@AppLee In times of COVID19 isolation these news made my day :thumbs_up:

@grandpa

Why would UbPorts foundation with it's stated objective of respecting user privacy and open source software even remotely consider cooperating with the most intransparented IT-company in the world, bound to the regulations of an authoritarian anti-democratic regime ?
This would be the end of UbPorts foundation before it even has fully taken off.
This also nicely demonstrates the importance of being a foundation registered under German law because any activities in such direction could be in conflict with the foundation by-laws and objectives.

Related to GizmoCicken's questions. The roll out of the first end-user version of pine phone in March will likely create a high demand for UBTouch and bring in new users which is great for the project. These new users will, however, also require resources and attention e.g. download server capacities for the store, attention in the forum etc.. Does UbPorts foresee any capacity shortages (IT infrastructure as well as man-power) to handle these requests (I remember having read a post form Jan asking for assistance with server resilience issues) ? Sounds like a luxury problem but are we at risk of becoming a possible victim of our success ?

@Opolork Under "System Settings" click on "about" and the storage space is displayed. For more detailed information open terminal and type "df -k" it will display a list of all partitions and the percentage of space used on each.

@3T_Ed I would second that. Specifically with pinetab now shipping. Pinetab with the keyboard definitely could become a light-weight laptop replacement and as such an office-suite becomes something like an essential app.

@makeixo As @Flohack pointed out already: UbPorts cannot collect money on behalf of a 3rd party (the developer), at least not without a bulk of legal implications, not to speak of time, resources and manpower to invest in setting up such a scheme. I think it should already be possible for developers to upload free trial version on OpenStore which need be unlocked once the trial period has exdpired. So the user would have to buy some form of license code from the dev and likely provide something like a device ID. But this is then a business between the end user and the dev. I dont´t see why and how UbPorts should be involved in such a deal as a broker. UbPorts should invest resources and manpower in what they are doing best, which is OS development.

@nero355 I recently tried Mobian and PostmarketOS on Pinephone (out of frustration about inactive development on UT). Both OS have the mobile version of Firefox as default browser which was another reason for me to give it a try. Did you ever try to manage the Firefox settings on one of these OS's ? Not usable in real life for me. Same thing trying to setup Nextcloud via Web (I use 2FA for my cloud so I need to go via website): impossible to navigate (need to rotate phone change zoom etc).
While I agree with you that tab management is way easier than with Morph, the idea of using applications from standard repositories will not work for non-geek users and result in poor user experience.
So unless someone steps up to port the mobile version of Firefox specifically to UT (which I do not think will happen any time soon because you probably need an army of devs to pull that off) Morph - for me - remains the only workable solution for now.

@Elpibe I have the exact same problem with my 2015 Subaru audio system and posted it under a different thread some time ago. This pairing problem seems - at least in part - also be caused by the Subaru audio system and not only by UBtouch. I had no problems pairing my FP2 or N5 with audio systems in several rental cars from different companies (Nissan Micra, Hyundai Accent and Ford Mustang) with music player, contacts and phone calls mostly working (some funny behavior on the Nissan when accepting incoming calls). I will try htc_tatoo's command line solution.

This is a great thread, one of the kind why I value and support this community.
I think part of the problem is the way how UbPorts communicates the "big picture" strategy and the other part is the "mindset" of many new UT users.
For someone devolping UT this path forward is reasonably clear, even if it means taking backroads and dealing with unexpected obstacles. For many new users coming from Android or iOS, UT may be conceived as a mediocre alternative for the seemingly "all inclusive and free" (please note the hyphens!) solution to their problems. These users may be better off to continue using android or iOS to meet their needs and I think it is fair to communicate this directly (e.g by closing such threads).
Then, there is the group of enthusiastic users who are willing to change their mindset and leave the "dark side" without having any clue of software development on smart phones etc. (I am one of them) and may only be able to contribute to the project financially but not in terms of skills or time. For these users a less defensive, off-putting attitude to these questions may be more encourraging. I am using UT as my daily driver on FP2 and N5 and I am typing these lines on my new PineTab, which I received yesterday. I think it is a wonderful piece of community built hard- and software and already meets 75% of my personal use case specifications (despite e.g. a known copy past bug in the file manager), which is more than I expected. I received an OTA to version 5 today but I have no clue which issues were supposed to be fixed (relative to version 4) so that I could specifically test them (same for the pine phone). I think here we are missing an opportunity to get potentially interested enthusiastic but unskilled new users involved.
I understand the decision to not use the milestones on github for OTA releases to take of perceived pressure of the dev team but some "relative" timeline or priority list, understandable for non-dev users, may be helpful to frame expectations of this (apprently growing) part of the user community and avoid many posts on this topic in the forum.

@wolfgang1 I think @stanwood is right, but there may be a waydroid update glitch. See my thread here:

https://forums.ubports.com/post/87226

I did some further research and found that possibly the vendor blobs for the GPS disappeard from the vendor partition. I doubt that this was caused by the last OTA update ( I would have expected more people to have this issue). So I assume that the linage update inside waydroid might have caused this. I have not yet had time to look into it further or to reflash android11.

@aarontheissueguy this would be fabulous. I am using Signal on Waydroid but this is not more than a workaround. Signal-cli for me is among the top 5 missing aps.

@wolfgang1 I think @stanwood is right, but there may be a waydroid update glitch. See my thread here:

https://forums.ubports.com/post/87226

I did some further research and found that possibly the vendor blobs for the GPS disappeard from the vendor partition. I doubt that this was caused by the last OTA update ( I would have expected more people to have this issue). So I assume that the linage update inside waydroid might have caused this. I have not yet had time to look into it further or to reflash android11.

@Vlad-Nirky Yes, I did. The FP4 came with Android11, yes and I tried the SatStat App in Waydroid as described in a previous thread. This is how I noticed that it was not working in Waydeoid. The GPS did work after initial UT and Waydroid install.

My new FP4 no longer recognizes the GPS.

test_GPS results in:

*** setup signal handler
*** get gps interface
*** GPS interface not found
Bye!

Reboots (and waiting 1h+ outside in open field) don"t make a difference and Waydroid also does not detect the GPS.
I am not sure when exactly this problem came up but it did work after initial installation in 4/25 (UT and Waydroid). It may have happened after OTA-9 update but I am not sure. Could LineageOS update inside Waydroid have anything to do with it (I don't think so because there should be no access to system partition)?

Any suggestions on how I can narrow in on the issue e.g. hardware vs. software? Any specific log-files to look after, configuration/ini files to remove/replace ?

All help very much appreciated.

@fair I just tried plugging my FP4 into the pinebook docking station from Pine64 and it worked "out of the box". Recognises external keyboard (when OSK is disabled) and mouse and charges the battery while working, all via USB C, no display port or other adaptor needed. The dock is connected to a monitor/keyboard switch so I can toggle between desktop and FP4 on the same monitor/keyboard/mouse. The only thing not working is the Numpad.

Mobile data on my FP4 works well using the default APN settings for Telus Mobility but I can not download MMS using the default APN settings (also tried leaving proxy and port blank). Is there a fellow UT user in Canada who was successful in downloading MMS with FP4 on the Telus network ?

@wynn1212 Thank you for your detailed reply. I was using Ubuntu 24.04.2 with Kernel Linux 6.8.0-57-generic both on and old AMD desktop first then on a Windows Surface Laptop (running same Ubuntu version) with a USB2.0 to USB C cable. Next I tried a USB C to USB C cable on a Dell laptop (also running latest Ubuntu version) and after 2 or so attempts the flash was successful (not clear why).
However today, I did the same procedure with another new FP4 using the Dell Laptop and USBCtoC cable and it again failed initially. When I connected the phone (already in fastboot mode) and restarted the bootloader from fastboot when installer was asking to manually switch the phone to fastboot, I was successful.
This is quite frustrating because it still is not clear to me how to exactly reproduce this issue. It is definitely not the cable or the computer used. I agree this must be an interaction between the Ubuntu version and/or kernel and the phone. It almost looks like a timing issue, restarting bootloader at the right time lets the process go through.
I could not test on Windows because I only have a work laptop running windows which does not allow starting non-certified appimages.

I am trying to install UT on a new FP4 using UB-Installer 0.97 beta.

I followed all instructions on the FP website to unlock the bootloader and I verified that Android 11 is installed, USB debugging enabled.

When I connect the phone (turned on, Android booted) to the laptop, the phone is recognized by the file manager and the installer. I choose the install option (including wipe) and the installer reboots the phone into fastboot mode but it then is stuck at "Asserting unlocked bootloader variable".
The fastboot screen says "DEVICE STATE - unlocked" but does not list a bootloader version or baseband version. SECURE BOOT is set to yes.
However, adb devices in terminal does not list any device.

When I reboot to Android, adb devices lists the device.

Is there a step in the process that I missed? Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help.

I am running Focal latest OTA4 equivalent on the original pinephone. When I insert a SIM-card with SIM-PIN and boot the phone, it asks for the SIM-PIN and then connects to the network. When I write a SMS or make a call the OS sends a message that I need to unlock the SIM and redirects me to the system,settings, privacy menu. Here the SIM-PIN switch reads "off". When I turn it on, the switch turns green and the tab shows "unlocked" but when I close the SIM-PIN tab and go back to the privacy menu it is turned off again and I can not text or make calls. I tried to leave the unlock tab open, no difference.
I thought this may be related to the read only fs but a r/w remount and reboot made no difference,
Any ideas? Not sure if this is a Focal problem or pinephone port problem so posted it in support.

As a UT user in North America I am still using Xenial on my FP2. So far I did not switch to focal because - to my understanding - UT does not support 5G on any of the 5G capable high-end devices (FP4 or FP5). While FP4 looks feature complete, it is not clear from the device page whether 5G is supported by focal.. The FOSSDEM talk on VOLTE in UT also dampened my hope that this will be a viable alternative any time soon. Is there any estimates if 5G will be supported before they pull the plug on 3G (and 2G as a fallback) in US and Canada ? I heard that there is work being done to have a future UT version shipped with the FP5 as option would this include 5G?