T68 - Multiple problems with reboots

[Areinu]

shalym: Could you check if power output the battery reports is consistent in your model trough whole cycle of battery? There are many apks that can show you the status.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Areinu

shalym: Could you check if power output the battery reports is consistent in your model trough whole cycle of battery? There are many apks that can show you the status.

Would the GSam Battery monitor work? I can install that. If that will not do what you are looking for, you will need to give me a specific app to try. Also keep in mind that it will take a couple of weeks to get a report.

Shari

[Areinu]

I had that written out in Battery Drainer app. I think I had to install it trough adb. Anyway, don't worry about checking it. I'm fed up with this. If Onyx won't send me fixed version I'm gonna start full-time campaign smearing their name.

Yesterday(after 6 days of battery) I was at ~52%. I've finished reading Hitchhikers guide trough galaxy using Moon Reader. I had only 1 reboot around 55%, though it rebooted while I was just reading page(usually it happens when I press a button).

Today I tried to turn it on in bus to work and... It didn't work. Cool. This is screenshot from battery app:

[Image violates guidelines for size - MODERATOR]

So, it was going quite normally until ~50%... And now it's 0%. Wow. 50 or 0, that's not much of difference - only 5.

So don't bother with checking it, I will just send it to (probably horribly slow) Onyx service and just use my old Nook for those 3-4 weeks I suspect they will keep my device before sending it back as broken as it was before.

[Dr. Drib]

Moderator Notice

Areinu - Mobileread will NOT allow a member (or company) to be threatened. If you have a smear campaign in mind, then take it to another web site.

You can certainly be displeased (or pleased, as the case may be) with a member or company, and you may express those thoughts here - but any action threatening a member (or company) will NOT be allowed.

[Areinu]

I would like to express my apologies for part about smear campaign. I never intended to do one here or anywhere not threat any individual nor company. I will remain civil and not post when angry anymore.

For discussion completeness this is guideline abiding version of image above:

[Dr. Drib]

Thank you, Areinu.

Your graphic looks good.



Don
(Moderator)

[pickyaxe]

Wait, what smear campaign? Can we please stop defending Onyx for releasing a batch of T68s with serious flaws and, as of today, not taking any sort of responsibility for it?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pickyaxe

Wait, what smear campaign?

This one:

If Onyx won't send me fixed version I'm gonna start full-time campaign smearing their name.

[Areinu]

Can we now get back to the topic at hand(problems with reboots)? I didn't know that smear campaign carries very negative meaning in English, and is also spreading of falsehood, but my ignorance is not an excuse. Also, even if I didn't mean exactly what smear campaign means I still went over the line and thus I apologized.

I think we should focus on finding the root cause of reboot related problems. If we do then maybe we'll find a way to fix the devices ourselves or at least Onyx will be able to fix the issue in newly produced devices. Maybe also refurbish devices previously affected by issue.

At this point I think it's a hardware issue. Either some batteries are broken, or the way they are connected to device is. I haven't seen inside of T68 because I didn't want to lose my warranty, so I don't know if battery is exchangeable or if it's soldered to device. I don't think it has anything to do with power sources(I use good quality charger with output desired by T68 or PC/laptop USB). Well, unless USB outputs wrong charge.

[Catire]

Areinu- Have you tried, if there is any way, to install the whole firmware again? are there even factory images for the t68?

For the dead device from one day to the next, try using an app to detect Wakelocks, there is probably some rougue app keeping the device awake.

As for the bootloops, I am inclined to agree that it seems like a hardware failure, once the battery reaches a certain level it just might not give out the same ammount of "power" as when it is fully charged , but then again android is a fickle beast and software might still be at fault, maybe try changing the cpu profiles with Setcpu or something like that, the device might be trying to save battery once it reaches a certain level and that causes it to freeze. is Log cat any help? there must be some way to track down that error.


I do not own a t68, just know a little (very little) about android and am interested in this device.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Catire

Areinu- Have you tried, if there is any way, to install the whole firmware again? are there even factory images for the t68?

For the dead device from one day to the next, try using an app to detect Wakelocks, there is probably some rougue app keeping the device awake.

As for the bootloops, I am inclined to agree that it seems like a hardware failure, once the battery reaches a certain level it just might not give out the same ammount of "power" as when it is fully charged , but then again android is a fickle beast and software might still be at fault, maybe try changing the cpu profiles with Setcpu or something like that, the device might be trying to save battery once it reaches a certain level and that causes it to freeze. is Log cat any help? there must be some way to track down that error.


I do not own a t68, just know a little (very little) about android and am interested in this device.

If you are considering a T68 make sure to buy from Amazon so you can return a defective device without paying postage.

The updates actually write the entire image when updating - I am using the same sd card in my new T62 so I have the update.zip still on it. Here's the update script:

ui_print("Checking Update Package Matching"); package_extract_file("android-info.txt", "/tmp/android-info.txt"); assert(file_getprop("/tmp/android-info.txt", "board") == getprop("ro.product.board")); ui_print("Done Package Matching\n"); package_extract_file("u-boot-no-padding.bin", "/tmp/u-boot-no-padding.bin"); ui_print("Writing Bootloader..."); simple_dd("/tmp/u-boot-no-padding.bin", "/dev/block/mmcblk0", 1024); delete("/tmp/u-boot-no-padding.bin"); package_extract_file("logo.bmp", "/tmp/logo.bmp"); ui_print("Writing Logo..."); simple_dd("/tmp/logo.bmp", "/dev/block/mmcblk0", 3145728); show_progress(0.1, 2); package_extract_file("boot.img", "/tmp/boot.img"); ui_print("Writing boot image."); simple_dd("/tmp/boot.img", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p1", 0); show_progress(0.2, 10); ui_print("Extracting system image...\n"); mount("vfat", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p4", "/tmp/flash"); package_extract_file("system.img", "/tmp/flash/system.img"); ui_print("Writing system partition...\n"); simple_dd("/tmp/flash/system.img", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p5", 0); delete("/tmp/flash/system.img"); unmount("/tmp/flash"); #ui_print("Formating data partition"); #format("ext4","EMMC","/dev/block/mmcblk0p7");

[Catire]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

If you are considering a T68 make sure to buy from Amazon so you can return a defective device without paying postage.

The updates actually write the entire image when updating - I am using the same sd card in my new T62 so I have the update.zip still on it. Here's the update script:

ui_print("Checking Update Package Matching"); package_extract_file("android-info.txt", "/tmp/android-info.txt"); assert(file_getprop("/tmp/android-info.txt", "board") == getprop("ro.product.board")); ui_print("Done Package Matching\n"); package_extract_file("u-boot-no-padding.bin", "/tmp/u-boot-no-padding.bin"); ui_print("Writing Bootloader..."); simple_dd("/tmp/u-boot-no-padding.bin", "/dev/block/mmcblk0", 1024); delete("/tmp/u-boot-no-padding.bin"); package_extract_file("logo.bmp", "/tmp/logo.bmp"); ui_print("Writing Logo..."); simple_dd("/tmp/logo.bmp", "/dev/block/mmcblk0", 3145728); show_progress(0.1, 2); package_extract_file("boot.img", "/tmp/boot.img"); ui_print("Writing boot image."); simple_dd("/tmp/boot.img", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p1", 0); show_progress(0.2, 10); ui_print("Extracting system image...\n"); mount("vfat", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p4", "/tmp/flash"); package_extract_file("system.img", "/tmp/flash/system.img"); ui_print("Writing system partition...\n"); simple_dd("/tmp/flash/system.img", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p5", 0); delete("/tmp/flash/system.img"); unmount("/tmp/flash"); #ui_print("Formating data partition"); #format("ext4","EMMC","/dev/block/mmcblk0p7");

Heh any returns I make would be a hassle, since I'd be using it in Venezuela, though amazon is very good with returns. That is the only thing making me hesitant to purchase this device or that Boyue t62 one running android.

If the update actually deletes everything, and it seems to rewrite everything from what I read from the script (bootloader, system partition) then the problem is probably hardware related (In my uninformed and hopefully wrong opinion).

[Areinu]

I had both Onyx and Artatech androids. No difference in behavior.

If you look at battery app screenshot carefully there's small blue line under power level. There's also green line(in area that appears thicker). On resized version it's really hard to see there are actually 2 lines. I assume(since there's no legend) that green line is when I had wifi on(pretty short time). Blue line seems to be when the device was awake. Also, even if there was wakelock on the battery usage data would have been collected over that time. Meanwhile it went from 50 to 0.

Logcat? Nah. It didn't show anything out of ordinary when reboots happened. It just stopped sending new messages. As if the power was cut suddenly.

Since some people are not struck with the problems, and I heard stories of people getting good one after 2-3 replacements I expect it's hardware related after all. Probably the percentage of broken devices is lower than it appears to, as people with broken devices tend to complain more than people with working devices praise them. Also some people might recharge before 50% mark, or whatever % the issue would appear for them. They might not be aware of the problem.

For me though this is dealbreaker. About half of the reason I buy ebook readers is long battery charge. If I have to recharge every 3-4 days to keep above 70% then not only my total battery life shortens battery lifespan but also I don't get one of the best benefits of using ebook reader above some LCD device. Reading in full sunlight is nice and all, but I want to go on 7-10 day holiday without taking a charger.

[HarryT]

The simple answer is to use the auto power-off feature. It takes only a few seconds to boot up, so there's little to lose by doing so. I have my T68 set to power off after 1h, and it goes for weeks between charges.

[Areinu]

No. That feature is only available in Onyx firmware, not in Lynx. This way you force users to use potentially warranty breaking feature to be able to use device "normally".

Also, I like other e-book reading apps more than official app. Unfortunately Onyx did some things to android and regular applications CAN NOT go into fullscreen. As workaround after reboot I first have to launch regular onyx reader and then I have to turn it off(the device stays in fullscreen, because regular onyx app doesn't clean up onDestroy). Only then I can turn on my desired reading app. This means it takes a lot of clicks and more time than the device boot ups to setup my reader in desirable manner.

Sure, if those readers used Onyx SDK they would be able to go fullscreen. I can't expect all readers to use Onyx SDK, especially since the SDK doesn't have clear license and it might contradict with the license given app uses. Moreover it costs time and money to start using it, since app behaves differently on Onyx once SDK is installed. That means that software developer would have to buy Onyx device and test extensively on that device. That requires a lot from developer to support small percentage of market.

Moreover on other e-book devices (one of sony PRS, Nook, Kindle) I don't have to wait till my device would boot, then enter a book before reading just to get the device working for weeks between charges. Why would I settle for less on premium device?

If it went back to the same state as the device was in before it turned off then I wouldn't mind(that much), but still my "weeks between charges" would have been cut in half because the device wouldn't work on 50% anyway.

Also, if you look at the screenshot I put on with quite extensive use, a lot of comic reading(which uses power much faster than book reading) the device went to 53% in 6 days. That means I should be able to get ~11 days between charges while comic reading. While book reading, without automatic turn-off the device loses charge much slower when used. I think it should work for around 14-20 days. Both for comic reading and book reading those are numbers I expect - both mean recharging only once every 2 weeks or so.