Hi, apologies for the necro, but I wanted to report that I think what the issue might be.

I also have had this issue over the years, and its quite annoying since the phone and messaging apps are very slow, taking a few seconds before they become fully functional.

Last week, while trying to solve an unrelated bug (the one that prevented OTA updates), I accidentally wiped out my phone userdata. I reinstalled ubports to the last OTA, and it was working fast and efficiently.

However, once I put back some backups and logs from the phone, the issue appeared again. I did some detective work and the issue lies when I put back the history.sqlite file with the calls and messaging logs (in .local/share/history-service).

My file is 2.6MB. If I put it there, I get the Initializing... message for a few seconds. If I delete the file, it initializes in less than half a second, the phone is much more responsive.

So my suggestion would be to archive your history.sqlite file (if you care for your phone calls and text messages history) and then delete it if you can afford it, it will solve the issue.

Hope this helps.

Hello everyone, I purchased a Volla X phone with preistalled ubuntu touch.

I did the following configuration steps to get mtp/ad enabled:

• enabled developper mode
• rebooted into fastboot mode with the usb cable connected to my linux debian PC and ran
  fastboot flashing unlock
  to get the usual features like adb terminal access, etc...
• then rebooted again in normal boot mode.

Problems began there, the phone then got stuck in the bootloader (with the splash screen). I thought to myself "OK I must have messed up something, no worries, lets go back to fastboot mode and fire ubports-installer and reinstall ubports".

• I fire the ubports installer, it automatically detects the Volla X, downloads the kernel installs it. The logs are printed below:

info: Welcome to the UBports Installer version 0.8.8-beta!
info: device detected: yggdrasil
info: Installing Ubuntu Touch on your VollaPhone (yggdrasil)
info: configuring...
info: settings: {"channel":"16.04/arm64/android9/stable","wipe":false,"bootstrap":true}
info: Downloading 2 files
info: Downloaded file 1 of 2
info: Downloaded file 2 of 2
warn: aborting run...
info: Downloading 12 files
info: Downloaded file 1 of 12
info: Downloaded file 2 of 12
info: Downloaded file 3 of 12
info: Downloaded file 4 of 12
info: Downloaded file 5 of 12
info: Downloaded file 6 of 12
info: Downloaded file 7 of 12
info: Downloaded file 8 of 12
info: Downloaded file 9 of 12
info: Downloaded file 10 of 12
info: Downloaded file 11 of 12
info: Downloaded file 12 of 12

Problem is after this the installer just got stuck in "waiting for adb debvice" mode, and my phone is completely dark, no amount of pressing the on+volume up/volume down will change anything to this.

So I am assuming I now I am left with a very heavy paperweight? connecting to usb and running fastboot devices does not yield anything in my terminal. I have read around the web that one solution would be to wait for the battery to drain, but how can it drain if the device is dark?

So I don't expect there is any workaround for my case but I just wanted to post my experience to help other people avoid making such an expensive mistake.

Cheers and thank you for listening.

Again, this is a hard brick, the phone is as good as dead no amount of button pressing will bring it back to life and connecting the phone to the PC by USB does not produce any message in dmsg .

I am certainly very annoyed with this course of events, but there is nothing more to do.

The objective of this post is just to report what I did as a word of caution for future owners of this model. DON'T DO what I did, your phone will be hard bricked.

To provide some context: I wanted to unlock fastboot specifically because I was trying to install the patch so that the top rounded corner does not cover the time, and it is much less fastidious to just connect your phone the the pc and type the instructions via adb. Also I was trying to do chmod +x and it was having no result, hence why I tried to unlock fastboot.

Plus I usually use a lot of shell scripts for example to backup my phone home via terminal to my synology workstation, so having a rooted phone is a must for me. I know its not optimal in terms of security, but I'm just a random nobody, so the advantages of having a rooted phone matter to me.

@C0n57an71n , thanks for the tip, I will try to contact the person you mention.

Well no good for the telegram group, I tried to join and a bot told me to press an un-existing button (in teleports) in 30s so now I'm banned and cannot see the channel.

Can someone with access to the telegram group tell me which steps will recover the phone? Much appreciated.

Edit: no need I managed to contact NotKit directly

reposting from an old thread: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/1548/the-first-use-of-the-dialing-program-the-upper-left-corner-is-always-shown-in-the-initialization-why/14

In some situations you can have the phone and messaging apps initialize very slowly (a few seconds) displaying the message "Initializing..." before they allow any interaction.

Also for messaging the browsing of past messages becomes slow and buggy.

I think I might have found the reason for this. Reposting what I said:

*Last week, while trying to solve an unrelated bug (the one that prevented OTA updates), I accidentally wiped out my phone userdata. I reinstalled ubports to the last OTA, and it was working fast and efficiently.

However, once I put back some backups and logs from the phone, the issue appeared again. I did some detective work and the issue lies when I put back the history.sqlite file with the calls and messaging logs (in .local/share/history-service).

My file is 2.6MB. If I put it there, I get the Initializing... message for a few seconds. If I delete the file, it initializes in less than half a second, the phone is much more responsive.

So my suggestion would be to archive your history.sqlite file (if you care for your phone calls and text messages history) and then delete it if you can afford it, it will solve the issue.*

Hope this helps. Its a pity that we can't keep older records in the phone though.

@lakotaubp Can do. Where would this be more appropriate? Doesn't seem to be a model-dependent issue...

Hi, apologies for the necro, but I wanted to report that I think what the issue might be.

I also have had this issue over the years, and its quite annoying since the phone and messaging apps are very slow, taking a few seconds before they become fully functional.

Last week, while trying to solve an unrelated bug (the one that prevented OTA updates), I accidentally wiped out my phone userdata. I reinstalled ubports to the last OTA, and it was working fast and efficiently.

However, once I put back some backups and logs from the phone, the issue appeared again. I did some detective work and the issue lies when I put back the history.sqlite file with the calls and messaging logs (in .local/share/history-service).

My file is 2.6MB. If I put it there, I get the Initializing... message for a few seconds. If I delete the file, it initializes in less than half a second, the phone is much more responsive.

So my suggestion would be to archive your history.sqlite file (if you care for your phone calls and text messages history) and then delete it if you can afford it, it will solve the issue.

Hope this helps.

Well no good for the telegram group, I tried to join and a bot told me to press an un-existing button (in teleports) in 30s so now I'm banned and cannot see the channel.

Can someone with access to the telegram group tell me which steps will recover the phone? Much appreciated.

Edit: no need I managed to contact NotKit directly

To provide some context: I wanted to unlock fastboot specifically because I was trying to install the patch so that the top rounded corner does not cover the time, and it is much less fastidious to just connect your phone the the pc and type the instructions via adb. Also I was trying to do chmod +x and it was having no result, hence why I tried to unlock fastboot.

Plus I usually use a lot of shell scripts for example to backup my phone home via terminal to my synology workstation, so having a rooted phone is a must for me. I know its not optimal in terms of security, but I'm just a random nobody, so the advantages of having a rooted phone matter to me.

@C0n57an71n , thanks for the tip, I will try to contact the person you mention.

Again, this is a hard brick, the phone is as good as dead no amount of button pressing will bring it back to life and connecting the phone to the PC by USB does not produce any message in dmsg .

I am certainly very annoyed with this course of events, but there is nothing more to do.

The objective of this post is just to report what I did as a word of caution for future owners of this model. DON'T DO what I did, your phone will be hard bricked.

@keneda

Simply put, adb was not seeing the phone which means that fastboot wasn't unlocked. This is not my first ubuntu touch phone so I had carried out this procedure in the past with no issues, but it seems I was out of luck with this specific model.

Btw, the phone came with ubports preinstalled.

It seems strange that a hard brick came from using the ubports installer so I was wondering if this could happen to other people switching from the Volla phone android flavor to ubports.

Anyway, I will definitely contact their technical support to see if I can send it back for repair. Its a real bummer though, I'm from Portugal and I just got the phone today, never even got the chance to use it for a single phone call

Hello everyone, I purchased a Volla X phone with preistalled ubuntu touch.

I did the following configuration steps to get mtp/ad enabled:

• enabled developper mode
• rebooted into fastboot mode with the usb cable connected to my linux debian PC and ran
  fastboot flashing unlock
  to get the usual features like adb terminal access, etc...
• then rebooted again in normal boot mode.

Problems began there, the phone then got stuck in the bootloader (with the splash screen). I thought to myself "OK I must have messed up something, no worries, lets go back to fastboot mode and fire ubports-installer and reinstall ubports".

• I fire the ubports installer, it automatically detects the Volla X, downloads the kernel installs it. The logs are printed below:

info: Welcome to the UBports Installer version 0.8.8-beta!
info: device detected: yggdrasil
info: Installing Ubuntu Touch on your VollaPhone (yggdrasil)
info: configuring...
info: settings: {"channel":"16.04/arm64/android9/stable","wipe":false,"bootstrap":true}
info: Downloading 2 files
info: Downloaded file 1 of 2
info: Downloaded file 2 of 2
warn: aborting run...
info: Downloading 12 files
info: Downloaded file 1 of 12
info: Downloaded file 2 of 12
info: Downloaded file 3 of 12
info: Downloaded file 4 of 12
info: Downloaded file 5 of 12
info: Downloaded file 6 of 12
info: Downloaded file 7 of 12
info: Downloaded file 8 of 12
info: Downloaded file 9 of 12
info: Downloaded file 10 of 12
info: Downloaded file 11 of 12
info: Downloaded file 12 of 12

Problem is after this the installer just got stuck in "waiting for adb debvice" mode, and my phone is completely dark, no amount of pressing the on+volume up/volume down will change anything to this.

So I am assuming I now I am left with a very heavy paperweight? connecting to usb and running fastboot devices does not yield anything in my terminal. I have read around the web that one solution would be to wait for the battery to drain, but how can it drain if the device is dark?

So I don't expect there is any workaround for my case but I just wanted to post my experience to help other people avoid making such an expensive mistake.

Cheers and thank you for listening.