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

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:

The custom builds are primarily for me: they fit my usage, and include only the apps I want.

The unofficial builds are to make /e/ - the official, unmodified version - available to users of XZ1C. I’m not trying to second guess /e/ about what most of their users want. I’m sure they did their user research and usability studies to come up with the official /e/ ‘look and feel’ and, at the moment, the /e/ UI and /e/'s default apps are what /e/ is, and many users are quite happy with them, and some people even like Bliss :slight_smile:

No idea. But there’s no reason why it shouldn’t continue to get updates for at least as long a LOS maintain the Q branches of their codebase. Once that stops, the “last” Q build won’t stop working, it will just slowly become out of date, missing out on security patches (most of which are patching “vulnerabilities” which, for most users, are almost entirely theoretical). There are millions of users who are quite happily using versions of Android that haven’t been updated in years. The Q software will carry on working at least as long as your hardware :slight_smile:

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Hi there,
Very insteresting all this. I realised that I didn’t really understand why your work was not accepted. Anyway I’m with you and I hope you are going to maintain this for a long time because I’m not able to do that. I wish I could but my knowledge is equal to zero :wink:

On an other subject,
I would like to know if you tried to uninstal pre-installed apps with this method Uninstall default apps - #29 by AnotherElk
And does it work on this build ?

The method is generic Android.
As long as a build is not as obscure as hiding the USB debugging/Android debugging (the name can vary) setting in the Developer options from you, you can do it.

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I have tried it in the past and it seems to work. I’ve not tried it in this build but it should work. For my own device I make a custom build, the the apps I don’t want (Apps, Mail, Message, /e/'s microG) removed and the apps I do want (F-Droid, Aurora Store, K-9 Mail, QKSMS, official microG, Lawnchair and Omega launchers) built in

Thanks a lot.
Actually there is only the calendar app that I don’t like and which I want to remove. So I’ll try the uninstall method. Thanks

I’ve done it and it seems to work very well. Thanks again. I don’t know what I will do without you !

I just tested Mint Mobile (on T-mobile network). As happened for @Xyguma, this different carrier connected to LTE automatically w/o toggling to 2G first. Unfortunately for me, the same MMS failure occurred, as with Ting (also on T-mobile network).

Back to Ting, and I have to toggle 2G/LTE to get LTE again. Hmmm…

I wonder if I should try reinstalling /e/…