FP4: Poor user experience and recent degradation

Hello,

I use eOS on my Fairphone 4 5G since last April.
I tried several times to open an account on the gitlab to report my problems but it was impossible to validate the form. And then the git organization is incomprehensible for someone from outside.

So I list here the most important problems encountered:

Recurrent:

  • The fingerprint sensor triggers a loop at the slightest touch, which either unlocks the smartphone when you don’t want to or blocks it, forcing you to use the passphrase. There is a long open ticket on the git about this but still no fix.

  • The camera randomly locks for no apparent reason. Impossible to take a picture. At first I thought it was mostly at night but it happens during the day too. I don’t know how to reproduce the bug. It happens with the default photo app or with the original OpenCamera. This added to the poor quality of the pictures, it’s hardly acceptable on a device at this price.

  • The sound quality of the calls with the internal microphone is extremely bad. The caller hears very badly and with echo. A headset is almost mandatory for calls.

  • Lack of transparency on the forks for the default app. It is not clear if they are forks with sometimes several version of delay and very disabling bug or app abandoned by their original author.

Since the update to android 12 (/e/OS 1.5.1):

  • The minimum would have been to clearly announce a major version change of android and to increment the version number of /e/OS. The previous minor update released the same month has the same version number!

  • Many apps crash in a loop, often with a very annoying popup on the screen. For example Geometric Weather is unusable and the widget on the screen does not update anymore. Etar crashing too, I don’t have any reminder for appointments. I think App Lounge also crashes silently. No auto update.

  • The screen animations are horrible. The one for exiting the screen saver is too slow when you do that dozens of times a day. The one to scroll in the timeline makes the display wiggle in all directions, giving you the puke. I had to disable all the animations to make it usable.

  • I have flickering on the screen on the web app, I think it happens when the browser window is opened on top of a widget on the home screen.

Is there any hope that these problems will be solved quickly or is it better to go back to the default OS of Fairphone?

Thanks

If you do need to go back to Fairphone OS. there is a tutorial here on how to install MIcroG:
https://forum.fairphone.com/t/tutorial-install-microg-on-fairphone-os/80016

(I found that in a post on XDA Forums

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Hello I also use the FP4 with 1.5.1-s and I do not encounter any of your mentioned problems. Have you done a reinstallation? Good luck on solving your problems!

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No re-install. I take to many time to reconfigure all. If I do it, it will be for an OS that I’m sure it will work fine.
I seriously doubt that the fingerprint reader will change its behaviour or that the screen animations will be smoother after a reinstallation for example.

I also use a Fairphone 4 5G since February. I cannot confirm any of the described problems. My FP4 is running fine and smooth.

I would first recommend a complete reset of the system.

If that does not change anything, I would assume a hardware error.

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