The BIG 2.1 Thread

[CRPercodani]

I am pretty sure this fix uses the light sensor, so when your in a dark or dimly lit area it will turn on. I actually think that is better then just always being on.

 

[ocman]

you running version 03? I like the little tether app but dam I cant take the screen and near full brightness.

I reverted back for now. Brightness > wifi tether to me lol.

 

[CRPercodani]

I'm sticking with 0.0.1 for now, the brightness at near 100% will drain the battery so quickly, wifi tether isn't worth it to me either.

 

[kjohnso88]

One thing I have noticed since applying the keyboard light fix. If my phone is locked, when I open the keyboard it unlocks. Don't believe was the behavior with 2.0.1.

Agreed. Mine does the same...not necessarily a bad thing?

I've got a question for all with the 2.1 update. When in landscape with the keyboard open, is your app drawer all effed? It just isn't the right layout. Does not matter MUCH to me since I use it in portrait for the most part but still, anyone else notice this?

 

[htowngtr]

I'm sticking with 0.0.1 for now, the brightness at near 100% will drain the battery so quickly, wifi tether isn't worth it to me either.

Agreed, and honestly if they are dropping this update in less than a month anyway I can wait.

 

[CRPercodani]

I meant I'm using 2.1 V0.0.1, not 2.0.1. I haven't heard a single word about the January update being 2.1 besides other members here claiming it will be, with the Nexus One coming out about that time and having it I would imagine they will wait a month or 2 before letting other devices get it so to draw more people to buying the N1. Also if you use 2.1 V0.0.1 you can set the brightness to whatever you want, it's only 0.0.3 that has the bug of not being able to change it.

 

[Fadelight]

One thing I have noticed since applying the keyboard light fix. If my phone is locked, when I open the keyboard it unlocks. Don't believe was the behavior with 2.0.1.

You are right, this wasn't behavior on 2.0.1. Like the post below yours said, though... I don't view it as a bad thing. Since no one will be accidentally opening their keyboard in their pockets, I don't see the need to retain the lock screen when you do this. For that reason, I don't believe anyone will really be questioning whether this is a bug or added functionality.

I am pretty sure this fix uses the light sensor, so when your in a dark or dimly lit area it will turn on. I actually think that is better then just always being on.

Yes, it does. and I agree.

you running version 03? I like the little tether app but dam I cant take the screen and near full brightness.

I reverted back for now. Brightness > wifi tether to me lol.

No, I've been applying the patches myself. I don't mind wiping my phone of all of my personal information once when the final ROM is released which is solid, stable, and contains all of the fixes... but I need my phone for every day use, so I can't afford to be wiping it twice a day.

Agreed. Mine does the same...not necessarily a bad thing?

I've got a question for all with the 2.1 update. When in landscape with the keyboard open, is your app drawer all effed? It just isn't the right layout. Does not matter MUCH to me since I use it in portrait for the most part but still, anyone else notice this?

This is a known bug that they are still working on. A similar bug that actually concerns me more is that when you are in landscape on the home screen, the buttons in the lower corners of the screen that are used to switch home screens actually cover the icons that would be on the bottom row. It is still possible to hit the icons, but it becomes rather difficult to do so without switching to portrait first.

Here is a quick snip from the Developers changelog regarding known bugs:

+Known Issues (ongoing) and their statuses

-Keyboard Backlight - still not responding all that well to keypress and stays on longer than it should. Working on these issues...

-menu drawer glitch - low priority

-Upgrade ROM delivery method to SirPsychoS new tarball method - Medium priority. Maybe next release.

-System crashes with live wallpapers running. - Current state: unstable but moderately functional. We need to fill in missing libs and or modify the ones in the current release. As I know little about this particular topic, I will leave it to it's developers who posted the fixes to tinker with it for now.

The last one about the crash with live wallpapers, I am not experiencing. I think this may be caused by the fact that he was using the first fix to get the wallpapers running (Using all of the lib files) rather than only using the required files and nothing more. That would just be speculation on my part, though. In either event, it seems to be an ongoing problem with a few people using the v2 and v3 builds over there, but I am not having issues, myself.

Agreed, and honestly if they are dropping this update in less than a month anyway I can wait.

I couldn't. Mostly because I like having the newest and best, but one of the bigger reasons is because when the "official" update hits your phone, you will be saying bye bye to your root access until someone finds a way to re-root the phone. This is a way for those of us who want 2.1 to get it without that risk, and without having to wait for it to be re-rooted. Not to mention the fact that the release of 2.1 in January is still nothing more than a rumor. There is an OTA coming in late January, and everyone seems to be getting their hopes up that the OTA will actually be 2.1, despite a complete lack of evidence to suggest this.

I meant I'm using 2.1 V0.0.1, not 2.0.1. I haven't heard a single word about the January update being 2.1 besides other members here claiming it will be, with the Nexus One coming out about that time and having it I would imagine they will wait a month or 2 before letting other devices get it so to draw more people to buying the N1.

I agree fully. From a marketing standpoint, it wouldn't make sense for Google to release the N1, which one of their major selling factors is in fact 2.1, and then immediately give it to everyone else as an OTA. They didn't give the G1 the 2.0 OS immediately when the Droid was released. Why would anyone think it would be any different for us when the next great "iPhone/Droid Killer" is released?

Also if you use 2.1 V0.0.1 you can set the brightness to whatever you want, it's only 0.0.3 that has the bug of not being able to change it.

There were users complaining about the same thing with v1 and v2, which leads me to believe this is a bug that isn't present with all users, and not a bug associated with any particular release. Just my opinion, though. I don't have this issue, either.

 

[CRPercodani]

Good post, couldn't have said it better myself. I forgot to mention the fact that the current root exploit won't work when they do push the new update in late January whether it be 2.1 or just something minor. If anyone was following the old "possible root exploit" thread then you know they hadn't found any other way to root yet so it will most likely be a long wait before they do. If you never plan on rooting or don't want to flash custom ROM's then don't worry about it, but if you need root access for ANYTHING or want custom ROM's then I highly recommend rooting now and AT LEAST renaming otacerts.zip to otacerts.bak so you won't be forced to update and possibly lose root. Then you can wait for the official release of 2.1 and apply the update.zip like we did with 2.0.1.

 

[UnsureSherlock]

No problem... glad I could help!



OFFICIAL NEWS - The problem with the keyboard lights has been fixed.

(If anyone else has an easier way, let me know. This is just how I did it.)


As always - Proceed at your own risk.

libhw.zip


Most people suggest taking steps to back up your phone, but lets face it... at this point in the game, anyone who would be doing this has probably got everything backed up with Nandroid anyway, so I am just going to skip it.

First, plug your phone into your PC and mount the SD card. Extract contents of the zip folder to the root of your SD card. (Not inside the folder... each file individually.) Unmount the card. (Make sure your phone is plugged in and in debug mode)

Open a command window, switch to adb shell


Here are the commands to type out as follows:

su

mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system

busybox cp -R /sdcard/gralloc.default.so /system/lib/hw

busybox cp -R /sdcard/gralloc.omap3.so /system/lib/hw

busybox cp -R /sdcard/lights.sholes.so /system/lib/hw

busybox cp -R /sdcard/overlay.omap3.so /system/lib/hw

busybox cp -R /sdcard/sensors.sholes.so /system/lib/hw

cd /system/lib/hw

chmod 644 gralloc.default.so

chmod 644 gralloc.omap3.so

chmod 644 lights.sholes.so

chmod 644 overlay.omap3.so

chmod 644 sensors.sholes.so

sync

reboot


The ZIP was provided by Greek35T at Alldroid. All thanks go to him.

I'm not sure enough people have really thanked you for the news, so thanks for posting this. It's been driving me crazy when it won't light up. I hated the keyboard at first but I've grown to like it and am pretty quick at it.

I'm an insomniac and I work the graveyard shift, so I'm just about always in the dark, so the light up is pretty important. So, once again, thank you.

 

[Fadelight]

I'm not sure enough people have really thanked you for the news, so thanks for posting this. It's been driving me crazy when it won't light up. I hated the keyboard at first but I've grown to like it and am pretty quick at it.

I'm an insomniac and I work the graveyard shift, so I'm just about always in the dark, so the light up is pretty important. So, once again, thank you.

No problem... I love helping people.

I know exactly what you mean with the keyboard. I am a courier and I work nights as well. At first I thought I would still be fine, but I actually ended up going back to 2.0.1 for a while. Actually, I switched back and fourth about 3 times. The patch for the backlight on the keyboard was the tipping point that kept me at 2.1 this last time around. I'm VERY happy they finally got it solved, even if it is still a little buggy.

 

[CRPercodani]

I was set on using 2.1 whether or not the keyboard light worked as I don't really need it that much, it is such a huge improvement over 2.0.1. Much much faster, and the little visual improvements are nice too. The 2 extra home screens are a big plus because I have 2 widgets that take up the entire screen so I needed the extra space for shortcuts. The little bugs with landscape mode haven't bothered me that much as I rarely have a need to be in landscape on the homescreen, and I haven't had ANY reboots, lag, or freeze ups. This is also much nicer looking then eugene & barak's 2.0 ROM, although the pinch zoom browser is really smooth. I hope they start working on a 2.1 ROM but leave out the icons or make better ones.

 

[UnsureSherlock]

No problem... I love helping people.

I know exactly what you mean with the keyboard. I am a courier and I work nights as well. At first I thought I would still be fine, but I actually ended up going back to 2.0.1 for a while. Actually, I switched back and fourth about 3 times. The patch for the backlight on the keyboard was the tipping point that kept me at 2.1 this last time around. I'm VERY happy they finally got it solved, even if it is still a little buggy.

Personally I still find 2.1 to be wayyy buggier than 2.0.1, the animated backgrounds seem to crash my phone rather often, and for some reason launching apps sometimes launches a different app than selected. Like Ill hit messaging, and for some reason the browser will open. It's a bit annoying. Anyone else had this same issue?

 

[CRPercodani]

I haven't messed with animated wallpapers yet, it's gonna hog resources no matter what and I'd rather have a smooth operating experience vs a pretty wallpaper that moves. It is still buggy though so you might want to wait till they get it stabilized a bit more. I haven't had the problem with apps like you said, and I am constantly opening different apps, although most of them are shortcuts on my homescreen (thanks @ fadelight for bettercut) so I don't use the app drawer very often.

 

[CRPercodani]

Unsure - You live in Boston specifically or just the area? I'm out west on Rt 2 in a little crap town called Athol (still get 3G with VZW though, 2.4mbps at that!).

 

[Fadelight]

Actually, I haven't seen any sort of loss of performance by using live wallpaper.

 

[UnsureSherlock]

Unsure - You live in Boston specifically or just the area? I'm out west on Rt 2 in a little crap town called Athol (still get 3G with VZW though, 2.4mbps at that!).

Just the area, I live in Billerica, next to Lowell. I know Athol though, I dated a girl from Barre. Verizon seems to be the only service that gets coverage out in central/western mass it would seem.

And thanks for the suggestion about bettercut, I'll give it a shot.

I seem to be having more problems more than everyone else. My phone crashes now and then I have to reset it, and despite the fact how I turned off the autospell, it still does it. I think I might convert back to my old 2.0.1, it was nice and stable.

 

[jmccarthy14]

yeah boston. And goood to heAr some people can run the wallpapers with little lag.

Now that I'm done w my rsa project/suckiness, thinkin about finally rooting. Sounds like the best way is get the earliest version and add fixes a la carte. Or is only rev 3 around now?

And fade you said it was faster. Just homescreens or the phone altogether?

 

[Fabolous]

Guys, I just flashed the fixed rev. 4 on to my Droid.

It restored all my apps and settings from before.

The keyboard light is now fixed.

I am tres happy.

Happy Holidays!

 

[CRPercodani]

AT&T gets service but only edge and Sprint is pretty solid but roams a lot if you get out in the woods. I remember getting really high next at the dunkin donuts in barre, then doing donuts in the big parking lot.

I haven't flashed r4 yet, I applied the new keyboard fix and have been happy so far, plus I don't feel like setting everything up again. I don't have any paid apps.....from the market. Maybe I will mess with it tomorrow after xmas.

jmccarthy14 - I think it is much faster all around, especially homescreens though. No browser lag at all for me either.

 

[jmccarthy14]

jmccarthy14 - I think it is much faster all around, especially homescreens though. No browser lag at all for me either.

Thanks. This is it for me i think. Haven't rooted cause pretty happy with the phone as it is, no real need. Convinced myself I wouldn't till the 2.1 hero apps were being ported. But why not. Time to load adb.

 

[UnsureSherlock]

2.1 didnt work out at all for me, even the .41 revision. I reset Data and Cache and installed, but for some reason my phone kept crashing, the app drawer crashed a lot. A lot of random ~4 second lag spikes, and the keyboard fix didn't work for some reason or another. I'll stick to 2.0.1 for a while longer until a more stable release comes out.

 

[CRPercodani]

Unsure, did you do format: system? You need to do all 3 each time. I don't know why your getting so much lag and so many errors, I haven't seen anyone else with as many problems as you've had.

 

[jmccarthy14]

Unsure, did you do format: system? You need to do all 3 each time. I don't know why your getting so much lag and so many errors, I haven't seen anyone else with as many problems as you've had.

May be .41. Just loaded it, let it finish recovering and syncing. As of 10 minutes of use, 2 freezes followed immediately by reboots.

And the wallpapers do lag, unfortunately.

Do you have one of the earlier versions? I can do the keyboard/wallpaper fixes myself.

 

[budwizer]

I running with the original .4 release. Had the FC issue with the dialer upon the initial boot however was able to reboot and all has been solid since then.

Overall I've been very impressed with 2.1; definitely snappier performance all the way around. That may be in part to my not running a home replacement with it. The update Gallery application is a bonus.

For some reason my keyboard light is no longer working with this build even though it was supposed to be fixed. Probably will give the manual fix a shot tomorrow and see if that gets it going again.

 

[jmccarthy14]

You are right, seems like every FC/reboot makes it faster and last longer... weird as hell.

EDIT: Oh and for the keyboard use the power widget.