yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
I have the S000022_150626_ROW firmware and the tablet hardware runs at 1.7GHz. IIRC, the hardware was improved from 1.5GHz to 1.7GHz sometime in spring. IMO he got his device replaced with old stock :(

Anyway, I can confirm that whatever version hardware of software, the device simply isn't as sensitive to to WiFi signals as my Note 2 or my Elite book, for that matter. Typing this in bed upstairs, although only 30 feet from the router in a wood house I barely get any signal.

Has anyone tried to 127.0.0.1 clients3.google.com as a remedy for dropping WiFi?

---------- Post added at 15:45 ---------- Previous post was at 15:37 ----------

I suggest you check whether the problem is software (timeout from the clients3.google.com server) or whether its a signal sensitivity issue (use WiFi Signal)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sgtslaughter:
Another thing:

I found a hidden yandex-App (russion google) oon my Tab after rooting. It appeared in the App-rights. Nothing on the drawer, nothing on Titanium-Backup. I deinstalled it witz ES. Cheers!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] SCWells72:
FYI, it appears that they've pulled the Lollipop updates from OTA. I updated to the one noted above and once that was in place, the tablet says no further updates are available.

Oh, and my tablet now shows "4 Core 1.7GHz" whereas before it showed "4 Core 1.5GHz", so it does look like a firmware update gave it the CPU bump as well.

Thanks for all the info!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
That's strange... In other words that must have been a bug in the early KitKat ROM release... I stand corrected!

Am I to presume you updated to the latest KitKat update? How's the WiFi behaving? In my case I moved the router from behind the printer and repositioned the antennas and the signal is better now ;)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] SCWells72:
Yeah, I let it update to the latest KitKat. I don't have enough time on it to know whether it's better behaved, but at first blush it definitely seems to be. My understanding from both the forums and Lenovo support is that the wifi issues are primarily with the Lollipop build and not with the hardware itself, though it sounds like you're having signal strength issues even on KitKat. I'll post an update in the next day or two once I've had more burn-in time with this one.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] suhridkhan:
Xposed working on Kitkat

Guys, I don't know if you already know or not.

Xposed framework is working on the stock Kitkat rom. I tried a few modules (gravitybox, minminguard, HandleExternalStorage) and all of them seems to be working so far.

On lollipop it caused a bootstuck though.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] SCWells72:
Good to know. I've already rooted mine with KingRoot and converted to SuperSU. I was thinking about taking the next step and putting on a custom recovery so I could flash things like Xposed Framework. Since this tablet really is just for reading, though, I may also just leave things where they are now. I'll sleep on it!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thomas Hoekstra:
Connection / Download problem

Hi,

i followed the instructions from thespillers post (#142), but the download doesn't start. The drivers are installed successfully, but when connecting the powered-off device nothing happens.

When I disconnect the device after 15 minutes, I get the following message:

BROM ERROR: S_BROM_CMD_STARTCMD_FAIL(2005)

BROM: Can not pass bootrom start command! Possibly target power up too early.

Does anyone know, what this message means and how to fix this problem?

I found some hints (but no clear evidence) that this could be related to 64 Bit Windows 7, but I don't have 32 Bit Windows installed, so I can't try this quickly.

I would install another windows version, if I knew that would help...

Any help is appreciated,

Thanks,

Thomas
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] suhridkhan:
Not sure about this particular message, but mine worked with 64-bit windows 10 machine, so I don't think windows 7 would be an issue. I tried to put together a guide here, see if it helps.

Can you communicate to your tablet through adb?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
I wasn't too sure about this at it seemed that it would only increase and exacerbate the harshness - but in fact it is quite the opposite, I loaded my picture collection and after reducing contrast, setting saturation to zero and increasing brightness (=gamma) and then activating dynamic contrast I was pleasantly surprised... It did really improve the situation to a point where colors, although still a little bit too excessive to me, especially skin tones and reds in general, are actually quite life-like but most noticeably, luminosity and dynamic range are almost life-like, without excessive glariness. I'm impressed and quite frankly, don't see why I would ever want a print on paper :)

Now if manufacturers would come to their senses and get back to the more reasonable ratio of 4:3 that is closer to what the eye sees and corresponds to actual letter size and start making tablets that are the exact size of a sheet of paper with edge to edge picture, we wouldn't need paper anymore :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thomas Hoekstra:
I'll have a look at this guide tomorrow...

And - shame on me - even though I have Android Studio installed on this machine I didn't try ADB yet...

I'll let you know if I got any further.

Thanks for answering!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
I flashed my recovery using my Windows 7 64bit machine and all went well. Had only problems with my well worn 32 bit Vista machine (hardware otherwise exactly identical, HP EliteBook 8730 with DreamColor RGB LED WUXGA and nVidia FX 2700M video card) So my only advice after having struggled with this issue for several days is to try it on a different machine with a clean or relatively clean and standard install of windows and all power management and other interference software disabled.

Also you need to remove the device after loading the drivers, make sure it's off and press the download button BEFORE plugging the device into the computer.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thomas Hoekstra:
Thank you, I'll try again with a clean installation.

Do you think I can use VirtualBox? Or could the virtualization layer cause any problems?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
If it's only the recovery I don't see why it would be unsafe especially if you wait till it times out like you did.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thomas Hoekstra:
OK. thanks. now installing a clean win7 32 bit in a virtual box...
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thomas Hoekstra:
Got it working...

Hi all,

thank you for your help. The files suhridkhan uploaded are slightly different (e.g. newer flash tool) from the files I found following links from earlier posts in this thread.

The VirtualBox approach didn't work. I managed to install the Preloader driver, but after that the device never showed up in the VM again.

I then tried again on the host, and with the files from suhridkhan's post everything worked fine.

Happy new year!

Thomas
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] erxx:
Hello fellow tab2 A10-70 users,

I managed to downgrade my tablet from Lollipop to KitKat 4.4 using the rom link Ondigo provided. It all went successfully and tablet is working. But I just now realized that the rom link was for A10-70F and NOT for A10-70L that I have :laugh:

So I'm without 3G/4G and tablet does not react to SIM card at all. Can you suggest there is any easy/hard solution to move to A10-70L firmware somehow?

Many thanks in advance.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thomas Hoekstra:
I would guess you can simply download and flash the right firmware with 3G/4g support...
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
I don't want to be the bearer of bad news but I hope you saved your NVRAM folder, because it holds your IMEI needed for your cellular radio to work...

That being said I believe there are tools to fix a missing IMEI... Also, did you check the Russian Lenovo forum? They seem to have quite a lot of 70L based files...

Good luck!

---------- Post added at 10:43 ---------- Previous post was at 10:18 ----------

Good to know - I've read that before, that one version of the tool didn't work for some whereas another did (that wasn't my experience, I tried them all on the Vista machine, reverting to earlier registries after unsuccessful attempts)... What version did you use in the end on what version of Windows? In my case, I used SPFlash 5.1532 and the SP_Drivers_2 on my fresh Windows 7 64 bit install and that worked on the first try.

Have a great year with YOUR tablet (not Google's!) :D
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thomas Hoekstra:
I used SP-Flash-Tool-v5.1436.00 and SP_Drivers_2 on Windows 7 64 bit. The Windows installation is about 3 years old.

The other SP Flash version I used was SP_Flash_Tool_v5.1352.01 and that was probably the problem...
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Tzul:
Hey, I recognize those files! ;)

Thanks for the mirror. The original thread for the exFAT & NTFS drivers is right here, by the way.

It's fastboot, not speed boot, and has nothing to do with the speed of booting.

Normal is normal boot (Android), obviously.

The nice thing with MediaTek-based devices is that you do not need MtkDroidTools or even a custom recovery for "nandroid" backups.

Just use the SP Flash Tool and do a "readback" of the entire flash. You can even do that with a brand new device before you boot Android for the very first time - can't get any backups more untouched than that.

That's how I made the full A10-70F_S000120_150907_ROW.7z backup that clsA has in his repository.

Installing the USB VCOM driver required by the SPFT shouldn't be as difficult as you made it look - drivers come with .inf files that you can right-click to install. In modern versions of Windows, only signed drivers are allowed by default. If I remember correctly, the VCOM driver is unsigned. So you have to disable the signature enforcement, which isn't that difficult either.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] clsA:
Welcome to xda, I hope you were not offended by my actions.

I did attempt to give you full credit here >> http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=64546198&postcount=3

I feel we are very Lucky you have come here with you experience with this device.

For some reason I was not able to get SPFT to backup the stock tablet, and the translation of your instructions was confusing.

Do you know of any plans for a custom rom for this device?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
Great to know, I had that version (5.1352.01) as well, will delete it from my downloads.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
I tip my hat off to you, sir and I welcome you in our modest abode ;)

Thank you for letting us newbies know how SPFlash works... I kind of suspected there should be a smarter way than to use the MTKDroidTools kludge but as an amateur, would probably have never investigated it further ;)

Indeed - that's the first thing I tried - but after struggling with it on my old computer for a day not knowing why it didn't work I was losing my senses and didn't want to take any more chances with the backup computer... Come to think of it, I feel quite foolish now :o

Thanks for setting the record straight!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] clsA:
Yeah I saw that when I got back to my PC, that's one of the problems with tapatalk you don't get any member info or signatures

Yeah I was missing load the scatter file first step, I have a cheap RCA tablet i may practice on ....thank you

Yeah I thought I would give lollipop a couple weeks but it needs allot of work

This sounds like the way to go. I may do it over the weekend as it's back to work on Monday
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
Carliv recovery on the Lenovo Tab 2 A10-70

Just a quick question - I'm coming from the well worn and comfortable neighbourhood of CWM and as i tried to do my first backup using this recovery, I notice there isn't any option to do backup on the external SDCard and was wondering if it was just me, or is it truly missing from this recovery? 16GB fills very quickly when experimenting!

Thank you in advance for the clarification.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] suhridkhan:
I have noticed that, you can back up to sd card on the recovery for lollipop, not on the kitkat version. My understanding was that recovery is independent of the os. Probably someone can shed some light on this issue?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
I find that very annoying since backups is what takes half the space on my phone's 16GB external SDCard in the first place and I am always fighting with low space. As this tablet has only16GB of internal memory, it's going be quite a hassle.

Considering these recoveries are root apps, I can't understand why access to the external SDCard is crippled this way. Maybe we should ask carliv himself?

Off topic - My tests with the Circles Widget 3D have been disappointing... Although the widget does work, sort of, under KitKat, it is buggy and the weather applet doesn't work at all, so with this important feature useless it may be time to move on. Too bad, because the Moto Launcher was great on my Note 2 and the epitome of efficiency (see pictures below). I'm afraid it's going to be a tough act to follow, especially since I've discovered that Smart Launcher's 'simplicity' hides what I consider a major lacuna, the restriction to only one widget on the homescreen, that some of the author's groupies on his site insist on saying is a 'feature' (doesn't it sound like Apple?). It's absurd considering the vast expanse of this device's screen.

Homescreen:

Apps on second screen, organized in folders:

Ah well... Next year will bring new ideas and new solutions. I'm off to prepare a midnight new year's feast for my wife and I, I suggest you folks do the same with your families too. Happy New Year! :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] clsA:
I'm using the Lollipop version of Carliv recovery and it's listed as backup to sdcard or backup to storage/sdcard1

storage/sdcard1 is the external sdcard formatted in fat32. Backing up to internal sdcard is not visible on the PC.

while backing up to the sdcard1 shows up on the PC as a normal clockworkmod/backup/2015-12-28.12.32.02 (Current date.random backup number). directory and can easily be copied to the PC for a secure backup.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Sparkrite:
Just a quick question, are you using the lollipop version of Corliv on a kitkat tablet?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
I can live with that. Just annoys me to no end that I'll have to keep moving the file in and out of the internal SD Card... Don't particularly like the idea of doubling SDCard wear...

How's it behaving in Lollipop? I may simply bite the bullet and move on... My favourite launcher doesn't work right in KitKat anyway...

---------- Post added at 14:11 ---------- Previous post was at 14:09 ----------

I believe he's moved on to Lollipop, IIRC. But I'd sure love to find out if that wasn't so!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] clsA:
My Tablet shipped with Lollipop, build date was December 15, 2015 - I got the 32 gig model direct from Lenovo website

So no I never tried the kitkat version of recovery.

---------- Post added at 06:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:57 PM ----------

I don't have any real problem with Lollipop other than the wifi dropping out occasionally. This usually happens after the tablet was asleep, I simply toggle wifi off then back on and everything is fine.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] suhridkhan:
Since [MENTION=5919159]Tzul[/MENTION] pointed out that xposed is working on Lollipop, I have moved on to Lollipop. I am not facing any severe issues yet, just may be the sound through headphone is a bit of distorted, but I can live with that. Not being able to backup to sd card is quite a pain.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
I have the same issue when the signal is poor - does that drop out happen when the signal is strong as well? Otherwise mine behaves similarly when woken up from sleep - says not in range although I'm sitting right near the router, lol... Switch on and off resolves the issue.. As long as it doesn't stop while I'm streaming I can live with that... How much more expensive was that 32GB model compared to the base model?

---------- Post added at 00:53 ---------- Previous post was at 00:50 ----------

Do let us know the differences, I'm probably going to move on as well in the next few days since my Moto Blur launcher doesn't work right on KitKat anyway.

---------- Post added at 01:04 ---------- Previous post was at 00:53 ----------

Interesting... But the logical way would be to move on to a newer kernel and clean out the junk from the ROM to make it run efficiently... in other words, get the car for its engine and strip the unneeded 'civilian' junk tacked on by lawyers and marketers ;)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] clsA:
The 32gb model is just $10 more on the Lenovo website. I was back ordered and took 2 weeks to ship.

But I did receive a brand new Tablet with a manufacture date of 12/15/2015 with the latest firmware installed.

I had a 16gb HP Touchpad for several years and it was a constant battle for free space (and no external SD support)

Even with Cyanogenmod installed I was always uninstalling something to try something else.

The 32gb Tab 2 has around 10gb available after I install all my normal apps & games, and I have not done my cleanup debloat yet.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Tzul:
Much easier said than done. Since the Linux kernel is GPL, the source code must be provided freely. You can indeed download it from Lenovo's support site, but it's the old Android 4.4 version, and it's massively complex.

I doubt there's much junk in it that you could remove without breaking stuff or losing features. But of course there are always opportunities for optimizations, and new features (like integrated exFAT and NTFS support).

There isn't a lot of efficiency-destroying junk in the Android system either. Lenovo has a bunch of preinstalled apps, which are enabled/disabled depending on your region. You can easily uninstall all of those with root. And afterwards delete /system/appjar, the folder where they are stored. That frees up over 300 (!) MB on the system partition, which can then be used for other things (e.g. integrating updates for system apps, to free up some space on the /data partition). Won't really help with performance, though, for that you'd need to dig into the kernel and Android framework.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
Amazing! Would have definitely gotten that model if it had been available. How much space does the Lollipop install take compared to the KitKat?

That's great! After 3 years with my Jelly Bean Note 2 and almost 200 apps installed, I still have 9 GB left. Of course all my backups and pictures are stored on the 16 GB SD Card, which is basically full...

---------- Post added at 17:48 ---------- Previous post was at 17:39 ----------

I have no doubt that we, as a community, along with some talented individuals such as yourself, will indeed find ways to make it work better, and in a sense I look forward to retirement when I'll finally have more time to do stuff like that. Although I come from the ancient times programming in Fortran on punch card machines, I haven't done any serious coding in the past 20 years and have only done some script level stuff in AutoIt in the past 10, so it will be a nice challenge, hopefully it will prevent me from becoming a crusty old fool... :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] danbeas:
Mine worked with kitkat and xposed for like 2 days then bricked. Luckily best buy didn't really look at it and exchanged it so haven't tried again in the new one.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Tzul:
I've been using Xposed in Android 4.4.4 for over a week now, no problems.

Unless you experienced a hardware fault, your tablet probably wasn't "bricked". These MediaTek-based devices are quite easy to recover, because as long as there's still a valid preloader installed in the boot region, you can just reflash everything with the SPFT. Some devices even have a special fail-safe mode in case the preloader ever gets corrupted, and are therefore pretty much "unbrickable", but I don't know if this applies to our tablet.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] clsA:
It seems unlikely that xposed bricked it. I'm using it on my Lollipop model without any problems

What modules did you install ? All I use is GravityBox and xposed Additions and they both work fine
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
I totally agree - From all likelihood, you simply experienced a hardware fault, most of them happen when devices are fairly new from a manufacturing defect. Devices don't suddenly get bricked after working for a while, they either do or don't right after you flash them.

But I understand your reluctance trying again now, it's just post traumatic stress. Retrace your steps to find out what could have gone wrong, that's OK, but don't let that stop you.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] clsA:
new update pushing out today for Lollipop

I'll upload it to my collection soon.

Note: if your rooted with custom recovery you'll have to restore the stock System and Recovery before updating

Use SP Flash Tools and this file >> https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=24345424848488356

Choose recovery and system only to return to stock

then from stock recovery choose install update from sdcard and then choose the lenovoota.zip

Link to OTA >> A10-70F_S000120_150907_ROW_TO_A10-70F_S000121_151222_ROW

first bootup takes about 10 min like any system update
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
+1 - Can't be said often enough!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] markvarvel:
Nice job on supplying a central place to download the files from.

Thank You.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Old faithful:
Indeed. The future of this tablet look very promising for power users :)

For those who were looking for a way to transfer files to and from their tablet or to and from internal memory to SD Card without losing the timestamps (a bug in Android since around 2009), Ghost Commander with SuperSU and Busybox makes it possible to preserve file attributes during file operations. I tried perhaps 12 different file managers before finding one that would work reliably and this is it!

I'm sure this will be of interest to photographers who sort pictures by date and those who need authentic dates dates for backing up or legal purposes.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Sparkrite:
Any changelog with this or have you noticed any improvements at all?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] clsA:
Not had time to test but the Wi-Fi already seems more stable
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] suhridkhan:
Screen Brightness

Off topic (there is no off topic in this thread, that's why I like it)

Is there a way to reduce the LCD backlight on this tablet? Even at the minimum brightness, it's too bright for night time.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] TimmieNet:
I use Lux Auto Brightness from the play store (can't post link yet, but just search for "Lux". There is a free and paid version).

You can put the brightness to less than stock 0. You can also make it use the front camera as a light sensor so you get some degree of ambient light sensing (better than nothing).