[ROM] Velocity V1.2 | LG Ally | Android 2.2.2 Froyo | Sexy | Sleek | Stable

[randomally]

I apologize if this question is a no brainer, I have been out of the loop since 1.1 release. Currently run velocity 1.1 with 2.2.1 Should I update with the OTA icon first before flashing to this version of velocity to get my phone to 2.2.2 or does it matter? Thank you in advance

No need to update before flashing.

 

[donkeyrattle]

Cool thank you. Now if I could get it to download successfully on my phone I would be golden. I don't have my pc cord

 

[Zoandroid]

Woah. I just encountered a couple crazy glitches. I was in the middle of switching to a new SD card, using backups of my apps made with the free appmonster, when my phone just completely froze up. I could press a hardware button to initiate an action, but the touch screen was then completely unresponsive. I had to pull the battery. I figured at the time it had something to do with appmonster messing up, so I uninstalled it. I also set my cpu back down to 600MHz, just to be safe (it was running at 806 when the freeze occurred).

About an hour later, I opened up the keyboard to type out a text. It just froze up in the middle of typing. To be fair, I saw this once or twice while still running stock, unrooted. At any rate, I had to reboot it. Luckily, both the hardware buttons on the front and the touch screen were still responsive. Once rebooted, I tried sending a couple sms, but they got stuck on sending indefinitely. I powered off, powered back on, and both had been sent. I tried another (this one to myself) and it was both sent and received properly.

So I guess my question is, does this sound like it's related to my 806Mhz overclock or another issue?

EDIT: I went ahead and restored a Nandroid I had (conveniently) made last night. The hardware buttons on my phone are more responsive and I'm generally not having problems since. I'm still gonna leave it at 600MHz, at least for a while. Ya know, just to be safe.

I firmly believe that my Ally processor has degraded due to overclocking at 768. I can only offer my opinion for what you are doing. That said, it is entirely possible you are frying the CPU. The Ally isn't designed to properly cool the chip at those clock speeds, and they set them at 600 because that's where their test labs found it most reliable. Any kind of overclocking carries risk of hardware damage. IMHO you shouldn't push it that high.

The first rule of device troubleshooting is always to turn off OCing when looking for causes of instability. Run it at stock 600 for a while and see if it behaves. If so, you found the cause.

The Ally is known to have a micro-USB jack which loosens over time. I pre-ordered mine, so it is one of the earliest models. There is a video online showing one way to disassemble the Ally and snug up the loose Jack. Had I not moved on to my Droid X I would have needed to address that issue soon.

 

[Pieareround]

Unfortunately, even after turning off OC, I still encountered the keyboard glitch. Although it didn't get nearly as bad as the first one, where the whole device became unresponsive. Even after restoring said Nandroid backup, it happened again. I did forget one major piece of advice though, before restoring the first time - wipe cache and dalvik cache, just in case. I did it right earlier today and I haven't had issues with it since, with several sms sent and moderate usage of Opera Mobile with the keyboard. Is it possible that I had some sort of dalvik cache error that was causing my issue, or more likely that my phone is just behaving for the time being?

Is the loose micro-USB jack also a potential candidate for causing other hardware problems?

 

[Zoandroid]

Unfortunately, even after turning off OC, I still encountered the keyboard glitch. Although it didn't get nearly as bad as the first one, where the whole device became unresponsive. Even after restoring said Nandroid backup, it happened again. I did forget one major piece of advice though, before restoring the first time - wipe cache and dalvik cache, just in case. I did it right earlier today and I haven't had issues with it since, with several sms sent and moderate usage of Opera Mobile with the keyboard. Is it possible that I had some sort of dalvik cache error that was causing my issue, or more likely that my phone is just behaving for the time being?

Is the loose micro-USB jack also a potential candidate for causing other hardware problems?

In the school of hard knocks, I have learned that it is often useful to follow instructions.


I wouldn't expect a loose USB Jack to affect anything that wasn't somehow tied to data transfer. But if you have your apps on the SD and the data stream gets cut off during PC access to the SD any one of its files could be corrupt or even deleted. If that file is necessary to your normal operations then it could make things appear to be wonky in some other regard.

Before I finally uncovered a detective USB-SD Media reader I head been using to access the Ally's data on my PC, I had several problems ranging from the Ally reporting the card was bad to missing files, to apps not working right (they were on the card). I even 'lost' a whole music album that I didn't realize was missing until months later. It's absence carried through several PC backups of the SD I had made until one day I wanted to play it and realized it was gone. All those problems were caused by faulty USB access. So it can be a nuisance.

 

[Pieareround]

In the school of hard knocks, I have learned that it is often useful to follow instructions.

Yeah, you would definitely be right about that. Being that my phone hasn't acted up since I did a Nandroid restore WITH a dalvik wipe, my guess is that had a lot to do with my problem. I'm willing to bet I got a little case of the dalvik corruption when I started installing apps from my old SD card to internal storage (for later app2sd use with my new card) using appmonster. If that's just completely off base, please correct me. I'm doing my best with a limited understanding of what dalvik cache actually is/does.

Being that I haven't had any random data loss or disconnections while using my USB cable, I'm gonna say my USB jack is probably pretty snug at the time being.

Here's another question, open for anyone. What's the chance I could take my phone back to Verizon for a repair to the inexplicably broken camera, now that I've flashed a custom ROM? It was messed up before I flashed to Velocity, but I was kinda of the opinion that I didn't really want/need a camera on my phone anyway. I'm now suddenly missing the ability to take random photos and send them to people.

 

[Zoandroid]

I really don't know much about the workings of the Dalvik cache, so I can't offer advice there.

I've read several cases of people going back to Verizon with post-rooting/ROM issues, but they usually fell into one of two categories. They either had a totally bricked phone, or else they took it back to stock before going. I would not take a working hacked phone to them.

 

[Pieareround]

I figured. Now here's another problem. ClockworkMod Recovery can't verify the md5 of my stock Nandroid.

 

[Zoandroid]

That doesn't sound good. I can't offer much help with that one. Perhaps one of the more knowledgeable folks can chime in. I have noticed when making these Clockwork nandroids that it mentions making an MD5, but I have never tried to verify one. How are you going about that?

 

[Pieareround]

That doesn't sound good. I can't offer much help with that one. Perhaps one of the more knowledgeable folks can chime in. I have noticed when making these Clockwork nandroids that it mentions making an MD5, but I have never tried to verify one. How are you going about that?

It's actually part of the restore process. The first thing CWMR does when you try to restore a nandroid is verify the md5. If it doesn't pass, the restore doesn't even start. I dug around in the Ally root forum for a while after posting this, though, and found a thread with downloads for a stock 2.2.2 ROM, fresh out of the oven as it were (besides being rooted). I guess I'll just have to flash my Ally with the amonra recovery and then use that ROM if I decide to take it back to Verizon.

 

[Zoandroid]

I see. Well, if there were an intermittent connection issue with the Ally SD slot during the creation or restoration of a Nandroid, that sort of problem could result. You might want to try powering off, pulling the battery, removing the SD card, and using some compressed air in the SD slot. Especially if you carry the Ally in your pocket, as I did. I had to blow out the earphone jack several times on a regular basis because it would collect dust and fail to close contacts after removing a plug, which, when that happens, will prevent:

Alarms from sounding
The phone from ringing
The speakerphone from turning on

Of course you get absolutely no warning when the Jack does this. Until you later realize something isn't working, or you missed something important when it happened. IMHO every Jack on a smartphone should have a tethered cover like the Ally USB Jack does.

Please excuse Slide-It's annoying habit of automatically capitalizing every usage of the word Jack here. I'm on the DX and trying to see if I can live without a QWERTY pad on my next new phone. These Swype style keyboards make the same incessantly annoying errors which keep me from using dictation software. It would be nice if they actually would abide by the turning OFF of word suggestions and predictions, but neither Swype nor Slide-It actually do. So even with those features supposedly disabled, it is still a constant battle against the app to keep it from replacing the word which is clearly and correctly typed in front of me with some other variant I don't want.

 

[Zoandroid]

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I may have found a much better keyboard alternative, and I wanted to try out here on the forum. I'm using TouchPal. It seems to address all the annoyances being overlooked by the other 2 I mentioned trying. Plus it has some really nice editing features too, like arrow keys to move the cursor when desired.

 

[Pieareround]

Having played with various software keyboards on my Ally and other (larger) devices, I'm sufficiently satisfied that I will be able to deal with losing the hardware keyboard when I upgrade, as long as the display is large enough on the upgrade phone. That said, the arrow keys will absolutely be a plus if/when that happens... I think I might give TouchPal a test run on my Ally... if it's supported. I also will probably just live without the camera until I upgrade. Switching recoveries and ROMs feels like too much of a hassle, now that I've got my phone working for what I primarily use it for - calls, sms, and facebook. I honestly think the only problem I have with my Ally is that it's so prone to losing capacitive responsiveness on the back and search buttons because of smudges.

 

[Zoandroid]

The more I use TouchPal the more I like it!

I've had the same issues with loss of response on the back "key" on the screen. If I need the search key it is usually while the keyboard is open, so I haven't used the one on the screen much.

Do you use a screen protection film? I have always used them, but from what I have read about Gorilla Glass I have to wonder if it really is necessary.

The screen under my film (which I change when it gets marked up or loses its adhesion) is like new. These films I use are just some off-brand but they have a property which causes them to shrink after application. They will lose even the tiniest air bubble left, after I do my best at installing one, within 24 hours. And over months of use they will actually shrink and leave an exposed area around the whole film, even though they fit perfectly when new. I've got nearly 1/8" of exposed glass along the bottom edge right now. But for some reason after several months they will get an oily layer under them and literally slide right off the screen, even though I keep the film cleaned off daily with a damp cloth.

Anyway, I figure these screen films cause some loss of response with touch screens, so if you use one you might consider trying without, or else trimming away a little of the film where the back 'key' is on the screen so you can get direct contact.

I have really dry fingers most of the time, so touch screens and Swype style input can be a real challenge for me. I've seen Swyping simply "stop responding" in the middle of a word until I moisten my finger tip. The only up side is that I can handle things like the phone's screen and my eyeglasses without leaving any fingerprints.

 

[Pieareround]

I have the opposite problem - my fingertips tend to get pretty oily and smudges abound on anything I touch. Far as the screen protector, I had been wondering if that might be a problem. I applied one as soon as I got this phone and the capacitive search button has always been almost completely unresponsive. The back button starts to have issues once it gets too smudged. I suppose I could try trimming it back above the capacitive buttons, but it's the only one I have (the other one in the two-pack I got has since gone missing) and I don't really want to mess it up. Although, as you say, there may not really be any need for the protectors in the first place.

So I tried out TouchPal... I gotta say, it must just be that Swype-style keyboards don't do it for me. I mean, Swype itself didn't impress me, and TouchPal is a similar story. Then again, my preference has always been hardware keyboards before virtual ones. Once I have enough screen real estate to make typing on a virtual keyboard doable, though, I'm pretty sure I won't have any trouble with it.

Now, for an update on my potential OC problems. Luckily, I don't think any permanent damage was caused by that 806MHz overclock I had going for several days there. I have since ramped the clock speed back up to 806MHz (gradually) and had no stability problems, kernel panics, or random reboots. Of course, I won't be leaving it there. The phone is plenty fast at 600MHz with Velocity, so unless I'm about to do something really taxing on the system, I won't even be touching my clock speed. Arguably, I should probably just leave it alone even if I'm going to be using something heavy, because the potential for damage is more of a problem than slow apps.

 

[Zoandroid]

I haven't tried any of these keyboard apps on the Ally. I don't think I would like that either because its screen is so small. But if you ever get a chance to try one a 4" screen like on my DX, you may find you like it too. One of my biggest complaints about it early on was in landscape mode I was only getting to see 1 line of text to type. When I am doing something like replying to a forum post I like to scroll around and make sure I answered whatever questions someone was asking. Hard to do with big fingertips when you have only 1 line of text, not to mention that tapping in the wrong place will activate something else on the website and whisk you away from the Reply screen.

I notice quite an improvement in performance when moving from 600 MHz to even 748 MHz on the Ally. That's where I used mine most of the time once I stopped playing Angry Birds. Either way, just keep in mind that you are pushing the chip past its 'acceptable' design limits, so if it ends up cooked its sort of an "I told you so" moment.

With your fingers being the opposite of dry, hopefully you are spared the cracked thumbs I have had to deal with in winter for the past few decades.

 

[Pieareround]

Yeah, my buddy has the DX2. I've played around a bit with the stock Gingerbread virtual keyboard on that thing, and it's pretty sweet. I mean, the GB keyboard is even usable on the Ally, but only in landscape mode. I also tried an ICS keyboard download from the market, but it's about as fast as a snail in a bowl of molasses without overclocking. As it stands, for typing, my preference is hardware keyboard > landscape stock ICS > landscape stock GB > portrait virtual keyboard of any kind > swype variants. Maybe if I had a bigger screen and could get used to the swipe-to-text method I'd like it more. The Ally's tiny screen is just impossible to work with using Swype or TouchPal. Far as web/forum browsing goes, I tend to just wait until I have my computer in an area with wifi. Of course, the hardware keyboard on my Ally is a major boon when I do decide to reply to something on a forum with my phone. I get most of the screen to work with while still being able to type.

I think I may run it at 748 MHz for a little while. It is where I started the thing out right after flashing Velocity, before I got bored with being at all safe. Plus, it looks like 748 MHz is a high enough clock speed to use the ICS keyboard without much lag.

I haven't had cracked thumbs yet... but I am at least a couple decades younger by the sound of it. Oh, so I took off the protector. My search button works! And my back button works flawlessly! I may trim it and put it back on... but my touch screen is actually more responsive too, so maybe not.

 

[Zoandroid]

I was pretty happy at 748, considering how slow 600 felt.

When deciding to get my previous smartphone, a Samsung Saga, it was actually the first handheld device I owned with a QWERTY pad. I was hooked on Graffiti input, coming from Windows Mobile and before that several Palm OS PDAs. I wasn't sure I would like using a thumb board. Honestly the whole idea of typing with my thumbs seemed kind of silly.

So the Saga had both the thumb pad AND Graffiti input capability. But once I started using the thumb pad I was hooked. I was pretty fast at Graffiti, but no where near as fast as I can go on the QWERTY pad. So I stuck with that when I got the Ally, and was not sure I would ever want to give that up. This DX, which my son handed down to me when he just got his Bionic, is more or less a 'test' for me to see if I can live without a QWERTY pad. My new every 2 comes up next year, and at that point I plan to get a new phone. If I don't need a keypad, it opens up a lot more options. Verizon's new Android phones with keypads are very few.

Here's hoping you never experience cracked finger tips. Its no fun at all. But then I don't know what kind of climate you live in. That has a lot to do with it. I've got too many Ohio winters under my belt. The cold dry air is the worst when it comes to fingers. Summer time isn't so bad.

I'll give you a clue to my age - I retired in 2005 after 29 years of service with my employer.

 

[Pieareround]

Heh. I'm not even done with college. Also, I live in North Carolina, where all the seasons are mild compared to somewhere else on the map.

600 MHz just isn't quite enough to adequately handle Froyo. It's close, but there's an obvious level of choppiness. Velocity goes a long way toward reducing that, but a little extra clock speed is still helpful, as long as I remain conservative with the OCing and avoid damaging my phone.

I've played around with both the DX2 and the Bionic quite a bit, thanks to friends and family. Between that and my surprising ability to even use the virtual keyboard on my Ally, I know my next upgrade will be a lot less likely to feature a hardware keyboard. Also, I might, maybe just maybe, be able to handle using the stock ROM... although I have heard great things about CyanogenMod and a couple other ROMs. Being that I have until August of 2013 (unless Verizon is nice and lets us hold onto my brother's February 2012 upgrade after he leaves the family line), I'll probably be able to get something like the Droid RAZR or the Bionic for free by the time I can upgrade. Or maybe even something better (probably).

 

[Zoandroid]

In winter I could envy NC. But I would not like your summers. Too hot for me. I don't even like OUR summers.

I am running CM7 on the DX. Thanks to a tip from a helpful guide on the DX area of this forum, I learned that the marvelous wizards who created CM7 ROM for the DX actually FIXED a problem Motorola created when they released Gingerbread for the DX. They somehow broke the reminder alarm notification system. Lots of posts on that problem over on the Verizon and Motorola support forums, with no help in sight. My daily repeating med alarms simply stopped sounding. But Flashing CM7 FIXED the issue, and they sound quite reliably now. CM7 is clean and fast and just plain WORKS. Much like Velocity for the Ally.

I had been looking at the Droid 3 I think it was, and then I got a chance to play with a Stratosphere in a Verizon store I visited with my son when he got his Bionic. Dig that AMOLED display, for SURE. I will want that, if nothing else, when I get my new phone. It would be nice to be able to read the display when I am outdoors. But it seems like they keep releasing new models every few months, so by the time I can renew next Spring there will probably be even more choices we have not even seen yet.

It is too bad they seem to be offering less and less devices with a QWERTY pad. Keyboards have their advantages. I'd like to see some tablets made with slide out keyboards. I don't see why it couldn't be done.

One thing I struggled with on Swype and Slide-It was trying to position the cursor to fix a typo while doing a forum post in landscape mode. So much easier when you have the D-pad. But finding that feature built into TouchPal was a pleasant surprise! For being a free app, it sure is nice. On CM7 I would have had to eventually buy Swype from their website. You lose the intrinsic Swype that comes with the DX when you flash a custom ROM. Slide-It was also a free-trial but eventually would have had to buy it. I'm sticking with TouchPal.

 

[Zoandroid]

Speaking of new phones, I just read this piece on the Droid 4.

Maximum PC | Mark Your Calendar: Motorola to Launch Droid 4 on December 8th

 

[aafreen]

I've been having trouble getting any google apps to install/update (maps, voice, gmail).

I used the terminal/scripts to backup the maps apk and remove, and finally the new maps installed for me from the Market (after clearing dl and dalvik caches).

Tried the same to get rid of dark gmail. I really don't like dark gmail. I used the scripts to backup the gmail apk and remove, then clear any cache I could find. I keep trying to download the gmail app from the market. Four times now it will download, try to install and give an error, "Incompatible Update".

 

[Zoandroid]

I suggest you post over on the Velocity Scripts thread. The support seems to come more quickly there. Here is a link to it.

http://androidforums.com/velocity/287300-velocity-script-7.html#post3511787

 

[j0eh4x]

how come everytime i try to update an app i recieve the error, package was not signed correctly....

 

[Pieareround]

So I've got my phone completely back to stock, recovery and all, so that I can take it back to Verizon and complain about my broken camera and my sd card slot problems. Hopefully they'll give me a new Ally (or something comparable, but sturdier). I just wanna say... how the heck does anyone deal with using an Ally on the stock ROM? This is terrible!