Posts made by JoeBeach

I traveled to Europe (Iceland, Norway, Netherlands, Germany, Italy) and the Volla phone worked flawlessly there. Strong LTE signal, fast data, texts, and voice. That was using a T-mobile SIM that a bought in the US and the T-Mobile Magenta plan, which provides LTE data around the world.

So the Volla hardware is fine if you are in a place where the cellular service providers use the right frequencies. Unfortunately, the US is not such a place. In my experience, the Volla phone is basically unusable on mobile networks in the US. That is the case whether it is running UBports or Volla OS.

Checking the IMEI on the T-Mobile site says:

"For the best experience on the T-Mobile network, you'll need a phone that supports these key technologies:
Extended Range LTE helps deliver blazing-fast speeds on the T-Mobile network.
Voice over LTE provides crisp, clear audio quality and helps prevent dropped calls."

In short: I have a Volla phone with UBports installed. T-Mobile is not working with it. Does anyone know of a US mobile carrier that works with the UBports on the Volla phone?

More details: I purchased a Volla phone and installed a T-Mobile SIM in it. The T-Mobile SIM works fine in a Librem5, it gets a 4G connection that allows me to browse the web and such. However, in the Volla, the same SIM only gets a 2G connection. When I first installed the SIM, I received a text from T-Mobile saying it did not have the correct APN settings and those would be sent to the handset. I checked the APN settings, set them to the ones given on the T-Mobile web site, but still nothing more than 2G service.

I went to the T-Mobile store to ask for help. They entered the IMEI number for the phone into a hardware compatibility database on the T-Mobile web site and told me that the hardware in the Volla phone is not compatible with the T-Mobile network, so no amount of APN changes will help the situation. Does anyone know of US mobile carriers that are fully compatible with the Volla phone?

@makeixo I received my Librem 5 a few weeks ago. I am also a Patreon supporter of UBports. I want them both to succeed. I really would like to see an android-free phone that supports "convergence" of computing and telecommunications.

Yesterday I started trying to use the Librem 5 as my "daily driver" phone. The telephone, contacts, and text applications are not as polished and nicely interconnected as UBports. I have done some web browsing with both Gnome Web and the mobile version of Firefox. Those have gone well. There is no camera app yet. I had one issue today when I made a call just fine, ended the call, and a few minutes later could not get it to actually dial out when I tried to make another call. I'm not sure what caused that.

The screen and virtual keyboard are both nice. I added a 512 GB microSD and it worked fine. I installed Audacious and it plays my oggs just fine. I like that because I use Audacious on my laptop, too. The down side is that Audacious hasn't been ported to a small screen form factor yet, which makes using it a little awkward.

I may end up going back to my UBports Nexus 5 just because I need reliable phone/text/contacts integration. I'll keep using it for a few more days before I decide. Either way, I will also likely buy a USB-C hub so I can try out an external keyboard and monitor to see how well it works as basically a single board computer.

I would like to see UBports work on the Librem 5, but I understand that the two projects aren't collaborating right now and they may have sufficiently different interests that the collaboration won't happen. That's too bad, I like Unity way more than Gnome (I use Unity 7 as my desktop on Ubuntu 18.04 and will continue to use it when I upgrade to 20.04).

I switched to the Stable channel and all of the issues that I mentioned above were resolved and working properly.

Hello,

I am running the Development channel on a Nexus 5. On 25 or 26 June I ran an update, and on Friday 26 June I noticed some screen problems. I have run updates since then (I am now using 1586), but they have not fixed the issues. The following problems are currently 100% repeatable on my device.

• Pressing the power button once no longer blanks/shuts off the screen. Pressing and holding the power button does still give a shutdown menu as normal and also can power on the device, so the button is not broken.
• When the screen blanks due to timing out, it does not actually turn off. If I look at it in a dark room, the screen is gray instead of black, meaning that there is light being generated instead of it actually being off.
• The display brightness no longer adjusts. When I move the slider on the screen brightness page, it has no effect.

Is this the right place to post bugs like this, or is there a separate bug reporting system I should be using.

@Lakotaubp Wiping during the 16.04 stable installation worked for me. Thank you.

@ellypsis I had the same thing happen with my Nexus 5, but I can't fine any symlinks in the directory you mentioned. I'm going to try the wipe option.

I'm another person who would like to have options to increase the contrast and font size. Ten years ago I wouldn't have had a problem with the existing setup, but I'm pushing 50 now and my close-up eyesight is not what it used to be. Much of the time I can get by without reading glasses, but the combination of low contrast and small font makes it difficult when reading texts and calendar entries on my UBports Nexus 5.

@andybleaden Thank you for the font size hack, I will try that out soon.

@advocatux It turns out that Web WeChat is augments the phone app, rather than replaces it. You need to have the WeChat app installed on your phone in order to log in to the Web WeChat. From the the WeChat web site:
__
How do I log in to Web WeChat?
In your web browser, visit web.wechat.com. Scan the QR Code on the computer with the QR Code scanner located within your phone's WeChat app. Once you scan the code, confirm your login on your device.
__
What is the difference between Web WeChat and WeChat for Windows?
Web WeChat and WeChat for Windows are both designed to provide users with a convenient chatting platform to allow quick and convenient file transfers between mobile and PC.

They differ in the following aspects:

1. Web WeChat can be logged in to at http://web.wechat.com; It uses browser-based login method.

2. WeChat for Windows must be downloaded and installed on PC before using. It uses client-based login mode.

3. WeChat for Windows allows users to backup and restore their chat history, while Web WeChat currently doesn't offer a backup and restore feature.
   __

I wonder if the "client-based login" on WeChat for Windows would allow you to log in without using the phone. But that would then require being able to run Windows software on UBports. If WINE works on UBports and WeChat for Windows works in WINE, that could be an option. I don't know if either of those are true, though. I'll check and update later.

@advocatux I didn't realize there was a web version, I'll check to see if it works.

Hello,
I am traveling and potentially doing business in China, and virtually everyone here uses WeChat for communication. If you ask them to text or email, they are put out by it. Even businesses expect to communicate that way. Does anyone know if there is an app on UBports that can work with WeChat or if there is specific software for it available? Or perhaps there is a way to run the Android version of it in UBports?

@lakota The development channel suggestion worked perfectly, thank you. Now I just need to decide whether to keep taking development updates or switch back to stable...

@Lakota thanks for the advice, I will give it a try when I get home today.

Hello,

I am running Ubuntu Touch version 3 on my Nexus 5 phone. When I am using a 4g cellular data connection, the browser says "Network Error" when I try to go to any web page. My cellular plan definitely includes data. In the past, I have used this phone with UBports as a wifi hotspot. I checked the network settings, and they are:

Cellular data: On
Data roaming: Off
Carrier: T-Mobile
T-Mobile GPRS (Internet & MMS): On
T-Mobile GPRS (LTE): On
Connection Type: 2G/3G (faster)

If I touch "Connection Type", I get a spinning circle that never resolves itself into a settings page. Even though it says 2G/3G in the Settings page, the status bar shows several bars of T-Mobile 4G connection.

If I turn on wifi, the browser works fine.

If I enable data roaming, I still have the "Network Error" problem.

I used to be able to get a data connection over cellular, but I don't use it that often, so I don't know exactly when the problem started.

Does anyone have any suggestions about what I need to do to get a network connection over cellular?

@Lakota Thank you! I still ended up hitting a road block because my phone doesn't have an SD card (no port available for it) and MDT backup expects that. At some point, I'll check to see if it can use a OTG-connected USB flash drive. I'm a little surprised it can't back up to my laptop's hard drive.

I would like to use back up my Nexus 5 that is running Ubuntu Touch 15.04. I have tried using the magic-device-tool, but it keeps saying there is no device detected. I have seen references to putting the device into "developer mode", but I don't know what that means. Does anyone else know how to put the device into developer mode?

I have also tried adb backup -all while in recovery mode, but the backup had 0 byte file size.

Joe

I would also like larger fonts. Particularly in the text messaging app.

I just checked and the Purism Librem 5 phone is 85% of the way to their $1.5M goal! If you were thinking about supporting them but didn't think they could make it, think again! Go to Puri.sm web site now and support them if you want to see free-er phones.

I am using UBports because several years back Google changed from "cool search engine start-up" to "creepy internet stalker". UBports frees me from Google, which is great. The Librem 5 project seems to be the next step, allowing the hardware to run with GNU+Linux. If they succeed, they will have the GNU+Linux software repos available, but they will still have a need for software that is designed to work well on 5" screens. UBports already has some of that. I support both projects with donations. I hope they both succeed and I hope that Purism and UBports can work together in a mutually beneficial way.