Help How to fix Froyo

[EarlyMon]

OK - you guys are going to hate this, and probably me, too - but here goes.

This was the Evo community consensus view - this was required for us when we got Froyo last year.

It's dated - it addresses another carrier - but as a mod, I've heard of a LOT of people with other phones following this after Froyo and getting all sorts of evil cured. You'll have to work together as a group and refine any steps for your phone, and take into account updates since we put it together. Others have, and have been happy for it.

My battery is way better after Froyo.

http://androidforums.com/evo-4g-support-troubleshooting/141369-how-fix-froyo.html

Before anyone posts the number one complaint - we shouldn't have to do this - I'll say in advance, it's better than doing nothing by a long shot.

Besides - it's a phone, and it's not if you'll ever need a full backup, it's when - nothing lasts forever.

Cheers - best luck.

I suggest it's imperative to read the simple explanation in post #3, below.

 

[Leonard1818]

OK - you guys are going to hate this, and probably me, too - but here goes.

This was the Evo community consensus view - this was required for us when we got Froyo last year.

It's dated - it addresses another carrier - but as a mod, I've heard of a LOT of people with other phones following this after Froyo and getting all sorts of evil cured. You'll have to work together as a group and refine any steps for your phone, and take into account updates since we put it together. Others have, and have been happy for it.

My battery is way better after Froyo.

http://androidforums.com/evo-4g-support-troubleshooting/141369-how-fix-froyo.html

Before anyone posts the number one complaint - we shouldn't have to do this - I'll say in advance, it's better than doing nothing by a long shot.

Besides - it's a phone, and it's not if you'll ever need a full backup, it's when - nothing lasts forever.

Cheers - best luck.

similar to formatting computers... I wipe my machines every-so-often to get a "fresh start" and of course I see much better performance from them once I do... I assume the same can be said for phones. In fact, I did a data wipe on my fascinate about 2 weeks ago. I installed ONLY the apps I know I will use regularly and it's been great!

 

[EarlyMon]

I've seen a lot of issues being posted that were fixed by the above with other phones - so rather than post it everywhere, I've pulled out the few posts and have made a new thread of it.

Best luck!

PS - Bottom line - they have yet to get the update process correct on Android.

The Dalvik Virtual Machine (the part of the system that makes Android Android and not just Linux) has some cache and data areas that end up tangled and dirty on MANY phones after an update.

Rooters know - most rom and kernel install instructions tell you to clean these areas.

The requirement doesn't change just because you're not rooted - it simply gets hidden.

Your rom was just updated. For best performance, Dalvik cache/data needs to be wiped clean.

And that is done with a factory reset - instructions above include many tips on how to back your stuff up and restore it so you don't lose anything.

As I mentioned - you as a group will be best served by working together and refining the procedure for your Fascinate.

Anyone that collates that info here can have it placed in the sticky guide here - freely plagiarize my post, that's not my stuff, that's the result of a community effort.

 

[The Saucier]

Like many other Fascinate users, I too noticed significant battery drain after updating to 2.2. So last night I went ahead and followed the steps posted by EarlyMon and I am pleased to say my battery life is back to normal.

One note on Step 1 (Backup):

I did not use MyBackup Pro or any other backup utility, since based on the description for the app, the widgets on my home screen might not have been saved, and my seven homescreens make heavy use of Desktop Visualizer widgets. I simply made sure my contacts were synced to my Google account, and used Astro to backup my apps/settings. I also backed up my ADW EX settings/preferences under the ADW menu (if you are using a different launcher there is probably a similar backup option available).

Long story short, my battery seems to have improved. I have been off charger now for almost 12 hours...

...and I am still at 48% (at least according to CircleBattery Widget):

Today I have used my phone for web, email, GPS, and I was running a gamecast of the Celtics game while out at lunch; pretty moderate stuff, but way more usage then a day I am at work. Not too mention I have my Fascinate set to full brightness. To give you an idea, when I left work yesterday around 2:30PM I was under 25%...and I had even briefly charged my phone in the office!

Either way, if you are having issues with battery life after updating to 2.2, this is certainly well worth your time.

 

[EarlyMon]

Thanks for trying it and endorsing it to your fellow Fascinate users.

The method works - this is a known Android update problem, this is the known cure.

Battery, flash, camera, call quality - the whole bit - can be affected when the Dalvik areas get tangled.

 

[The Saucier]

the whole bit - can be affected when the Dalvik areas get tangled.

I have no idea what this means

Maybe I should have added that I am not exactly the most tech savvy individual, yet I was able to work my way through this process with no issues. Essentially, anyone can do this if they are trying to improve their phones performance with froyo. It just took me a really really long time. Of course the things worth doing, are worth doing the right way, so the time spent was well worth it.

 

[EarlyMon]

Android is based on a desktop operating system called Linux.

On top of Linux, they added what we call a virtual machine - basically - a computer inside a computer. This is called the Dalvik Virtual Machine or the Dalvik VM.

Android apps are very tiny, relatively speaking. They run inside the Dalvik VM, and rely on tried and true Linux services for the heavy lifting (this is why you can seem to exit your music app, but music is still playing, or why mail continues to download when you're not running mail so far as you know).

The Linux side is fine, hardly changes.

When you upgraded to Froyo, you got new software for your Dalvik VM - but the old Dalvik memory areas are left behind, often corrupted, and not properly cleaned up by the installation.

The factory reset cleans up those stale, tangled, goofed-up, compatible-with-Eclair memory areas.

That makes your apps straighten up and fly right.

And when apps straighten up and fly right, Froyo runs faster and actually uses LESS cpu to run the same apps you've been running - so you should see battery life improve in most cases.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[sandystorm]

Like many other Fascinate users, I too noticed significant battery drain after updating to 2.2. So last night I went ahead and followed the steps posted by EarlyMon and I am pleased to say my battery life is back to normal.

One note on Step 1 (Backup):

I did not use MyBackup Pro or any other backup utility, since based on the description for the app, the widgets on my home screen might not have been saved, and my seven homescreens make heavy use of Desktop Visualizer widgets. I simply made sure my contacts were synced to my Google account, and used Astro to backup my apps/settings. I also backed up my ADW EX settings/preferences under the ADW menu (if you are using a different launcher there is probably a similar backup option available).

Long story short, my battery seems to have improved. I have been off charger now for almost 12 hours...

...and I am still at 48% (at least according to CircleBattery Widget):

Today I have used my phone for web, email, GPS, and I was running a gamecast of the Celtics game while out at lunch; pretty moderate stuff, but way more usage then a day I am at work. Not too mention I have my Fascinate set to full brightness. To give you an idea, when I left work yesterday around 2:30PM I was under 25%...and I had even briefly charged my phone in the office!

Either way, if you are having issues with battery life after updating to 2.2, this is certainly well worth your time.

I downloaded astro but didn't know what to do with it or how to backup everything to SD card, any help how to do this? Thanks

 

[Leonard1818]

OK so in the steps it says to:

Once you have your backup, goto Menu-> Settings-> SD & phone storage -> Factory reset.

Is this the same as a data wipe on our phones?

I did one of those a few weeks ago (but not since froyo)... Just wondering what the exact procedure would be.

Also The Saucier, what kind of theme do you have? What do I have to do to get things to look like that on my phone!?

 

[The Saucier]

I downloaded astro but didn't know what to do with it or how to backup everything to SD card, any help how to do this? Thanks

Once you open Astro press the Menu Button>Tools>Application Manager/Backup. Here you can choose the apps you want to backup to the SD Card.

As stated earlier I used Google sync to backup my contacts/calendar, and the only other thing I backed up was my ADW EX behavior settings (if you don't use a custom launcher then don't sweat it).

Last thing I did was take screenshots of my home-screens and sent them to my laptop so I could use the pics to re-create my setup. Since my desktop theme makes heavy use of desktop visualizer widgets I'm not sure there is a backup utility which can restore my home-screens (if someone knows of an app which can do this, I am all ears).

 

[The Saucier]

OK so in the steps it says to:

Once you have your backup, goto Menu-> Settings-> SD & phone storage -> Factory reset.

Is this the same as a data wipe on our phones?

I did one of those a few weeks ago (but not since froyo)... Just wondering what the exact procedure would be.

Also The Saucier, what kind of theme do you have? What do I have to do to get things to look like that on my phone!?

I didn't see the Factory Reset option under SD & Phone Storage.

The path I took was:

Menu>Settings>Privacy>Factory Data Reset

Not sure what a 'data wipe' is but the description of the Factory Data Reset stated it would erase all data from phone. Furthermore, after the reboot my phone was back to the way it was out of the box, except with 2.2.

___

To answer your other question my theme is based on this thread:

http://androidforums.com/android-themes/199936-android-phone-7-theme.html

 

[Gibbyson]

You know, i would almost suggest that anyone having any issues with the update do a factory reset whether it worked or not. My update actually worked find the first attempt, but after a day or 2 of messing around with it i just wasn't convinced that all was well. I backed up all my apps, and shhtuff, and reset to factory, re-installed apps, and all was well. It took about 30 minutes total, which is probably less time than most people spend trying to troubleshoot a single issue on their phone not having done a reset, when a reset would have probably solved their problem.

 

[Leonard1818]

I didn't see the Factory Reset option under SD & Phone Storage.

The path I took was:

Menu>Settings>Privacy>Factory Data Reset

Not sure what a 'data wipe' is but the description of the Factory Data Reset stated it would erase all data from phone. Furthermore, after the reboot my phone was back to the way it was out of the box, except with 2.2.

___

To answer your other question my theme is based on this thread:

http://androidforums.com/android-themes/199936-android-phone-7-theme.html

Thanks!

That was exactly what I did a few weeks ago. I was just having bad performance and then "problem loading widget" after multiple reboots. Decided it was time to wipe.

May do it again and I'm definately going to do it for my wifes phone if/when I put 2.2 on there.

 

[Double P]

Hi all long time lurker, first time poster. I went through this process to help with battery life and I think it helped some so far. Here's a question though. After restoring my Apps from astro, none of them show up in the my files list in the market so I don't know if there are any updates or not. Anyone else notice that or have a fix other than to delete them and reinstall? None of them are on the sd card and I'm not rooted.

 

[EarlyMon]

I've found it syncs up eventually.

Meanwhile, try running an update all from the Market app.

You've just cleared the Market cache, that's why it's doing this.

Welcome to the forums!

 

[The Saucier]

One note on Step 1 (Backup):

I did not use MyBackup Pro or any other backup utility, since based on the description for the app, the widgets on my home screen might not have been saved, and my seven homescreens make heavy use of Desktop Visualizer widgets. I simply made sure my contacts were synced to my Google account, and used Astro to backup my apps/settings. I also backed up my ADW EX settings/preferences under the ADW menu (if you are using a different launcher there is probably a similar backup option available).

OK, so FYI to everyone thinking about doing this. As I stated in my post, I did not use MyBackup Pro when I backed up my phone (see my quote above from initial post). One thing I did not take into account was that backing up my files/apps the way I did, would not save the progress I had made in the games I had (not something I was too concerned about, so the thought never crossed my mind). Apparently, MyBackup Pro does save your game progress, so if this is important to you, please choose a backup utility which can do this for you.

I apologize if my post caused anyone to lose their progress in Angry Birds or whatever. I really just use games to keep my three year old entertained when out in public, so this factor was really just an afterthought to me.

 

[Double P]

I've found it syncs up eventually.

Meanwhile, try running an update all from the Market app.

You've just cleared the Market cache, that's why it's doing this.

Welcome to the forums!

Thanks for the welcome and the info. One more question. How does one "update all" from the market. I don't see that option anywhere.

Thanks.

 

[echerrst]

I know we are all using our phones differently, but what should be expected. My phone is about 6 months old, I use it a handful of times an hour during work to check email, twitter, other apps, etc, I talk about 20-30 minutes on average, and am usually running bluetooth and wifi most of the time. Also I tend to listen to music for about an hour.

I haven't tweaked any settings about automatic updates, screen settings, leaving things as default.

My phone usually just about makes it through one day. Does this seem "normal"? Would I see a major increase if I were to backup everything and do a factory reset?

 

[Leonard1818]

I know we are all using our phones differently, but what should be expected. My phone is about 6 months old, I use it a handful of times an hour during work to check email, twitter, other apps, etc, I talk about 20-30 minutes on average, and am usually running bluetooth and wifi most of the time. Also I tend to listen to music for about an hour.

I haven't tweaked any settings about automatic updates, screen settings, leaving things as default.

My phone usually just about makes it through one day. Does this seem "normal"? Would I see a major increase if I were to backup everything and do a factory reset?

So you do the following (I'm putting this in list-form for my own thought process):

-- Check email, twitter, a few other apps a few times daily (assuming less than 5 minutes maybe 5 or 6 times)
-- Talk 20-30 mins.
-- Now when you say you're running bluetooth, do you mean that BT is turned on but you're not necessarly streaming something or connected to something or do you mean you have an active connection to say, a PC or is it just "turned on" on the phone?
-- Same question as above for wifi.
-- Listen to music for an hour.

Depending on how exactly you are using BT and WiFi, I would say your results are about right. If you go into settings > about phone and check to see what's using your battery, what are the top items? What is your brightness set at? What's your screen timeout set at? Are you on 2.2 now?

At this point, I would say don't worry about doing a factory reset. That's just my personal opinion based on what I've seen and experienced.

 

[echerrst]

What would be included in Android System & Android OS?

Also to answer your questions:

1. BT is connected (and often streaming) in my car. When at work, it is on but not connected.

2. WiFi is always on and almost always connected.

 

[sandystorm]

I did the factory reset and got it up and running and found I lost an app called missed call by anno that really worked good and now it's not in the market. Plus I used to have two Facebooks which the new one has chat but the old did not but on old I could long press on a phto and could download it to phone now I cant because cant get old FB back. Oh well battery still drains pretty fast but just bought extended battery to see how that goes.

 

[turkspur]

I was having MAJOR battery drain problems. I followed some of the simple instructions ( nothing complex) on this site and it made a difference. After I let it drain and then charged it a couple of times overnight it seems stronger? I have been uploading 51 video files to dropbox all day (slow), running wifi, 3g, tweetdeck, emails, and any other apps that are constantly running and very little battery drain? Strange? I'm not sure exactly what I did because nothing on here was a quick fix. I tried tried a little of everyones suggestions. Systempanel lite helped me identify and stop somethings.

 

[sandystorm]

I was having MAJOR battery drain problems. I followed some of the simple instructions ( nothing complex) on this site and it made a difference. After I let it drain and then charged it a couple of times overnight it seems stronger? I have been uploading 51 video files to dropbox all day (slow), running wifi, 3g, tweetdeck, emails, and any other apps that are constantly running and very little battery drain? Strange? I'm not sure exactly what I did because nothing on here was a quick fix. I tried tried a little of everyones suggestions. Systempanel lite helped me identify and stop somethings.

Just doesn't seem possible with what you are doing that battery is lasting so long, sure you didn't put in extended battery?

 

[EarlyMon]

Check around this forum - in addition to this fix, there are also very helpful battery threads.

 

[Tom Servo]

Hello all, new to the forums and just followed the factory reset procedures due to horrible battery performance since the 2.2 update. Thanks for the clear instructions. Too early to tell if performance has improved as I'm still reconstructing my phone to its original configuration. However one question on Memos. I was careful to back up contacts, apps, etc. before the reset but totally forgot about my memos. I did back up the contents of my SD card via USB to my PC. Are memos stored within the SD card? If true I have a chance to recover them - if not, I'm hosed. Thanks in advance for any input.