Help Anybody successfully using Skype 2.x?

[ashvarma]

I was using Skype 1.0 for for more than a year and was resisting from upgrading to Skype 2.0 as Skype 1.0 was working for me and I didn't want to fix something which wasn't broken. Moreover, initial reviews of a new version of Skype was always bad.

But after Skype 2.x went through many revisions over last year, I finally decided that maybe it had become stable and updated to Skype 2.7 in March 2012.

It turned out to be a disaster. I could not make any calls - phone to PC, phone to phone, all calls were getting cutoff in the middle or were very choppy or laggy. Even Skype call test service was not working at all. I use it through a very good Wifi connection and I don't use video call feature (I have it disabled in the Skype options).

So I said maybe Skype 2.7 was bad and started looking for older versions. They are not easy to find, but at one site I was able to find older version apak files. I tried all the way down to Skype 2.1 and the same situation - all bad calls and even skype call test service will not work.

So finally I decided to go back to older version 1.0 and fortunately found the apak for that also. Now everything is back to OK and all calls started to work magically.

Anybody else had the same experience with Skype?
I thought maybe it was unique to Skype on HTC, so I tried new version on my wife's Motorola Defy (she was using Skype 1.0 until now) and that also ran into same problems and finally I had to downgrade her version also to Skype 1.0. Now she is OK again.

I couldn't believe Skype will have such major problems in their software, but I can't think of any other reason now. It is clearly a version issue.

 

[ashvarma]

Well, as I was doing more research on this subject, I found that this is a well known issue with Skype 2.x on all Android phones. Just Google "Skype proximity sensor bug". It has to do with that proximity sensor which is activated during Skype call puts the Wifi in the standby mode resulting in dropping the connection. A workaround is to use the headset on your phone.

Well, at least I found the reason. But strange that Skype has not cared to provide a fix for this for so much time. I am a paying customer of Skype and it is frustrating to see it happen, even worse now that it is owned by Microsoft. Perhaps they have not interest in fixing it for Android phones.