yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] doschxda:
hey, I would so much love to have my A9 running on LineageOS. But I get super confused from reading (now 73) pages of posts linking to all kinds of files, zips and github pages.

I did try to condense some information in a pad, but also got stuck in that process. Is there a way to get the wealth of information from this thread into some kind of wiki to guide people (like me) step by step to liberate their A9's?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bigwigs:
Where r u stuck?

I did try but for now I’m just waiting for some stability in gsi to complete the instructions.

Overall instructions remain the same just few settings based on which lineage gsi you install and what additional apks u install from various contributors.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] idonotbelonghere:
Yes IMS is installed.

My carrier has shut it's 3G network down and I think that lack of 3G has something to do with the issue I'm having.

With a SIM from a different carrier inserted (one who still has their 3G network active), both incoming and outgoing calls work fine, but the phone always changed from 4G(LTE) to 3G to make/receive the calls.

Even with 4G Calling (VoLTE) enabled and Preferred Network Type set to 4G (recommended) in Network and Internet > SIMs, it still swaps to 3G for calls.

Treble's Override VoLTE Availability ON doesn't change this behaviour either.

- - - - -

With MY carrier's SIM in and Treble's Override VoLTE Availability OFF I cant make OR receive calls.

With Treble's Override VoLTE Availability ON I can make calls, but I can't receive calls.

The phone calling TO the A9 will hear ringing in their speaker, but nothing appears on my A9 to show I'm being called.

Also, after that incoming call (which I can't see) has cancelled, I can't make outgoing calls until my network does some sort of refresh (LTE disappears and reappears, sometimes 5 seconds after the incoming call, sometimes longer).

If I visit the A9's Network and Internet > SIMs page before that network refresh, the Settings app will crash and I can't make outgoing calls work again until I reboot.

- - - - -

I think the simple solution would be for me to change phone carrier, but all 3G networks are getting turned off in Australia towards the end of this year so that may not help for long..

- - - - -

I didn't have Developer Settings visible, but after enabling them I found the mobile data setting you mentioned - it was ON.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] meh.:
Yeah I think it's botched beyond repair, so EDL is the only way to go, guess I'll have to say goodbye to the data and still not learn my lesson about backups :P

Thanks for the help!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
There's a chance you can get userdata back through EDL, see here in replies

Recovering data from Mi 4c able to get only to fastboot

my phone has fallen and it cannot boot. The only accessible thing is fastboot, but even there I cannot flash TWRP. When I try to flash TWRP 3.1.1 or 3.1.0 I get: >fastboot.exe flash recovery twr...

android.stackexchange.com

There is programmer file you can use in the google drive, the same one used for unbricking

A9 Resources - Google Drive

drive.google.com

Also, if you have QFIL and windows device check in the FAQ here how to load all the configurations (remember to set storage type to UFS)

https://www.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/16tpr96/_/k65jzbe

And by going to Tools > Partition Manager you should be able to backup a single partition (userdata)

Rightclick, manage partition data and read data
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Hum.... It shouldn't swap to 3g for that... Maybe there is some optimization we can make on the ROM to fix that. I'll investigate.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vbhai:
@dferreira If you’re releasing a new build over the weekend, would you be able to make sure that the treble app source is the latest one? Also, would you be kind enough to include the overlay I wrote to enable auto brightness, etc. ?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Yep will do 👍
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] TrippyPrimate:
I had the same problem just fixed it.

Makes sure you have VoLTE enabled in treble setting, and LTE in settings and disable VoLTe in android settings.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] treff89:
[Hisense a9] Root - Reward Offered (Snapdragon 662)

The Hisense a9 is an e-ink 4g smartphone that I want to use as my own Frankenstein light phone. I would like to root mine and use this custom launcher to create a minimalist phone that isn't quite as useless as the Light Phone concept (i.e...

xdaforums.com

^ Here's how I got calling on 4G (VoLTE and VoWiFi) working in Australia. It's a bit of a muck around to set up but works great.

That post is actually from this thread.

Presume it's still applicable to the GSI ROMs since the modem files you're modifying are at firmware/baseband level.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] idonotbelonghere:
Thanks for the reply but unfortunately this didn't work for me.

On the carrier with 3G available it still swaps to 3G for outgoing and incoming calls.

On the carrier with no 3G, outgoing calls never ring / connect. Incoming calls don't connect. The calling phone gets a message that the A9 number isn't available.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] idonotbelonghere:
Thanks, I did see this guide but I'm not rooted so I'm hoping someone has another no root solution.

If there isn't one in a month or two I'll try your steps, but I'm new to all this and scared haha.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] artelse:
Here's a github repository for hisense-a9 system information that attempts to collect various info on the A9 including LOS installation.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Should add mine and sperhoooo GSI that are ready for our device, instead of AndyYan one which requires a lot of additional steps to get the phone up and running.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
Agreed, stock is just not user friendly enough on this device to realistically run especially during setup and without root, might drive new A9/HRP users away from custom ROMs

I wonder if I can get the "light" variant of Andy Yan's images working since someone messaged me on reddit saying they had issues patching it with my script. Or maybe even regular AOSP, but this might be tougher/impossible without compilation.

Btw. Changed my nickname here to match what's on github cause the old sperhoooo was not something I actually use ;)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Ah! I was wondering 😂 helloooo 😁

I'll using the -td variant of AndyYan build script. It uses the full LineageOS branch and depending on the AndyYan branch, it applied different patches. I tried the light version of it and was worse. Just an FYI!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] biodbl:
Sometimes it happens that the screen stops responding, but when I restart the system, it returns to normal. I'll leave it in safe mode to see if any installed app is influencing it.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bigwigs:
There are no links to any GSI in the instructions only steps to install updates or GSI.

AndyYan link is to explain type of GSI to use.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Yeah, but that link leads to people trying a GSI that is not tailored for our device and could well leave them thinking their phone is broken. My GSI they get to see the boot, they can setup the phone without having to use Vysor, and so forth.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Just had an idea that I think I can add to Eink Centers: fingerprint gestures!

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/accessibilityservice/FingerprintGestureController

If A9 fingerprint sensor supports it, we could use the fingerprint sensor to scroll up or down a screen. This would work with ebook readers for example to change pages without touching the screen, while reading websites, Mastodon, etc. I'll probe if it's possible.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bigwigs:
ok, i have added information about generic GSI and need of additional tools for configuration.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Sadly was not able to work on an updated build... Had to spend the day changing car and bike tires from winter to summer 😅 I'll get back to it when I can.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] doschxda:
@bigwigs the problem is that "overall instructions" are also hard to find in this thread for newbies like myself and @idonotbelonghere. Also, from the message above I gather that the building of a good ROM is still very much work in progress and maybe it is even better for us newcomers to just wait and sit and watch to see what emerges.

But as soon as something workable exists, it would be great to have a step-bu-step tutorial that brings people from a freshly unboxed A9 to a LinaegOS device they can use daily and maybe (or would that be too much to ask for? ) has OTA updates.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vbhai:
A GSI is pretty much ready now for being daily driven. The vibration issue is pending though. That’s the only deal breaker I think we have right now.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] biodbl:
I agree. I'm using the LOS 20 as my main cell phone and I'm very satisfied. I hadn't even noticed the absence of vibration until you commented lol. I just miss the otg function, but the custom rom is still great. I also don't consider myself experienced, but I managed to unlock the bootloader, root and install the new system, even without an EDL cable.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] biodbl:
Well-defined seasons are something I don't know about lol. Where I live, there are only hot and less hot seasons.🤣
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bigwigs:
GSI creators can add the requisite steps to install GSI to help out newbies like you. You can request them.

My aim to create github pages was to provide generic info which would also help myself when i was experimenting with LTE bands change and others if required. I'm no longer maintaining it.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] JessIsAFK:
Hi, so I have a slight update on the progress of the TWRP recovery. I was able to use twrpdtgen to create a device tree from the stock recovery, but due to some time constraints last weekend I only really was able to set up my new dev environment and do an initial commit for it. Only this morning did I realize that aospdtgen was what I SHOULD have used w/ a dump from the phone itself.

While I do /technically/ have a lot of spare time at work, what I don't have is my A9 today.... so no dumping for at least another 7hrs.

I'll be recreating the repo and linking it here for y'all later tonight. One question though, should I spend time reverting my system to stock before dumping? I am currently running the LinageOS 21 GSI and while I don't believe that this would cause any issues, I am currently running a magisk-patched boot, so I will want to reflash that to stock anyways before doing this.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bigwigs:
I have device tree from boot.img from stock rom if it helps.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Eink Center 1.5 has been released: https://github.com/denzilferreira/vendor_hisense/releases/tag/v1.5

What's new:

- swipe to delete

- performance improvements

- tutorial shows if no apps exist (you can clear storage on the app to see it) or see the attachment here 😉
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
There is a bug here refreshing the Eink Center home screen... I'll try to fix tomorrow morning.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] snug.gy:
Just flashed my A9 yesterday, just -- thank you so much Denzil!

... However, I am having a really strange issue -- for some reason when calling on Signal or WhatsApp the other person is super high pitched, like Alvin and the Chipmunks on steroids, and I really don't know why it's happening.

I found these links about it, and they recommended switching the SIM card, toggling speaker phone, and turning off VoLTE, but those suggestions either don't work or aren't applicable.

- https://gitlab.com/LineageOS/issues/android/-/issues/3433

- https://forum.fairphone.com/t/skype-high-pitched-voices-on-fp4-with-custom-rom/97438

-

https://www.reddit.com/r/Oneplus5T/comments/l895rv

Can anyone please confirm the latest 'best' ROM to flash and I'll try that first? I've flashed the damianmqr one from 2024-02-17 as a helpful mate of mine with an A9 linked it to me!

Thank you very much!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bigwigs:
Check out this post -

Post in thread '[Hisense a9] Root - Reward Offered (Snapdragon 662)'

https://xdaforums.com/t/hisense-a9-root-reward-offered-snapdragon-662.4495809/post-89408678

It has all requisite settings to fix issues with voice calls.

@doschxda - you can use the above post as reference for flashing lineage gsi.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] CatZem:
Howdy, can somebody recomend me a gsi rom for our hisense a9, beside lineage os?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Just checked, it's not supported by the fingerprint sensor :( oh well.

Fixed Eink Center v1.5.1

Release Eink Center v1.5.1 · denzilferreira/vendor_hisense

Fixed Eink Center app list real-time refresh

github.com

I've started work on the night light support. Will be on the next release. It's gonna be integrated with the OS Night Light settings. The accessibility service monitors to the settings and will automatically apply them on the display driver. This should work with LOS20. I'm ignoring LOS21 since the overlay there handles this, unless I'm told to support LOS21 as well @damianmqr ? :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
Would your implementation handle proximity sensors dimming on calls natively?

I'm looking into how it could be done but I'm not sure yet, otherwise go ahead and ignore LOS21 ;)

I will not be able to make many updates (if any at all) for a while, until I'm done with my finals 😅

Later I will look into using EInk Center app and separating AOD into a separate apk after a general fixes update
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
On LOS20, when on a call, the screen turns off as I put it on my ear, so I don't need to handle anything really. I'll ignore LOS21 then so it doesn't interfere with your daemon and processing.

v1.5.1 is up 🍻
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
It also works on LOS21 with white light since it's controlled by the system, but not with yellow as the app controls it based on system brightness settings which don't actually change with proximity sensor. I believe that's the only case it fails on identified so far.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
I see now. OK, will investigate!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] biodbl:
When I double press e select the velocity I want, it doens,t change. Single press doesn't work. Long press works.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Open an app, double press to show overlay, select a speed -> the app will change to that speed. Sometimes, the overlay is the active app (accessibility service window changed is identified as Eink Center) or if there is a notification it will think it's the system UI... I still have to figure out how to process these better. What has worked for me is that I open the overlay, pick a speed, and do it again so that the active app is the current app and it will save it to Eink Center consistently.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] biodbl:
I think the navigation bar is getting in the way.

Now I disabled the override nav bar and eink center worked correctly
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
@damianmqr if you go to Night Light on LOS21, what is the minimum and max value of the intensity value ? You can see this if you install the latest code on Eink Center on logcat. Just want to confirm if LOS21 uses the same scale as LOS20. I'm transposing those values to a 0-100 scale for intensity for the eink driver so we don't have to deal with magic numbers.

Thanks!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
Seems to be 4082-2596 for me when checking through adb, so same as LOS20
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Awesome, thanks for confirming. If I can get this to work properly, you can then just let Eink Center handle the night light which is driven by the OS Night Light setting and intensity value.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
In case you are curious @damianmqr this is where I'll observe and adjust the eink screen based on the values provided by the OS: https://github.com/denzilferreira/v...inkservice/services/EinkAccessibility.kt#L246

so that as the OS makes adjustments to Night Light, or as the day progresses (depends on what you set for the Night Light OS settings), Eink Center collects the values as they change on the Settings ContentProvider. I'm hoping we can use this to also turn off the screen during a call automatically, so we don't have to deal with it.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
Thanks! I did see this code already when looking up which setting to check for MAX and MIN values you wanted me to send and I will probably make use of it in the future as well for the service
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
I'm hoping we can also use this to handle the phone call issue :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vbhai:
A wee bug to report with the AOD. The time still keeps using the 12 hour format while having selected 24 format in the system.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] CatZem:
Howdy, can anybody send stock super.img from hisense a9 ( accedently deleted the backup ) latest version 08.01?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bigwigs:
What is super.img?

For stock rom and boot.img links visit https://github.com/aimindseye/hisense-a9
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] oldnomad:
I thought I had the same problem for a while. It can appear to be the case when the screen locks and leaves the screen unchanged. Try unlocking the screen using the fingerprint sensor.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Hum... I've made progress but it seems the OS is preventing me from writing here... @damianmqr any idea? I saw your source how you are doing this, and you are referring to the same file. I checked via adb and using su, I can update it and I see the screen turn yellow as expected. However, using the app, despite having platform certificate and being in system/priv-app, it's denied 👀
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] biodbl:
I Always use fingerprint sensor. I rebooted in safe mode and rebooted in normal mode. After this I did not have any problems With the touchscreen
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ferlanero:
I have used Repainter to customize LineageOS 20 from @dferreira to match better with eink screen capabilities and now everything has a better look (less grays, lees dark, no transparencies, etc.) Specially Good for eink are Spicy, Lavendar Wisp and Chert
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] biodbl:
Does it Work when battery economy is active?

Does the system keep white?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
My guess would be that SELinux doesn't allow you to write (you can confirm by looking for "avc" in logcat)

I set the context for my service to

u:r:phhsu_daemon:s0

with

setfattr -n security.selinux -v u:r:phhsu_daemon:s0 bin/a9_eink_server

when patching which has privileged access to the sysfs.

I also start it in vndk.rc which runs in proper context.

You can also try "setenforce 0" to temporarily disable SELinux and confirm if that's the issue
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
I was thinking just now, it could be file permissions. Because I can access all the other to clear the screen and set the mode :) I'll do some digging later tonight.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
I checked on my A9 and the clear screen etc. files have

u:object_r:vendor_sysfs_graphics:s0

context which is different to brightness which has context

u:object_r:sysfs:s0

so it can still potentially be an SELinux restriction issue
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ferlanero:
I really don't know as I never reach low battery with LOS XD
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Checked, I don't see any avc errors... I'm getting a FileNotFoundException, even though the path is correct. Really weird. the chown had brightness as system:system and I've changed them to root:root to try if that would fix it, but nope. I've also set SELinux to 0, no difference. I think this is some other problem.

Using this

- yellow lights: /sys/class/backlight/aw99703-bl-1/brightness

- white lights: /sys/class/backlight/aw99703-bl-2/brightness

These are symbolic links to:

- yellow: /sys/devices/platform/soc/4a84000.i2c/i2c-1/1-0036/backlight/aw99703-bl-1/brightness

- white: /sys/devices/platform/soc/4a80000.i2c/i2c-0/0-0036/backlight/aw99703-bl-2/brightness

if I echo into brightness, I see the screen updates the value and I can see the yellow tint. Maybe I have something wrong with the writing of values, which is odd because it is working for clearing and setting the speed mode 🤔 Can you try this on LOS21?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
What exactly should I check?

I can echo into them fine when in rooted adb if that's what you mean, the brightness changes as expected
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
If you install Eink Center from the source on your LOS21, and enable Night Light in Display settings, does it work?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] damianmqr:
I don't have magisk on my LOS21 so I don't see how your EInk Center app could possibly write to a sysfs file?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Ah right, you don't have Eink Center on system/priv-app . Nevermind! I'll try to figure it out 😉
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] juask:
Please, could you tell - does Lineage OS Custom ROM now supports the feature of "pause/continue" of audio on the Lock screen?

I mean that in the official system there is option to enable gestures (drawing "M") on Lock Screen to pause audio playback. If I will install custom ROM will I have such feature?

And if not - is it a chance that such feature will be added sometime in the future? Maybe not necessarily with gestures - but with buttons for example?

Thank you!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Homerzinho:
Just an update: I changed my screen protector, and now the issue is gone. The phone is a perfect daily driver now.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] biodbl:
I removed my screen protector and the screen is much bright, but I prefer the sensation without film
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dferreira:
Also more likely to scratch the display... which is VERY hard to replace. Would not use my device without some sort of shield to be honest. Especially now, that it lives in our pockets :D
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] biodbl:
Yesterday I did not put it in pocket to avoid scratch. I put in "pochete" belt bag. I do not know how to speak this in english.

My old smartphone I used without protector and it is very well, but

I will think about it. Thanks
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] artelse:
@dferreira Any estimate on when you have time for a Googles build with microG, FakeGapps, etc. Would love to get -on-the-bandwagon- so to speak :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] JessIsAFK:
Thank you for this. It should help me if I can figure out how to use this for TWRP. I will admit though, I am still working on getting TWRP compiled. I've ran into an issue or two doing so, but I do have a question for yall.

is anyone familiar with using Dumpyara? https://github.com/sebaubuntu-python/dumpyara

It seems that aospdtgen can be used to create a TWRP image with a dump created by Dumpyara, but that requires a stock rom image or a dump of one. Unfortunately, I've had a bit of difficulty using it with the dump kept in the a9 resources in google drive, and im waiting on my new EDL cable as my hero key edl cable has not played nice so far, so i'm still waiting on a few things to get started again.

If anyone is able to dump the system for use in dumpyara, that'd be awesome!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bigwigs:
what type of dump r u looking for?