Hard to start my Pro1

[VaZso 1,998]

Hi,

I have a Pro1 since late December.
I like it, I like the keyboard, it does not rattle more than it should and I have no problems with the screen apart of an always-on, but hardly noticeable pixel.

However, since a while, I have noticed if I restart it, the starting of the system is hard (it is the stock Android).
If I start using it, it complains about "system" is not responding, lock screen does not come up after unlocked, restart / shutdown does not work and not all applications are available... but it goes black after maybe a minute, then it restarts (it does not asks for PIN again anyway).
For example, my default software keyboard (Hacker's keyboard) is also unavailable, another one comes up instead. On my home screen, charge signal is 100% instead of real value, clock is not present on my home screen and SD card is not available.

I have also noticed if I turn the phone on, I enter PIN, then leave it alone for a while, it starts normally.
Also I have noticed maybe near the time when it started to do this on restart, that when someone calls me, it starts to ring, but often it takes 3-5(!) rings for the display to turn on - so I just looking at the phone and waiting for appear who is calling me. If I press power button, ringing stops, display comes up, I can unlock the phone but I don't see the incoming call. Instead, it appears later in status bar or simply a notice appears of a missed call.

Today, my fingerprint reader stopped working again (hardware is unreachable), so I restarted my phone.
After entered PIN, I left it alone for a while.
Later, I see the phone is still starting (phone no service --> service change), still my background screen is not built up (charge signal is 100% instead of real value and clock is still absent). After a while, screen goes black, then it restarts.
It even does the same if I connect it to a charger.
I had five photos still not synchronized and my SD card was also unavailable, so I wanted to enable WLAN and copy these files to local network before automatic restart, while the phone is still alive.
However, it did not remember the passphrase. I have entered a passphrase of my test network, then it complained about unable to save it... then I have synchroniced them through mobile network and my e-mail client before it restarted again.

I have also tried forced power off by long-pressing power button.
It requests PIN, then it does the same loop also if I don't touch it.

Then I have connected it again to charger and did not enter PIN and waited.
After a while, I have noticed it still waits for entering PIN, so I have entered it and waited again.
Later, I see the phone started and everything seem to work.

So, here come my questions...

What the ...strange thing my Pro1 or my stock system does on restarts?
I don't know what to think... may the flash (UFS) slow or becomes unreachable at that time?
Do I have too many applications starting at the same time?
Do I have too many applications subscribed to an event?
How could I find out the bottleneck?

If it would be a Linux or if I had root account, I may have more informations, maybe some io stats or process / load information would help, but Android basically is still a restricted system.

So I currently don't know if it is a hardware or software issue and as Android does not have a proper backup/restore solution, I don't even able to test it without a lot of time setting it up again.

Also, my other Pro1 is still at F(x)tec since about two and a half weeks because it had excessive rattling and a crack on its display frame like if it had some issues in the factory - so I am also afraid if I start to reset / reinstall system, I may end up a non-working Pro1, so I have to use a keyboardless phone.

@tdm, does Android have something like a watchdog which ensures the system started properly and does something like a restart if a mandatory component is unreachable?

I wrote this post using my Pro1 anyway.

Any suggestions?

[tdm 2,322]

To answer your question directly, Android has its own unique init system (not based on sysvinit or upstart or anything else).  The init "language" declares various things, including services (eg. daemons).  Services by default are restarted when they crash/exit, infinitely many times.  They can be marked "critical", in which case the device reboots when they crash too often (5 per minute, I believe), or "oneshot", in which case they are not restarted at all.

 

Your symptoms could be either software or hardware.  Software issues might be a service that continually crashes or even maybe malware.  Hardware issues might be a device that is misbehaving, causing the kernel to spend most of its time trying to reach it.  The first (and really only) thing you can do is generate an Android bugreport (see here for details) and maybe a logcat for good measure.  After that, I'm afraid stock software doesn't allow you to access much of anything else useful for diagnosing such an issue.

 

If I were attempting to diagnose the issue, I would start by doing a factory reset to ensure that software is behaving properly.  Android does have rudimentary methods to backup and restore your files, but they are indeed rudimentary.  Your files are in two different places: (1) apps, and (2) internal storage.  You can backup your apps by using "adb backup", and you can backup your internal storage with MTP.

 

Oh, and I would also use this opportunity to install Lineage so that I could have better access to diagnose issues and do backup/restore in the future.  🙂

 

And of course, you should contact FxTec support to see what they recommend.

 

[VaZso 1,998]

Thank you your detailed reply.

On 6/30/2020 at 11:31 PM, tdm said:

Your symptoms could be either software or hardware.  Software issues might be a service that continually crashes or even maybe malware.  Hardware issues might be a device that is misbehaving, causing the kernel to spend most of its time trying to reach it.  The first (and really only) thing you can do is generate an Android bugreport (see here for details) and maybe a logcat for good measure.  After that, I'm afraid stock software doesn't allow you to access much of anything else useful for diagnosing such an issue.

Apart from these symptoms, when the phone starts properly, I don't feel any defects.
Phone calls come up delayed but the phone works well otherwise.
I will try the bugreport / logcat but I am happy it is currently working and I am afraid if I restart it, then I may not be able to boot it up again.
Also, I am currently a bit busy and it is my daily driver, so if it becomes unbootable, that is a really bad situation for me.

Maybe when my other Pro1 comes back from RMA, then I can start to experiment a bit more and find out what is the cause of my current problem.
However, I really hope it is a software fault (be it anything) and not hardware as the latter is much more complicated to repair.

On 6/30/2020 at 11:31 PM, tdm said:

If I were attempting to diagnose the issue, I would start by doing a factory reset to ensure that software is behaving properly.  Android does have rudimentary methods to backup and restore your files, but they are indeed rudimentary.  Your files are in two different places: (1) apps, and (2) internal storage.  You can backup your apps by using "adb backup", and you can backup your internal storage with MTP.

Thank you, I will try it.

My first idea was the same, but I may do a factory reset later, so when I receive my other Pro1...

Does it mean by adb backup, I can backup my applications and their settings?
The other one is the storage I also see in a file manager I think.

So if I can backup / restore my phone this way then I would feel a bit better about experimenting...

Anyway, 32,53 GB occupied on my internal flash, so I have about 75% free space remaining (everything else are on my SD Card).

On 6/30/2020 at 11:31 PM, tdm said:

Oh, and I would also use this opportunity to install Lineage so that I could have better access to diagnose issues and do backup/restore in the future.  🙂

Yes, I keep my eyes on LineageOS thread and I think that system is already much more usable than stock one, so it seems to be a better choice for long-term use.
Also a proper backup/restore (TWRP if I am right) will be a very good reason to use LineageOS.
Moreover, it looks to become official really soon which means a good choice also for a daily driver.

Anyway, behind my idea of having another Pro1 was primarily a backup phone, but also a phone for testing other systems like LineageOS and Sailfish.
I was really hoping for a fully supported version of Sailfish OS as I come from Linux and I still know why I liked Maemo so much but LineageOS seems to be the best option of Android and also Pro1 support seems to be in a very good state thanks to you.

So my idea of testing became a bit striked out as I did not want to worn a device which I knew I have to send back for RMA (not even tested the device itself anyway).

[tdm 2,322]

19 hours ago, VaZso said:

Does it mean by adb backup, I can backup my applications and their settings?

 

Yes, adb backup will backup your applications.  It is not guaranteed to backup all applications, as there is an opt-out for apps.  But typically this is only used by sensitive apps (eg. my 2fa app for work opts out).

 

19 hours ago, VaZso said:

The other one is the storage I also see in a file manager I think.

 

Yes, your internal storage is accessed via MTP/PTP.  You should be able to see all your files when you connect to a PC.  Things like all your camera photos, music files, and such.

 

[EskeRahn 5,471]

2 hours ago, tdm said:

Yes, your internal storage is accessed via MTP/PTP.  You should be able to see all your files when you connect to a PC.  Things like all your camera photos, music files, and such.

When talking using MTP/PTP for backups I will point the attention to a nice bit of code by Christophe Geers, that I have modified slightly to offer incremental backups, and not just totals. Source and program available here

[VaZso 1,998]

22 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

When talking using MTP/PTP for backups I will point the attention to a nice bit of code by Christophe Geers, that I have modified slightly to offer incremental backups, and not just totals. Source and program available here

Thank you.
Unfortunately, it was written in C#, so there is no much chance to be compiled to run under Linux.
However, maybe also MTP/PTP handling would be also different otherwise.

...but it should be a useful program for Windows.

[tdm 2,322]

1 hour ago, VaZso said:

Thank you.
Unfortunately, it was written in C#, so there is no much chance to be compiled to run under Linux.
However, maybe also MTP/PTP handling would be also different otherwise.

...but it should be a useful program for Windows.

 

If you are on Linux, I recommend mounting with jmtpfs and then you can backup and restore however you like.  Anything from tar to rsync to a GUI backup utility.

 

[VaZso 1,998]

5 hours ago, tdm said:

 

If you are on Linux, I recommend mounting with jmtpfs and then you can backup and restore however you like.  Anything from tar to rsync to a GUI backup utility.

 

Right, that is what I did so far when I wanted to reach my files.

However, I usually ended up using a more convenient and faster solution (I mean without using MTP).

[VaZso 1,998]

Long story sort, my problem seems to be a software / SD Card handling issue and not hardware-related.

A few days ago, I have noticed my phone lighted up its display a few  minutes fter I have connected it to charger, but in the morning, it seemed okay, however, it wrote I have to give my passcode after reboot - hmm.

Later, it also restarted after charger connection and it was not able to boot up for a few hours (Android tried it again and again, so it is not a cold boot.)
Then the latest update came on the very same day - I have installed it late evening / early in the morning, then it played the exact same soft restart game for hours, so maybe 4 hours later, when I went from home, it did the same. I was on a trip and it could start after maybe 1 hour later, I have also had the update successful message this time as a result of the update before.

The next day I traveled for holiday and when I have connected my charger, it started the same game.
When it was able to start, I have started to copy all data in user reachable part of internal flash to the SD Card, then I wanted to check if everything was copied, so I did it again and set to skip existing files, but as a mistake, I have started the copy of these data to the root of SD Card at first, so I have started to delete these files then.
When I have reached "Android" folder, I have started deleting it from SD Card but then I have realized it should be a different directory.

However, after this mistake, I feel the system is much better - fingerprint reader reacts instantly, initiating a call does not have a few seconds of delay and receiving a call also possible in 1-2 rings instead of previous 5-6 rings.

Yesterday, it also did a soft restart after I have connected my charger, but system was able to boot up, so it has not started its reboot loop.

So now I do not dare restarting the phone, but basically I think my problem was caused either the not perfect setting of Android error-handling system or some application data or most likely the relatively slow handling of SD Card.

...or at least I think Android wanted to do something with its directory on SD Card while loading other parts of the system was delayed and Android's error-handling system found some components still not running, so initiated a  soft restart, then did it again and again.

All in all, I think it is not a huge problem so it can be solved but at least it seems to be not a hardware fault which was what I was afraid of...

So at least this is what I currently think.