Hi,

I have spent some time with media-hub. I wanted to solve three problems:
1 The default image for album art is not shown on the Sound indicator panel.
(https://github.com/ubports/media-hub/issues/6)
2 Embedded album art of audio streams do not show up on the Sound indicator panel.
(See https://github.com/ubports/media-hub/issues/9)
3 Using media-hub playlist still results in choppy audio after a track change.
(See https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/1415)

1. For the default image I have a PR (https://github.com/ubports/media-hub/pull/7).
   It removes the use of some sort of 'dash' server which does not exist anymore and .

2. For the embedded album art I have a PR (https://github.com/ubports/media-hub/pull/10). It saves the image to a temporary file and let Thumbnailer handle it.

3. For the choppy audio problem I have a PR (https://github.com/ubports/media-hub/pull/8). Media-hub acquires a new wackelock for every track and releases it when the track is done. If the app is suspended when the track is done it will not signal media-hub to continue playing. But media-hub will keep on playing this time without acquiring a new wakelock and thus the audio becomes choppy.
   This PR makes sure media-hub will acquire a new wakelock when playing the next track even when the app is suspended. It seems to work.

Part of the media-hub code is used in qtubuntu-media (libmedia-hub-client). There is still some code in there to detach/reattach the app when suspending/activating. I tried all sorts of things but it does not work anymore (unless the Player object is not renewed). Video playing becomes completely broken since event registration/notification is
messy. Besides that detaching does not seem to do a lot (only sets the lifetime state in mediahub) so I gave up on it.

There was a proposal to add reference counting and keep the wakelock based on that. I think that won't be needed and would also result in a wakelock being kept when there is no need for it (not playing).

[edit 2019/11/20] {
Sorry I give up. I have working code but the automated tests fail. Unfortunately the testing framework is even more complicated then unity itself and the things it tests are trivial. I see no use in crafting dbus messages and plugins just to automatically 'test' a led turning white or green.

Small advice: maintaining this test bed is too big a burden for a project this short of man power. I think you really should get rid of it.
}

I want to have the led on my phone show it is being charged or it's battery is full.
One of the core developers on telegram pointed out that this could be done by extending repowerd. So I tried to do that.

[edits] {
2019/11/09 made a PR for unity8
2019/11/07 I am now changing IndicatorsLight.qml. You can already try it. No need to build anything, just replace the qml file (keep a copy).
}

This is my first step in ubports and I have absolutely no clue of the architecture of ubports or the direction it is going into. So any development related reactions are welcome.

What I did:
Created a LightControl that does two things. Control the led (on/off/color etc) and manage the led. With managing I mean show a certain event charging, full, etc.
The battery state is monitored by UPowerPowerSource. I made it pass the BatteryInfo in its changed callback and have DefaultStateMachine pass it along.
Furthermore DefaultStateMachine also notifies display on/off.
Led styles are now hardcoded but could be made to use DeviceConfig.
Currently the led is off when the display is on. It can show charging (white pulsing) and full (solid lime green).

Choice to make

• Currently the led shows dark green when a message is 'new'. This is handled by a qml file in Unity.
  There cannot be two captains on this ship so either Unity must take care of managing the led or repowerd. I opt for repowerd.
• Should the led be controllable through dbus?

Problems

• I need information on how to know the state (or keep track of it) of pending new messages and missed calls.
• I don't have sim card in my phone. How can I test 'pending new message'?

My work can be found in the add-light branch of repo https://github.com/wdehoog/repowerd
Development is done using cross-builder. I test it on my oneplus one.

When interested to test see: https://gist.github.com/wdehoog/c7c09a792799d03e6880e10dbc19ab33

PS.
I have very strong feelings about the testing framework of repowerd. The COC probably forbids me to express them.

@Thatoo I am not one of the devs but please allow me to respond.

You are completely right that contacts sync is very important and that it's current state is bad. However you are wrong in thinking that MIR and Lomiri are geeky and not used by your mum. In fact everybody uses them and without them there is no Ubuntu Touch.

Unfortunately the current state of affairs is that the few devs have to spend all their resources to developping the base system and do not have much left to work on higher layers like contacts sync.

As this is a community project you will have to work on it yourself or wait until somebody else will.

Me I would like to read a book and listen to the music files on my dlna server. As this could not be done I had to start working on my own app and fixing/extending various parts of ubuntu touch (led, gestures, media-hub).

Sorry I cannot help you making you feel better but I hope you can understand why things are as they are now.

@matteo to test your leds. It is also interesting to see the permissions. For example on opo:

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ find /sys -name brightness -ls
    13414      0 -rw-rw-r--   1 system   android_input     4096 Jan  5 20:48 /sys/devices/f9924000.i2c/i2c-2/2-0068/leds/red/brightness
    13442      0 -rw-rw-r--   1 system   android_input     4096 Jan  5 20:48 /sys/devices/f9924000.i2c/i2c-2/2-0068/leds/blue/brightness
    13428      0 -rw-rw-r--   1 system   android_input     4096 Jan  5 20:48 /sys/devices/f9924000.i2c/i2c-2/2-0068/leds/green/brightness
    11561      0 -rw-rw-r--   1 system   android_input     4096 Jan  5 20:48 /sys/devices/mdp.0/qcom,mdss_fb_primary.169/leds/lcd-backlight/brightness
    19339      0 -rwxrwxrwx   1 system   android_media     4096 Mar  3  1970 /sys/devices/leds-qpnp-f6287e00/leds/led:flash_torch/brightness
    19303      0 -rwxrwxrwx   1 system   android_media     4096 Mar  3  1970 /sys/devices/leds-qpnp-f6287e00/leds/led:flash_0/brightness
    19320      0 -rwxrwxrwx   1 system   android_media     4096 Mar  3  1970 /sys/devices/leds-qpnp-f6287e00/leds/led:flash_1/brightness
    17399      0 -rw-r--r--   1 root     root              4096 Jan  7 20:27 /sys/devices/leds-qpnp-f628c000/leds/kpdbl-pwm-2/brightness
    17421      0 -rw-r--r--   1 root     root              4096 Jan  7 20:27 /sys/devices/leds-qpnp-f628c000/leds/kpdbl-pwm-3/brightness
    17443      0 -rw-r--r--   1 root     root              4096 Jan  7 20:27 /sys/devices/leds-qpnp-f628c000/leds/kpdbl-pwm-4/brightness
    17377      0 -rw-rw-r--   1 system   android_input     4096 Jan  5 20:48 /sys/devices/leds-qpnp-f628c000/leds/button-backlight/brightness
    16275      0 -rw-rw-r--   1 system   android_input     4096 Mar  3  1970 /sys/devices/qcom,camera-led-flash.83/leds/torch-light/brightness
    17292      0 -rw-r--r--   1 root     root              4096 Jan  7 20:27 /sys/devices/msm_sdcc.1/leds/mmc0::/brightness
    17335      0 -rw-r--r--   1 root     root              4096 Jan  7 20:27 /sys/devices/msm_sdcc.2/leds/mmc1::/brightness

If 'phablet' is allowed you can try:

echo 1 > /sys/...../brightness

if not you must do it as root:

sudo bash -c "echo 1 > /sys/...../brightness"

(replace the dots with the full path) and try to echo different values (0,1,64,255)

Then it would also be interesting to show what other files reside in the same directories as the 'brightness' file. For example on opo:

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ ls -l  /sys/devices/leds-qpnp-f6287e00/leds/led:flash_torch/
total 0
-rwxrwxrwx 1 system android_media 4096 Mar  3  1970 brightness
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root   root             0 Jan  7 20:33 device -> ../../../leds-qpnp-f6287e00
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root   root          4096 Jan  7 20:33 flash_blink
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root   root          4096 Jan  7 20:33 led_mode
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root          4096 Jan  7 20:33 max_brightness
drwxr-xr-x 2 root   root             0 Mar  3  1970 power
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root   root          4096 Jan  7 20:33 strobe
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root   root             0 Jan  5 20:48 subsystem -> ../../../../class/leds
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root          4096 Jan  7 20:33 trigger
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root          4096 Mar  3  1970 uevent

And please post a dmesg log somewhere. Maybe this is related: https://e2e.ti.com/support/power-management/f/196/t/421131

@CiberSheep said in Spotify client:

It was a working app but
needs to be updated to Xenial.

Unfortunately that app uses an old Spotify API that is not available anymore. I will be way more work then updating it to Xenial.

I am trying to fix some issues for my opo and therefore need to build an image.
There are two documented methods I am aware of:

• http://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/porting/ubp-5.1.html
• https://github.com/ubports/device-builds

For me both do not work. The 'device-builds' one does not work at all. Building fails with various errors.

The 'docs' one builds and I can flash the boot.img and update the system.img and the phone boots etc.. However the camera stops working.

While cheking why the camera stopped working I noticed the system.img installed by the UBports Installer contains different files the the one I have built. So it seems there is yet another way to build an image.

So is there another 'howto' for building an image? Or do the before mentioned descriptions need a little bit of tweeking?

@matteo if the led support is build as a module then this module can be copied to the rootfs. If not I guess you can test a new kernel with fastboot boot which boots the kernel without installing it first.

@dobey
So repowerd will listen on dbus to set the led on/off state, color and pulse rate.
Unity will decide if and how the led should shine.

Now the thing is repowerd already knows about the battery state and the display state.
So I think part of the policy could best be done in repowerd:

• only show the led when the display is off
• indicate battery low (or hot?)
• if no other state for the led is set then show charging/full
  unity will then set the led state regarding unread messages, bluetooth or whatever comes next

But I am new here so you I'll follow your advice.

The order would then be

• move led hardware control to repowerd.
• Allow the led state to be controlled through dbus.
• Let unity use the led using dbus (extend Powerd plugin, remove Lights plugin).
• Add led indication of battery state low/charging/full.
  Question is where should this be done and how does it get the battery info?

First and maybe only release of the app is now available here: shoutcast-ubports.wdehoog_0.1_all.click

It is a shoutcast browser and player. Sources and screenshots are on github

Please give it a try. I only tested it on my moto g 2nd (thank you walidham) but like to know if it works on other devices before submitting it to the OpenStore.

Installing my click using 'pkcon...' generates a different profile file then when done manually (aa-clicktool & aa-easyprof see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/Specifications/ApplicationConfinement/Manifest). The manual way adds extra rules that allow the app to use the media-hub.

I noticed that uninstalling the app did not remove the profile. Manually removing the profile (from /var/lib/apparmor/profiles and from /var/cache/apparmor/) and then reinstalling the click resulted in a profile that could actually work.

After loading it (apparmor_parser -r) my app works!

So I think that after adding the policies in the IDE and installing the new click the previous profile (without the policies) was still being used. Question is why? Maybe because the profiles are cached and I did not increase the version number of my app.

@c4pp4 Hi. You tried to revert the commit 8 days ago and it did not help. I also tried to revert it and it did not help me either. Now todays update seems to work and indeed the commit is gone. But I suspect something else has also changed. I am probably wrong and it is of no use anyway since it now works.

@Thatoo I am not one of the devs but please allow me to respond.

You are completely right that contacts sync is very important and that it's current state is bad. However you are wrong in thinking that MIR and Lomiri are geeky and not used by your mum. In fact everybody uses them and without them there is no Ubuntu Touch.

Unfortunately the current state of affairs is that the few devs have to spend all their resources to developping the base system and do not have much left to work on higher layers like contacts sync.

As this is a community project you will have to work on it yourself or wait until somebody else will.

Me I would like to read a book and listen to the music files on my dlna server. As this could not be done I had to start working on my own app and fixing/extending various parts of ubuntu touch (led, gestures, media-hub).

Sorry I cannot help you making you feel better but I hope you can understand why things are as they are now.

Creating a changelog for updates is too much work. But now it is very hard to detect the source of problems and regressions. Is it possible to automatically create a list of versions of installed packages for each update? (Or does such a list already exist?) And then have them available for a while so we can compare them and look for possible candidates to investigate.

@c4pp4 I notice lots of logs in repowerd.log, lightdm.log and syslog. top shows lots of activity for systemd-logind and polkitd and sometimes Networkmanager.

still no idea what is going on.

since this is no sony-xperia-x specific problem we better continue somewhere else. a github issue?

anyway after updating now I have the exact same problem on my opo. boehoe....

@c4pp4 If the problems are caused by the repowerd commit you refer to then it remains strange that some apps do not suffer from this issue. The relation to wifi is also a mystery to me. I am afraid I cannot be of much help here.

@theare27 which phone are you using? which app are you using or do all apps behave this way?

Could you please add these issues to https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues or https://github.com/ubports/media-hub ?

@c4pp4 still strange that some other apps can play without being interrupted. anything interesting in log files? /var/log/syslog or /var/log/repowerd.log or ~/.cache/upstart/media-hub.log

@c4pp4 Is the Music app still in your list of apps that will not be suspended (marked 'prevent app suspension' in UTT)?

or use: gsettings get com.canonical.qtmir lifecycle-exempt-appids

@c4pp4 Then I would expect the first track to be played ok (media-hub has the lock) and the next ones being 'interrupted' (media-hub) does not acquire a new lock for the next tracks).

If I remember well you can see the locks being aquired/released in /var/log/repowerd.log.
Something like requestSysState and clearSysState. Maybe it is worth checking to see if this is the issue.