Looking for _STABLE_ (?Gingerbread) ROM for OG Droid

[NeoJerk]

I recently rooted with SuperOneClick, which is VERY quick and easy to use. The rooting had gone off without a hitch, and then I started experimenting with different ROMS. I had flashed CyanogenMod 7.0.3 (after flashing and removing a couple I didn't like), and the old OG Droid seemed to have a new lease on life. I was rocking the ROM for about a week (with stock kernel and no overclocking) and was having amazing results. All of the sudden, however, my keyboard turned into a big white box on the lower half of my screen. I could still type, but could not see which button I was hitting. The slide out keyboard still worked, but I'm not a fan of having to use it exclusively. Knowing how many OS/PC issues can be solved with a simple reboot, I tried to reboot the phone in hopes that my keyboard may see the error of its ways and return to me. Upon reboot, the phone froze on the Cyanogen boot animation and wouldn't proceed. I tried leaving it alone (first for an hour, and then for about 6 hours), but it never fully booted. I then figured I would just restore my FroYo backup by booting into Recovery, but that just gave me the triangle/exclamation point screen and wouldn't budge. Long story short(er), I wound up having to use RSDLite to flash the stock SBF. I was then unable to activate phone properly over the air, and ended up at my local Verizon store on my knees pleading for a cure. Luckily I had flashed that old SBF (thereby unrooting my phone), so they were none the wiser and were able to reprogram it. So there I was, back to stock, potential brick avoided.

Moral: is there a more stable Cyanogen build? Or an alternative GB ROM that is less likely to do something like this? I've never messed with other kernels or over-clocking, and while I have had my Droid 1 since February of 2011, I have only recently got the balls to root. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!
(Sorry for the wordy post, just trying to be as specific as possible)

[cupfulloflol]

Not sure what happened or why, but the keyboard issue isn't a normal problem on CM that I have seen at least. I admit I have never used the 7.0.3 version, but I follow the nightlies and threads for them and I haven't seen that. My first guess would be a kernel related issue, but it doesn't sound like you loaded a different kernel than what came with CM7. There are quite a few who run into some odd issues with Gingerbread for whatever reasons, so maybe this is just a quirk of Gingerbread. All Gingerbread ROMs have issues on the OG Droid, regardless of what other people's experiences may be. Some folks seem to rarely experience them, others don't seem so lucky.

As for ROMs, there isn't one that is better than another really. Well in features yes, but in stableness if you go through their threads, there are people that have various problems in all of them. CM7 has nightlies, if you wanted to stick with CM7. Nightlies are made almost every night, with new features and fixes built in that were added since the last release. They do sometimes add new problems though hehe. ( CyanogenMod Mirror Network - Powered by TDRevolution )

ChevyNo1's SS5.4, Project Elite, Liquid Gingerbread, ChevyCam's SteelDroid, and Cush2Push's Zero all have their fans and I have tried most of them and they are all quite decent. I didn't have a major problem with any of them, but as mentioned everyone seems to have a different experience with ROMs with their own personal setup. MIUI is also Gingerbread now, which is also quite popular (if Google and Apple got together and made a baby it would probably be similar to MIUI). Then there is Bugless (Pete's) GPA series, which is a "stock" gingerbread for the Droid. This one doesn't have the options of the others, but it is definitely something to consider.

The recovery triangle thing, is a separate problem. It sounds like it is FRS ( FRG01B OTA enables a feature to undo custom recovery partitions ), which basically the phone replaces the custom recovery if it notices it isn't the stock one. A custom ROM should fix that, so you shouldn't have to do the steps in the link I just posted it in case you were interested.

[Recovery] RZR SPR-based *update.zips-battery charging-more* <--There is a recovery only .sbf file there for all 3 recoveries there, CWM, SPR, and RZR. This will allow you to just replace the recovery, so you don't have to go back to stock, then re-root....etc Save you a little time if you run into a recovery problem at some point.

[samiusmc]

Liquid Gingerbread 2.6 is the best. Just make sure you follow all the installation instructions.

[wseyller]

It is easy to blame roms for problems that are not caused by the rom. First make sure you do a nandroid backup before installing a rom so you can flash back like nothing ever happened. Just before you install the rom you need to: Wipe Cache, Wipe Data, and Wipe Dalvic Cache. Do it three times just to make sure you actually did it. After install try not to restore too many apps and their data in which you backed up from a different rom. Downloaded your apps like you normally do from the market.

If you are not familiar with everything I mention then stop right where you are and do some research.

Don't worry about kernel, baseband,overclocking and such until you have built up experience.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

[NeoJerk]

Thanks, guys. The problem I had with my nandroid backup was the inability to boot into recovery in order to restore it.
Appreciate the spf in the unfortunate event this happens again; think I'll save it to my PC when I get home. I like Pete's series, too, but I don't think I was able to run my Tiger SNES emulator on it, which is a real deal-breaker.
I always use Titanium Backup for my apps and data (out of pure convenience), never thought about the data restoring. I'll try just getting em again. I have all my non-market apps' APKs backed up anyhow.
I'll give Liquid a shot, too. Heard great things.
Thanks again for the help/input.