[UNOFFICIAL BUILD] Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact (lilac) e-1.3-q Post #212

I’ve discovered a problem with this build: when trying to play audio through a connected BT device. The audio does not get routed to the connected BT device, but plays through the phone loudspeaker. The ‘Settings | Sounds’ page shows that the audio is being played though the BT device even though it is not.

I’m trying to work out why this is happening, and if I find out and I can fix it, I’ll make another build as soon as I can. In the meantime:

  1. If playing music (and maybe making calls) via a BT device is an important use case for you, then you may want to think twice about updating for now (details below of how to revert to 0.17 while preserving your data if you’ve already upgraded).
  2. If you have installed the v0.18 build, and you are in a position to test this functionality, I would be very interested in what you find. Does audio play through the device for you?

[EDIT] Some more investigation shows that it works fine with some BT devices (e.g. KitSound Boombar Bluetooth Portable Speaker) but not with others (e.g. ION Cassete BT Adapter in my wife’s car or IO Play2 car kit with music streaming in my car :frowning: )

I would be even more interested to hear of anyone else’s experience with BT audio in this build. Anyone use it with BT headphones or ear buds?

To downgrade from v0.18 to 0.17:

  1. Make a TWRP backup of your data partition
  2. Format data partition
  3. Install the v0.17 build (linked in this post)
  4. Boot the device and go through the First Time Setup Wizard (no need to enter any data: with luck you’ll get it all back in the next step :slight_smile: )
  5. In TWRP, restore the backup you made in step 1
  6. Reboot, an check hat all your installed apps still work. If any keep stopping, you may need to uninstall and reinstall (which may lose some of your data or settings - sorry!)

Here is a build with the Bluetooth audio issues fixed. Tested with IO PLay 2 car kit and Boombar portable BT speaker :slight_smile:

@petefoth, Having a little problem here…
Did a backup to SD card with TWRP.
Installed your latest build.
Rebooted and set up /e/. (time zone, language, etc.)
Restarted to TWRP and restored backup.
Now the phone will only boot into TWRP.
Went back and repeated the backup restore, but still only boots into TWRP.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Oh wow, I think I fixed it. I reinstalled the build, rebooted, and now everything appears to be fine, with my data restored. I confirmed I have the latest build installed.

Not sure what I did wrong, but I am sure I don’t really understand what I’m doing! :rofl:
I probably skipped some step or included one that I didn’t need.
A simple guide here…for idiots… would help a lot; I mean just an overview of the main steps.

I’ll let you know if I notice any bugs. Thanks for your work!

If a dirty flash (install over a working earlier build) doesn’t work, then the following will usually fix it:

  1. TWRP Backup
  2. TWRP Format data ( from the Wipe menu)
  3. TWRP Install the new build
  4. Boot the phone, and go through the first time setup . No need to enter any data, as you will restore what you had, but do set and screen lock pattern you has previously.
  5. TWRP restore

That one hasn’t failed me yet :wink:

That’s basically what I did, with the additional steps of removing my screen lock before starting the process. After I completed the restore and rebooted, it just kept going back into TWRP.
Repeating the image install brought it back for me, and my restored data and apps were all in place.
I wonder if my volume key was stuck…? Next time, I’ll remove the case before I start.

Issues so far:
.Signal would not start, so reinstalled from Apps store. [Oh gods! now even Signal wants to verify that I’m a human…while installing the app on my own device!]
.Screen lock timeout doesn’t respect my time delay. [Fixed now.]

.LTE: Looks like LTE still won’t connect automatically after reboot; requires toggle to 3G, then back to LTE Preferred.

Someone on the Z3 Compact LOS XDA Forum suggested formatting system partition before flashing the update should fix the problem. Worth remembering for next time :slight_smile:

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I’ve done it everything seems to work (except like Taurus LTE won’t connect automatically).
Unfortunately I’m not a big user of bluetooth so I can’t make any feedback on that. Sorry.
Thanks again for this build !!

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Hello,
I’ve noticed a small issue with this build.
When I’m calling someone and want to use the numeric keypad during a call, there is no numbers only the letters, it’s working though. Not very disturbing but just so you know I have this issue.

Yes I get this too on all recent builds, unofficial and official. For now you can just guess which numbers are where :wink:
Seriously, I assume this will get fixed - if it isn’t already - and my next build (e9.19?) will pick up the fix. Thanks for the report

Yes I do that.
I didn’t have that with the previous builds, or I didn’t notice perhaps :wink:

How does it look in dark mode? I don’t have this problem, but I’m using dark/battery saver mode.

It looks like that, numbers but no letters :wink:
Good thinking, thank you, but I’m not a great fan of dark mode

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You’re probably experiencing white font on white background.

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Hi there. Small update on the issue with 3G and 4G(LTE).
I just changed my provider. I put my new SIM card in the phone today and I don’t have this problem anymore. It connects automatically to LTE and I have signal without need to put it on 3G before turning the phone off.
I don’t have any idea why with this new provider (TeleCoop) it works and why it didn’t work with the last one (BouyguesTelecom).
Anyway I thought it might interests you

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I’m very glad it works now - I can blame the operator, not my build, for this problem

It’s because your new operator is a cooperative: co-ops always work better than big corporations :wink:

It does - thank you for reporting back.

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Hi @petefoth , the XZ2C is listed on the R release plan but the XZ1C is not. Also XZ2C is listed on lineageos maintained devices but XZ1C is not. Is there much point in me buying a XZ1C in terms of how much longer it will be a viable /e/ phone? I would get the XZ2C but it doesnt have headphone jack, which is a biggie for me.

I just switched carriers, too. Still have the LTE issue, plus now MMS isn’t working. Lol! Pretty sure that’s the new carrier’s fault, though.
Cheers!

P.S. VoLTE is working great, which is why I switched carriers.

Hi Mike.

Some background:

For a while, XZ1C (lilac) was an officially supported /e/ device. This was because, after successfully producing some unofficial builds for this device, and for Z5 Compact (suzuran), and Z3 Compact (z3c), I volunteered to become the maintainer of the official /e/ ROMs for these devices (all of which I happen to own, and all of which have been my ‘daily driver’ for some period of time).

My unofficial XZ1C /e/ builds, and the first official /e/ build, contained the excellent Sony stock camera app alongside /e/'s Camera application. I was asked to remove the Sony app from the build because, i was told, it was important for /e/ users to have the same experience across all /e/ devices. I was not prepared to do that (I did not - and still do not - accept the ‘identical experience’ argument), so I stepped aside as the maintainer of the official /e/ ROM for this device.

With no maintainer, the device stopped being officially supported by /e/, and I went back to producing unofficial and custom builds. The unofficial builds contain both camera apps; the custom builds contain only the Sony camera app, and many of /e/'s forked apps have been replaced by the upstream apps from which they were forked. (And of course they don’t include /e/'s Apps app :slight_smile: )

I have recently made an unofficial R build for XZ1C, which seemed to work as well as the test R builds for the official devices. It does not contain the Sony camera app, because the maintainer(s) of the unofficial Lineage OS ROMs (on which all the /e/ ROMs are based) have not been able to make the Sony camera app work in Android 11 / R / LOS 18.

So to answer your question, at least in part. This device is my current daily driver, and I have no plans to change to a different device. If the current one breaks, I’ll find another on eBay or elsewhere. My plans for the future for XZ1C are:

  • to continue to build and make available unofficial and custom Q builds, for as long as /e/ continue to maintain the Q branch of their codebase. I don’t plan to move my own device to Android R until I have to, as I don’t want to give up the Sony camera app.

  • once /e/ releases dev R builds that are ready for daily use for their officially supported Sony devices, to build and make available unofficial ROMs for XZ1C, along roughly the same schedule as /e/'s releases (i.e. using the v0.nn-r tag in the /e/ releases repository). These builds will not contain the Sony camera app, which opens up the possibility of

  • XZ1C again becoming an official /e/ device. I guess /e/ would be happy for that to happen, so long as I am prepared to do the duties of ROM maintainer. I haven’t yet decided whether or not I want to do that

  • to explore the possibility of providing OTA updates for my unofficial builds (for XZ1C and a small number of other Sony devices which are currently “stuck” on Android 7 / Nougat). I hope this will happen but it may not, and I make no promises about timescales :slight_smile:

  • to keep all my source files (device and kernel trees, vendor blobs) available in freely accessible git repositories, so that anyone else who is interested can duplicate and improve upon what I have done.

As I said, all of the above are my current plans and intentions, but I make no promises or guarantees: circumstances change, and my plans may well change with them. But in the short term at least, I hope the XZ1C will remain a viable device, supported by /e/ - officially or unofficially - for as long as you, or anyone else needs it. Whether or not you want to buy one, on the basis of the above, is of course entirely a matter for you :wink:

Sorry to go on for so long, but it wasn’t a “yes or no” question you asked :slight_smile:

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I’m with you on this.

Hi @petefoth , thanks for the info , had to read that 3 times to digest it.

Two questions based on what you’ve said:

what is the benefit of an unofficial versus custom rom? Eg seeing as they both have the Sony app (and therefore neither can be official /e/) why have two variations?

And any idea how much longer Q will last before we have to move to R?

Cheers :slightly_smiling_face: