Test findings with GloDroid v0.7.4 on a PinePhone v1.2 with 2GB RAM ("UBports Community Edition")

[volkertb]

Hello, GloDroid developers! 😃

I just installed the GloDroid v0.7.4 build on my PinePhone v1.2 with 2GB RAM ("UBports Community Edition"), and played with it a little today.

I thought it would be useful to gather my (informal) test findings here. Some of these issues might be known, but others perhaps not.

If you'd like to create separate issues for some or all of these findings, just let me know here.

Thanks for your awesome work! It's good to be able to run up-to-date Android on open devices, that aren't prone to planned obsolescence.

Okay, here are the findings (2022-04-23, same day the build was released):

• Autorotate doesn't work, even if enabled (I tried this while watching a YouTube video in the Firefox Klar browser).
  • Should be fixed in v0.7.5, see GloDroid v0.7.4 on PinePhone v1.2: autorotate doesn't work #196
• Under the security settings, it says that the phone is encrypted, but I haven't even configured a password or a pin yet, and it doesn't ask for one to decrypt the partition on startup either.
• Holding down the power button doesn't show the power-off/restart menu
• No account/password wizard is shown after first-time boot (perhaps that is standard in AOSP?)
• Sending and Receiving SMS messages doesn't seem to work
• Camera doesn't work
  • Apparently a known issue, required patches for PinePhone camera have been merged in Linux kernel 5.17, see Need help with pinephone cameras bring-up (Android) kbingham/libcamera#28 (comment)
• After entering the PIN of the SIM card, a failure message is shown (SIM PIN operation failed!), even if the code is correct. Afterwards, calling often works (though not always, see other finding further down this list).
• The mobile signal strength indicator (of mobile signal) always shows the weakest possible signal (an empty triangle)
• Microphone doesn't appear to work (at least in a video call using the Signal app, receiving video during a Signal call works fine)
• Incoming calls stopped working after a while, shortly after an incoming call, the signal indicator (triangle) disappeared once. Also, after a while, the triangle would sometimes show an exclamation mark, at which point calling and receiving calls wouldn't work until switching the phone off and starting it up again. (A reboot without an actual shutdown didn't appear to work either, at least during one attempt it didn't.)
• When tapping on the options "Backup" in the settings, the resulting screen is empty, other than the title "Backup".

Findings specific to the Signal app:

• activation had to be done using the automated voice call fallback, since SMS doesn't work
• since the camera doesn't work, no video could be sent during a video call
• microphone didn't seem to work in Signal either (although the microphone did work during a regular phone call I tried)
• receiving audio and video from the other end worked fine

All in all, impressive work so far!

Let me know if you have any further questions with regards to these findings.

[volkertb]

I went ahead and created issues for two of the findings I listed above:

• GloDroid v0.7.4 on PinePhone v1.2: autorotate doesn't work #196
• GloDroid v0.7.4 on PinePhone v1.2: phone claims to be encrypted after installation, even when no password or PIN is configured yet #197

If you'd like me to create issues for all the other findings as well, let me know. Although some findings are probably known issues, I suspect?

[volkertb]

Oh, and in case it matters: I installed the OS on the phone's internal 16GB eMMC, not on an SD card.