yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bigwigs:
Looks like you are in US. Tmobile has been repurposing 4GLTE bands for 5G so you might lose the connectivity that previously was available. This is the reason, the phone is lying unused for me.

As far as trying for Bands modification, i have tried for couple of months unsuccessfully. You can look at previous posts.

If you want to try then good luck! Hopefully, you can succeed.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Inkbeard:
I'm going to get it back to stock and go step-by-step again. It could be a hardware issue as suggested.

I'll report back once done!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
Quick update on my LOS/patching script.

I've been quite busy recently so sorry for no updates, in the past few days however I have figured out how to edit the bytecode of services/framework.jar and reassemble it successfully which opens up a bunch more possibilities. One downside is that writing smali directly is a bit tedious but thankfully most of the changes I have to make aren't too advanced.

By editing these I now have better vibration patterns which are set depending on an event (call, notification, touch etc.) but it is still a bit too weak, so I will try to post an alpha build of that in the coming days. I could even make the patterns programmable so they can be easily changed, but that's not too high of a priority rn.

Next on the list is making it so the battery saver doesn't automatically enable dark mode and figuring out writing directly to screen for better AOD battery life. Afterwards it's mostly just QoL improvements.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Inkbeard:
Looking forward to it!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bilo2000:
Sweet, can't wait for these changes :) Many thanks!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Kandwo:
Is there a way to check if VoLTE is enabled on the AOSP ROM? When searching for it on settings both VoLTE and 4G calling show up as options, but they're both missing from the actual settings.

Do I need to press the "install ims APK" from within the phh treble settings?

Or am I just missing something?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Inkbeard:
Defo install the IMS APK, that's what I did to get the calls working properly
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Inkbeard:
Aight, last night I retraced my A9 to stock via EDL, updated to the latest stock version, rooted, installed Gapps and all was well as far as I could tell it was back to what I got out of the box. Used it for a bit as is and seemed okay.

Then I followed the flash steps (carefully!), flashed Damian's LOS21 and seemed alright until about 10 minutes into setting up apps when the random rebooting occured once more. So, time to suspect hardware issue - I've attached a capture logcat from this morning just before the last crash.

I can see a lot of "E" lines but going to do some Googling to decipher them as I'm no expert, anything obvious stand out to you? Seeing lines mentioning CPUs being shutdown and thermal trips failing don't bode well in my mind! 😭

Appreciate the helps, lads!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
logcat might not be enough, you can run these to get more relevant logs

adb root

adb pull /proc/last_kmsg

adb shell "ls -t /data/tombstones | head" | xargs -I {} adb pull /data/tombstones/{}

adb shell "ls -t /data/system/dropbox | head" | xargs -I {} adb pull /data/system/dropbox/{}

These will pull a bunch of log files to your current directory

If you are on windows you probably don't have xargs, not sure what the alternative would be but you can just run the first part before xargs and manually adb pull the filenames you get
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Inkbeard:
Got it, I'll try this tonight and report back, thanks.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Kandwo:
Did it install an actual app for you? I can't seem to find it. Though after installing and rebooting I suddenly have the 4G calling and VoLTE options in the settings menu.

However, SMS seem to not always be working. Sometimes they arrive with a delay, sometimes not at all. I managed to find out a parcel had arrived through an app and the SMS they sent never reached me.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Inkbeard:
It didn't install a visible app anywhere (like on the home screen/ app drawer), I assume it's just saved wherever it's needed.

Your SMS issue might be carrier / coverage related? Besides my current random crash issue, calls and texts worked perfectly for me (Vodafone, UK).
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Kandwo:
It's not a connectivity issue. 4G worked perfectly both for internet and calls. I had a good signal. But no matter what app I tried it just wouldn't work, not even after rebooting several times.

As a temporary solution I switched my SIM cards to my backup phone now that I'm traveling.

Turns out I missed out 2-3 SMS completely (parcels, hostel info), some got through with a long delay.

As soon as I switched the cards to my other phone several messages from earlier today arrived instantly.

In short, there's a problem here. It seemed to work a week ago, but there definitely is a problem now. A couple of other users seem to have reported on the same issue.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Inkbeard:
Okay, the above got me the attached files (managed to just use the "adb pull {folder directory}" and got the files).

Hopefully it's enough to review and find something obvious... thanks again for the help, @damianmqr ! 🙌

(Edit: forgot to attach the files, duh - done!)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
Here is the experimental build with vibration fix for my LOS21.

It may be buggy but feedback will be really appreciated. If you have a previous version of my LOS you should be able to just flash it to system without erasing data, (by running fastboot flash system /path/to/img) so DO NOT run fastboot -w afterwards to not lose data.

Otherwise, if coming from stock or other OS you do have to fastboot -w.

The vibration pattern changes per event. I thought it was still a bit weak but checking the stock OS again I do believe it's pretty much the same and definitely better than it was on previous versions.

It also includes support for long press action on the e-ink button, so now 3 different gestures can be bound to it at once.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
I will try to have a look when I get a bit more time, maybe someone else can advice as well the logs should be enough
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Been busy with the family during summer holidays so I have not been spending time on the desktop 😅

A tip if you can't find an app on the Google Play Store because the ROM is not certified: install Aurora Store from F Droid. You just have to login with your Google Account and it will be able to install official app builds from the Play Store via Aurora frontend. Since we have Google Services, all will work without issues.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Kandwo:
So, my SMS failed with two different SIM cards using Ponce's ROM (also two different operators/networks). Somebody on Reddit wrote that disabling 4G calling solved the issue for him (though on LineageOS).

I switched them to my backup phone and both started working.

However, the SIM I put in my A9 from the backup phone works fine for SMS. Tested with texts from 3 different numbers - all arrived immediately. This is a SIM from another EU country.. I'll keep testing it in the coming weeks to see if it keeps working or if it, too, stops at some point.

I'll try to investigate the settings on both phones and try disabling 4G calling when I return home in some weeks.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vbhai:
I just tried the ROM, while the vibration is stronger, but the phone still does not respect the duration of the vibration. I downloaded the Vibrate Test app from the play store and tried vibrating the phone for 15 secs and it only vibrated for a second or so. Though a stronger vibration nonetheless. There is something missing- a vibrator HAL perhaps?

EDIT: For practical purposes, this should be fine to be honest. But just pointing this out any way. Great job, mate.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
I do have issues with vibration apps from F-Droid as well, but at least in my experience they seem finicky on different devices. For example the S21 I used to compare vibration didn't really work well with them on stock either, the stop vibration button just didn't do anything and I had to close the app on both devices. It seems to be working for calls and notifications, but I only tested a small amount of communication apps and normal calling function so if any are reported to break I will look into this more.

Thanks! I will experiment with some more vibration patterns and will hopefully be able to move on to other stuff in the ROM soon.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] farfromrefuge:
When looking at boot errors that i posted just before i can see:

BatteryService: mothealth: cannot get service. (no supported health HAL service)

I think this is why we dont get a health service right now.

@damianmqr with your build do you see battery health "per app usage" in the settings?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
Nope, just the general usage with "Battery usage data will be available in a few hours" on the bottom
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] R0W3Y:
Should the long press action be a separate setting in A9 accessibility settings? If so it's missing on mine (it seemed to flashed ok). If recent apps is added to the actions list too I can stop running Keymapper :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
It should be, it probably didn't install for you as I built it on a different machine without access to my main one so the signature was different. I will post it correctly signed here later.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Thanks for the logs! I may be wrong but some of these are from the vendor partition trying to start or set stuff assuming they exist on the ROM. Since this vendor partition is now interfacing with LOS/AOSP and not InkOS, those errors are spit out. This just comes to show that Hisense made a lot of assumptions on what ROM you are running vs what is on the vendor init scripts. We may be able to clean those up but not sure it's worth the hassle.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
Another version of the LOS21 with improvements to vibration handling and battery saver

This version should for now be considered experimental as well, but if no major bugs are reported would probably become the new major release soon as the service apk is signed with proper keys and the new approach to vibration improves on previous one on a technical level.

Now the handling of vibration patterns has been done in a more appropriate way which works well with the vendor's SELinux policies, but should be tested further.

As for new features, after some smali code changes the battery saver no longer enables dark mode, so you can get a good battery life without sacrificing the looks and feel of e-ink :cool: Further battery improvements specifically in context of AOD will hopefully come in the next major release when I figure out writing to the display. But for now, I suggest turning battery saver on when not using AOD.

The accessibility service apk (which I attach here for those who only update/don't erase data) has also been slightly improved with added support for home and recents e-ink button actions as requested by @R0W3Y

All of the changes are open source and can be seen under https://github.com/damianmqr/A9PatchingService

As it's a patching script, you can attempt to run it on other treble-droid based images, but keep in mind latest LOS21 GSI seems broken

If you enjoy the project and feel like helping further development, please provide feedback in this thread/via github issues or support me on ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/damianmqr
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Skematica:
i suspect T-mo has been repurposing as the area i am in is saturated in 5g. Cellmapper.net shows a couple 4g towers within blocks of my home and also work. Having an EDGE connection is the only obstacle keeping me from loving this phone. i'll give it a go as you did and report back.

Sent from HLTE556N using ReLabs
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
I might attempt to do this through editing the framework directly, so the AOD will lose it's extra features (for now) but will work on the system level if I am successful. Not sure how viable it is yet so it might take a while, from a quick look at the source a lot of the views are shared between lock screen and AOD and it might be challenging to introduce anything new so no ETA yet.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Bennyboy371:
I think I may have bricked my A9. I was using the guide pinned on the A9 subreddit. I got to the vbmeta step, the bootloader was unlocked, but fastboot kept telling me that "--disable-verity --disable-verification" weren't recognized. I tried flashing vbmeta without them and it said success. Now I'm stuck in a bootloop of my own doing. Any ideas for recovery? I'm ordering an EDL cable in case I need it (probably good to have around anyway).
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bumblar:
I had similar issues, with not receiving all texts. I spent days trying to get it to work and actually also ended up inserting the SIM in my old phone.What seemed to resolve the issues was a combination of installing the Google carrier services and then going to Settings->Phh treble Settings->ims

Features-> and install the APK, create the APN and enable both options.

Good luck resolving your issues.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] R0W3Y:
Now the LOS21 battery saver mode doesn't enable dark mode, it's easier to nicely automate battery optimisation (some of my apps didn't like automated dark mode switching).

Very tailored to using the A9 as an ereader (not phone), but with a few automations my standby drain is down from 1.5 to 0.2%/hr and book reading from 3 to 1.8%/hr.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hisenseA9/comments/1dvxgnz
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Inkbeard:
This is fantastic progress, thank you!

Just to double check, is there a way to disable the battery percentage on the AOD? If not, I'd like to request it as a VERY low priority feature if possible (if there's a Github or wherever I should log this, do let me know)? I would prefer not seeing it; the battery icon itself is absolutely fine.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
Glad you like it!

There is no way to hide percentage currently, if I do figure out how to edit the system AOD I will end up re-implementing the views anyway so I will try to keep that in mind when doing so.

Here is the github repo if you want to make a feature suggestion in issues section, makes it easier to track but it isn't necessary

GitHub - damianmqr/A9PatchingService: Automatically patch system.img for use with Hisense A9, adding eink features support

Automatically patch system.img for use with Hisense A9, adding eink features support - damianmqr/A9PatchingService

github.com
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] farfromrefuge:
Amazing will test the battery saver mode!

You are saying you found a way to write to the display. Could that help in finding a way to ensure we dont clear the screen while the device goes to sleep (either manually or after a timer) ?

I would love to have a setting or something which would ensure the screen is not cleared while going to sleep. That way you would always keep the last visible view ( book page, map view in my case,...)

I will try to find the time to look through the los code to see where they clear the screen when device screen is turned off

I thought when using custom roms like LOS, the only thing we were using from proprietary vendor was drivers/libs. And so i would think (but i might be 100% wrong!) that the vendor stuff would almost never directly interact with LOS (LOS would not be really good privacy wise otherwise) but only wait for LOS to use methods from those libs.

Maybe someone with stock inkOS rom can tell us if they see per app battery usage (even if not on same android version). That could help.

But from what i have read battery stats implementation have changed in latest android versions (which is why BBS does not work on 14) so maybe we need a new vendor lib for this to work.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DrogenDiego:
Hey hisense Community:)

Just wanted to share that I received my A9 today and I have to say I am impressed! Even if the device is already a couple years old. It's amazing what's possible with eink technology! For the German people that want to have a device. I talked to thechosenstore guy and he said he doesn't ship to Germany because the German toll guys don't let the phones through. But you can order to Austria, Switzerland etc etc. So if you have a friend abroad it's easy to get a device! Mine was here in 4 days oO.

I will get my phone rooted in the next days and then I will see if i go to LOS or stick with the stock ROM for the moment.

Just a quick question. I feel that the touch screen is a little bit less responsive than on different phones. I have to really click the screen. On my other phones I just barely have to hover the right keys. Is there a way to increase the sensitivity?

There is a screen guard on the screen that was on by default. Don't know if it interferes but do you have experience if it's ok to use the screen without screen guard?

Apart from that I am looking forward to contribute if I can and just experiment with this amazing technology!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Inkbeard:
Hello and welcome!

I believe the applied screen protector prevents the majority of screen / light glare and reflection, so removing it isn't worth it in my opinion.

Sent from HLTE556N using ReLabs
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] biodbl:
I realized that the screen is less responsive, but I think it is because eink tech limitation.

Set the speed mode to help... maybe
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Kandwo:
I still have the screen protector. I think it's just how the stock ROM is configured, unfortunately. It feels much faster and more responsive on the AOSP ROM.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] farfromrefuge:
@damianmqr I just used your latest script to patch with your latest changes (had to make a few changes because of apktool location).

I was thinking instead of having to rebuild a new image everytime with your patches, couldn't we create a a magisk module for those using it? It could get the service.jar through adb, patch it and create a magisk module. It could even include eink service/app.

That way it would be "less" intrusive and would not need flashing everytime.

This is what smalipatch is doing.

Just a thought ...
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] farfromrefuge:
it seems i made a mistake while installing a img i patched. Now when i boot i am on the inkos recovery screen with 2 buttons all in Chinese. The first one reboot the phone the other one does nothing.

I cant find a way to get to fastboot anymore. Does anyone have an idea? (no EDL cable btw)

EDIT: i have adb enabled however the device is unauthorized so i cant reboot using adb
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
Let me know if you find anything, would be useful!

Should be possible, I wouldn't focus on it now as my main goal is to keep using it without magisk/root but I could look into it once I figure out the major patches left

You can enter fastboot if you only flashed system as I had to do it a lot when working on patches, but it's a bit tricky. When the device is off hold the volume up button and connect it to a PC. If that doesn't work hold the power button and as soon as the screen light goes off, hold the volume up and then connect it to a PC at the same time. It doesn't work 100% of the time but you should be able to get it within a few tries.

Also, if you are using the latest LOS21 image it might be the reason why it doesn't boot, the image is broken on this device. I am using a previous build, to test patches you should be able to apply the script to one of my earlier images that you know works.

EDIT: Also, the latest patching script is rather experimental still and that's why I haven't added it in releases tab on github yet, I want to include dependency checking and confirm it works on different images first.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] aws92:
Hi @damianmqr , fantastic work on the LOS21 ROM. I am awaiting a replacement A9 (issues with GPS/GNSS with the previous one), I was wondering if there is any easy way (probably not) to get something closer to the original task switcher available on the custom ROM. The original shows 4 apps in thumbnails which flows a little better than the current LOS21 task switcher. Anyway, even if not absolutely thrilled to have folk like you working on this and sharing the fruits of your labour! Cheers.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
Thanks for the kind words!

I looked into this a bit, but while there used to be a simple build.prop config you could set it unfortunately seems to have been removed in later versions of AOSP/LOS. I was planning to see how I can replace it but I probably won't look deeper into it until I figure out a few other patches (at least the ones to improve brightness handling and maybe AOD).
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] aws92:
Ah, bummer. Brightness and AOD are definitely better areas to work on.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] farfromrefuge:
Thanks using your trick i actually got it to boot on LOS "wiped". Strange that it wiped everything but no big deal. Now what is weird is that the power button does not turn of the screen. The same way the navigation back button does not work (other buttons do).

Will try to patch again with the old patch to see if it works
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] farfromrefuge:
I can confirm the issue i have with power and back button are coming from the latest patch.Using old patch makes it work with old LOS version from may an the latest one from this month. Might try without the services.jar transform but i guess it comes from there

EDIT: @damianmqr i want to dev/debug the a9 accessibility service. How do you do that? Right now i cant because it is already install in system and i cant uninstall it.

Will see if i cant uninstall it with root but if you have a better way let me know
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
If you mean the system service, the code for it is here https://github.com/damianmqr/A9Patc...va/com/lmqr/ha9_comp_service/root_service/jni

You could build it with NDK and replace it in /system/bin/ using rooted adb shell or just replace it in the patching folder when patching an image.

If you mean the apk, it would have to be signed by me for you to replace it without flashing, so you can only replace it in the patching folder when making your own image. You can probably do that with rooted shell as well but this seems easier.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] farfromrefuge:
@

i am talking about the apk. I am looking at applying the correct refresh mode on boot. Right now on every boot it is not applied.

i was hopping to be able to debug with android studio. But indeed i cant because it cant uninstall the system version. Will try to remove with root adb shell
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ext23:
Been away from the thread for a few weeks (happily enjoying my A9) and thought I would check in; absolutely so stoked to see that you are still working so hard on this! Thanks so much, can't wait to install an even more awesome build.

This is some cool info too, cheers. I noticed you're using Moon Reader but would AOD battery life and performance be the same with Koreader cover art?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] R0W3Y:
Haven't tried it but my guess is the AOD would be the same but koreader would have lower battery drain. Moon just suits me better though.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] TrippyPrimate:
okay yh its cot the yellow warning sign ill try that now thanks.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] TrippyPrimate:
it says it was unable to install drivers could not find drivers