[Q] Some advice would be nice - Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi all,
I've been following all the Froyo hoo-hah with increasing amounts of anxiety. I'm on T-Mobile in the UK (so don't have it yet anyway) but what I'd like to know from an XDA expert is what's the best advice for me at the moment. The things I'm curious about are as follows:
My Eclair version appears to be JF3, how can I get it up to date?
Is the stock Froyo actually any good and worth upgrading too? - reports suggest it's no major improvement and in some cases actually a step back e.g. increased battery drainage, no GPS improvement, worse lag than Eclair etc
What is the current route (not root) of choice for getting the best performance from the SGS? for example, would the stock Froyo with the voodoo lag-fix be an adequate route or is there something better. If I was starting from scratch, assuming I'm relatively technical, what would you suggest?
Is Odin a better solution than Kies (I'm only using Kies for updating purposes anyway).
Last question, is it worth using a backup app or just a combo of appBrain and Kies?
My main concern is just reducing the, what seems to be increasing, lag on my current version (with OCLF installed). There's nothing more annoying when you're trying to show your phone off than it hanging.
Sorry for all the questions and I know some of you would say "Go search the rest of the threads!" but sometimes that just creates more questions than answers.
I must say though that it seems more and more that Samsung's software guys aren't really that competant.
I really very much ppreciate any help or advice anyone can suggest

Related

[Q] Samsung Galaxy S Terribly Inaccurate Time-Keeping

Hi people,
This is my first post, forgive me if I'm doing it wrong or in the in wrong place...
I have an annoying issue with my Galaxy S that I have googled and cannot find any information about or whether other people are also having the same problem.
When I set the time on my device in sync with the time I get from googling the time in my location, within a day my device is already 10 minutes behind the time google says is the time in my location. (other devices synced with google's time remain synced, its just the Galaxy S that does this).
A bit of information on my Galaxy S:
I am running Android 2.2(beta) I9000XXJP3,
kernel version 2.6.32.9,
build number FRF91.372
Ext3 speed fix running on phone
I am an electronics engineer, so my first guess as to what the problem is is that the phones real-time clock is not keeping time accurately (if in fact it has a hardware real-time clock!).
If theres no real-time clock then I am guessing it may be a problem with a software implementation of the real-time clock.
Has anyone else experienced this problem? Is it a problem perhaps with running the EXT3 speed fix that is causing the software to not keep time accurately? (as i understand it, the EXT3 speed fix and modified kernel reduces the number of writes to the Samsung RFS? Could the reduced number of writes be causing the software real-time clock to not be updated on its regular intervals?)
Any help is much appreciated. I have already been late for a couple appointments because of this problem lol
Thanks peeps
install clocksync that will take care of the time problem if any
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=8027593&postcount=31
in a way i think the clock problem reported by some people might be lag related
i never have lag on my phone, and coincidentally i have no problem with time being delayed
running stock JH2, no lag fix as it's not necessary, GPS quick lock in 5 sec, no jumping around or to the next lane or next street
Excellent
Thanks a bunch. I may have to consider downgrading back to a working version of 2.1.
From all of my experiences with Android 2.1 on the Galaxy S (and I have tried about 8 different releases) is that I constantly get the "black screen of despair". Installing Froyo fixed that problem to a degree, and I rarely see the black screen with the speed fix. The phone is much faster.
From others' experiences, which firmware do you guys use? Or a more relevant question, which firmware have you found to be the most stable and usable firmware?
Cheers
TeRm!n8oR said:
I am running Android 2.2(beta) I9000XXJP3,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's your problem.
I'm using the JPH Froyo firmware with a lagfix. Works great for me although it has a minor lag now and then.
I'm pretty sure there is a clock in the phone. I don't think there is any phone out there without a real-time clock. I don't see what lag or file system has to do with the clock... Most likely your problem is a syncing issue. Set your time manually and turn off all auto syncing options, maybe there is problem with your operator’s clock or in the app you are using to sync.
Actually, JP3 seems to have a known issue with time keeping. I'd be guessing maybe it runs a NTP daemon with an incorrect clock skew (guessing though). Either way, heard it many times for JP3, but never any other firmware.
The reality is though, only developers should be using beta versions of froyo anyway.
Maddmatt said:
There's your problem.
I'm using the JPH Froyo firmware with a lagfix. Works great for me although it has a minor lag now and then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are there any significant improvements between JP3 and JPH? Or is JPH just a more matured development from JP3? Are there changelogs/bug fix reports anywhere available for these?
PhoenixFx said:
I'm pretty sure there is a clock in the phone. I don't think there is any phone out there without a real-time clock. I don't see what lag or file system has to do with the clock... Most likely your problem is a syncing issue. Set your time manually and turn off all auto syncing options, maybe there is problem with your operator’s clock or in the app you are using to sync.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd imagine there would be a hardware real-time clock too. What got me thinking that it may be implemented some other way is that I turned off all syncing and manually set the time last night. I made sure i had wifi off, cellular data off, GPS off, roaming disabled, etc. prior to manually setting the time through the inbuilt clock.
I woke up the next morning to find that overnight the clock had somehow offset itself 5 minutes backwards from the time kept by google for my region. This was what initially made me think perhaps the time was being kept in software with an internal battery backup or something (I haven't cracked open my phone yet to see whats under the hood in fear of hurting it ).
Weird problem however you look at it. Although I don't think the problem occurred under Android 2.1, it seems to be a recent thing (post install 2.2 + Speed Fix).
TeRm!n8oR said:
Are there any significant improvements between JP3 and JPH? Or is JPH just a more matured development from JP3? Are there changelogs/bug fix reports anywhere available for these?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Matured. But some people are having probs with JPH corrupting their IMEI's.. But there are no changelogs (because it's a leak). I haven't heard any complaints about the clock being wrong in JPH.
Rule of thumb is to use Eclair unless you are a developer though. Pre-release firmware isn't a good thing to use on a phone you rely on
andrewluecke said:
Matured. But some people are having probs with JPH corrupting their IMEI's.. But there are no changelogs (because it's a leak). I haven't heard any complaints about the clock being wrong in JPH.
Rule of thumb is to use Eclair unless you are a developer though. Pre-release firmware isn't a good thing to use on a phone you rely on
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny you'd say that though, I've had less problems with Froyo JP3 (other than the time problem ^) than I did with any version of Eclair. Especially when it came to the black screen of despair. I could not find a way to minimise its frequency, let alone get rid of it completely with Eclair. Mind you, at the time when i put JP3 on my phone, Eclair was only up to JM6 I believe.
Maybe it'd be worth giving JM7 or JM8 a go...

[Q] Time to scrap lagfixes? (JPA/JPO)

Has the time come to finally scrap all the lagfixes with the release of JPA/JPO?
Please, no Quadrant or similar synthetic arguments against. The "real-feel" of the phone is the only relevant benchmark.
So, in your experience in the operation of the new firmwares, comparing them in a native vs. lagfixed state, is it time to dispense with the lagfixes?
Don't think so....
But JPO is speedy when fresh.
Lag is still there, less noticable, but there, you can feel it especially during parallel download and installing apps or when you have a running background updating/sync process.
Voodoo is mature enough anyway, infact, I kinda do miss Voodoo's brightness and color fix on 2.2.
I'm on Jpa,don't feel the NEEd for lagfix...i gets' hung for a while on installation and other small slowdowns,but it's really good overall (noticeably better than cooked jpm/jp6,at least)
Nope, no reason to dump them yet...
Media scanning still takes a while in stock, while with a lagfix it's about 2 seconds. So the phone is in a fully usable state much sooner after booting or when adding/deleting media on the phone.
I also used DolphonHD browser as a test.
On a fresh boot on stock firmware, it takes about 6 seconds to start up.
With a lagfix (I used Advanced EXT4 with one of those custom kernels) it starts up within 2 seconds on fresh boot.
Samsung needs to dump this RFS crap, it's a horrible joke.
There is definitely still lag and random pauses in JPO, no question about that. Although it may be a slight improvement over previous Froyo betas, you still need an EXT4 lag-fix to eliminate the lag and pauses that exist in stock JPO.
AnnihilatorSC said:
Has the time come to finally scrap all the lagfixes with the release of JPA/JPO?
Please, no Quadrant or similar synthetic arguments against. The "real-feel" of the phone is the only relevant benchmark.
So, in your experience in the operation of the new firmwares, comparing them in a native vs. lagfixed state, is it time to dispense with the lagfixes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No - user experience (especially with RSS reader) is still much better with OCLF (10 times faster).
Maybe, if I didn't use RSS reader which requires fast IO I'd live without OCLF...
Oops! I voted no, but wanted to vote yes!
I use JPO and I experienced lag without apps installed.. So clean it lagged. I didn't clear the sdcard before the lag (I think it's useless), but I did reset to factory defaults.
Just like all the Eclair releases, Froyo certainly seems to be getting better with every "release". As already mentioned a few posts earlier, JPA certainly zooms when fresh.
That said, it really is too soon to get rid of lagfixes. When Froyo matures to the level of, say JM9, then would be an appropriate time for such a thought. Till then, hello Voodoo....
The best test of lag would be NewsRob imo. Can someone with a non lagfixed JPO test it out? I can already confirm it flies on JPO + Voodoo.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
I dont have any real lagging issues on my phone but I can see that moving around the inbox is definitly faster with a lagfix, the rest of the phone operations are pretty smooth woth Doc's JPO and the modded kernel.
Compared to ther lesser speced phone the SGS is pretty slow so yes it does need a lag fix at certain functions

Am confused!!!

Hi,
straight to the point...i want froyo for my galaxy s and a very good and stable lagfix with it but I don't know what ROM and lag fix to choose from and am very "noobiesh" at these kind of things.
Plus:i got voodoo lag fix and its great and I like the color and sharpness tweaks that comes with it so can I use voodoo lagfix with froyo??
So please can anyone tell me what to do exactly without any complicated mumbo jumbo??? DX
Get JPO (the latest froyo) from samfirmware.com, and flash it using ODIN. (use vol down+home+power button when turning on your phone to get it into download mode).
In my opinion, no lag patch is really needed. Lag patches can cause long term maintenance issues anyway still (and you need to take more precautions, such as DEFINITELY keeping a copy of /efs if you use a lag patch). If you are consistently getting excessive lag in late roms, it might be because certain programs you have installed are causing problems (also consider trying launcherpro, or a stock launcher).
If you want a bit more speed, wait for Tayatuma to update his superlite rom, to use JPO rather than JPM, or wait for another AOSP ROM such as Cyanogenmod (AOSP is closer to the experience google wants us to have, rather than Samsung).
Ensure you use a i9000 rom too, and don't accidentally use a i9008 or other model one. Good luck, and remember, this is just my opinion. Also, don't get too caught up in Quadrant. It isn't accurate, and some people here SERIOUSLY (I kid you not), are selecting roms based on a difference of quadrant speed of only a few points (less than 5%).

General question about Froyo 2.2 on 32B

First, I apologize if this is an issue that has already been discussed; however, I did look through the stickied threads and didn't find anything that really answered the question I have.
I have tried several different Froyo 2.2 ROMs on my Dream, and they always seem to run a fraction of the speed of Donut ROMs. Loading the home screen, applications, and webpages always seems to take a lot longer, and there just isn't that quickness that Donut has.
Am I doing something wrong? Anyone else have the same experiences?
I actually have to stick with this fact. Also i did notice that the rom i tried "passing through" the process of moving on from Android 1.6 to Android 2.2.1 (was JF if i recall) was kinda faster then the Biff mod i have on my G1 now.
But i don't think that it is anything wrong about it, i think that frankly the g1 start to be an obsolete piece of hardware.
Maybe i am wrong but just so that you know i tried to download "Angry Birds Lite" and start it...well it's kinda a shame as it stutters terribly. Is it a matter of ROM MOD or just that the G1 isn't a young quicky fella anymore ?
The hardware is outdated .
It's just interesting then how so many people appear to be running these Froyo 2.2 builds. Do they not realize how sluggish they have made their phones?
Why shouldn't we M!x. Me, on my hand, i have a G1 blocked by my phoning company and sold me an 1.1 Android HTC Dream...so awful...i couldn't even use my camera as a video recorder (and they didn't release not 1, not only 1 update!)
And as long as i am flashing and modifying everything i don't find why shouldn't i update my phone to the latest version of this wonderful OS.
N4R4Y4N said:
Why shouldn't we M!x. Me, on my hand, i have a G1 blocked by my phoning company and sold me an 1.1 Android HTC Dream...so awful...i couldn't even use my camera as a video recorder (and they didn't release not 1, not only 1 update!)
And as long as i am flashing and modifying everything i don't find why shouldn't i update my phone to the latest version of this wonderful OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why shouldn't you? Because it's slow? Have you tested Android 1.6 vs Android 2.2? You don't notice the significant slowdown? Taking 5 seconds to bring up the dialpad?
ok wait wait wait...
Oh well...i dont know if u intend that literally takes 5 seconds...but with the Biff mod it's not THAT slow...
i only joined up in the topic cos i found the phone slow in some occasions but not that it jeopardize the overall use.
-
i guess your the two among the fews who didnt get their phones up and running froyo fluently.
checkout the OTA and after that the more bareboners/tweaked roms, read through the corresponding forums, and try to admit that you have to abandon having fancy stuff on yer phone.
as for me im right now running the OTA the one available here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=811620
with cpu set 122-614mhz, using modified radio hack to gain +14mb of ram and modified lowmemorykiller values.
ive been running the system since weeks with no hangups,and is snappy az should be.
done these not with with third party apps but adding an initscript that sets these values at boot time WITHOUT needing running yetanother app running.
i dont even have to use compcache.
must mention that i use ADW home manager with only 2 desktops, no dockbar and so, minimized fancy in order to keep its memory consumption low, using only the calendar widget and Quick Settings in notification bar.
i have even found out recently that switching on the animations lets you feel your phone more snappy since it takes your attention while loading or switching between views/screensD
[it does work indeed!]
so snappy and stable that i am afraid of trying new so said tweaked roms like:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=825716&page=48
or
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=929678
i guess more and more G1 users/developers are trying to strip down and tweak froyo to get the max out it since this may be the last stable rom available for our devices.
and no, i dont think that our devices are outdated, definitely not for normal day use.
so keep up finding the best way for yours!
cheers
:GY
M!x said:
First, I apologize if this is an issue that has already been discussed; however, I did look through the stickied threads and didn't find anything that really answered the question I have.
I have tried several different Froyo 2.2 ROMs on my Dream, and they always seem to run a fraction of the speed of Donut ROMs. Loading the home screen, applications, and webpages always seems to take a lot longer, and there just isn't that quickness that Donut has.
Am I doing something wrong? Anyone else have the same experiences?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You make these claims without telling what roms you've tried.
Have you tried this one: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=811620 ??? Because this one *IS FAST*. At least it is when combined with the 2708 memory hack.
I'll surely give it a shot, thank you guys
Thanks for the information guys, I will certainly try these ROMs. I have, by the way, tried standard builds of Froyo, CM6, SuperF, with disappointing results. They worked "OK," but had a fraction of the performance of Donut.
You guys can try my Froyo rom. Only complaints I get is about the Bloatware,lol. No drag, almost like a donut rom in speed. I have over 3000 downloads. The link is on my signature or on the G1 development section. Let me know what you think!

[Q][i9000] Custom Firmware?

I have the 16GB Vodafone UK Galaxy S. Today I was in a city trying to use satnav and it was rank rotten. So I thought I'd see if an upgrade would do it. I was using the very first Froyo that Vodafone came out with - I upgraded to that and hadn't upgraded since. I did have it rooted and 1 click lag fix was on it.
I upgraded to Gingerbread just there, sadly I had to do a factory reset, however it's all working.
I have realised that if I am going to put a custom firmware on it then now is just the right time to do it.
Is there one out there that's stable, and an improvement over the Gingerbread I'm using? Particularly I'd like it to fix the lag (if that still needs fixed) and even better would be fixing GPS/Satnav.
Pinpong blockbuster rom - ticks all your boxes. Get faster fix from market.
Your gps will never be 100% satisfactory in the city, in fact it will probably always be poor - no matter what custom rom you use.
Halkus said:
I have the 16GB Vodafone UK Galaxy S. Today I was in a city trying to use satnav and it was rank rotten. So I thought I'd see if an upgrade would do it. I was using the very first Froyo that Vodafone came out with - I upgraded to that and hadn't upgraded since. I did have it rooted and 1 click lag fix was on it.
I upgraded to Gingerbread just there, sadly I had to do a factory reset, however it's all working.
I have realised that if I am going to put a custom firmware on it then now is just the right time to do it.
Is there one out there that's stable, and an improvement over the Gingerbread I'm using? Particularly I'd like it to fix the lag (if that still needs fixed) and even better would be fixing GPS/Satnav.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you think about CM7? Great Rom, works well on my phone, and add many new things.
Hi Mate, I tried many custom roms and finally settled for
(ROM)GingerCriskeloV77-9LS-CamHack- SIP + NoIncRing I9000/T/M JVP 2.3.4
Cheers
Well, I managed to get it on. Booting up is weird though, it looks for a long time as if the screen is broken, but eventually ti comes on to the Blockbuster lock screen and then everything is fine. It does seem faster - but I'll only really know when I get to one of those situations where I feel the phone is frustratingly slow.
Thanks very much Woolf!
Time allowing I'll give the other roms a shot, although this Blockbuster one does seem to be good enough for me.
Sadly my phone now reboots constantly. it seems to do it when the screen locks
Halkus said:
Sadly my phone now reboots constantly. it seems to do it when the screen locks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check you got the installation right for that rom, maybe you had to flash a jvp stock first or some similar omission?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
Sorry to hear you're having issues. Try flashing to a totally stock JVQ first (with repartition) once you've backed up, then if you don't like that, try a custom ROM. I don't think many JVQ custom ROMs are worth trying if you want a taste of custom ROMs. Better to try CM7 or MIUI for something fast and different.
As a side note, the best tip I've seen for fixing the dreadful GPS we have with the i9000 is to buy a Nexus S or just ANY other phone! Yes, some radios appear better than others, but nobody can prove anything and it's almost all subjective feedback. A drop in the ocean of improvement needed for satisfactory function. If you must use it, a bluetooth GPS receiver and 3rd party navigation app seem the best way to deal with it.
I've now stepped away from Blockbuster. Even doing the a perfect install it crashed often and repeatedly. I did try upgrading to the very latest and that crashed several times in the past hour. Part of the problem was the rom starts with a lockscreen that has a messaging unlock on it, but it isn't set to an app that comes with the rom, so it reboots every time. Sadly that wasn't the only problem, as I was still getting loads of reboots.
So that's out of the way.
I'm now a lot more comfortable using Odin so I'll be able to try other options. I'll try the other two suggested in this thread first of all.
Next to test is CM7.
Thanks for the help folks!
CM7 aborted. Instructions are incorrect, the file they say to download doesn't actually match the instructions so that's out. Plus it clearly states it's not suitable for day to day use... so I don't thnk the time in working out how to fix it is justified since it looks like it wouldn't be useful.
I'm going back to the original question in the thread, to say that I'm looking for something stable. I now think that a custom rom is not the way to go. However some modifications may well be.
Can anyone suggest some kind of lagfix/speedup that isn't a complete overhaul like CM7, Blockbuster etc, that is very stable and that'll make my phone faster?
Edit : Part of what I was doing to install Blockbuster was install Speedmod kernel. So I've gone and put that on, and used the clockwork mod to root it, and also convert to ext4. I think things are looking pretty fast so far. I'm not sure if there's a lagfix for this, but I'm quite comfortable just now footering around - unlike the complete rom I don't feel out of my depth. So I think I'll be ok for now.

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