Meizu Pro 5 Baseband

Mitu

Update for my TD-LTE Pro 5 after a few days of testing:

Reliability: partially improved - 4G signals seems to be present more often and connection drops in the city are less frequent. However it still isn't prefect - I have just saw the "Rejected" note in the message indicator and had to turn on and off the airplane mode - sometimes I still have to do it as well to regain the Internet connection.
Battery life: improved - phone did manage to live for 2 days with the data connection on. It was impossible before. I think that still some significant drops exist, but they don't have to be related to the modem.

I'll try testing the wi-fi now to check whether the battery drain is acceptable.

What is still to be tested is the radio signal at the remote areas but I haven't moved away from the city recently. So far I think this radio should definitely be included in the future Ubports updates.

Mitu

Wi-fi: not improved - battery still won't hold a day with both wi-fi and mobile data on.

tera

I have to agree with @Mitu after a week usage, it feels more stable at home but definitively not better while travelling

halucigenia

I followed the instructions in the OP
/usr/share/ofono/scripts/list-modems | grep Revision
now gives
Revision = S333_M86_20171221_CHNOPEN_MZt04
Revision = S333_M86_20171221_CHNOPEN_MZt04
The first time I ran that I thought it had hung - you have to be patient.

I live in a fairly remote area in a house with thick stone walls so getting a mobile signal has always been a challenge. However, recently I have noticed that I get a better 4G signal from a 4G router that I have that provides faster internet for me than my telephone landline broadband, so I was hoping to get better reception on my phone too, especially after upgrading it.

After the reboot I still couldn't get reliable reception from my study at home, but I never have using any of my UT devices, so that's not an issue. However, even if I switch flight mode off and back on again to get a signal at the window where I usually can get a signal I got no signal.

Outside where I usually get a strong signal I had to reboot again before I got a signal at all.

I just hope that it makes the reception better in general when there is a strong signal.
Time will tell I will report back with my findings.

Are there any apps or command line tools to check 3g/4g signal strength?

tera

I went ahead and updated all ril from the flyme6 archive provided by @Stefano, will report if any improvements...

HendriXXX

@halucigenia

You can monitor mobile signal strength with following way..

Open terminal
$ cd /usr/share/ofono/scripts/
$ watch -n 1 './list-modems | grep Strength'

Bigger numbers = better signal.

halucigenia

@hendrixxx Thanks, I will try that.

I still had to toggle flight mode to get a signal on my way to work this morning.

Stefano

@tera there are 2 or more hadware types of Pro 5. LTE and TD-LTE.
LTE (International) I have now, gives me no trouble, but when I had TD-LTE, it was a hell. Service always denied, unregistered, no matter what I did with it. Even on Flyme it was problematic. So it might not be just a software (ril), but most likely the modem itself. I read somewhere that those TD-LTE has some other, cheaper component (modem, some other chip or whatever) and it was designed for China network, so that's why is problematic outside of China. I'm not sure if that's true though.
I hope I'm wrong and this bug can be solved for you guys.

mihael

I have the TD-LTE and it's not that bad.

Stefano

@mihael so probably is the Meizu Quality control very bad as clearly some devices are ok and some not

halucigenia

Mine is a TD-LTE too, it has its problems but it's not "hell".

aenima

mine is a TD-LTE (ubuntu edition) and it's not hell too . The main problem is the 4g frequence of 700 or 800Mhz used in France and not supported by the pro5 (is it the case for the LTE too?)

Stefano

@aenima Yeah, the 700 and 800 are not supported on LTE as well. Well, it must be a hardware fault then, cos I don't see how could the same software run on same type/product/hardware has such a huge difference. Clearly Meizu let slip some devices through Q. Control.

tera

I had a disastrous week in London, unable to perform calls unless de-activating data (took me a while to figure that one out) and dropping back to 2G indoor between others...

Reading more online, i noticed that XDA thread https://forum.xda-developers.com/meizu-pro-5/development/meizu-pro5-baseband-17-08-2017-t3667799 mentioning better signal with this firmware version:

Revision = S333_M86_20161109_CHNOPEN_MZ041

So to summarize, i'm now trying the following:

Updated rils from http://xep.8800.org/pro5/ flyme6_ril.zip (well, how to check their versions?)
Modem version above from https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=73866639&postcount=7

As i personally swim in unknown water, it would be great to know how to build that android lxc image from scracth, i could only find this interesting deck online: https://elinux.org/images/c/cf/Ubuntu_Touch_Internals_1.pdf

tera

Hi All,

It has been a while with no update here on my side, i do not consider the Pro5 usable anymore, especially professionally, and currently testing a Fairphone 2 and a Nexus 5 for which the signal is definitively better.

In parallel, when time allows, i have slowly started looking into re-building Halium on Android 7.1 for Meizu Pro5... do not hesitate to ping if you are working on something similar

Peace,
Tera