Database Develop

[Q] [WANTED]: Dev Assistance with Captivate Sleep-lock/Charge-lock

I am posting here because I haven't made the requisite 10 posts to get access to post to the development forum. Is there a developer that would be willing to help me here?
Wanted:
Dev assistance with a persistent sleep-lock and/or full-charge lock issue experienced with nearly all non-stock roms on a Samsung i897 with a fresh flash of CM 10. (CM 10 is not the relevant detail, this issue has happened with every non-stock-based rom based on anything newer than and including GB. (so GB/ICS/JB suffer this issue)
What are we calling sleep-lock?
Sleep-lock in this case is being defined as a spontaneous shutdown, lockup (requiring removal of battery to restart), or spontaneous restart of the Android OS. I understand that these three results may or may not be the product of the same root cause (in fact they're probably not) but I'm throwing them in the same bucket because they seem to be randomly happening when the phone is in a sleeping state.
What are we calling full-charge lock?
Full-Charge lock in this case is being defined as a spontaneous shutdown or lockup (requiring removal of battery to restart; I do not seem to suffer spontaneous restarts while on the charger). I understand that these two results may or may not be the product of the same root cause (in fact they're probably not) but I'm throwing them in the same bucket because they seem to all happen when the device is on the charger, but most often when the phone reaches or is near a full charge.
Troubleshooting done to date:
I have tried various ROMs over a long period of time, some were better than others, but they were all victims of this behavior. It doesn't seem to be device-specific (read as hardware) related but ever since DarkyRom that I tried shortly after I got this device a couple years ago, I have had this behavior. Stock ROMs do not suffer this behavior.
Who are you working with?
I am a Sr. Technical Team Leader for a Fortune 1000 VoIP software company and am well versed in troubleshooting methodology. I am somewhat newbish in the ways of logcat so I would ask for a little patience there, but am well versed in Windows, Linux, and many parts of the Android OS and flashing process including Odin, Hiem. and CWM. I'm seeking developer assistance because I am completely inept at code development.
The device that we're working with is a non-production (not relied upon for daily use) and I have no problem leaving it running with a logcat on it, or flashing any ROM you would ask for troubleshooting purposes. That said, the goal is to get the stable CM10 running without reboots or lockups.
Thank you in advance for your time and assistance.
--ChipSharp(DotCom)

chipsharpdotcom said:
I am posting here because I haven't made the requisite 10 posts to get access to post to the development forum. Is there a developer that would be willing to help me here?
Wanted:
Dev assistance with a persistent sleep-lock and/or full-charge lock issue experienced with nearly all non-stock roms on a Samsung i897 with a fresh flash of CM 10. (CM 10 is not the relevant detail, this issue has happened with every non-stock-based rom based on anything newer than and including GB. (so GB/ICS/JB suffer this issue)
What are we calling sleep-lock?
Sleep-lock in this case is being defined as a spontaneous shutdown, lockup (requiring removal of battery to restart), or spontaneous restart of the Android OS. I understand that these three results may or may not be the product of the same root cause (in fact they're probably not) but I'm throwing them in the same bucket because they seem to be randomly happening when the phone is in a sleeping state.
What are we calling full-charge lock?
Full-Charge lock in this case is being defined as a spontaneous shutdown or lockup (requiring removal of battery to restart; I do not seem to suffer spontaneous restarts while on the charger). I understand that these two results may or may not be the product of the same root cause (in fact they're probably not) but I'm throwing them in the same bucket because they seem to all happen when the device is on the charger, but most often when the phone reaches or is near a full charge.
Troubleshooting done to date:
I have tried various ROMs over a long period of time, some were better than others, but they were all victims of this behavior. It doesn't seem to be device-specific (read as hardware) related but ever since DarkyRom that I tried shortly after I got this device a couple years ago, I have had this behavior. Stock ROMs do not suffer this behavior.
Who are you working with?
I am a Sr. Technical Team Leader for a Fortune 1000 VoIP software company and am well versed in troubleshooting methodology. I am somewhat newbish in the ways of logcat so I would ask for a little patience there, but am well versed in Windows, Linux, and many parts of the Android OS and flashing process including Odin, Hiem. and CWM. I'm seeking developer assistance because I am completely inept at code development.
The device that we're working with is a non-production (not relied upon for daily use) and I have no problem leaving it running with a logcat on it, or flashing any ROM you would ask for troubleshooting purposes. That said, the goal is to get the stable CM10 running without reboots or lockups.
Thank you in advance for your time and assistance.
--ChipSharp(DotCom)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are many things that can cause what we call SoD (sleep of death). First off, if you have deep idle checked on, remove that (in your ROM options).
What are the changes/mods you made after flashing CM10 (assuming stable version)?
Do you OC/UV?
And finaly, after checking for those things, there's a possible fix. It seems to have work on those who don't have a hardware issue, flashing I9000 bootloaders. The link in my sig guides you through it for the I897. (I9000 being the international version of the captivate)
If you end up going that route, I would do a clean flash. So flash stock software (KK4 no BLs) through Odin or Heimdall, flash the BLs, flash corn kernel to get root and finally flash CM10.
There are no real fix if it's a hardware issue that I'm aware of but hopefully it isn't. Also, I know you want to run CM10 on it but some people reported that running Mosaic 9 fixed their SoD problem. (It is the last I9000 ported ROM)

BWolf56 said:
There are many things that can cause what we call SoD (sleep of death). First off, if you have deep idle checked on, remove that (in your ROM options).
What are the changes/mods you made after flashing CM10 (assuming stable version)?
Do you OC/UV?
And finaly, after checking for those things, there's a possible fix. It seems to have work on those who don't have a hardware issue, flashing I9000 bootloaders. The link in my sig guides you through it for the I897. (I9000 being the international version of the captivate)
If you end up going that route, I would do a clean flash. So flash stock software (KK4 no BLs) through Odin or Heimdall, flash the BLs, flash corn kernel to get root and finally flash CM10.
There are no real fix if it's a hardware issue that I'm aware of but hopefully it isn't. Also, I know you want to run CM10 on it but some people reported that running Mosaic 9 fixed their SoD problem. (It is the last I9000 ported ROM)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this information. I have read most of this information before, but I appreciate the info nonetheless.
Post install I don't do any customization in terms of OC/UV. So I'm fairly certain that's not it.
I'll run through what you've suggested here in order and see what I get. The specific order is the part that I've found unique. It may take a couple days to get back to you as my test cases involve a couple of charges/discharges, some "normal use" cases etc. I'll let you know my results.
Thank you again for your willingness to help. I'd like to maintain the usefullness of this device and I appreciate your assistance to that end.
--ChipSharp(DotCom)

chipsharpdotcom said:
Thanks for this information. I have read most of this information before, but I appreciate the info nonetheless.
Post install I don't do any customization in terms of OC/UV. So I'm fairly certain that's not it.
I'll run through what you've suggested here in order and see what I get. The specific order is the part that I've found unique. It may take a couple days to get back to you as my test cases involve a couple of charges/discharges, some "normal use" cases etc. I'll let you know my results.
Thank you again for your willingness to help. I'd like to maintain the usefullness of this device and I appreciate your assistance to that end.
--ChipSharp(DotCom)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you tried the other stuff and the I9000 bootloaders don't work, chances are that it's a hardware problem.

BWolf56 said:
If you tried the other stuff and the I9000 bootloaders don't work, chances are that it's a hardware problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to give it a try right now....I'm less inclined to buy into the hardware theory though without having these problems on the Stock ROM.

chipsharpdotcom said:
I'm going to give it a try right now....I'm less inclined to buy into the hardware theory though without having these problems on the Stock ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try upping the voltage/minimum clock speed. That worked for me when I was running cm9 with the glitch kernel.
Sent from my Apple IIe

billyjed said:
Try upping the voltage/minimum clock speed. That worked for me when I was running cm9 with the glitch kernel.
Sent from my Apple IIe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip...I'll try that if all of the above doesn't work. At this point, I'm all flashed up and running test cases.

So none of the suggestions here (unfortunately) provided me any different results. That said, I have discovered a couple of different variables that may play a part in this.
1.) This issue only seems to come up when I have the device plugged into power only, not when I have it plugged into a computer.
2.) I think this may be related to trying to sleep while still maintaining the clock application. It seems that when I see this most often, it is when I am plugged into the wall, and I have an alarm set. I was able to be plugged into the wall overnight last week and have no problems without the alarm set, but when I set the alarm, I had the sleep-lock issue (and moreover as you would expect, my alarm did not sound).
Again, I have none of these problems with the stock ROM. I'm going to continue to test on this and hack around on it to see if I can hunt this down, but my concern is that the very things that allow me to troubleshoot are the same things that keep the device from reproducing the error.
You can subscribe to this thread if you care to continue watching the progress, or if you have any similar experiences or potential solutions, but this is one of those issues that if I don't find the root cause, it's going to drive me bat-s%#$-f&@!#%-crazy. I'm aware that even if I get to the root cause I will likely never see a fix for the problem being that this device is so old, but this is caught in my teeth now, and I'm going to have a hard time letting it go.
As always thank you all for your assistance and participation.

chipsharpdotcom said:
So none of the suggestions here (unfortunately) provided me any different results. That said, I have discovered a couple of different variables that may play a part in this.
1.) This issue only seems to come up when I have the device plugged into power only, not when I have it plugged into a computer.
2.) I think this may be related to trying to sleep while still maintaining the clock application. It seems that when I see this most often, it is when I am plugged into the wall, and I have an alarm set. I was able to be plugged into the wall overnight last week and have no problems without the alarm set, but when I set the alarm, I had the sleep-lock issue (and moreover as you would expect, my alarm did not sound).
Again, I have none of these problems with the stock ROM. I'm going to continue to test on this and hack around on it to see if I can hunt this down, but my concern is that the very things that allow me to troubleshoot are the same things that keep the device from reproducing the error.
You can subscribe to this thread if you care to continue watching the progress, or if you have any similar experiences or potential solutions, but this is one of those issues that if I don't find the root cause, it's going to drive me bat-s%#$-f&@!#%-crazy. I'm aware that even if I get to the root cause I will likely never see a fix for the problem being that this device is so old, but this is caught in my teeth now, and I'm going to have a hard time letting it go.
As always thank you all for your assistance and participation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried it with a different clock app? I mean, if I understand this correctly, it seems to be narrowed down to your current clock apk, which is different than the stock GB one. So I would suggest freezing (or unistalling) your current one with Tibu and trying a different one.

That's actually my next step.
I'm not sure it's accurate to say that I have it narrowed down to the clock app, I simply noted that I reproduced the issue on wall power and with the alarm set. That could all be coincidence. I need to try to reproduce those scenarios more reliably and in a more controlled method.
Do you know of an app I could install that would cause my battery to discharge fairly quickly? It would speed up my troubleshooting.

chipsharpdotcom said:
That's actually my next step.
I'm not sure it's accurate to say that I have it narrowed down to the clock app, I simply noted that I reproduced the issue on wall power and with the alarm set. That could all be coincidence. I need to try to reproduce those scenarios more reliably and in a more controlled method.
Do you know of an app I could install that would cause my battery to discharge fairly quickly? It would speed up my troubleshooting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha first time I ever get that question but leaving your camera on should do the job (or video playing)

[Q] Absolutely awesome!!!!

Extreme kudos and awesomeness and gratitude to jcsullins and all the folks involved with developing CM10/Android for the TP. Thank you.
I had been watching the forums to figure out a good time to "jump in" and yesterday I took the moments to install CM10.1 (4/18/13) on my TP. I was amazed at how seamless and flawless the installation was. It seemed it took less time to do the install than it did to download CM10 (download was ~100kb (kB?)/s). CM10 came up running without any problems.
Of course, it wasn't without some issues After confirming CM10 was functional (along w/Wi-Fi, etc.) I installed gapps and that's where the problems began. I first tried gapps-jb-20130409-signed (which did not get installed with CM10). After it was installed, I lost the keyboard app (kept getting messages about the keyboard no longer working). I tried suggestions of default/reset and clearing both caches. Didn't fix the problem. Wasn't sure how to uninstall gapps, so I did a complete CM10 reinstall and tried gapps-jb-20130409-signed again. Still no good. I thought maybe it was a compatibility issue (I could never be absolutely clear which gapps would work with which CM version). So, I went with gapps-jb-20130301-signed. Same problems. I then came across gapps-jb-4.2-Gapps-And-Extras-Signed (I changed the name to be sure it would work with ClockWorksMod) mentioned in a posting. This seemed to do the trick. Keyboard remains fully functional.
I'm curious if there are any log files kept on the TP from the install. Each time I installed CM10, I noticed in the messages rolling up the screen that certain directories couldn't be found. And I think a few of them were related to gapps installation. I'd be interested to see what that was about.
The only problem I've noticed in the short time I've played with it is that the Wi-Fi went inactive (and not temporarily). I went into settings and tried to turn it off and then back on. Once I turned it off, I wasn't allowed to turn it on. There are prob'ly 1/2 a dozen or more Wi-Fi sites nearby, but the TP couldn't see any of them. I ended up doing a power down/reboot and that brought back Wi-Fi.
Anyway, I am very pleased with the new OS. And happy to be independent from WebOS, since its future is unknown.
Cheers....Steph

A two years old device with the latest Android, yeah, its definitively a great work!

Log files are saved in the back up and/or in /cache/recovery/last_log . Also do you have the "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" setting set to Never? That might be why your wifi is having issues, because I had the same issue when mine was set to Never. Now I usually keep mine set to Always and it hasn't had that issue and doesnt seem to use the battery too much.
Surge1223

Im curious, were you testing CM10 or CM10.1?

Go and read a guide again, you're installing the wrong gapps. The ones it specifically says not to use.
You need this one:
http://goo.im/gapps/gapps-jb-20121011-signed.zip

Vivid ROMs and in-call volume issues

I'm doing research for a friend's phone. He has the AT&T HTC Vivid. My old phone actually. I have yet to root it or do any of the dirty work as I am concerned with the stability and flaws in ROMs for this device. A little advice would be appreciated.
I have read about the Dirty Unicorn ROM with the Pac kernel (or since updated stock kernel). They say the volume is fixed in this ROM. Can anyone confirm?
Also would like to know of other ROMs and what is available out there through others advice. I want to find him stable as he cannot be flashing daily the way I can. I have seen lots of bluetooth issues called out. I am more concerned with stability, call volume, and definitely good data/wifi. Someone point me in the right direction perhaps?
I would love to see Sense gain more support for this device, but I'm not a dev so I'm sure it's no easy task. I have used CM alot in the past, and loved most of it, but it always had its bugs so I hesitate to flash without gathering information.
Thanks guys.

acw928 said:
I'm doing research for a friend's phone. He has the AT&T HTC Vivid. My old phone actually. I have yet to root it or do any of the dirty work as I am concerned with the stability and flaws in ROMs for this device. A little advice would be appreciated.
I have read about the Dirty Unicorn ROM with the Pac kernel (or since updated stock kernel). They say the volume is fixed in this ROM. Can anyone confirm?
Also would like to know of other ROMs and what is available out there through others advice. I want to find him stable as he cannot be flashing daily the way I can. I have seen lots of bluetooth issues called out. I am more concerned with stability, call volume, and definitely good data/wifi. Someone point me in the right direction perhaps?
I would love to see Sense gain more support for this device, but I'm not a dev so I'm sure it's no easy task. I have used CM alot in the past, and loved most of it, but it always had its bugs so I hesitate to flash without gathering information.
Thanks guys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No DU just fixes The volume increase decrease while in a call
If you care about in call volume try a sense 4.1 rom or a sense 3.6 rom

Ok. I knew that answer was coming. How bad is the volume thing? My main goal is just to not have to flash his phone 100 times. If it was my phone, as I already do.. I would flash and play with it for weeks before I chose a ROM. It's not an ideal option for this, though. I don't even want mess with internals if it's not for a clear upgrade.
Is there ongoing work in your CM builds to figure out these in-call volume issues?
bilibox said:
No DU just fixes The volume increase decrease while in a call
If you care about in call volume try a sense 4.1 rom or a sense 3.6 rom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

acw928 said:
Ok. I knew that answer was coming. How bad is the volume thing? My main goal is just to not have to flash his phone 100 times. If it was my phone, as I already do.. I would flash and play with it for weeks before I chose a ROM. It's not an ideal option for this, though. I don't even want mess with internals if it's not for a clear upgrade.
Is there ongoing work in your CM builds to figure out these in-call volume issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's always going to be work. and for me my volume is just fine. In call works loud enough for me. But everyone has their own preferences. Other people cant use the roms due to the volume issue

To answer your question... I would put CM10.1 from albinoman... Prolly the most stable we gots
Sent from my Vivid 4G using Tapatalk 4

acw928 said:
Ok. I knew that answer was coming. How bad is the volume thing? My main goal is just to not have to flash his phone 100 times. If it was my phone, as I already do.. I would flash and play with it for weeks before I chose a ROM. It's not an ideal option for this, though. I don't even want mess with internals if it's not for a clear upgrade.
Is there ongoing work in your CM builds to figure out these in-call volume issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have an AT&T Vivid, and have had varied results in this department. Though, I work in a server room/data center, so I have more ambient noise to contend with, but I've experienced horridly low volume on some builds all the way to just less that stock quality. The first ROM I experienced this on was a Sense 4.1 ROM, but also experienced it in different ways with aosp/aokp builds as well. I don't know if it is related, but I did notice a significant increase in the in call volume after performing the S-OFF wire trick. Though that could just be a coincidence. But one common theme I have found, is when the in call volume has been low, don't even attempt speakerphone use. As when I did, it either didn't work at all (or so low it's inaudible) and then when returning to the earpiece, 6/10 times (guesstimate) the issue of no volume followed for the duration of the call. And the odds would increase when activating speaker before the call is answered on the other end (making calls). However, I must say that I the in call volume using bilibox's unofficial rootbox, I do not experience the low in call volume, but the speakerphone is (mostly) useless. (Still an awesome ROM though, just waiting for mobile data fix )
Not sure if my ramble is helpful or not, but those are summed up experiences I've had thus far. If you really just want it to work without goofing with anything, I 'd recommend either a rooted/modified/de-bloated stock ROM.
There's my 2 cents {plunk plunk}

[Q] Bugs, bugs, bugs

Dear all,
it is my first try to run cyanogenmod (10.1 Rel 7) on my SGS+. But when using it, I immediately found plenty of issues:
- Navigation is only partially working. After a while the maps starts jumping around and dark semi transparent overlay sections appear so that one cannot see the full map. In the forum I found the hint to deactivate Dithering. Done. Only little improvement.
- Alarm clock is not working when the phone is turned off.
- Screen goes off after dialing a number (workaround: lift phone to the ear and lower it back down -> screen is on again).
- No FM radio app (in comparison to the stock rom).
- Skype video is still upside down (as with stock rom).
My colleagues were very enthusiastic about cyanogen mod. In contrast, I haven't really detected the advantages. Are the developpers still working on the issues? Is there anything I can do to support you guys?

To answer your queries:
-Navigation- use the bug reporting method on the CM10.1 forums and submit it as a bug report either in the S CM10.1 thread or on JIRA. More details are given in the CM10.1 thread OP.
-This feature doesn't work even on stock. Its not a bug, and its not just CM10.1. MIUI allows this apparently however.
-This is normal, not a bug either. When you call someone the screen goes off because you're going to lift it to your ear anyway. The 'workaround' is actually the proximity sensor, and a similar thing happens on stock roms. The only solution to this is to press a button when the screen initially turns off.
-FM Radio isn't included in CM builds by default, as the API needed for it needs some intense changes made to it. There's Spirit FM if you want to run the risk. Check out the thread for more information.
-Skype on CM10.x is a known issue
Try CM10.2 and see if that helps the first issue, if not, report it using the methods in the CM threads. Otherwise everything else is as normal/known.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk HD

Irrespective of a few bugs there are definitely a number of advantages to using CM.
Have you noticed how smooth CM10.1 is? For me it's smoother than stock. Definitely a plus.
The pre-installed applications are more polished/work better and you actually have control over them. Don't like one? You can remove it. Unlike stock where you are stuck with a lot of junk (unless you have rooted your phone).
Bugfixes! We're no longer stuck with a 2 year old version of an OS for which we don't receive any bugfixes.
Customizability. CM gives you a lot more features to have your phone just the way you want it.
Overclocking and undervolting.
Not everyone had this problem, but my phone took > 5 minutes to get a GPS fix on stock. It takes < 10 seconds on CM.
And that's just what I came up with in a few minutes. Yes, there will be a few bugs and features which you think are weird (like the screen turning off when you make a call) but you'll find that on any piece of software. If you personally feel CM is a downgrade then it's your right to think so and go back to stock ROM. That doesn't mean the average xda-user is going to agree with you though.
(I think there are also a few ROMs based on the stock 2.3.6 versions, but since I've never used them I wouldn't know which ones are worth trying.)

Help me get some more usage out of this phone :/ Asking basic questions!

Hi guys!
So I'm probably not as good with phones as you, but I learned to install a ROM, I've tried many of them but then returned to CyanogenMod ROM that was offered on their site. The performance is not that good, it lags often and battery life is too bad! The questions I want to ask you are:
1. Which ROM do you think is the most stable and would be a better alternative to Jelly Bean CyanogenMod?
2. What ROM are you using and why? Experiences etc.
Thank you!

Kind of in the same boat, just three meters further out. Have been putting off buying a new pho.... embiggened touch-pad device with phone capability and less battery life, that should in a reasonable world come with a carrying case with a shoulder-strap, and a stock portfolio for the handset maker... for a few years. But finally caved in, and bought something on sale with a really good screen, a replaceable battery, and a 3,5mm jack not made exclusively out of conductive rubber.
But. Now that I had a new phone pad, I wouldn't have to worry about bricking my old phone. All that much. So I went through a bunch of excruciating testing and failing yesterday to get something without ram-crippling bloatware and google applications that essentially force the 4x to run constantly at max speed.
What I seemed to be running into was two types of problems: a lot of the roms (custom firmware) were made by someone who was simply testing something new at the time, experimented a lot, and then left the project behind (or simply focused on other handsets). That's not necessarily a problem, but it can mean that you have stability issues you might not expect, and that has not been tested or reported while the project was active. And that might actually stop you from getting far enough to install some app that changes cpu-governor, ram-handling, and so on (even things like the standard keyboard/language variant.. kind of essential that that works). Install instructions also tend to link to outdated bootloaders, or have workaround suggestions that worked at the time, but now are obsoleted completely. The second problem was the OpenGapps - some of the core apps conflict with the builds' own apps.
And then there's the fact that the kernel in these roms tend to be from when the project was last maintained. I can't seem to decipher exactly what's going on, but I think a lot of the early roms were based on an old kernel with inserts (like the original one from LG). While the older builds on new kernel branches tend to have better support, but then have certain types of functionality simply gone completely. I don't know why that is, but the experience with this on linux laptops and android devices is what made me hold off until I had something that could replace the 4x before starting to try out some of the experiment builds people have.
So I went through getting the bootloader unlocked, trying a billion different methods before realizing they were all workarounds for the non-eu handsets - just use the oem-unlock method with fastboot. It's really as simple as it sounds. Use the "all in one" thing on the forum, set up the drivers, get root, and things like that - and then install a new, updated bootloader. I think after one of the official LG updates, everyone can actually use the oem-unlock.
Then I chose the wrong bootloader, apparently.. the cwm touch thing - superb bootloader. But apparently has some quirks that prevents it from installing certain firmware packages. I think it has something to do with consistency checking. I liked the idea of a multiboot, and didn't see why that wouldn't be extremely easy on android (with a storage size vs. cfw package being basically infinite to naught). But apparently what you want(need) is the twrp bootloader, and it has to be the last version. I don't know why that is, but you really don't want to be stuck - after basically wrecking your only boot - with an uninstallable image on your sdcard. So if you try something else than the "best one", just be prepared for an exit strategy with a backup and things like that before trying to install new images. There's also no way on these bootloaders to simply run a test first, nor is there a very easy way to partition the on-phone storage without having to start configuring install packages, so this is kind of awful if you're not actually deep into the development toolchains already.
I'd really love it if some of the tutorials said things like: our build really doesn't need a thorough wipe, and you can happily choose the file system you'd like, and the one that actually makes sense. For example. Or "for this cfw, you can just install gapps later on, that's going to work perfectly - don't force the install before you get through our own intro stage", etc. Alas.
Then I went through slimkat, an aosp lineage based rom, an old 4.1 rom, a new 5.1 rom, which all had different game-breaking problems. One refused to install gapps (note: you'll need the gapps that fit with the android version - but some packages simply won't install, period), another build had no sound other than on the speaker. One hanged randomly, another didn't scale the processor cores.
The good news is that this isn't really a problem - once you're set up you can just keep wiping and installing new ones. But it might be a really good idea to make a backup of your initial rom/custom firmware, just in case (i.e., you root, install the bootloader, and once you're in the bootloader, you make a backup of your current "rom" that is installed now. Then you can just revert to that without any problems later. I obviously didn't do that, because I was just fumbling around).
Some of the issues I ran into also might have workarounds, but I don't know - how would I, there's no way to actually tell what the problem is, or what it's related to. The most useful ones in the end seemed to be Vanir 6.0-based, and the one I ended up with, something called Euphoria on lollipop/5.1. That one seems to have all the hardware functions and benefitting a lot from a later kernel. I haven't done incredible amounts of testing on it yet, but it seems to work a lot better than the original firmware ever did.
And when you choose a gapps package, just go with the pico version. You can install everything you need after that from the store (and it takes less time than pre-installing the infinite amounts of crap in the stock package).
In sum - while you can get pretty far with the 4x on just rooting it and uninstalling some of the infinitely memory-hogging google crap, along with installing a new governor for the cpu and things like that. You can actually get something extremely neat by installing a new "rom"/cfw, that doesn't necessarily have the "oh, but you just have to forgo feature X, Y and Z because open source" problems.
I'm sure a cfw-developer is going to see this one day and roll their eyes back in their heads. And will have some very sharp words about the kind of effort that went into making a specific kernel, insert and build combination to even boot. But the later kernels seem to work really well.
And thanks to that Euphoria thing, I'm probably not going to use my new padphone-thing as much as I would. Because that one is over the "just testing stuff, getting it to work" stage. There's things with the home-button bar lighting up when there's notifications, things like that, that kind of show someone who used the handset was maintaining the build.
Anyway - I really recommend that you try out some different types to find these really good roms that works well. I'm sure there are lots of unknown cfw packages out there that work.. you know, for the 300 people who use it every day. That might be some of the early cfw variants with old kernels. And it might clearly also be some of the new ones, which I really didn't expect. Honestly, was kind of expecting stripes across the screen and hangs, but that didn't happen.
Optionally, a dev who actually knows what they're talking about could maybe suggest a list of cfw that have the later kernels that work, or the same kernels that Euphoria has Really, trying to search the net now, and find possible candidates was not easy.