Is there any consideration in having a separate build that is not a read-only filesystem, e.g. more of a standard Ubuntu install? If there were something like that, I would think it could stand as the main development branch that would allow faster upgrade to 20.04 / wayland / systemd / etc. Then it could be a testing ground that new releases of the "stable" or "consumer" read-only system would come from.

It would also not frustrate any potential developers who want "standard Linux on a phone" (mobian, manjaro, fedora, etc.).

In summary, I understand a lot of the reasons behind the read-only system for stability, for security, for end users, etc. but I fear it keeps away possible developer interest that would benefit Ubuntu Touch in the long run if it were more "traditional Ubuntu" on a phone?

People could be trying all sorts of things like flatpak / snap / different apps, etc. I know there is Libertine but there is some performance issues and it isn't available everywhere, etc. So take the chains off and see what happens? I suspect a large growth of the community (???)

Thanks again to everyone for the hard work. I am a big supporter of this work, but am a bit lost: the recent work seems to be focused around multi-window, etc. for desktop, which I would think is 2nd level priority over getting apps to work well "full screen" for phones. Is it all needing to be done at the same time, or can enough polish be made for phone users first, then those testers and feedback can inform desktop work as a 2nd stage? Maybe phone use is already polished enough, but I have thought it isn't ready to test yet?

Looking through https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/ and comparing phone availability / price / features on swappa has me thinking the Google Pixel 3a (XL) should or could be considered the next device to carry the Nexus 5 / OPO torch as the next generation preferred / promoted device? Am I wrong?

@stanwood yes, understood it is a community project. I am curious about the core developer perspective of working together with others like this.

Personally I think it is a good way to work since the core team doesn't have the time or capacity to work on this right now, so the community can step forward to support it getting done.

Hopefully all the work will merge together nicely to benefit everyone. BTW I am a contributor, I really am hopeful for this work!

Can you give any update on Anbox development, which I have heard has some dedicated developer effort behind it?

Also, can you help us understand the specific ubports team efforts to Anbox apart from upstream Anbox development? Maybe mainstream is focused on desktop / amd64 base while ubports team is of course targeting for phone / arm? Is it hoped to eventually submit upstream the ubports work?

Thanks again for all the hard work. Keep it up team!

https://github.com/ubports/anbox

https://github.com/anbox/anbox

@UBportsNews I have understood from previous Q&A sessions that some of the major development goals include:

• moving to systemd
• moving to 20.04 base
• moving to wayland

Any updates on these goals and how they inter-relate? systemd for example we heard briefly from Marius went better than expected when working on Lomiri for Manjaro Arm.

Erfan posted this reply to my above question on telegram:

"Hey i was just going to reply your post in forums that noticed you are already in group so if u don't mind i'll answer here

first of all thank you very much for your support, really appriciated
but recently focus was in finalizing application managment in display instead of a full android screen
for weekly report i just said said multi-windowing but in reality the work behind of it was more for detecting/selecting open apps in screen

now i'm working on a sever-like tool to glow this pieces together and have something usable for users with proper app managment"

@applee Thanks for the reply. I have a case which has a raised edge, so it is hard to get to the edge properly. Also I have a glass screen protector. So that could add to the challenge.

On the pinephone, I have a raised edge case plus a glass screen protector that is slightly too small (it is for a Moto G7 Plus), so that makes the edge a bit difficult.

Trying a bit more I had to increase the N5 edge setting to it's max, 6, but it seems to work better (still it doesn't detect sometimes)

OK this has been discussed here already: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/5593/problems-navigating-ui?_=1616043859494

I just tried increasing "Ubuntu Tweak Tool > Edge Sensitivity > Edge drag areas width" (it was a 2 before, trying 4) and it seems to address the issue. I'll report back after a few days usage, but this may be the setting I didn't find before.

@davedanger, @kmsgli and others: I have gotten MMS (send and receive) and SMS receive (send was always working) to work on a Pixel 3A XL with US Mobile (T-Mobile network) but there are a few oddities. Let me explain what I did:

• Background: I could send SMS but not receive normal SMS when on wifi OR send or receive MMS. I was on the "stable" branch but also tried RC and Devel. Note that LTE data and 3G data seem fine, as does all calling.
• Installed MMS patches from here: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/5100/the-mms-lost-story/124?_=1626709684067
  • Note: I had to unmount like this before applying the patch that would update repowerd: sudo umount /usr/share/repowerd/device-configs/config-default.xml
  • After applying all patches and restarting, retried SMS and MMS. Still the same (only send SMS, no send or receive MMS.... what I mean by no receive was not even the error message, the messages just don't come)
• Disconnected wifi (so on LTE only). Still could not receive SMS or anything with MMS.
• Changed from LTE to 3G (wifi still off). Still could not receive SMS or anything with MMS.
• Rebooted (with wifi still off): after reboot, SMS and MMS came! Also I could send MMS! I tested with .jpg and animated gifs. All came!
• Enabled wifi: then could not receive SMS or anything with MMS again until reboot without wifi.

So I repeated that process a few different times with slightly different scenarios. But in short, at least for me MMS (and receiving SMS) ONLY works if the phone boots with wifi off and wifi never gets turned on. Once it is turned on, broken again until reboot with it off.

APN settings were obtained online (and the did NOT match what was installed automatically when inserting the SIM). Here are the working APN settings for MMS (again for US Mobile, T-Mobile network):
APN Mode: "used for MMS"
Name: US Mobile
APN: pwg
MMSC: http://pwg.mmsmvno.com/mms/wapenc
Proxy: <blank>
Proxy Port: <blank>
User Name: <blank>
Password: <blank>

Below are the T-Mobile settings auto-installed when i put in the sim (but I disabled this setting and added the above as a separate entry). Note these settings did NOT work, even if booting "with wifi off" so I think these are bogus at least for the US Mobile sim I have.
APN Mode: "used for MMS"
Name: T-Mobile MMS
APN: internet2.voicestream.com
MMSC: http://216.155.174.84/servlets/mms
Proxy: 216.155.165.50
Proxy Port: 8080
User Name: <blank>
Password: <blank>

So at this point, I have a fully functioning phone if I keep wifi disabled and only use cellular data. I am not sure if there is any log I can check to see what happens when I enable wifi that effectively breaks receiving SMS and all things related to MMS??

@irnbru whoa, keep us updated. It would be very good to document what variation of devices would give such a problem, sorry to hear about your headaches!

@nutmeg could you confirm again what network you are using that you got messages through on finally? I am positively surprised to see that @mw4jet isn't having trouble with the AT&T network for SMS and I think MMS too (for photos). I thought @UniSuperBox 's Red Pocket Mobile SIM (AT&T??) was not working? Anyway, best to document here what network is working and if people could also confirm sms send / receive and mms send / receive and the reliability (if it stops and needs a phone "restart" to get the messages queued up or not) it would be helpful.

Still hoping there is some command we can dig up that we could run to more definitively determine if SMS receive is in a "broken state" or not.

@nutmeg well, it unfortunately does seem there is some challenge in receiving SMS and I am trying to decide what to do myself: it works reliably on my nexus 5 with UT but battery is pretty shot on that. I would hope we could solve SMS not coming in, but honestly I have no idea where to look, hoping someone can point us in the direction of digging through logs, etc.

At this point I would like confirmation from a European user they reliably receive SMS. I think they do, but would like it confirmed.

It seems the 3a (XL) is a great phone for UT, but still some rough parts like no incoming SMS! Maybe you hold them with hope that it will get fixed, but understood you may need to do something different right now. Argh, it is hard going against the mainstream huh?

@matteo are you saying you have auto-brightness working?

@zlamalp can you please confirm receiving SMS works fine? I am seeing that I can send SMS fine but I get no message and no notification or anything when someone sends one to me. It seems more reliably broken when my wifi is ON (meaning, if I disable wifi and reboot, I will get messages, but then when I enable wifi again SMS won't come in). I too have a N5 that reliably gets / sends SMS and MMS using the same SIM (USA, US Mobile - TMobile network). I am trying to confirm if it is all Pixel 3a users that don't GET SMS with wifi on (or without... it isn't reliably reproduceable yet in my case)

@irnbru Pixel 3a XL here:

• screen DOES rotate
• notification LED: not sure
• email notification: not sure no email on phone: buy maybe it is Dekko not working with content hub, that MAY be a known issue?
• Fingerprint: works, but at least 1 time per day I also have to enter my passcode
• Calling is fine (but no in-call volume adjustment: only at max but has been fine for me and the other end)
• SensorStatus App: Accelerometer, Gyroscope, GPS, Light, some others work

I did like you, flashed the advised Android 9 version then used the installer. I was on "stable" and that was all working, and now am on "devel" and it still is working as before. Not sure what to advise you, but maybe re-doing the installation may be warranted?

@nutmeg the patches, I THINK, address MMS (only) so that you can send / receive MMS (group messages, images, animated gif, etc) but don't affect, I THINK, SMS functionality. With the MMS patches applied, it did NOT solve the "no SMS incoming" for me. That only came by turning off wifi and then rebooting.

Can you please try that and confirm or deny if it sends you SMS? If that does NOT work, reset the APN settings then, still with wifi OFF, reboot and see if the SMS will come then. After SMS comes, try turning ON wifi and see if you can still get SMS. Then if you are willing, turn off wifi, reboot, confirm you CAN get SMS again. I have tried various scenarios like above with mixed results. I haven't isolated how to reliably get SMS, but it is something along the lines of resetting APN, keeping wifi off, rebooting, and MAYBE toggling between 4G (LTE) and 3G (with reboots).

Again this is not a solution, it is only attempting to be able to reproduce where the problem is.

@nutmeg I am troubleshooting with the same scenario: Pixel 3a XL with US Mobile (the "white" SIM which is actually T-Mobile network not the "black" which is Verizon). For me I can send SMS reliably, but receive has been mostly "miss" but I noted better results with wifi disabled when booting (this is NOT a solution, just trying to figure out why it works sometimes and mostly doesn't work)

Unfortunately, it seems a bit more nuanced and I can't reliably reproduce successful SMS. Note I DID get MMS receive and send to work as well as SMS receive, but again now it seems to not work again. After reboot with the wifi off I seem to get SMS that have stacked up (just in testing by sending from my wife's phone to me).

Note I have a Nexus 5 that works reliably for SMS and MMS with this same SIM, so it isn't Ubuntu Touch only, and isn't the network, but seems to be specific to Pixel 3a (and Pinephone.... unfortunately the 2 devices that you have).

Can you please check by turning OFF wifi and then rebooting and see if you can receive SMS? Also MMS? You MAY need to apply the MMS patches if that is important, but it doesn't fix the "nothing coming in" problem in my case so my personal approach is to look at MMS later: first step is try and sort out why SMS doesn't get received.

Anyway, confirming you have a consistent problem with me is a first step, hopefully we can consolidate experience and track down the issue.

@rik said in Bounty for Pixel 3a/Halium 9 stability:

I got MMS working (send and receive) on US Mobile (T-Mobile network) in the USA but only after booting the phone with wifi disabled. Once wifi is enabled, then SMS receive and all of MMS breaks. Here is where I wrote up a bit more detail: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/6369/tmobile-issues/17
Note that with the same SIM on a N5 I don't have any SMS or MMS issues, so it seems specific to the Pixel 3a

Well, I still have SMS receive and MMS send / receive not working reliably. Sometimes / often the messages will come after a reboot, and I still don't think I have ever gotten messages when wifi is active, but since there are other unreliable pieces here it may be coincidence that I got it working only with wifi off before. In short, I am still confused and more testing / debugging needed. Any pointers on where to find logs about what may be going on? Power saving maybe killing messaging service???

Can anyone NOT in the USA confirm that the Pixel 3a can receive SMS when wifi is on, or that can send / receive MMS? Trying to understand if this is a US carrier thing (see above link to Tmobile thread) or if it is this phone across the board regardless of carrier? Maybe @fredldotme could comment on the state of SMS receive and MMS s/r?

One more update: things aren't totally reliable with receiving SMS and MMS (sometimes / often don't get the messages until I reboot for example, and still get the MMS error message sometimes). So I still haven't seen SMS receive or MMS work when my wifi is on, but it may not be directly related. Anyway, more testing and debugging needed. If anyone can point me at the right logs to look at it may give some clues?

Again, can anyone not in the USA confirm Pixel 3a SMS receive and MMS send and receive working reliably?