yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] dev_guy:
Things to consider before flashing your Z3C...

The Z3C is more complex than a lot of phones to install CM or other ROMs on. First, you lose your DRM keys which *seriously* impairs the camera performance and breaks other things. Sony decided to make a lot of their camera functionality proprietary and it's locked to protection keys stored in the camera. The instant you unlock the bootloader to install a different ROM these keys are destroyed. The result is horrible low light performance, a "reverse fish eye" effect (bad geometric distortion), loss of all the cool camera modes, Super Auto, etc. You lose other functionality as well--not just with the camera.

You can back up, and in theory, restore the DRM keys along with the stock firmware but it's a fairly complex process. Unless you've read about all the issues with CM (or any other current alternative ROM I know of), and are fairly sure you're okay with all of it, consider keeping your stock ROM or go through the trouble of the DRM and stock ROM backup process before you unlock your phone.

If you're not fairly familiar with rooting recent model phones, fastboot, bootloaders, alternate recoveries, nandroid backups, etc, you may also want to leave your phone alone as it's easy with the Z3C to make irreversible mistakes. It's not like say a Nexus 4 where you do a one-click nearly foolproof install of CM and nearly as easily go back to stock.

To summarize other issues I've had or that are being widely reported with CM 12.x on the Z3C:

- Serious loss of camera quality and functionality

- Inferior battery life and loss of the Sony Stamina modes

- Bluetooth connectivity issues (i.e. in your car, etc.)

- Overheating (Sony apparently has some complex thermal management in the stock ROMs)

- Most Sony apps will no longer work and Sony's PC Companion is mostly non-functional

- Loss of MySony functionality (remote disable for a lost phone, etc.)

- Lots of other random issues

- Loss of Sony warranty (and/or added charges for service)

Considering there has been Z3C CM12 development work since around January, there are still only unofficial builds, the Z3C is not one of the more popular phones, and most of the above issues are still not fixed, I'm not all that hopeful there will ever be a really solid alternate ROM for the Z3C. It's a great phone in many ways but if you want to get rid of the Sony bloat and annoyances, you have to give up a lot to run one of the current ROMs.

If you still want to deviate from stock, read this first:

http://xdaforums.com/z3-compact/general/how-to-root-backup-drm-keys-t3013343

And here you'll find several guides for various methods to unlock, root, flash, etc:

http://xdaforums.com/z3-compact/general/ref-roms-guides-tutorials-faqs-t3035066

---------- Post added at 02:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:10 PM ----------

See my post above.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] dev_guy:
I'm on the Sept 14th CM 12.1 nightly and no problems with the car with incoming calls. But it might be specific to your car.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] TToivanen:
To anyone having SIM related issues, the 09/22 nightly fixed them for me. It contains a bunch of msm8974 commits
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Burakki:
Hi, I have a problem. I can't underclock the soc of this device. In kernel adiutor the cpu 2 appears always off, and the other cores continue to go anyway at 2.5ghz. I enabled the root permission and the app is already set, but nothing changes. Thanks a lot
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] angkorun:
Flash kernel M5
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] drgibbon:
Fisheye camera bug and Sony camera code release?

Hi, it looks like the camera fisheye bug is still hanging around (at least on cm-12.1-20160220-NIGHTLY-z3c). I would add a link to a photo showing the bug, but XDA won't let me (less than 10 posts). I'd also like to link to a Sony Developer blog post, but if you search for "Experimental AOSP camera available for experienced developers" from the domain developer.sonymobile.com, you can find an article about Sony releasing camera software to Android devs. According to the post;

I wonder if that will be of any help? Personally I can live with the bug (everything else seems excellent), but it would of course be great to have it fixed/improved.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] zEminho:
I have a doubt use slimrom with bootloader locked I want to test Cm with kernel m5 my doubts I can backup the slimrom > unlock bootloader > test cm 12 with kernel > back to stock > restore backup TA > Root 4.4 > restore rom with XZDualRecovery

and can do this
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] :
new camera code will be used in cm13

https://github.com/CyanogenMod/android_hardware_sony_camera
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] poobucket:
This is great news, I can't wait for cm 13 nightly.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] nailyk:
Maybe late but I just open a cm-12.1 thread for z3c.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] H117:
Thanks, that did the trick.

As for the heat thing, I have noticed that it seems to correlate with my mobile connection dropping, not sure what causes it yet. Only a reboot fixes that.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] 2mal16:
Try installing CPU temperature app and look when and how CPU and battery temp go. You can also activate the overlay option to see it better. I'm idling at around 37 with maxing at 44 degree Celsius.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Seraphic:
Almost daily driver material this - when calls get fixed (it only works through speakerphone at present) then I'll go back to it I think.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Anthony25:
The last nightly (20150127) is very laggy for me, whereas the 20150125 was very smooth.

Encryption enabled, balanced profile in the performance menu. CPU consumption is normal.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] crimpy1:
Camera little bug

Images from the camera are a little distorted - attached sample. I try to flash back stock and then again to CM - it's olny on CM - no HW bug.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] jsscx:
/sys/devices/virtual/input/clearpad/wakeup_gesture,with root change its value to 1,just my solution.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] ramin salari:
Hi bro,

I want to know that for flashing my z3c

Should the bootloader be open or not?

TnXx
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] H117:
Yeah, you have to unlock your bootloader to install this.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] AndroidenKalle:
A small review after two days with nightly 20150125.

working:

- GPS

- Compass

- NFC

- OTA update

- ... (see first post)

Not working:

- USB OTG

- ... (see first post)

buggy:

- phone calls sometimes on loudspeaker and sometimes on "normal" speaker
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] aardappel12:
Great tip, thanks for that.

Simply made an init.d script to make it set to 1 automatically every boot since I saw it changed back to 0 after a reboot.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] crimpy1:
Thanks, 1th post updated.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] phroenix:
Anyone else noticing issues with iptables?

Some apps seem to work fine e.g. browser, but others don't work at all e.g. connectbot, ftp...

Using nightly from 20150127. App used to manage iptable rules is AFWall+ using default root manager (built into rom accessed from developer menu) not a third party app like SuperSU. I've read something like that has to be used for titanium backup...is it the case here also?

One other question, does anyone have a backup option in recovery? I don't seem to be able to see it...maybe not implemented yet because its nightly, but I'd still back up my setup because its sweet!
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] 2mal16:
This of course is more elegant and i can set Se Linux back. :) Thanks for that.

Can we assign the camera button in this way?
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] jeff5891:
Bug: Bluetooth music gets static in and out when using voice directions for maps.

Also I don't think the minimum value for brightness is low enough. Anyone else feel this way?
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] zoome9:
On 27th build I found a bug.

Bluetooth audio doesn't always work which leads me to have to reset the device. But if I leave my Bluetooth device on while rebooting the phone gets stuck. So I have to reboot with the Bluetooth device off then hard reset the phone for it to reconnect successfully to have audio.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] qwsdert4:
bug report:

In "combined view" in stock email app, a click on any mail in the inbox will result to crash.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Arfman:
Calls are going to the speaker and Bluetooth music streaming stops after 0.5 seconds.

Back to stock for me, these are the things I use my phone for.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Valentino911:
Hi. I have just installed the cm 12 on my z3c and it works great but..

Are there custom kernel that implement new governors and chedulers? I found AndroPlus kernel but it doesn't work on CM... :confused:

Thank you and sorry for my silly question!
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] g0ldenchild562:
I think the phone works great, except for the call for in speaker mode. There's some blackout bug that cause the phone to be pitch black, but doesnt happened too often. Other than that i thinhk its works great.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] mirecek11:
very thanks for everyone

cm 12 is wonderfull work . thanks for all :D
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Dimbelknoedel:
Does doubletap 2 wakeup work for you guys?
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Arfman:
Only with the setting from a few pages back.

The latest nightly seems to have fixed the calling going to the speaker for me. Also, Bluetooth streaming sometimes works after a reboot.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] 2mal16:
you can also do this :

1. Create a skript in a terminal of your choice with the following content:

#!/system/bin/sh

echo "1" > /sys/devices/virtual/input/clearpad/wakeup_gesture

2. Save

2. Mount the /system partition with root explorer as r/w (i use es file explorer, long press on rootexplorer in the tools section)

3. Copy the file into /system/etc/init.d/

4. Name the file 00taptowake (no file extension) and change the permissions in file properties to -rwx rwx rwx .you should see this if you look at it with detailed listing in file explorer after you changed the permissions.

5. Download universal init.d app in playstore and enable it.

6. Reboot

--> The skript will be run on startup and enable tap2wake after unlocking the sim.

--> you can set the se linux to strict again.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Arfman:
Scratch that, just received a call that went to the speaker again.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] g0ldenchild562:
Speakers for calls still doesn't work for me
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] i7icegy:
Anyone else have misc battery as top of their battery usage?
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Arfman:
Went back to stock for now (super easy with Flashtool, using a pre-rooted ROM). Will keep an eye on this thread, Lollipop looks awesome and has some really nifty features but CM12 for this device isn't quite there yet.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] broduderson:
Not sure if I was doing something wrong, but I flashed the boot.img, got to the CM recovery and then the recovery couldn't read anything from the SDcard after I wiped the data. I pulled it and checked with my computer, it's all still there. I tried to sideload the rom in and no dice. Back to stock fw for now.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] zoome9:
Did you check the /0 folder? I believe I had to go through Internal > /0 > to get to the SD card with CM12.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] TRGDKF:
I have installed last nightly. I wanted to see my cpu stats so i downloaded cpu z. everything matches but battery info show that i have 3200mah battery in my z3c ??? So i thought there is miss info in cm12 nightly or something that shows up my battery to be size 3200mah. Is this risk when i charge my device ? ( i tried different apps all shows battery to 3200mah )

( 31 nightly calling is working normal (speakers and normal))
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] broduderson:
I'm pretty sure I went through every single folder I could to try and find it. I'd try it again but it's a PITA to get back to stock latest FW rooted + XZDR. I could be totally missing an easy way to get TWRP up and running without doing all that but I haven't seen it as of yet.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Elvin99:
Found a BUG - ANT+ does not work with cm 12 nightly
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Anthony25:
I did a post a few days ago to talk about a performance issue with encryption. I wiped the data on my phone and the performances were good... without encryption !

I used it for a couple of days, and it was really smooth. Then I decided to enable the encryption, and then I had a big performance drop after the reboot, like before I wiped: UI is laggy and slow.

Weird fact: if I disable the password at boot (so my device is still encrypted, but no passphrase is asked at boot), then the UI is smooth after reboot. Re-enabling the passphrase at boot and the UI becomes laggy.

Edit: I'm running on the last nightly, 20150131
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] andryyyy:
Nice to see there is progress. :)

I am back on a debloated stock for now, but this already looks cool.

The battery time is surprisingly good!

My personal show-stopper was the sometimes not working recent apps soft-key.

I run "adb log" but it just said nothing when it happened.

There are a lot of settings which simply did not apply, too. But that's okay, it is an early nightly!

I can confirm the noise in calls, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

We should wait until LP ist released and give the devs time to implement stuff afterwards.

Good work, guys!
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] lucky58:
After rooted my z3c I finally did bootloader unlock to try cm12. Seems good, but have some probs:

the phone app is not taking my ringtone at all ( seems to works with ogg, not with mp3 sound files)

the user is not taking my user picture

These are small things, greatest flaw is that incoming calls often got to speaker, but overall cm12 is fine
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] andreheitor:
I have to unlock the bootloader or just follow the instructions in the first post?

My Z3c is original as it came from the factory (kitkat 4.4.4 v23.0.1.A.5.77).
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] mick711:
Hy

Yes for Cyanogenmod ROM you need to Unlock Bootloader like other no official ROM .

The best for you is to root your Z3 Compact before unlock your bootloader and save your TA partition because you can go back with DRM key and locked bootloader .
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] :
Just a heads up, folks: double tap to wake is officially fixed in the the latest nightly. Seems to work fine without any modifications.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] zoome9:
Anyone else have a problem where they lose touchscreen functions (unable to unlock/swipe/etc.) if they reboot the device and let it fully boot without unlocking right away? I'm able to get around it by quickly unlocking and putting in my PIN. But if I reboot and forget about the phone for a little bit the touchscreen is not responsive. Just the physical buttons work.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Anthony25:
Hum for me, the touchscreen is OK, but the UI becomes super laggy (like in my post, #93). Maybe these bugs are related.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] 2mal16:
I had the same problem and i think closing all programs before reboot seemed to help. Though this was kind of the point , together with the strange sounding calls when i decided to go back to stock.

Went back to stock for now and I am not regretting it, some of the xposed modules are just too nice.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Arfman:
Any progress on calls going to the speaker and Bluetooth audio streaming? Can't find anything in the changelogs but I really liked Lollipop when I tested it and would like to go back, but the calling and streaming issues need to be fixed first. Thanks!
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] TRGDKF:
Calling works fine for me. I haven't tested bluetooth streaming, so i can't answer to that.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] scottjb:
I have a couple of problems with calling. If I enable the speakerphone while in a call, the call is dropped. Also, key presses are not recognized, for example, when attempting to retrieve voice mail.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] RealitySwitch:
I thought this was happening too, but what was happening was the call audio as getting silenced after the keypresses. Toggling speakerphone (speakerphone itself didn't seem to work) restored the audio and let me hear the outcomes of the IVR system's response to my keys.

---------- Post added at 00:32 ---------- Previous post was at 00:24 ----------

I had to make the "aries" edit in the 20150201 nightly installer script to get it to do the initial flash (done using the FOTA recovery from kyasu, thanks!) - can I safely accept the OTA update within CM to the next nightly? I'm worried it won't recognise my device and require a reflash?

The script change is trivial - which repository does that live under? I'm not sure where to find out, or I wouldn't ask :)

In general, I'm liking the state of things so far, the work of all the contributors is much appreciated here. So far I've noticed the following:

Some boots, the screen response seems slow and system load seem very high. Doesn't seem to recover with time.

In calls, the DTMF tones do work but can't be heard and after the keypad is used, the audio seems to be gone until one toggles the speakerphone (which doesn't produce any output).

The "advanced reboot" options, like booting to recovery from the power menu just seem to cause a shutdown.

I'd post a screenshot I shared on Google Drive, but I just discovered they don't allow direct image links and I'm too new to post links... :(
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] :
I'm glad I'm not the only one with this issue. No one else has complained about it really. Sometimes, on a clean flash, it'll work a few times, but eventually does what you said.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] RealitySwitch:
Me too. I know there are performance issues with Lollipop disk encryption, but as I understand it this should really just make disk I/O slower. Having the UI/screen refresh affected as we appear to; maybe there's a lot of I/O going on and to the data partition and it's loading the system too much. This is a debug build and I'd expect a lot of logging to be going on.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] dillalade:
Question regarding all those who have discussed there desire and workarounds for using TB.

Now from my understanding its not good practice to restore apps (at least not 'app data') which have been backed up from a different rom (in this case backing up from our stock xperia kit kat onto this cm12 lollipop.)

Are people here actually succeeding in restoring backed up Apps & SPECIFICALLY "App data" (from our stock to this cm12.)

Also is it plausable to make backups in TB without root?

Thanks
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] scottjb:
No, TB needs root to run backups.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] tschannik26:
As far as I know it really isn`t good practice. I did it anyway, apps and data, but just for some apps & games( like facebook, ebay, poweramp). I did not try apps like my launcher(apex) or stuff like that. So far I didn`t have any problems with restored apps, everything working great.

For recovery I used fota-twrp2.8.4.0-z3c.img and then flashed Update-SuperSU-v2.40.zip. Titanium Backup is working nicely ;)
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] KWoods41:
Screen turns off in Power Saver Mode

Weird bug here - my phone turns the screen completely off in Power Saver Mode, but only if I have less than 15% battery. If I turn on Power Saver with more battery than that, it works perfectly.

Also noticing a huge power loss when I update the nightly. Not a big deal; just a heads up.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] RealitySwitch:
OTA updates?

Has anyone tried having CM update itself with an OTA update on an "aries" device? I had to edit the installer-script to have it recognise my D5803 and now I'm afraid that such an update wouldn't recognise my device cause a mess?
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] scottjb:
I ended using the CyanogenMod recovery and it works fine. No need to change anything. It will download and install updates.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] RealitySwitch:
So, just to clarify, you installed a nightly via recovery (on a device that requires that "aries" edit) and subsequently had the "Cyanogenmod Updates" settings item perform a system update from in-OS?
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] :
Flash the boot.img from the nightly with fastboot. That will install CM recovery, and you'll be able to flash the ROM with no issues.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] scottjb:
Yes, this is what I did.

---------- Post added at 06:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:50 PM ----------

And yes, I was getting the "Aries" edit prior to doing the above.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Elvin99:
Please Update the Not Working section: FM Radio, ANT+
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] dzejmsbond007:
Hi all,

the opening post was last edited on 27th January - is there any significant progress? What is working a what is not? Is the ROM currently ready for everyday comfortable use without compromises?

Thanks,

dzejmsbond007
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Arfman:
Looking through the changelog, nothing appears to have fixed either the calling issue or the bluetooth issue. Still not daily driver material it seems, unfortunately.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] dzejmsbond007:
Seen the changelogs too, but cannot decode from them how much bugs were fixed. Anyone with the latest nightly and hands-on experience?
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] broduderson:
I just installed the nightly from the fifth last night. I will report back later if any of those issues have been fixed. I was on a phone call just a few minutes ago and didn't have any lag (albeit, I called them so it may only be when receiving calls). I'll test BT as well on my way to work.

PS Are you supposed to place the zip file on the sdcard in a certain location or unpack the zip? I couldn't get it to install through recovery by selecting the sdcard1 (both options) again. However, ADB sideloading the zip file worked perfectly.

Edit:

Telephony: Just tried calling myself, still 3 second delay when answering. Still issue with speaker phone (kind of quiet on speaker, unable to switch back to headset once speakerphone is enabled).

Telephony: Using the number keypad while in a call will disable the handset speaker.

Display: Brightness thresholds have not been set properly, resulting in the user being able to completely turn off the display backlight by moving the adjust brightness slider lower than approximately 1/4th the way down.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Arfman:
Thanks for testing! Really wish the calling issue would be fixed, just like Bluetooth.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] broduderson:
Yeah, the loudspeaker isn't that big of an issue for me. However, using the dialpad while in a call (for navigating phone systems) shutting off the handset speaker is a huge problem. Is there an official bug tracker for this build?
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] scottjb:
Too bad. I am thinking of going back to stock until the phone and Bluetooth problems are fixed. Luckily I don't use the phone much but use BT often for streaming.

Regarding your update question, the easiest way is to go to Settings->About phone->CyanogenMod updates, and update from there.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] dzejmsbond007:
Is it the only issue or just an example of how half-finished the ROM is?
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] Zwulf:
Same here. I must not reboot under 15%. If I do so it does not even boot most of the time, but if it boots it's completely unusable. Also got some weird issues when charged regarding unlocking - sometimes it hangs / touch doesn't work but after turning screen off and on again it works. System UI also crashes quite often. Also recognized that it doesn't boot sometimes when charging, but kinda bootloops getting hot like hell and drains battery about 20% in 5 minutes - when pulling charger it boots fine. Really crazy to use. Version from 02/02 did not have those weird issues.
[Xperia Z3 Compact General] zoome9:
In the same boat as earlier poster. Been giving CM12 a shot for the past week or so. But I'm going to end up reverting. Major downer for me was BT problems. You would have to reboot every time to get BT to work properly. Speakerphone thing was a minor inconvenience