Sunday, March 17, 2013

Key Lime Pie and the Nexus 4

Since the last post, we've tried a CyanogenMod derivative ROM on the Nexus 4:  Paranoid Android 3+.

PA 3+ is a decent ROM, it feels solid and fast. However, it, like CM 10.1, is based on Android 4.2.2, and like CM 10.1 it has the same two irritating bugs as Google's own 4.2.2 Nexus 4 factory image which Google refuses to fix, for whatever reason.

Those two bugs of course are:

We suspect that Google hasn't fixed these because they simply are unable to fix them, along with all of the other wifi and bluetooth issues in 4.2.2. The best we Nexus 4 owners can hope for is that when Google releases Android 5 Key Lime Pie in May, these well-known problems with the N4 will have been fixed.

But don't hold your breath.  It has been 179 days since the wifi and bluetooth problems with the Nexus 4 were first reported to Google: not exactly confidence-inspiring.

--Doug

7 comments:

  1. Hi Doug, I was considering getting one of these phones until I found these issues and your blog while doing some research on it. How widespread are these problems? Do they affect all Nexus 4 phones or just a significant minority? Have you gotten a phone from google that does not have these bugs?

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    1. It affects all Nexus series while using 4.2.x. Mine is Nexus 7 and is not able to see the wifi from the moment I put a simcard on it. In order to get it to work, I had to remove the simcard and do a factory reset!!

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  2. Hi.

    The wifi and bluetooth problems described above are both apparently software in origin, and therefore can affect any Nexus 4. The bad bluetooth/wifi interaction apparently does not occur if your wifi access point uses the 5GHz frequency, but if it uses the 2.4 GHz frequency band the problem is 100% repeatable. I have seen no progress, nor have I even heard of anybody working on this problem.

    The wifi data loss issue is due to the buggy Qualcomm wifi driver that is supplied with every Nexus 4. However a beta version of the driver is being tested, and I have tested it on my N4 and it dies solve that problem. Here is a link to the beta Pria Qualcomm driver: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=39295700#post39295700

    BTW, if you were to call the Google toll-free Device Support number right now, they'd still tell you that "There are no known issues with the Nexus 4."

    Being evil.

    --Doug

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  3. Hi Doug,
    Thanks for replying back. Your blog has saved me a lot of time and headache that I would've had if I bought one of these phones. I have to admit even with the flaws I'm still kinda tempted to get it mainly because of the price, design and vanilla android, but these bugs are horrible deal breakers considering Google is already asking buyers to live with only 8/16Gb of storage space (less the OS) and no upgradeable battery and memory. They've updated the Nexus 4 to have nubs on the outside, but said nothing about the bugs. http://parislemon.com/post/15604811641/why-i-hate-android has a good story about the android OS and really seems to corroborate what we see: they're being evil.

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  4. Glad to be of help. The new Prima drivers fix the wifi dropout issue, but We still can't get anyone to confirm whether or not this one:

    https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=41631

    Is a hardware or a software bug. Watching how Google has behaved during this product release has been fascinating to watch, in any event.

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  5. I'm glad someone's been working on it even though Google seem not to. If the wifi dropout issue has been resolved by a third party, do you think it's likely that an official fix will be added to the next update release? How hard is it to root and install these fixes for someone that has no experience tinkering with phone software? If talking/listening to music will kill wifi when bluetooth is on, do file transfers using bluetooth do as well?

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  6. I suspect the Prima drivers for the Nexus 4 will eventually end up in a future update, probably Key Lime Pie.

    Regarding wifi and bluetooth, they simply do not work together when you are connected to a 2.4 GHz access point, and there is now word even *if* this bug will get fixed, much less *when*.

    If you have no experience in rooting an Android phone and installing patches, it would be best to get someone who has to show you how, because you can brick the phone if you do not follow established procedure.

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