Messages

1

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Astro update to V07

« on: May 25, 2023, 06:26:28 am »

Well... I sent the email to Planet Computers 10:51PM local time, which is 9:51PM British Summer Time. A guy called Jeff replied 61 minutes later (at 10:52PM BST) so apparently someone works late over there (and I'm up late, over here. ;-)

The reply mostly said they'd ask their ODM for advice first. If that doesn't help, they could try sending me software for a full reflash. We'll see. I've hooked up an external screen, power, mouse and headset a bit better now, so I should be able to use it landline-style until this is resolved.

If you access the external screen, try a factory reset on your phone.

2

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Astro update to V07

« on: May 23, 2023, 02:06:55 pm »

Ok... Planet updater is now saying that the promised FW update is there.

Has anyone dared to try it yet? Any hassles? Did they get rid of the other two updaters?

My esim card was not recognized after update.

3

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Airmail

« on: January 17, 2023, 08:01:29 pm »

Thank you for your assistance. I am assigned my e-mail login and the use of 2FA from my workplace. While I do have some administrative privileges (small firm, where everybody does a bit of everything) I'm not sure I am at the liberty of creating a new password, nor I am not sure Outlook.com supports app passwords such as you describe them.
The only authentication method I know I can use is OAuth2 within an SSL/TLS connection. I think I know why I couldn't set up Fair Email. Will do new attempts, time permitting.

Hi .
You can use Nine ( Mail app ). It has support for OAuth2.  The only problem is that the rich text editor works only in portrait mode. See the attachment.

4

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Airmail

« on: January 14, 2023, 04:49:32 am »

Thank you. The version I find on Google Play seems to be from 2016, which, in itself, doesn't have to matter. I have other apps of that age.

As Outlook.com / Outlook on the web (or whatever they call it this week) uses OAuth2 for its 2FA (on my job, anyway), support for which was only recently added to the "canonical" K-9, I might, however, run into the same authentication issues as Airmail presented me with (though, hopefully, handling it nicer than just terminating with no clue, as Airmail currently does).
K-9 "proper" seems to lack all support for composing rich text. I am having a look at FairEmail at the moment. Its Wizard failed to set up my Outlook account, complaining something about the admin maybe disabling SMTP or something, which didn't seem accurate, so I'll have another look at it tomorrow or so.

In K-9     and k-@ I had to generate a password to authenticate them. My email is from yahoo. It only worked to generate a password when I disabled my wifi and used the 5G directly from astro ( I used the brave browser ). I followed the instructions below:
Sign in to your Yahoo Account Security page.
Click Generate app password or Generate and manage app passwords.
Enter your app's name in the text field.
Click Generate password.
Follow the next instructions ( below the app password ).
Click Done.
When using my wifi the password the password was not generated .See error below:
( Yahoo Generate App Password -> Sorry, this feature is not available right now!).

It only worked when using directly 5G from astro as I said.
k-@ for me is the best email app.
Please take a look at the attachment

5

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Airmail

« on: January 13, 2023, 07:22:05 pm »

Welp... starting to answer myself...

While the "proper" K-9 can, apparently, technically send html mail, it doesn't appear to support any form of actually composing "rich text" email, and, at times, I need a bit of, say, larger orange bold text to make my colleagues notice questions they're actually supposed to answer an such. They're nice and clever people, though often a bit stressed.

I'd settle for some simple tags, like
[size=medium][color=#FF9900][b]Question:[/b][/color][/size] here on OESF, but it seems it doesn't even has that.

Just reading about the Microsoft Outlook app made me itch the wrong kind of way. I can't put my finger on it, but both the regular and the lite version seems strung together form a handful of popular features, rather than being a comprehensive tool for a well defined purpose. It might be nice to have a calendar integrated in the mail app, but I already have two calendar apps forced upon me and if the spam filter isn't working, I can't really use any of the features, so well... unconvinced and slightly deterred for now. Also, it doesn't seem to offer any "rich" composing either, in which case it is a bit pointless for me.

Hm... Last time I tried to fix up my mobile e-mail (ending up with using Remote Desktop to a Windows computer with a proper e-mail solution on it) I recall FairEmail whizzing past on the information superhighway... ehm... internet. I might give that a look again...

Even if it does work for me, it would still mean having to install an extra email client, which, well, feels a bit clunky.

Try K-@ Mail. Improved version of k-9 and airmail. Rich text also.

6

Astro Slide - Hardware / Re: Keyboard Backlight

« on: January 12, 2023, 01:28:32 pm »

Yeah, I noticed that too… 

And although there are nice keyboard shortcuts for changing the screen brightness (Fn+B, Fn+N on my UK Astro) and volume (Fn+C, Fn+V), I can't find any shortcut for changing the keyboard brightness. (Fn+Z and Fn+X would be the obvious choice, though anything would do. Does anyone know whether there's any way to set something like that up?)

Fn+Del, tap on Astro Settings, and tap on slider isn't the end of the world, but it's sufficiently disruptive that I'm not likely to bother very often.

Does anyone know how much power the keyboard backlight might consume (compared to, say, the screen)?

FN + SHIFT + N ( increase ) and FN + SHIFT + B ( decrease ).

7

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Fingerprint issue

« on: January 11, 2023, 12:05:57 pm »

Does anybody else have issues where the fingerprint sensor is constantly being disabled.?

I get the message "too many attempts, fingerprint sensor disabled" and very rarely am i able to open the phone OS with my finger.  Reliant on the pattern - which is a real pain.

Sometimes this happens to me. But only few times. 2 or 3 times in a week.

8

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Rooting the Astro Slide

« on: January 10, 2023, 07:26:59 pm »

If you go to settings, about device you will see deejoy-dota. Please see my attachments, but it is in portuguese ( I am Brazilian )

I can see what look like the corresponding fields on my Astro in Settings → About phone — but there's nothing corresponding to ‘Deejoy-Dota’:

(Yours)	(Mine)
…	…
Tempo em atividade	Uptime
12:59:52	10:55
Versão Embutida Padrão	Custom built version
alps-mp-r0.mp1-V8.132_haocheng.r0mp1.k61v1.64.bsp_P20	alps-mp-r0.mp1-V8.132_haocheng.r0mp1.k61v1.64.bsp_P20
Deejoy-Dota
Aktualizações de software	System Update
Verificar nova versão do software
────────────	────────────
Número da versão	Build number
Astro-11.0-Planet-05182022-V01	Astro-11.0-Planet-05182022-V01
…	…

(And what is ‘Deejoy-Dota’, anyway? Google finds only 5 results, of which this page is one, and the other 4 look like Japanese or Russian…)

I think it  is a service to update android ( provided by PC )  but really don' t know.
Please see: https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?topic=36854.0

9

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Rooting the Astro Slide

« on: January 10, 2023, 06:12:00 pm »

Looking at `mtkclient`'s README, it _is_ necessary to unlock the bootloader before flashing an unsigned image.

I can't tell how it's possible to get past the unverified boot warning. I've edited the tutorial, but it's still important to unlock the bootloader before rooting or flashing non-OEM boot images.

The only conclusion I've come to is that Andy's Astro has had some sort of prior modification we're/Andy's not aware of. Possibly factory. Did it come pre-installed in Chinese or have Deejay-dota installed?

I think you are correct. The bootloader can't prevent images from being flashed, it just prevents unsigned images from loading. My answer to this question has some details on the way locked/unlocked bootloaders work.

MTK Client communicates with the bootloader of MediaTek devices to flash images, the lock status of the bootloader does not affect ability to flash. (It is still possible to block flashing by only allowing signed binaries to communicate with the bootloader) But , if an unsigned image is flashed, the bootloader will refuse to load the image. This case is really a big surprise. I don' t know how the multi boot of Cosmo works, but I think cosmo can boot unsigned images. ( PC probably made changes ). In astro slide who knows ?
Most   of the times images are flashed using Fastboot (even when there are more options to flash like "SP Flash Tool and MTK Client ") And Fastboot checks most of the times if the bootloader is unlocked, and only lets flashing images if it is unlocked. Mine is unlocked with orange state. So I cannot verify if using only MTK client tool will boot astro without this warning or will refuse to load the unsigned boot image.
As I know Just to clarify I think MTK Client tool connects directly to your CPU Firmware prior to booting up the device.
Please see what happened to me :
I have unlocked my phone and did a root on it. After this some apps like bank apps and others were not working. I decided to do a reset on my phone and after this I did a lock to oem again. After this the phone was bricked booting only in fastboot mode. ( like a bricked phone ). So, I have unlocked the oem again and for my surprise android returned.  So, do not lock oem after you unlock it.
And do not edit lk file to prevent the warning orange state. Please don't do this. After I did his, the smartphone did not turn on anymore. It didn't even go into fastboot mode. I thought : Now it's gone. Luckily the mtkclient that was installed on my linux recognized the smartphone and I restored the old file. This is why I think MTK Client tool connects directly to your CPU Firmware prior to booting up the device.

10

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Rooting the Astro Slide

« on: January 10, 2023, 05:44:00 pm »

Did it come pre-installed in Chinese or have Deejay-dota installed?

Plain (British/UK) English. I don't know what ‘Deejay-dota’ is, but if it's an app, then it's not there!

I did turn on the Astro a few times before trying to flash it, so it's not impossible I might have changed that setting — but I don't recall doing so.

But Planet have always encouraged, or at least allowed, other OSs &c, so maybe it arrived unlocked?

If you go to settings, about device you will see deejoy-dota. Please see my attachments, but it is in portuguese ( I am Brazilian )

11

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Rooting the Astro Slide

« on: January 09, 2023, 07:25:36 pm »

Do you get a message on the boot about 'Orange State'?

No, nothing like that. As far as I can tell, the boot sequence looks the same as it did before rooting. (I can confirm it is rooted: I can su in Termux.)

And I can't submit a PR coz I don't have the necessary knowledge to write it! (Also, I've only looked at the page on GitHub, not bothered to clone it and everything.)

But let's try to work it out. You said “You can do this by using Fastboot and the OEM Unlocking in Settings -> Developer Options”:

• Is that the program you can install with e.g. apt install fastboot?
• What would you type into it, and what would that do?
• On my phone, the latter is Settings → System → Advanced → Developer options → OEM unlocking. Is that the right one?
• I'm guessing that option needs to be enabled to unlock the phone? Is that also the right way to check whether the phone is unlocked?
• Do you need to do both the Fastboot and the OEM setting, or will either work?

I am surprised you did a root without unlocking the bootloader. Can someone explain this ? Thanks.

12

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Rooting the Astro Slide

« on: January 09, 2023, 08:02:43 am »

If I got it right, as allways, this wipes all your data?

I think so. Others here can probably say for sure, but I'd certainly assume that such a big change can erase all your apps/data/settings and anything else you have stored on the phone, so before doing anything else, make sure you have backups of anything you want to keep! (I'll add that as a first step.)

Yes , unlocking and rooting the phone will wipe your data.

13

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Rooting the Astro Slide

« on: January 07, 2023, 04:59:01 am »

I was unable to get mtkclient to work on Mac.

That's… frustrating.

As it happens, I do have one little headless box running Linux Mint — but that fails part-way through the ‘pip3 install -r requirements.txt’ step:

Collecting shiboken6>=6.4.0.1 (from -r requirements.txt (line 7))
  Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement shiboken6>=6.4.0.1 (from -r requirements.txt (line 7)) (from versions: 6.0.0a1.dev1606911628, 6.0.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.0.3, 6.0.4, 6.1.0, 6.1.1, 6.1.2, 6.1.3, 6.2.0, 6.2.1, 6.2.2, 6.2.2.1, 6.2.3, 6.2.4)
No matching distribution found for shiboken6>=6.4.0.1 (from -r requirements.txt (line 7))

‘pip3 install shiboken6’ installs version 6.2.4, which is clearly too low.

I'm guessing that may be because that needs python 3.7+ while I have python 3.6.9 — but ‘apt upgrade python3’ reports that as ‘already the newest version’. Is my installation too old? (/proc/version says ‘Linux version 5.4.0-135-generic (buildd@lcy02-amd64-053) (gcc version 7.5.0 (Ubuntu 7.5.0-3ubuntu1~18.04)) #152~18.04.2-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 29 08:23:49 UTC 2022’, but I don't know what most of that means.) I keep it up-to-date in Update Manager and/or apt — is there anything that those will miss?

Sorry if this is dumb stuff, but I know almost as little about Linux admin as I do about python or Android…

Please edit requirements.txt and fill it with the versions less than your system. Even with these versions, it worked for me.
I am running debian 10.
After the install you can run in with the graphical interface ( ./mtk_gui ). Much better than command line.
Good luck.

14

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Rooting the Astro Slide

« on: January 06, 2023, 11:21:53 am »

I was unable to get mtkclient to work on Mac.  I don't know if it was a problem with my mtkclient install or with the Astro, but I gave up and installed it on a Linux machine and it worked perfectly there.

Same with me. My Mac has dual boot ( Big Sur and linux ).

15

Astro Slide - Android / Re: Rooting the Astro Slide

« on: January 06, 2023, 11:19:49 am »

some apps here in Brazil don' t work if you install Magisk, even if the phone is not rooted. For example : Bank apps, flying companies apps, insurance companies ( auto, life, etc )

Have you used the "Hide the Magisk app" feature in Magisk settings?  I've seen some apps that look for the app by name, and if you just let Magisk rename itself, problem solved. 

Thanks.
This not worked  for me.