Messages

1

Cosmo Communicator - Android / Downloading Through Firefox Causing Crashes

« on: October 01, 2023, 10:01:45 am »

Howdy everyone,

My Cosmo has started doing something really weird, and I have no idea what to do about it.

Last week I repartitioned the device. I never used Linux, so I wanted the entirety of my onboard storage back for Android.

This went smoothly, I set Android back up, and I was on my way.

Until I tried downloading files through Firefox.

As soon as a download completes, I get messages that com.android.phone has stopped, along with any other apps I might have running in the background.

This happens with any file type, from any website. It happens with standard Firefox, the beta and the nightly release. It happens with old versions of the app.

I don't have any problem with any Chromium-based browsers. And Firefox works perfectly fine on any other phone I have. So whatever's going on here is definitely specific to the Cosmo Communicator.

I tried resetting the phone, manually wiping the data and cache partitions in recovery. I side-loaded a Firefox APK after a complete reset to make sure there weren't any apps or updates I downloaded that were interfering with it.

Nothing has helped. I'm out of ideas. And I'm not seeing anything relevant when I dump a log using logcat. Although I might be using it incorrectly.

I'm currently running v25 of the firmware. And with reports of the OTA update service being down, I'm hesitant to go nuclear and completely reflash the phone using the SP tool if it means I'll be stuck on v23

2

Cosmo Communicator - Android / Keeping Background Apps Alive

« on: June 13, 2022, 12:15:02 pm »

Howdy, everyone

My Cosmo Communicator has been giving me some trouble (well, lots of trouble. Honestly I regret shelling out for it considering all the bugs and quirks).

But today I want to focus on its particular penchant for purging programs from RAM.

After running for about 7 days, the phone will start closing apps the second they are no longer in the foreground. Doesn’t matter what it is, or what I switch to. If that app isn’t in focus, it gets closed down.

I’m not anywhere close to out of RAM; available memory hovers between 3-2.5 gigabytes when this starts happening.

The only solution is to reboot, at which point it’s fine again.

I don’t want to compare Apples to Androids. But coming off my iPhone XR, which is running a newer, heavier OS on half the memory, this just seems kind of ridiculous. Even my BlackBerry Key2 doesn’t struggle with multitasking like this; and it’s running a similar tier of SoC of a similar vintage to what’s in the Cosmo.

Duraspeed is off.

I’ve disabled battery optimizations for anything that I want to keep running.

I even used systemize on some apps because I read somewhere that system apps are prioritized when Android chooses what to keep running in memory and what to suspend.

All of this is running on a rooted version of the v25 firmware.

No matter what I try, it doesn’t make a difference; it still chooses to act up.

If anyone has some advice, I’ll try just about anything.

3

Cosmo Communicator - CoDi / CoDi Media Controls

« on: May 05, 2022, 06:41:32 am »

Howdy, everyone

After humming and hawing for over a year, I decided to pick up a Cosmo Communicator. There's been a few issues with it, but I'm slowly ironing things out.

One thing I can't seem to iron out is the media interface in CoDi.

The most annoying problem is the volume control. It never stays synchronized with the system. As soon as I leave the adjustment screen, it goes right back to displaying the volume as being nearly full blast. I have to guess what the volume is actually set to, and then touch where I think I want it and hope I got it right.

Then there's the shortcut to Google Play Music that appears next to the volume control. I never really cared for the Play Music app and haven't used it as my primary means of listening to my locally-stored music since I tried it briefly back in 2013. And now that it's been replaced by YouTube Music, using it isn't even an option. And yet the shortcut to it remains in CoDi. There's a bunch of empty slots beneath it which I can only assume were meant to be user-selected shortcuts, but I can't find an option anywhere to change/set the shortcuts.

I'm running version 1.1.1.16 of CoDi and version 25 of the Cosmo's Android firmware, which has been rooted

If anyone knows of a way to get CoDi's media controls to smarten up, I'm all ears.