[FYT Android Head Units] edit:
Revised 1-Mar-2018

I've updated the writings a bit for the 1 Sept firmware update.

In case you are wondering I have this unit : Joying EU-JY-FL121N2

01. It is worth the upgrade from Androd 5 to 6?

For me this things determined me to update

1. Split screen - you can put side by side 2 apps, not all apps work but most do. (does not work with 1 sept firmware)

On Android 6 the split screen it known to be buggy but for me it worked ok, i find it useful putting Waze and PlayerPro side by side. iGo does not support split screen if you wonder.

When the units enters sleep it "forgets" which apps were in split screen so next time the HU wakes up you need to set those 2 apps again in split screen. It does not take long but if you do it on a daily basis it gets annoying... quickly.

2. Better CPU management and with that comes a bit better CPU power management (less heat generated for basic tasks, like playing music)

3. The notifications background is not white anymore with the white text on it... it's how it is supposed to be... dark gray so you can read the white text

Later edit :

I been through all the Android 6 releases and I can tell you that it still does not feel as stable as it was on Android 5. There are many times when I felt sorry that I've upgraded to 6. I would downgrade to 5 in an instant if it would be possible. The unit bad implementation of the sleep behavior it really bugs me.

Ranting more on the subject here : https://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=72726651&postcount=47

L.E. 25 July offers the best stability so far, can't recommend the 1 sept update : read here

02. The mods of Android 5 are updated for Android 6 - 21 Sept (the latest at the time of writing)

Yes ! All of them.

03. Are there any custom roms for the Joying Intel Sofia ?

Yes ! Finally ! Thanks to [MENTION=520205]gtxaspec[/MENTION] and [MENTION=2550900]surfer63[/MENTION] we have this :

https://xdaforums.com/android-auto/android-head-units/rom-gtx-joying-stock-rom-2018-01-29-t3742482

04. Deezer white bar issue : This bug presents itself on android 6 only. Deezer has a white bar in player mode, annoying at night and ugly looking. Contacted Deezer, they promised a fix that never came, it’s been a month. Contacted Joying, they told me that they can’t do anything about it. Tested a lot of Deezer versions and found out that the version 5.3.11.90 is the newest that does not have the bug.

LE : they still haven't fixed it and wrote them 5 times already... they promised each time... they value my input... yeah, right.

L.E.E - 2018: kept writing up tickets latest was 2 weeks ago... they are still looking into was the answer.... for more then 1 year i must add... very poor user support,

05. XiiaLive Pro issue : If the unit has the server no-kill mod installed, XiiaLive Pro has FFmpeg as the decoder (this is set by default), you put the app on pause and send the unit to sleep (turn off the engine), for some unknown reason the unit start to drain 0.15A instead of the default 0.01A and after a few minutes of sleeping it shuts down. You NEED to change the decoder from FFmpeg to Android to solve the problem.

LE : They pretty much abandoned the development. This app has some issues, a big one being that when another music app steals the audio focus the Xia app does not pause or stop and continues to stream in the background, eating data for no reason. Wrote them a few times... nothing...

06. What is the unit default DPI? Everything seems so small coming from my old unit.

The default DPI is 160. If you set the DPI to 161 some apps will change the look of the interface (tablet - phone)

L.E. - this can be solved with the help of the [MENTION=520205]gtxaspec[/MENTION] custom ROM or installing Xposed and AppSettings mod via JET app made by [MENTION=2550900]surfer63[/MENTION]

Unfortunately once you change the unit DPI from the default 160 to anything else, say 200, some of the default apps do not scale well and the notification bar grows in thickness a lot (taking a lot of screen estate) so I recommend a restart after each DPI modification to see how the android UI looks and also you need to check all the apps to see if there are badly affected by the DPI change.

You can set the DPI via adb like this (you need to have adb installed) :

adb kill-server

adb connect IP (exemple : adb connect 192.168.1.55)

adb shell wm density xxx (xxx being the density number for example 180 or 190 or 200 or 220 )

07. After the update the unit shuts down instead of sleeping what shall I do:

This unit has some kind of power monitoring, if an process or an app hangs the unit, draining more power then it should while it's in sleep mode it shuts down the unit in order to protect the car battery from draining completely.

Most of the people that upgraded the unit (from android 5 to 6 or from one build of android 6 to another build of 6) without wipeing the data had various problems so updating this unit is not an option in my opinion with a proper wipe, no matter the firmware or version number.

For trouble free, smooth operation you MUST do the following: (revised 05-sep-2017)

1. backup data

2. take out all the microsd cards, usb sticks and check them all for errors (some users had problems with data corruption on the cards that they kept in while updating)

3. delete ALL the files from the internal storage (with the default file manager, go to internal storage, select all, delete)

4. wipe the unit / reset the unit to defaults from the settings

5. before flash the new firmware (again) let the unit cool down at least 30-45 minutes because without additional cooling it overheats and the CPU throttles all the way down to 416Mhz (processing everything extremely slowly) preventing the unit to successfully finish the firmware update. The updating is on a timer and once the timer is out the unit reset itself even if it did not finish the update. And you might find yourself in an endless loop and in some rare cases people got their units bricked. I've never had any problems because I update my units at home and while they are on my desk I take the lid off and put an big fan to blow over the components to cool everything down.

6. wipe it again / reset the unit to defaults from the settings (this is optional)

7. test the sleep function (to see if the unit without any additional software installed behaves ok)

8. put everything back / reconfigure (I personally prefer not to restore from a Titanium backup and reinstall everything and reconfigure)

9. test the sleep function again (to see if the unit is still ok after all that you installed or moded)

10. before inserting back the old microSD cards and usb sticks in the new reflashed/reinstalled unit, make sure that are no files on them from the previous installation (files left over by apps from the the previous installation)

It's always a good idea to start clean and delete the leftovers files that sometimes could be damaged and once you put the back you might encounter problems.

08. I’ve just upgraded my unit and it feels slow, slugish?

Follow the above tutorial except step 7 and 9 :)

09.I can’t turn off the screen/touch BEEP, it’s annoying! Help !

Solution 1

BEFORE flashing or reflashing edit the file “config.txt” from the root of the update

And change this line "ro.fyt.amp_switch=1" to this "ro.fyt.amp_switch=0" (it sets the AMP Enable to OFF by default)

Solution 2

1. Enter Car Settings app

2. Go to the bottom right tab (the one with the screwdriver on it) ckick it and enter 3368

3. go to the AMP Enable option and turn it OFF

4. go to the EQ menu (second bottom tab from right to left) from the Car Settings and now you have Keypad Tone option and you can turn it off.

10. After update, adb via wi-fi does not work anymore.

Solution 1: by [MENTION=520205]gtxaspec[/MENTION]

Before flashing edit the “config.txt” (in the root of the firmware) and add this line without the quotes “service.adb.tcp.port=5555”

Solution 2 : by [MENTION=3076686]gustden[/MENTION]

1) download a terminal program ( Terminal Emulator for Android )

2) enter the following command: setprop persist.adb.tcp.port 5555

3) reboot

Solution 3 : mod by [MENTION=503463]AssassinsLament[/MENTION]

In order to be able to do anything on the unit via ADB you NEED to enable ABD over Wi-Fi so download AoW_v1.0.apk from here https://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=71616884&postcount=273 , copy the apk to a stick, run it in the unit and let it do it's job. (you can uninstall it at the end but I advise you to keep it and disable the ADB Over Wi-FI for security purposes)

11. I need to root what shall I do?

The mod credit goes to [MENTION=2550900]surfer63[/MENTION] !

1. Go to https://github.com/hvdwolf/Joying-RootAssistant

2. go to the green button "Clone or download" and choose Download ZIP, download the file

3. create folder c:\rootjoy and unpack the zip there

4. connect to a router (home or phone router), and check what IP your headunit has (something like 192.168.1.34)

4. open an command prompt with admin rights

5. type the following without the quotes

- "cd c:\rootjoy"

- "cd SuperSU_for_Joying_Intel"

6. at this point restart the unit, once it has booted enter next line (don't let the HU IDLE too long once it has booted because you will get disconnect errors)

- copy_install.bat IP (example copy_install.bat 192.168.1.34)

- if there are no errors, reboot (I followed the steps above and never failed)

7. you are now rooted

Later edit : [MENTION=2550900]surfer63[/MENTION] moved files around and the repository adress from point 1 is at : https://github.com/hvdwolf/Joying-RootAssistant/releases/tag/20170617-02

I haven't tested rooting with the new archive

Later edit 2 : [MENTION=2550900]surfer63[/MENTION] put up a nice tutorial here : https://hvdwolf.github.io/Joying-RootAssistant/rooting.html

12. The default EQ and overall sound quality is poor, can I do anything to improve it?

Solution 1

Viper4Android : brought the sound to life for me, without it the sound quality is poor. With this software you can improve it quite a lot. The unit NEEDS to be rooted so you have to follow the above tutorial and root the unit first in order to install the Viper.

01. go to this post https://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=72064749&postcount=41, download the viper.zip file.

02. For the me last version of the Viper4Android (included in the viper.zip) works ok but the EQ section is broken for me (meaning changing the EQ modifies the sound just slightly) so I used an older version of Viper4Android where the EQ section actually works and you can clearly hear the difference when playing with the EQ bars.. If you want to use my version go to to step 12 if you want to install the [MENTION=503463]AssassinsLament[/MENTION] version go to step 03

03. unpack the viper.zip to C:\viper

04. open an cmd prompt with admin rights

05. "cd c:\viper"

06. restart the HU, just to be safe, after the reboot enter the next line in cmd prompt

07. enter "viper.bat IP" (example : viper.bat 192.168.1.34)

08. after it finished reboot the HU

09. after reboot ran the app, say yes when it wants to install the driver, wait, it takes a few minutes, if android wants to end the task press wait, be patient, when it's done reboot again.

10. ran the app again, from the left menu select settings, and lock on the headset profile (because the headset has all the options enabled so more power to you for tweaking the sound)

11. select headset profile and have fun tweaking the sound.

12. unpack the viper.zip to C:\viper

13. go to https://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2191223 scroll down to v2.3.4.0 (Android 2.3~5.0) and download the mediafire link next to it (http://www.mediafire.com/download/cnqqdme51qy9ft4/ViPER4Android_FX_v2340.zip)

14. inside the ViPER4Android_FX_v2340.zip there are 2 files, unpack the ViPER4Android_FX_A4.x.apk to the "c:\viper\viper" folder

15. rename it from ViPER4Android_FX_A4.x.apk to ViPER4Android_FX_v2505_A4.x-A7.x.apk and overwrite the original ViPER4Android_FX_v2505_A4.x-A7.x.apk

16. now you can follow the steps from 05 to 10 pretty much.

Later edit : Unfortunately, the EQ section from the Viper app (no matter the version used) does not work with 25May and 7July firmware, the sound stutters, the music speed slows down in a weird way, there are pops in the speakers.

Currently I am using the Viper only to enhance the bass mainly that you can't do otherwise with the extremely limited default Joying EQ.

My settings are as follows :

Viper Bass to +8db

Viper Clarity to +3.5db

Dynamic System to 10% - High Performance Headphones v1

Solution 2 - by [MENTION=442915]bogdi1988[/MENTION]

You can change the default AMP TDA 7388 chip with the Pioneer PA2030A or the TDA7850

Read here the details:

https://xdaforums.com/android-auto/android-head-units/joying-sofia-chip-upgrade-t3589587

13. Enable “OK Google” from any screen or app possible on this unit?

No, at this time, with this firmware version (25 May) at the time of writing there is no solution.

The velvet.apk works fine, it does not crash, you can OK Google from any screen/app BUT it breaks the unit sleep mode, the unit will shutdown instead of sleeping.

14. In this (25 May) firmware of android 6 is the Google Maps voice finally works with the FM Radio app?

Yes!

15. When I turn off the engine all the apps that are running are closed (killed) while the unit is sleeping.

You need to have a look at this thread for the [MENTION=3076686]gustden[/MENTION] mod:

For the 25 May firmware he built the 6.3 version of it’s mod.

All the details and more here :

https://xdaforums.com/android-auto/android-head-units/joying-2gb-steering-wheel-key-t3543390

Later edit : The 6.3 mod still works with 7 July but the guy that worked his magic on the mod did not update the mod for the 7July firmware at the time of writing and it's been away for 1.5 months so I am not sure about the future of the mod :(

16. I want to enable split screen so I can run 2 apps at the same time.

In order to do that you need to replace the Joying modified Settings.apk with the original android.

We are gonna use the [MENTION=503463]AssassinsLament[/MENTION] script so

1. Go to this post https://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=72107737&postcount=109 and download the “4-27-17_Original_5009_20_Settings.zip” file

2. Create the folder c:\replace_settings and unpack the content of the 4-27-17_Original_5009_20_Settings.zip file

3. Create a new folder called c:\replace_settings_temp and unpack the in this folder the contents of the 5009_60.zip file that it’s in the root of the firmware that that you used to flash the unit.

If you don't have it download exactly the same firmware archive that you did to update the unit, unpack it and in the root you will find the 5009_60.zip archive that contains the Settings.apk and Settings.odex that you need.

4. Copy the Settings.apk file that you will find in the c:\replace_settings_temp\system\priv-app\Settings\ to c:\replace_settings\SETTINGS, (overwriting the old one)

5. Also copy the file Settings.odex from c:\replace_settings_temp\system\priv-app\Settings\oat\x86\ to c:\replace_settings\SETTINGS, (overwriting the old one)

6. Now run a cmd prompt with admin rights and enter the c:\replace_settings folder

7. Enter settings.bat IP (IP of the unit, example: settings.bat 192.168.1.55)

8. Reboot

9.Go to settings and to About Tablet option, go all the way down to the Build number and keep tapping it till it tells you that you have become a developer

10.Push back once and now you have a new menu “Developer options”

11.Enter it and at the “Drawing” section there is an option called “Multi-window mode” ENABLE it

12.Now when you push the task switcher (from the notification bar) when the running apps are presented they have some icons on the left and you can decide how the apps will run, full screen, split screen on the right part of the screen, split screen on the left of the screen

17. I want to tether via Bluetooth, is it possible?

Yes with the mod made by [MENTION=6124077]doitright[/MENTION]

Solution 1

Go to https://xdaforums.com/android-auto/...elopment/bluetooth-settings-launcher-t3504526 and download BluetoothTethering.apk

You can follow the tutorial on that page if you are comfortable with ADB or if can follow mine so :

1. Make a folder (with Root Explorer) named “BluetoothTethering” in “/system/priv-app/

2. Give the folder 755 permissions (long click on the folder to have the folder selected and then go to the upper left to the 3 dots , and from the menu pick permissions then tick the boxes till you get 755)

3. Copy in the newly created folder the BluetoothTethering.apk file and give it 644 permissions

4. Reboot

5. Open the HU default bluetooth app and pair the phone with the HU (I suggest to change the default PIN (0000) to something else for security purposes

6. Start the BluetoothTethering app select the paired phone, enable Auto Connect PAN, push Start Service, also Enable Auto Bluetooth Tethering.

Solution 2

Use this app from the playstore :

Free version : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tomlocksapps.bluetoothtetheringmanager

Paid version : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tomlocksapps.bluetoothtetheringmanager.pro

18. Even at the lowest settings the screen is too bright.

Solution 1

1. Enter the Car Settings app

2. Select the lowest tab on the lower right (the one with the screwdriver)

3. Enter code 3368

4. Scroll towards the bottom and you shall see a option named :”Backlight current adjustment”. I have this menu, some said they don’t have it so my guess is that it depends on the model of the unit … can’t say for sure. (LE : the menu is present if you flash the firmware with a certain file read at no 48 down the page)

5. The pass for the menu is 5768 and here you can define the high and low of the brightness slider from the notification bar (swipe down 2 times). For my unit I have no problem turning the brightness low point all the way to 5 and still I am not quite satisfied by the brightness low level.. Some users complained that if they turn it down to 30 the screen turns black, like in the illumination stops completely and some complained that they can’t turn it back on. So PAY ATTENTION while you play with the sliders… and if something bad happens don’t touch the screen at random in order to avoid pushing the SAVE button… you better reset the unit via RST button and start over.

Solution 2:

You need to modify in the customercfg.txt file that you find it in the root of the firmware before flashing.The file contains these 2 lines :

set-blduty-min=5 -> 5 defines the lowest point for brightness slider

set-blduty-max=100 -> 100 defines the highest point for the brightness slider

For me works perfectly 5 and 100. For some at 5 the illumination turns completely off so they run into issues like “after booting the screen turns off” so you NEED to TEST how low can you go on the slider in the “Backlight current adjustment” manu before modifying the file with the proper numbers.

Solution 3: Software

There are some software solutions for dimming the screen even more by applying a screen filter/overlay:

Warning : It does not play well with SuperSu that has TapJacking protection so while the filter is active the SuperSu does not acknowledge your tapping on it's menus if you want to Grand an app permissions for instance.

There is an option to disable the Tapjacking protection in SuperSu but I would advise not to.

The go to app for me is this : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.haxor

19. When I install Google app the launcher crashes.

Yes it does, you can’t do anything about it except changing the launcher before installing Google app or change the launcher to a 3rd party launcher like Nova launcher or the default “launcher” (not Launcher3).

If you have installed Google and it keeps on crashing use the DOT app (if you haven’t disable it) on the screen to get to settings and uninstall Google app, reboot, then change the launcher, then reinstall the Google app.

Later edit - 7july - They finally fixed the problem in the 7 July firmware. I haven't tested personally but from what people wrote on the forum it seems ok now.

[MENTION=7408972]CadillacMike[/MENTION] confirms here : https://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=73063409&postcount=969

20. Everytime I reboot the unit the FM Radio app starts automatically, can I turn that off.

No, there is no solution on how to take that “feature” down yet :)

Later edit : [MENTION=4688991]Skinzaholic[/MENTION] found this solution : https://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=73672935&postcount=251

Other threads that you need to read

1. Mostly about android 5 but also many usefull informations and redirects to various usefull threads like hardware cooling mods

ROLL-UP -Joying 2GB - Sofia ( Non MTCB/MTCD )- Tips, tricks and mods

https://xdaforums.com/android-auto/android-head-units/roll-joying-2gb-sofia-mtcb-mtcd-tips-t3555249

2. The initial android 6 thread with lots of good info but spread on many pages, a good read none the less

Joying Intel Head Unit Android 6 Update

https://xdaforums.com/android-auto/...ing-intel-head-unit-android-6-update-t3597121