Gingerbread Problems + Solution

First, please do not close this thread. It does not disclose of any private information. Anyhow, the update has already been leaked, so, I don't see the big deal.

As some of you may know, I have had to great opportunity of being in the Motorola DROIDX2 soak test for Gingerbread 2.3.3.

Anyways, I am making a large list of problems, and dislikes that are withheld in the update. With this list, I will provide possible solutions.

Why this is important:
Being a soak tester, I have the direct power of posting on the private forums. I also have a few other advantages I won't disclose of. But, I figured I would speak with the community who doesn't have the opportunities that I do. Hopefully this will bring more issues amd ideas/solutions into the light and Motorola developers can work to include them in the next update.

I will be updating this post with reasonable ideas as they are posted.

Please, please, please do not post, "I have not had problems with..."
I am trying to keep this forum clean. Issues and solutions only, please.

Thanks!

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk

 

Messaging
-When receiving more than one picture message, all picture thumbnails display the same picture
-Exiting out of picture messaging require the back button to be pressed fast very quickly, otherwise, just takes back to picture
-Cannot send text message to numbers with prefix 1#
-When sending mass text messages, they fail without notice
-This also causes text messages sent afterward to fail unless phone is rebooted
-Do not receive texts on occasion. They come in all at once, no matter service.
-Messaging (email) caches all recipient addresses from all received emails.

Screen Issues
-General screen pixelation
-When turning off phone, dark grey screen with darker grey vertical bars

Battery Issues
-Phone idle process is causing immense battery drain
-I have extended battery, and have a hard time getting through 10 hours of light use
-Battery icon on the notification bar inaccurate. Moves in +20% increments and lags the actual battery status.

Connectivity
-Getting worse network connectivity signal
-Signal gets stuck on 1x frequently
-Phone occasionally boots with no signal; must be rebooted
-Wifi network connects, but shows 0 bars and phone will not connect until location is forgotten and rebooted
-If phone is connected to wifi when it goes into airplane mode, it will not exit airplane mode
-Phone boots into airplane mode and must be rebooted
-Bluetooth is faulty on multiple levels

Docking Issues
-Docking has a lot of issues

Stock MultiTouch Keyboard Issues
-Keyboard occasionally closes while in use
-Upon double tapping space (for period) keyboard locks up and cannot be exited without rebooting (reproduced every time)
-While in landscape mode, scrap the done key for a send key. Hitting done, then send is redundant

Software
-Immense amount of worthless software
--VWZ Apps - Redundant
--Blockbuster - Can be downloaded from market
--Books - Can be downloaded from market
--Emergency Alerts - Should be a settings option, not an app
--Gmail - Available on market
--Gallery - Really buggy, bring back the 3D Gallery
--Help Center - Should be a settings option, not an app
--IM - Does anyone even use messaging clients anymore? Much better market alternatives
--Maps - Available in market
--News/News & Weather - Better market alternatives
--Skype mobile - No FFC deems this worthless
--Slacker - Available from market
--VZ Navigator - redundant and subpar to Android nav
-Install non essential apps to the /data portion and let us uninstall if we want!

UI Issues
-Blue icons on blue bar are very hard to see
-Occasionally, icons switch back and forth between blue and white
-Icons are not appealing
-White launcher dock doesn't play well with all background - especially ones of dark color - allow dock to be changed/removed
-A lot of home redraws

Camera/Camcorder Issues
-Flash is inconsistent. Occasionally take pictures and flash goes off too early.
-UI has many bugs - namely sidebar being transparent in some locations
-Full HD recording is capabale, but missing, why?
-No designated button is a major fault of design. Allow volume rockets to be used to take picture.

Wallpaper Issues
-Magic smoke live wallpaper does not function - appears as a single solid color

Browser Issues
-Icon is misleading
-Allow browser homepage to be set as nothing - blank homepage or as bookmarks

Market Issues
-Not updating to newest market
-Multiple downloads
-Downloads occasionally do not process

Audio/Video Issues
-Audio popping - occurs for me now, but not during Froyo
-General phone volume, especially in call volume, needs an increase
-Occasionally, notifications do not sound
-Taking over a minute for any audio player just to initialize
-Sometimes the phone just freezes up playing music, the green led stays lit constantly, and I have to unplug it from the charger and it isn’t until I unplug it from the audio jack that it becomes responsive again
-Video playback hesitates every so often

Response Issues
-Touch response isn't always accurate and sometimes have to touch twice to allow response
-MAJOR ISSUE: Not my problem, but multiple reports of the phone touch response not working at all after update. No fix.
-When plugged into AC charger, or USB, phone loses responsiveness and touch screen loses accuracy

Other Issues
-Phone overheats when on charge
-A lot of random reboots - did not occur in Froyo
-Notification light occasionally does not work
-2.3.3 still has issues handling dual core processors
-Phone occasionally won't wake up
-Phone takes 3-4 seconds to wake up
-When coming out of "sleep mode", I've experienced several system force closes as the devise gets passed the lock screen, then the led stays on, and goes dim when the screen times out.


Solution to all problems: Allow unlocking of bootloader.

 

Battery icon on the notification bar inaccurate. Moves in +20% increments and lags the actual battery status. I have watched it fall from 60% to 20% in one fell swoop.

Signal icons (wifi, 3g, strength) on the notification bar have changed. New colors (grey, white, blue) also appear and disappear (sleep timeouts?). Probably not a problem but an explanation of the new behavior would be nice.

Pre BG not fixed,

Messaging (email) caches all recipient addresses from all received emails. Managing these in the advanced address history is a pain in the a$$. No options to control behavior.

Edit: During my second discharge cycle the battery icon appears more accurate, collecting telemetry perhaps? I'm going to kill the battery tonight and see how the next cycle looks.

Edit: After several battery cycles this has improved somewhat, at least to the point that it's predictable. It lags reality by 20% at the high end, the icon doesn't budge until the battery falls to 80%, but becomes more accurate towards the low end.

 

i know this is so small but i dont like the keybaord in texting i have to hit done then send when in landscape mode on my droid 1 it had a send button i hit done all the time and put up the phone lol then my wife complains that i didnt answer even though i did i just hit done and not send ............women

 

Music/ Video Lag

Froze once from a wake up, needed battery pull

 

Music playback is the big issue. No smartphone should have an issue playing music. Music should play without sound dropping out, skipping or momentary slowing down. Music should play cleanly even when multitasking.

Additionally, the phone set times seems to slow down and become unresponsive.

Sent from my DROID X2 using DroidForums

 

Sound/music is still a real problem, for me anyway. I have the P3 rooted version, with the bloat frozen. I still have the same exact problems with the sound as I did with 2.2.2 I never had or used a portable audio device before, and since I got an OG Droid, I have become spoiled I guess, I enjoyed using the droid as an audio player, the OG droid worked great. This thing is a piece of crap, and I hate it. I am not multitasking, I do run the cache cleaners before I use the audio (which I shouldn’t even have to do) and just playing mp3’s this thing is unusable.

First off, it is now taking over a minute for any audio player just to initialize, the waiting thing just spins and spins until the programs finally do open. The audio just suddenly stops, and I wake the screen and it appears as if the song has been mysteriously paused. The audio skips/jumps frequently. Typically on a half hour commute to work the phone reboots twice just playing music. Sometimes the phone just freezes up playing music, the green led stays lit constantly, and I have to unplug it from the charger and it isn’t until I unplug it from the audio jack that it becomes responsive again, and it can continue rebooting. None of which is safe for driving fiddling with this piece of crap phone, and driving a stick shift in traffic.

The battery life has gone from great to poor, I couldn’t believe how awesome the battery life was with 2.2.2 – I was easily getting 15 hours with heavy to moderate usage. I am getting less than half that now. As another poster said, the battery does jump in huge chunks also. I have run the battery optimizer with maybe a minor improvement.

The phone is still rebooting, while I was doing a market search for the battery optimizer, the phone rebooted twice when the search was entered and it began its query.

I could probably go on with issues, but the audio thing has me so utterly pissed that I can hardly stand to look at this thing, and I just don’t care anymore. If I happen to drive by any large body of water I will be inclined to just chuck it in…

 

Stock X2 and I had no issues at all before GB. Since the upgrade, my phone has self rebooted itself 4 times. Twice it won't wake up and I had to take the battery out. Battery life has decreased. I use to be able to go all day long on an extended battery with plenty of battery life left over at the end of the day. But, now I completely use up the battery at the end of the day. It's been quirky ever since the update. Is there a way to reload GB? Is there a way to go back to previous OS version? Hate my phone now!! Loved it before!!

 

Music playback is my biggest issue. The device is really snappy now since GB and except for a few Launcher Pro redraws, I love the X2....that being said, listening to music is just painful.

 

The camera app not having a real button bugs me. It is difficult to take a pic of you and a friend with the onscreen button. It would be great to us the physical search button as a shutter button for the camera. This button does nothing in camera mode right now. Just a tweak I would like to see.

 

My notifacation light hasn't been lighting up after a text message comes through any more.

 

I had rooted my X2 with Gingerbreak and then got the update and now my music doesn't really skip, it just plain stops. I have used Amazon MP3 and the stock music player. It requires a reboot in order to be able to use the music player again. I have tried cache cleaners, task killers, and cursing. Only thing that works is reboot. Once I get SBF, I am going to attempt the rooting again as I performed really well on 2.2.2 with root.

 

Second post updated with currently recorded issues. This list has been posted on the forums and also sent to Matt via PM.

 

I don't like the name Gingerbread.

 

I am using the messaging app to access my Yahoo mail account, and have noticed the following problems since 2.3.x (OTA update, non-rooted):

1) Many empty messages from Dec 31, 1969. They MAY correlate to messages that I deleted from within the Messaging app itself, but not positive about that.
2) Frequent "Invalid Server Certificate" messages. The only cure seemingly is to remove account, and then re-add it.

This is getting tedious.

I also have the audio stutter issue, the media dock issues, the overheating issues and the charging notification/LED issues. I would probably have the Car Dock issues, but I am using a 3rd party app as a replacement for the Car Dock and that is running solidly for me (Car Home Ultra - definitely a "recommend").

Oh, and as I am posting this, I just went into a boot-loop! Good times! However, I blame that one the DX2 in general, not GB specifically.

This phone makes me curse like a sailor. Thankfully, I have two upgrades coming 8-19, so I can dump this POS.