It is a sad day for this community.
In a series of mishaps and mistakes, best characterized as the sysadmin equivalent of a perfect storm, we lost more than 3 weeks of our database.
It all started when we decided to move posts to a whole new system of forums. In that process we screwed up. But we had made a backup just before, so we decided to go back to that, dropping the screwed-up database. Then it turned out that the most recent backup we made was truncated bacause of a memory limit, so it was unuseable.
This dropped us back to an older backup, which in this case was Over three weeks old!!!
This means that we lost:
* All forum postings since October 4th
* All new member registrations since October 4th
* Records of donations since October 4th (this is recoverable...)
* All News items (recoverable too)
If you have any important postings still on disk, in browser cache, or anywhere else, we'd like you to repost them.
Re-working the forum structure will still hapen, sometime later today, and without any further dramatic losses.
I apologize for this event, and we'll work even harder to make sure something like this will never happen again.
Related
Hey everyone.
My post count may not be high, but I've been here a long time. In fact, the first rom upgrade I did was on my "T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition". If anyone here knows what that is, raise your hand.
My point is this...
Why can't it be like it used to be. When I first started considering upgrading my ROM on a PPC, I was scared as **** to do it. I read and read and read to make sure I knew exactly what I was doing. even then I was still scared.
The support by the authors was limited just like it is now, for the same reason. they would rather be cooking than supporting. Thats the way it should be. Users who are ballsy enough to want to Flash their rom to something that is not supported by their OEM/Service provider should be on their own.
Giving feedback on beta or early release builds of roms is certainally different. Unfortunately, I just saw the same thing happen over in the Wizards upgrade (WM6) area where the Rom Cooks got fed up with all of the people who needed hand-holding and were not using the resources available to them (Search, Google, Wiki...) and were asking dumb questions that were answered 100 times over. I know that what the Cooks are going is out of love. there is no money (other than donations) in what they do.
My point (again) is this...
Don't drive away the people who keep my hobby going. I love using my PPC and enjoy loading new ROMs onto it and I feel like that is being ruined. I propose that the WM6 or other upgrade forums be closed off to users until they have been registered for 30 days and emphasize the usefulness of the wiki.
I can't agree more!!
I am in a similar situation and like you I have grown with this forum and appreciate the value added by the gurus of our devices.
There is no way to measure the time and effort spent by these few individuals who have assisted in adding significant value to our "half" working devices.
Without this forum all my current and previous HTC devices would only be half functional.
I recommend a read only account and an initiation process for anyone who wants to post. This should include a multiple question exam based on best practice and our specific forum rules. Violators of the rules should recieve one warning and then be permenantly banned.
my 2c.
P.S. Thanks to all the gurus, to many to name!!!
then make the point in the current thread that counts... check the sticky for wm7 photo build this is where these issues are being discussed...
Original Article
BackgroundI don't believe that I need to introduce myself, but if I do my name is P3Droid. I am a phone enthusiast and have been working in the Android platform for 17 months. I have been very lucky in my short time on the Android platform. I think more than anything I have been lucky enough to be in the right places at the right times. The day I first saw and played with the Droid (OG) I thought “that is the ugliest damn phone I've ever played with”. Then I was asked back into the store by my friend (nameless) to get some time with the Android platform and he began to explain to me how open the phone was and how a “smart” person could do anything they wanted to the phone. That turned what I thought was an ugly phone into the sexiest beast ever. I guess that was approximately October of 2009, and I was excited about the possibilities and dove right in without checking the depth of the water.
I spent much of the year on an open phone and an open platform, and sometime in July I picked up a Droid X. I soon found a great bunch of friends and we formed Team Black Hat. Really wanting to break the bootloader, we spent more hours working on it than we did our 9 – 5 jobs. Eventually we came to the conclusion (with help from some unique resources), that we were not going to accomplish our objective. Every so often we still pluck away at it, but we have moved on to other things that will help people enjoy their Droid phones.
Fast forward to October 2010. I'm still in love with the concept of android, and I've done more than my share of developing, themeing, creating ROMS and even hacking. *Having been involved in so many things and having developed some unique contacts, I have been privy to information that is not disseminated to the masses. Some of this information I was asked to sit on. Some information I sat on because I felt it was best to do so for our entire community. You have probably seen me rant on occasion about what I thought the community was doing wrong and causing itself future pain. Each of those days I had received even more disheartening information. So where does this leave me? It leaves me with a difficult choice to make. What to tell, how much to tell, and do I want to give information out that could possible be slightly wrong. I've worked very hard to verify things through multiple sources, when possible, and some other information comes from sources so reliable that I take them at their word.
This brings me up to today. I've tossed and turned regarding how to say this, and how to express all of the information and my feelings in regards to this information. I guess the solution is to just let you all decide for yourselves what you think and what you want to do.
One Shoe Falls
Beginning in July, we (TBH), began hearing things about Motorola working on ways to make rooting the device more difficult. This was going to be done via Google through the kernel. No big deal we thought, the community always finds a way. When Froyo was released and there was no root for some time we became a bit concerned but soon there was a process and even 1-clicks. This was good news and bad news to me, because it simply meant that they would go back to the drawing board and improve upon what they had done.
During this time there were still little rumors here and there about security of devices, and other such things but nothing solid and concrete. Until November.
The Other Shoe Falls
Beginning in October, the information began coming in faster and it had more of a dire ring to it. It was also coming in from multiple sources. I began to rant a little at the state of our community, and that we were the cause of our own woes. So what did I hear?
1. New devices would present challenges for the community that would most likely be insurmountable, and that Motorola specifically – would be impossible to hack the bootloader. Considering we never hacked the previous 3G phones, this was less than encouraging.
2.Locked bootloaders, and phones were not a Motorola-only issue, that the major manufacturers and carriers had agreed this was the best course of action.(see new HTC devices)
3. The driving forces for device lock down was theft of service by rooted users, the return of non-defective devices due to consumer fraud, and the use of non-approved firmware on the networks.
I think I posted my first angry message and tweet about being a responsible community soon after getting this information. I knew the hand writing was on the wall, and we would not be able to stop what was coming, but maybe we could convince them we were not all thieves and cut throats.
Moving along, December marked a low point for me. The information started to firm up, and I was able to verify it through multiple channels. This information made the previous information look like a day in the park. So what was new?
1. Multiple carriers were working collaboratively on a program that would be able to identify rooted users and create a database of their meids.
2. Manufacturers who supply Verizon were baking into the roms new security features:
a. one security feature would identify any phone using a tether program to circumvent paying for tethering services. (check your gingerbread DroidX/Droid2 people and try wireless tether)
b. a second security feature would allow the phone to identify itself to the network if rooted.
c. security item number 2 would be used to track, throttle, even possibly restrict full data usage of these rooted phones.
The Rubber Meets the Road
So, I wish I had more time to have added this to the original post, but writing something like this takes a lot of time and effort to put all the information into context and provide some form of linear progression.
Lets get on with the story. March of this year was a monumental month for me. The information was unsettling and I felt as if we had a gigantic bulls-eye on our backs.
This is what I have heard:
1. The way that they were able to track rooted users is based on pushing updates to phones, and then tracking which meid's did not take the update. There is more to it than this but that is the simple version.
2. More than one major carrier besides Verizon has implemented this program and that all carriers involved had begun tracking rooted phones. All carriers involved were more than pleased with the accuracy of the program.
1. What I was not told is what the carriers intended to do with this information.
3. In new builds the tracking would be built into the firmware and that if a person removed the tracking from the firmware then the phone would not be verified on the network (i.e. your phone could not make phone calls or access data).
4. Google is working with carriers and manufacturers to secure phones, and although Google is not working to end hacking, it is working to secure the kernel so that no future applications can maliciously use exploits to steal end-user information. But in order to gain this level of security this may mean limited chances to root the device. (This item I've been told but not yet able to verify through multiple sources – so take it for what you want)
5. Verizon has successfully used its new programs to throttle data on test devices in accordance with the guidelines of the program.
6. The push is to lock down the devices as tight as can be, but also offer un-lockable devices (Think Nexus S).
The question I've asked is why? Why do all this; why go through so much trouble. The answer I get is a very logical one and one I understand even if I don't like it. It is about the money. With LTE arriving and the higher charges for data and tethering, carriers feel they must bottle up the ability of users to root their device and access this data, circumventing the expensive tethering charges.
What I would like to leave you with is that this is not an initiative unique to Verizon or Motorola, this is industry wide and encompassing many manufacturers.
So what does all this mean? You will need to make your own conjectures about what to think of all of this. But, I think that the rooting, hacking, and modding community - as we know it - is living on borrowed time.
In the final analysis of all this I guess I'll leave you with my feelings:
I will take what comes and turn it into a better brighter day, that is all I can do because I do not control the world.
Disclaimers:
I am intentionally not including any names of sources as they do not want to lose their jobs.
This information is being presented to you as I have received and verified it. *
I only deal with information pertaining to US carriers and have no specific knowledge concerning foreign carriers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thoughts? Is there a future for Rooting?
I traded an iPhone 4S with a gentleman from Kijiji for his Galaxy S3, around the time when the iPhone 5 was announced. Myself being an Apple fanboy since iPhone came out way back in 2007, and since the original 2G model I had since slaved to buy each model every release up to and including the 4S. Upon 5's announcement and press conference, I was underwhelmed, and decided it was time to jump ship, having in my opinion seen Apple beginning its fall from the top. Enter the Galaxy S3.
First thing I did when I finished my routine battery maintenance (this phone was brand new in a sealed box, and the guy traded me for my almost year old 4S.. what a steal!) was try to remember what my username/password was to XDA to see what cool stuff I could do - having an ancient HTC Touch I knew of the community and how awesome it was. My first, and possibly most difficult step was understanding terminology and what advantages of "Rooting" was. After a few weeks of reading and one exchange to Rogers after I bricked my phone (high five for pretending to be an idiot!), I finally felt comfortable with using Odin and the tools. I had no idea what this "Recovery" was, or what CWM was at the time, so a few stupid questions later I figured out how powerful (read: dangerous to idiots like myself) the recovery system was. After a few accidental wipes and another near-brick incident, I grew confident in using CWM Recovery. Time to start flashing ROMs and having fun!
A lengthy stint with a few of the Android ROMs, notably Intergalatic, BlackJelly, while both awesome ROMs, I eventually found that it was a lot of fluff and stuff I didn't need in a phone. Nothing against the ROM developers, they made/make an excellent product, but for me, I wanted something simple, basic.. hey look! over there! It's TASK650! Wow, what a smooth and stable ROM. While it was a rude awakening entering his threads and seeing such a significant amount of hate towards newbs asking questions already answered 10 times over, and receiving hate messages from members who wont be named for myself asking similar questions, I eventually grew to understand and enjoy the ROM for the majority of the time I've had the device.
A few times I dabbled in Paranoid variations, KANG and non-KANG, and even tested out a few of the other Original ASOP ROM's, but significant bugs unrelated to the development teams themselves had me growing more and more frustrated with the device to the point where I was contemplating switching devices all together, or returning to stock.
Well, this morning, March 26th 2013, I decided to go back. After about 3 hours of work, and over-confidence in my abilities to flash back to stock causing a few repeated steps, I managed to get back to stock, rooted, and debloated. I couldn't be happier at the time being. The device does what I want, the battery life is so far pretty damn good, almost on par with ktoonsez's Kernel settings (but still less).
What was the point of this post?
I'm not entirely sure to be honest. I wanted the community to know the story of a former Apple Fanboy. I also wanted everyone new here know that there are a significant amount of over-talented developers here doing awesome work aimed at their own niche group of people. I believe I personally gave every developer and ROM group a fair shot, and I wanted to thank each and everyone mentioned above and any other members who assisted me in my noobish misadventures. I also wanted to get the non-developers in this wonderful community to understand that it's OK being stock, but it's also OK to flash whatever ROM you want, ask your questions, read your FAQs and use Search - it's there for a reason.
Always good to try different platforms. I have done the android, ios and back to android thing. Been tooling around with my iPhone 4 lately as my son is getting it (20 months old) to play learning games on.
I was actually surprised that it still hauls pretty good arse in apps and games
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
Like many of us, I'm not a big fan of these recent dramatic changes. At least make an option for us to still use the older one like Reddit does.
rms112 said:
Like many of us, I'm not a big fan of these recent dramatic changes. At least make an option for us to still use the older one like Reddit does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tbh I don't think this is possible, because xda has undergone such an overhaul, even the thank meter system and the title system has been changed. Having the older version would mean to recreate it so it embraces all the new stuff here, it could happen but that's very unlikely since it's hard work, and the vast majority of the members actually like this revamped version. Give it a day or two and I think you'll get used to it
This is not going to be possible, but we do have a classic theme if you want an older look.
Yeh, need to move forward into the unknown!
The Classic theme helps....
Aw goly, not liking this new site.
Particularly don't like that the most recent threads under their respective sections can't be seen.
If this could be brought back it would be appreciated.
There is no more "old way" anymore, they migrated and moved all the content from the old site to the new site so as far as I am aware, the "old" site is gone. I personally don't like it yet, but with anything new, comes change, and time to get used to it. I am sure in time we will all have a better experience once they finish the migrations and we all get used to it.
I also noticed I cant edit the posts yet (or I cant find a way to do it) in the new system, so I hope its a bug that gets fixed because I make numerous grammar issues the first round (trying to get the info out of my brain tends to be funky the first round), then I clean it up but only when I can edit my post. This could simply be a user error, or possibly an ID10T error.
The amount of work it would take to maintain two completely separate codebases wouldn't be worth the hassle at all.
As for "like Reddit does":
They are owned by a massive company, they can afford to maintain the old site for at least a bit while they build the newer site out. XDA doesn't have the manpower or server power to do that.
It's only temporary, Reddit isn't gonna keep the old site around forever. Just like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook when they did massive redesigns a couple years ago, the old site eventually shut down once they migrated 90-100% of the functionality over.
bgiesing said:
The amount of work it would take to maintain two completely separate codebases wouldn't be worth the hassle at all.
As for "like Reddit does":
They are owned by a massive company, they can afford to maintain the old site for at least a bit while they build the newer site out. XDA doesn't have the manpower or server power to do that.
It's only temporary, Reddit isn't gonna keep the old site around forever. Just like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook when they did massive redesigns a couple years ago, the old site eventually shut down once they migrated 90-100% of the functionality over.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I get that small team etc. But no one does an overnight overhaul with half of the features missing/not working. Even mobile app stopped working including the official app. That is very unprofessional. Most sane people would have them both side by side, for sometime, while fixing bugs on the new site and new app. This way users can still have a nice user experience, while getting familiar with newer website transition.
But, well what can I say, XDA is not my company. They can do whatever the heck they want.
bitpushr said:
This is not going to be possible, but we do have a classic theme if you want an older look.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On individual forum it's not displaying the lastest post info on the main page forcing you to open each section. The global new posts section works fine.
Doesn't display the user stats on the poster's post as before; more blank, unused dead space.
The "thanks" is all goofed up.
Rather have a smart complicated gf than a pretty dumb one... as their beauty rapidly fades as you get to know them.
Im fine with the overhaul but come on, where are the files attachments on other posts? where are the links? if you will left those, then better shut down this BS forum.
rms112 said:
Yeah I get that small team etc. But no one does an overnight overhaul with half of the features missing/not working. Even mobile app stopped working including the official app. That is very unprofessional. Most sane people would have them both side by side, for sometime, while fixing bugs on the new site and new app. This way users can still have a nice user experience, while getting familiar with newer website transition.
But, well what can I say, XDA is not my company. They can do whatever the heck they want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should know that you are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. This change didn't happen overnight. There was a significant userbase testing the new XenoForo interface for months prior to release so they did exist side by side. Thing is, a testing environment is never the same as the real deal so at the official launch so of course some quirks came up. If anything, you can say they have been working in a very professional manner to work those out. In the first 24 hours after releasing most major issues were already resolved. The biggest one right now is probably still some posts/threads missing. Change is never easy
infinitylook said:
Im fine with the overhaul but come on, where are the files attachments on other posts? where are the links? if you will left those, then better shut down this BS forum.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The changes were announced a long time ago and the announcement was highlighted on top of every section of every subforum. Which are you missing anyway? I see my attachments (like this one) are still present. Mind that the migration is still not 100% complete yet.
Oh and if anyone is still feeling a bit homesick, remember that the web's archive is there for you! *CLICK!*
Dear fellow member at XDA.
Recently there has been a lot of threads about software bugs and things that just don't work as expected. These threads are to be expected, for this is a forum where we share those experiences and help each other towards solving them. XDA has always been this way and how can we shed light on a problem without being vocal about it?
But just as sure as there are threads about issues and complaints, there are post from people who have had a seamless experience and are extremely satisfied with their devices - and I'm truly happy for you, I'm mostly in the same boat! But let us not downplay the annoyances and bugs that fellow members experience and hinders them from enjoying that same experience you and I share.
Threads containing complaints over bugs often spark a vast debate that leads to no solution - rather it causes division and makes people shy away from both XDA and Android in general. Therefore; let us not start fighting over our individual experiences and rather respect each other and let everyone contribute without being judged.
For we are different - both in what we perceive, what annoys us and what we can live with. For some of us the cost of the phone puts a huge dent in our pockets, for others it's pocket change. And both are okay - it's the reality.
Some of us who have been using Android since the early 10's may have developed greater patience towards the operating system. Back then, it wasn't a question of whether you had bugs or not - it was rather a question of whether you had bugs that impacted your use case of the phone or you could live with them. Finding a phone without flaws was (and is still to a great extent) impossible.
We often advised each other to flash custom ROMs and custom kernels - that both voided our warranty and created a huge hassle for those who just wanted their phone to work (don't we all?) without all the hassle. For some people and maybe those who had more time on their hands, it was a fulfilling experience and it did indeed give you vast control over your device.
But the custom ROMs weren't the "end all be all" - if you flashed a AOSP rom on many phones, you'd lose the manufacturers phone processing as the camera drivers weren't open source. Sure you could mitigate some of that by installing GCam, but that's only assuming GCam was available for your device - and even then, it was subpar compared to the camera on the stock ROM. Rooting and flashing isn't without its risks, too. The P6P is rather forgiving, thankfully, but with many older devices you would lose your warranty and potential phone features since there had been a 'security breach'.
What I wrote above is not a 'carte blanche' for Google or any other manufacturer to release a software full of bugs - nor should we accept that Android is flawed by nature. Heck, it wasn't even acceptable back then! This is simply to shed some light on maybe why some peoples patience threshold for the occasional frame drop/bug here and there may be larger.
And others have maybe switched to Android from a rock solid iOS with the intention of enjoying a greater level of customisation, only to be faced with bugs, framedrops and things just not working as smoothly as they used to. Frankly, can you blame them for being disappointed? They gave up on something working really well and went against the good old saying 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' for a greater level of control over their devices and just faced headaches.
'Oh well, just switch back to iOS, what's the problem?'. The problem is simply that Android is more than a decade old now and still is plagued by bugs, fragmentation, subpar user interfaces and software issues. As previously mentioned, that wasn't acceptable a decade ago, and it still isn't acceptable. People switching away from Android doesn't solve this issue - rather we as consumers have to speak up when things don't work. And that's what your fellow members are doing here on XDA.
Post your own experiences (and even the good ones!), but post them in a respectful and acknowledging manner. Maybe one day we can all enjoy a bug free phone while those of us who enjoy tinkering with our phones can enjoy the same phones for even more reasons.
IOS just won't ever be able to win me over, it's closed source...And it's that simple.
The bugs you say android has (my 8 pro is flawless btw) iPhones do not allow you to make any of the changes that you can make on Android, or copying data, installing other ROM's, making root changes, I could go on all day with this but there are a million other threads explaining the same thing.
Android for me and many many others is light years ahead of iOS for a simple reason, it's open source and you can simply do more, iOS would be boring.
Also the pixel launcher is the fault of the performance issues, install Nova or another launcher and you're done.
Sorta agree with your post overall.
In general, I've found the threads in this P6P forum quite respectful - e.g. people experiencing certain issues versus others not experiencing those.
It is often not easy to understand why some issue appear for some people and not for others. At the end of the day, our phones are all different in a way. Different settings, different network operators, different wifi networks, different apps, different mods, etc. I've seen a number of issues / bugs being reported that I simply don't face, but also vice versa.
It's my first pixel and I must say that I've been quite surprised seeing all those issues being reported; combine that with the bumpy Google updates and it is certainly not a totally rosy picture.
I've had 1/6/7/8 OnePlus phones and these have been performing flawlessly overall.
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I've been able to overcome the issues which I personally had via rooting / tweaking. Right now, even on the December upgrade, I don't think that I have serious bugs (in the sense of functionality which is simply not working) - but my phone is not yours and vice versa. So at this stage I'm reasonably happy (leaving aside any (dis)liking of Android 12).
Let's hope that Google does a good job with the January upgrade.
foobar66 said:
......Let's hope that Google does a good job with the January upgrade.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I purchased a dual SIM (nano sim and eSim) ATT Galaxy S21 Ultra to test for 2 weeks, while waiting on Google's January update. For the past 3 days, the S21 Ultra w/Android 12 has performed very well as a smartphone; no connectivity issues, no dropped calls, no smart lock issues, etc. I had hoped the P6P would perform the same way for me. I too am hoping the January update fixes the issues I've had with the P6P.
I've had android since the T-Mobile G1 back in late 2009 and early 2010 and I agree we were beta testers then. I've had many phones since then and very few with issues. I may be one of the lucky ones but I don't have a single issue with the P6P, not on the November update and I sideloaded the December update when it was available with not a single issue. When I got the Note 20 Ultra there were quite a few people posting of issues with it and what it boiled down to was moving data from one phone to another. I always start with a new phone from scratch, I know it involve more time but I have consistently had phones with little to no issues. Just wondering how many issues with the P6P are because of data being transferred from one phone to the other and not setting a new phone up from scratch.
ggrant3876 said:
I've had android since the T-Mobile G1 back in late 2009 and early 2010 and I agree we were beta testers then. I've had many phones since then and very few with issues. I may be one of the lucky ones but I don't have a single issue with the P6P, not on the November update and I sideloaded the December update when it was available with not a single issue. When I got the Note 20 Ultra there were quite a few people posting of issues with it and what it boiled down to was moving data from one phone to another. I always start with a new phone from scratch, I know it involve more time but I have consistently had phones with little to no issues. Just wondering how many issues with the P6P are because of data being transferred from one phone to the other and not setting a new phone up from scratch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And then there are those like me who always transfer their stuff (these days mostly by Google's cloud restore, and selective data only restore with Swift Backup) and I never have a problem (including on the P6P). I've even transferred my stuff three times on the P6P - once when it was completely stock before rooting, once after rooting, and then once again a few weeks back when I accidentally factory reset.
tl;dr