Messages

1

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / Firmware causes wifi mac address change on reboot

« on: June 17, 2019, 09:09:02 am »

Did the chattr thing in Sailfish and rebooted in Sailfish. Still a different wifi mac address.

Did you do the "chattr" first thing after a full flash (i.e. "firmware upgrade"), and before booting Android? I don't know of a way to restore the contents of that file  other than a full flash, once it has been trashed, which is what Android seems to do to it. Maybe someone more knowledgable than myself can tell us how to generate the NVDATA and NVCFG partitions from the data in the NVRAM partition.

2

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / Firmware causes wifi mac address change on reboot

« on: June 13, 2019, 07:41:02 am »

If so, does anyone know how to stop this wifi mac address changing at reboot?

See this thread. It has a kludge that helps somewhat. The results that I have (using the fix) are that sailfish keeps the correct mac address, but android changes it. Someone else reported it working with android also.

3

Gemini PDA - Sailfish OS / Multiboot problem [solved]

« on: June 02, 2019, 11:38:56 pm »

Anyone wanting to multiboot Sailfish and Android should probably read this thread.

And I would certainly like to be informed if anyone comes up with a better solution.

4

Gemini PDA - Linux / Problems latest firmware

« on: June 02, 2019, 11:33:33 pm »

See my latest post in the other thread for a workaround to the changing MAC address problem. It should apply to any linux (not just sailfish).

5

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / Multiboot is broken (at least for some devices)

« on: June 02, 2019, 11:26:16 pm »

I found a rather kludgey workaround.

Before booting android, get a root shell in sailfish, and execute the command:

 

Code: [Select]

chattr +i /nvdata/APCFG/APRDEB/WIFI
Apparently android wants to munge this file and change the MAC address. This prevents that from happening.

Android will still (annoyingly) assign a random (00:08:22:XX:XX:XX) address to the interface, but this will no longer affect sailfish.

6

Gemini PDA - Linux / Problems latest firmware

« on: May 31, 2019, 06:03:11 pm »

Maybe restoring the NVRAM from backup fixes the mac address issue.

Unfortunately, I don't think the problem is quite so simple. At least mine isn't.

I did make an NVRAM backup. And while I didn't restore it, I did another backup after the problem appeared, and compared the two. They were identical. So I don't think that restoring it would make a difference.

Also, when I reflash using "firmware upgrade" mode (but no restore of the original NVRAM backup), I do get my original MAC address back. (I didn't really pay attention to the IMEI; don't know about that). So the MAC address does seem to be uncorrupted in the NVRAM. It just isn't getting set on the interface after the first android boot.

But the problem does seem to be related to the early-boot NVRAM settings. I don't really understand the process well enough to say what is going on. Informed speculation is welcome.

7

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / Multiboot is broken (at least for some devices)

« on: May 31, 2019, 11:31:00 am »

Really should have asked this too: does anyone have multi-boot working, with the new firmware and the new partitioning tool? By working, I mean that it doesn't have this problem (random mac address assigned to wifi).

8

Gemini PDA - Linux / Problems latest firmware

« on: May 31, 2019, 10:30:35 am »

I can't say that I've followed this whole thread, but any chance that this is related to my problem? Does your MAC address change with reboots?

In android,  my wifi saved connections are OK.
In debian I've  checked and at  every boot I have to choose my SSID network and  re-enter my password again.
I've checked the mac address in debian and it really changes at every boot.
Will check later in google if there is a solution for this.
Thank you again.

Sounds like the same problem. Nice to know I'm not the only one suffering from it. So multi-boot is broken, at least for some of us. Anyone from Planet Computers want to chip in?

9

Gemini PDA - Linux / Problems latest firmware

« on: May 31, 2019, 06:52:43 am »

I can't say that I've followed this whole thread, but any chance that this is related to my problem? Does your MAC address change with reboots?

10

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / Multiboot is broken (at least for some devices)

« on: May 31, 2019, 05:56:00 am »

I have been struggling, without success, to get dual-boot Sailfish/Android working. This is using the new partition tool and firmware, doing a full flash ("firmware upgrade").

What I do is:

• Flash the device
• Boot into Sailfish. Everything works fine. Can reboot (to sailfish) without problems.
• Boot into Android. All goes well.
• Boot back to sailfish. Device is now broken.

The symptoms of the problem are:

• The wireless interface gets a new pseudo-random MAC address. This happens on every reboot, with both Android and Sailfish.
• The wifi scanning in sailfish returns a bogus network named "NVRAM Warning: Err=0x10". While harmless enough, this seems to indicate some error.
• Sailfish fails to recall any WiFi networks that I have connected to before. So it is necessary to reenter passwords, etc. This makes the device pretty much worthless.

The only fix that I have found is to do a full reflash of the device. I have tried various combinations (including some unsupported ones) of Android+Sailfish. I have not tried other OS combinations, so I don't know if any of them also have issues.

So is it just my device, or has someone else encountered this issue? Even better would be if someone has found a fix.

[Edited to add]: See also this thread. It appears that I'm not the only one with the problem, and that it is not specific to sailfish. Does someone from Planet Computers want to help?

[Edited to change topic title]

11

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / Partition tool bug

« on: October 21, 2018, 07:09:58 pm »

I was just preparing to flash the new firmware (multi-boot), and thought I'd see if the partition tool had changed since the last time I ran it. I got a very strange result.

It changed the size of the linux partition, from just under 24 GB (correct), to just under 24 PB (yes, peta-bytes, impossibly large). Needless to say, I don't intend using this new scatter file. I have no idea what will happen if you try using it with the flash tool, but probably nothing good.

So people may want to double check the partition tool output before trying to use it.

For whomever gets to fix the bug, the details are:
  Gemini x27
  Boots: Rooted Android, Recovery, Sailfish OS, Standard Android
  Partition sizes: 32GB for Android, 24.407GB for Linux
  The bug seems to be triggered by increasing the size reserved for android, i.e. start with 31 GB for android, then nudge the slider over to 32 GB for android, and
  then download the scatter file. At least this is how I managed to reproduce it.

12

Gemini PDA - Android / Voice Assist sound

« on: June 29, 2018, 12:16:28 pm »

Does anyone know of a way to disable and/or change the sound made when activating the voice assistant with the silver button or Fn+Space? I find it obnoxious, and Saiy has a perfectly fine customisable greeting.

13

Gemini PDA - Sailfish OS / unlocking the screen?

« on: June 27, 2018, 06:07:10 am »

I also had trouble getting it running. But after numerous (4 or 5) reflashes of the linux.img and sailfish_boot.img partitions, I finally got it to correctly go through the setup process, and now it boots sailfish just fine. There is some bug involved that is not as easily diagnosed as seems to be implied by various posts that I've seen, but I did eventually get past it, with enough determination.

14

Gemini PDA - Sailfish OS / SFOS Whats working / What isn't

« on: June 17, 2018, 04:38:21 pm »

Note on the GPS: I have stated elsewhere that it is not working, but since then I did once get a fix. But only once. It definitely isn't reliable for me. However there may be some easy tweak to get it going.

15

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / Perk/Accessory delivery?

« on: June 15, 2018, 08:10:49 am »

I looked at their store yesterday, and noticed that they seem to be out of all the accessories (except the camera). So I would guess that they are just sending on what they have, and they'll send the accessories when they get more stock.