Almost 8 months ago I successfully removed Carrier IQ from Fresh Evo 4.0, the first release for the Evo that was based on gingerbread. I have removed it on every rom since.

So the question remains… how do I remove Carrier IQ from my phone? If you’re using Fresh Rom, then you don’t have to! The work has already been done for you; 8 months ago. This includes Fresh Evo, Fresh Evo 3d, and Fresh Shift.

Your phone is totally clean and spy free.

The commands that you’ll be running are as follows:

You can follow these steps to get your PRI back to 1.40 without any data loss.

Note: These instructions assume that you know your MSL. If you do not then you can get it by calling Sprint and asking for it (if you have an issue with someone not giving it to you then just hang up and call back) or you can use CDMA Workshop to retrieve it. My instructions and screen shots are also while using Amon’s recovery. The steps should be very similar in Clockwork but they won’t be identical.

1. Reboot in to recovery using whatever method you like.
   • Easiest way: download quickboot from the market or do it from rom manager
   • Second easiest way is to power the phone off. Then hold volume down and turn it back on. Keep holding until you get a menu. Pick “Recovery” off that menu.
   • Or if you know adb you can just do:  adb shell reboot recovery
     
2. Once in recovery go under Backup/Restore and then create a Nand backup (or nand + ext if you are using apps2sd. If you aren’t sure if you’re using apps2sd then just doing nand + ext shouldn’t hurt).
   • Doing this step will not only allow you to recover if there are any issues, but it will actually let you restore your phone back to exactly how it was, just with the new PRI included.
     
3. Boot back in to normal mode. Then open your phone and dial ##786# and wait while it automatically loads Reverse Logistics Support.
   
4. Hit Menu < Reset < Enter your MSL that you obtained before you started this < OK. It will then prompt you that all data will be lost. Once you OK that your phone will think for a second and then reboot in to recovery where it will format Data and Cache. After that finishes just pick “Reboot system now” off of the list. Your phone will reboot again.
   
5. Be patient while it boots up as this boot will take extra long. After your phone boots up it will go through Hands Free Activation as if it was a brand new phone. This is the step where it actually downloads and installs the new PRI. I had spoken with HTC just a few days ago and they told me that a new FOTA from Sprint was coming but they didn’t have the date. It is this new release from Sprint that is allowing this to work now. It is actually the same exact fix that had to be done on the Hero. After it activates it will also check for a PRL update (it tells me every single time that there was an update, even when there wasn’t) and a firmware update (it should say no update available).
   
6. After it finishes booting you will get the normal setup that you see after doing a restore. Do not set anything up at this point, just click Next/Skip all of the way through it. Now do Menu < Settings < About Phone < Software Information and you should be presented with your shiny new 1.40_003 PRI.
   
7. Once confirmed (check troubleshooting below if it didn’t work for you) you can reboot back in to recovery and restore the nandroid that you created in step 2. This will restore your phone back to how it was before you started but you will retain your 1.40 PRI because nandroid doesn’t touch the partition where that is stored. And you’re done!

• If it doesn’t work for you on the first try and you are still on 1.34_003…
  • First simply try rebooting.
  • If that didn’t work then try doing it again from step 3 down. Some people are reporting that it took 10+ tries to get it to come through. For me it only took 2. My assumption is that just like every other update this FOTA from Sprint is getting rolled out slowly so it just happens to be what server your phone hits during activation.
  • If that still doesn’t work then try rebooting in to recovery and doing a full wipe (data/dalvik/cache/ext) and then loading the phone up and then following from step 3 down. You will still be able to restore your data at the end (step 7).
  • If it STILL doesn’t work then the FOTA just may not be available in your area. Wait a few hours and try again.

The official Facebook application for Android was just updated to version 1.3. Soon after there were many reports of people’s phones not sleeping, including this one and this one just as examples. I’m not a big Facebook user but I do have experience in tracking down phone sleeping issues so I decided to take a quick look. I will mention that in my testing I did not have Facebook syncing my contacts but that’s the only setting I changed from the default setup.

First I’ll give a quick explanation on what a wake lock is. Certain applications may find a reason to need to keep your phone awake. This is most common with something like a game so that your screen doesn’t turn off while you are in the middle of playing it. There are actually 4 different types of wake locks. The bottom 3 in the chart will all keep your screen on but will still allow your phone to sleep if you do turn off your screen. Despite it’s name a partial wake lock is actually the “worst”. It will allow your screen to turn off both automatically and by you doing it yourself, however the CPU and your phone itself will still stay “awake.” From the Android Developer site:

Device battery life will be significantly affected by the use of this API. Do not acquire WakeLocks unless you really need them, use the minimum levels possible, and be sure to release it as soon as you can.

If you hold a partial wakelock, the CPU will continue to run, irrespective of any timers and even after the user presses the power button.

Just having Facebook installed on your phone isn’t going to cause the Wake Lock. It isn’t getting set until you actually run the application and log in. From there on your phone isn’t going to sleep properly until you restart your phone or until Android kills the task. Here is an application state dump:

    Apk com.facebook.katana:
      7 wakeup alarms
      Service com.facebook.katana.platform.FacebookSyncAdapterService:
        Created for: 0ms  uptime
        Starts: 0, launches: 1
      Service com.facebook.katana.service.FacebookService:
        Created for: 31m 53s 635ms  uptime
        Starts: 5, launches: 3
      Service com.facebook.katana.service.LoggingService:
        Created for: 11s 672ms  uptime
        Starts: 1, launches: 1

  #10013:
    Wake lock FacebookService: 27m 53s 107ms partial (1 times) realtime
    Proc com.facebook.katana:
      CPU: 2s 580ms usr + 620ms krn
      1 proc starts
    Apk com.facebook.katana:
      3 wakeup alarms
      Service com.facebook.katana.service.FacebookService:
        Created for: 28m 3s 255ms  uptime
        Starts: 1, launches: 1
      Service com.facebook.katana.service.LoggingService:
        Created for: 11s 672ms  uptime
        Starts: 1, launches: 1

mLocks.size=1:
  PARTIAL_WAKE_LOCK  'FacebookService' activated (minState=0, uid=10013, pid=260)3

Now it’s not any type of secret that the Facebook application is capable of creating a wake lock. For security purposes, every application in Android must request and be granted permission for what it wants to do when you install it. This is the main point of the step where you click OK during an application install.

As you can see in this picture the application asks for permission to be able to prevent the phone from sleeping, and that’s exactly what it does. The problem is that this application isn’t properly releasing this wake lock when it should. Now I don’t develop for Facebook and I can’t tell you why they create the lock in the first place or how long it should be running, but I can tell you that it will cause horrible battery life.

At this point the only workarounds are to not use it, to downgrade back to Facebook 1.2, or to wait until the Facebook team fixes the issue. If you are a Fresh Evo user and you are looking for a way to downgrade back to 1.2 then just hold out until tomorrow and I’ll get a patch up on Fresh Updater for you. If you haven’t gotten the latest update from Facebook yet then don’t worry, you’re safe! If you are super impatient and can’t wait then simply uninstall Facebook 1.3 and re-flash Fresh Evo. No wipe is required and no data will be lost (unless you installed a theme) but it will put Facebook 1.2 back on your phone since that’s what was included originally. Just make sure to uninstall 1.3 first.

This post is a bit long and wordy… I could have gotten by with just tweeting “your phone won’t sleep with Facebook 1.3” but really digging in to this stuff is what I love and I figured I would share it with all of you. If you are wondering if your phone is affected by this, there is a quick test. Go to Settings < About Phone < Battery and you will see your awake time. WITH YOUR PHONE UNPLUGGED, turn the screen off and wait about 1 minute. Now turn it back on. Your awake time should have only gone up by about 10-15 seconds. If it went up a full minute (or your up time and awake time already match each other) then your phone isn’t sleeping. Keep in mind that this isn’t going to affect you if you aren’t using Facebook 1.3 or if the application is no longer running in the background because it’s already been killed off by Android.

For the techies in the group I’ve attached a few screenshots of the app and device state dumps showing the wake locks and Facebook’s permissions. Thanks for reading! As a side note: this is my first ever post from Windows Live Writer. Assuming everything publishes properly then it will definitely be my new composer.

Did you use a program such as titanium backup?

Are you using a theme or modification?

When a new rom is released it only takes a few people to start saying something doesn’t work before it turns a lot of people off from it because they think it’s broken. When in the reality the problem is caused by something that was installed AFTER the user installed the rom. Which leads me to:

Why you shouldn’t be using Titanium Backup to transfer application settings*

First off let me say that I think Titanium Backup is a great app that I would happily pay for. It does exactly what it says and it does it well. The PROBLEM really is with the way people are using it. Most every important user setting in Android is saved in an SQLite database file. This allows your program to easily pull up your information and also allows for easy backups using a program such as Titanium. The problem is that when a user makes the backup on one rom/build/version and imports it on another, it can cause major issues. As is common with new versions of software, different options are added which also means more tables are created in your SQLite database file. If you take your old backup and overwrite that file, you have now broken that program. Plain and simple. It is called Titanium Backup… not Titanium Transfer Your Settings From One Rom to Another.

*What Titanium IS great for is backing up your settings in case you have to get a new phone, or for having a backup just in case. It could also be useful if you want to do a backup and a full restore and then import again just to clear off your phone. However you have to keep in mind that whatever problem you were already having could easily be be introduced again by importing the exact same settings that you had already. Please don’t take this as a negative post about Titanium, my issue is with how people are using it.

Why you should be testing everything BEFORE you change it

If you are having issues with a rom of mine and they aren’t experienced by every single user then most likely it is something you have done… flat out. Let’s say there is a theme that is causing issues… there is no doubt in my mind that you may find a ton of other users (maybe even 100′s of them) that are all having the same problem. Yet everyone neglects to mention that they applied a theme after installing Fresh. The way a rom works is it’s basically an image. If you do a full data wipe and then flash the rom and do nothing else then your phone is identical to my phone and everyone elses. TEST IT. I can’t guarantee that an app you install won’t cause wake time issues, or a theme you install won’t cause market download issues, or a titanium backup that you restored won’t cause something to force close. If Fresh has issues that I can duplicate on my fully wiped phone then it’s a bug and I will fix it right away. But if you are having problems and you haven’t tired doing a FULL data wipe and testing before you do anything else then you are simply spamming me by emailing me or private messaging me.

For anyone that knows me (especially in real life) I am one of the nicest guys you will meet. It takes a whole lot to get me upset and I’m willing to step up and help just about anyone. I have dedicated thousands of hours of my life working on my projects (thanks to those who have donated!) and it gets so frustrating to have to sort through hundreds of comments/messages/emails of people complaining about issues that they could have resolved themselves because they weren’t caused by Fresh in the first place. It also prevents me from seeing the legitimate issues and questions.

END RANT.

I hope I don’t come across as a jerk. I promise I’m not.

Fresh Evo

Google Maps is Missing / Google Maps will not install from the market.

This is caused by your phone thinking you have two copies of it installed on your phone. The only people that should be affected by this are some 1.0.0 beta testers. The easy fix is to just do a full data wipe and then reflash the rom.

If you don't want to wipe then you can try the following which may or may not work for you:

adb remount
adb shell
rm /system/app/Maps.apk
pm uninstall com.google.android.apps.maps
mount -o ro,remount -t yaffs2 dev/block/mtdblock4 system
sync

If that doesn't work... then do a full wipe and reflash.

Why does the alarm clock go off without a way to turn it off?

This means you installed a vanilla lock screen without fully reading the release notes with them. If you are using a vanilla lock screen then you MUST set your alarm in vanilla clock or else you won't be able to turn it off. Read the release notes on each of the 4 different vanilla lock patches to see the differences.

After installing Fresh Rom my phone keeps rebooting / boot looping / saying "Freshhh" over and over.

In every case that I've seen, this has been caused by sd:ext not being wiped properly. Clockwork Recovery isn't doing it right. It appears to but actually errors out. The fastest way to actually wipe it properly would be to reboot in to recovery and re-partition it. This will wipe EVERYTHING off of your sdcard! Do 0/0/Remaining if you want to use apps2sd or 32/1gb/Remaining to use apps2sd. Then wipe everything and re-flash the rom. The alternative option is to install Amon_RA's recovery (there is an FAQ on it) and use that to wipe sd:ext. If it still continues to loop then go here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=7003602#post7003602

How come I deleted an update/theme from Fresh Updater but it's still on my phone?

Deleting it from Fresh Updater is only removing the downloaded update off of your sdcard. You need to either do a nandroid backup to restore to the previous update, or flash another one that overwrites it. Example: To go from the vanilla lock back to HTC's lock just grab the HTC Lock Screen update from themes.

I installed the vanilla lock screen but decided I want HTC's back. How do I do that?

Just go back in to Fresh Updater and go to themes and there is one for the HTC Lock Screen.

User submitted: Why am i getting android with exclamation triangle after applying any patch from fresh updater?

This appears to be a bug with Clockwork Recovery only. If you use Amon_RA's recovery that can be found here, that won't happen. Fresh Updater uses the standard commands to reboot in to recovery. I honestly can't explain why that happens as that indicates that you do not have a custom recovery installed. The exclamation triangle is what the STOCK recovery looks like.

Why doesn't voice search work?

I have removed it because I was constantly turning it on by accident. You can easily reinstall it by opening ES File Explorer (included in Fresh Rom) and going to /sdcard/fresh-removed-apks/VoiceSearch.apk and it will reinstall for you.

Can the 270 rotation be removed?

Yes, I can put a patch out after all the initial release stuff settles down.

User submitted: How can I contribute and have my theme in the theme update section list?

That's a great question! I don't currently have it setup for other users to be able to submit their own themes. Over the next couple of days I will work on getting that setup, and I'll make a post at that time.

User submitted: How do you install and use Amon's recovery?

I'm not going to answer questions on using his recovery because I have enough going on. :) But you can find his post here which has detailed instructions, and you can ask any questions there. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=705026

User submitted: Whats the official md5 checksum of this release (.53)?

It is on the download page: http://geekfor.me/new-release/fresh-evo-053/ MD5: 70c47c965209f56c90bdac57845b7e32

How many times should I hear "Freshhh" on boot?

You should only hear it once on a normal boot; two times on your very first boot. If you are hearing it over and over then check out the FAQ about bootlooping.

Why does the vanilla lock screen unlock when I press the "Menu" button?

This is the normal stock behavior of the vanilla lock screen. I will make a version that doesn't do this and get it posted up.

Fresh Updater doesn't have any themes listed / How do I set it up?

Go here: http://geekfor.me/faq/how-to-use-fresh-updater/

How do I get the vanilla lock screen to work?

Go here: http://geekfor.me/faq/how-to-use-fresh-updater/

On all new rom releases you will be able to find Fresh Updater in the app drawer.

You are able to use this to update the rom when new versions come out and also to install patches and themes. I am releasing it with my patch updates online. This tutorial will show you how to add the server and get those patches.

From there hit “theme update settings” and then “manage theme servers”.

This is where you need to add the server. Hit “menu” then “update featured servers” and “yes” to add the servers. At this point you will see the Fresh Patches server get added.

You should now exit the application to clear any messages and open it again. Go to the themes tab and hit “Check Now”. You can then select a theme/patch in order to view it’s notes, screen shots, or to download and install it.

I wrote up this quick little how to so that people understand how to install it and use it. The application will already be installed by Fresh Evo, but you need to actually install his recovery.

Note: This will ONLY work if you rooted using the method outlined here. It WILL NOT work with unrevoked’s method because while it provides you root access, your phone isn’t actually rooted. Although if you are running fresh rom then you didn’t use unrevoked’s method so you’re ok.  :)

1. Run “ROM Manager” (it’s already included with Fresh Evo)

2. After clicking ok through the initial warnings, it will tell you that you need to install ClockworkMod Recovery. Just click on Flash ClockworkMod Recovery. Confirm that you have an Evo when it asks. If you receive a FC the first time then just re-run the application and do it again. I’m not sure what’s causing that to happen on the first run.

3. When superuser pops up, make sure to approve it.

4. Be patient while it downloads and installs. It will let you know when it’s done, and the application will then show which version is installed.

5. Now booting in to recovery is nice and easy! Just click on “Reboot in to recovery” and it will do it’s thing. You will then be booted in to ClockworkMod Recovery where you can perform all the actions you are used to (note that they are in a different order than Amon’s RA for people coming from other Android phones, but all of the options are there).

Manually getting in to recovery without going through the application:

After you have installed ClockworkMod Recovery, you can also get in to the custom recovery without going through the GUI. This is important if your phone won’t boot for some reason and is one of the main features of a custom recovery. To get in to it:

1. With the phone powered OFF, hold the volume down button and press power to turn on the phone. Continue holding volume down until the screen below shows.

2. Once at the above screen, hold the volume up button and press power again and you should get the following menu. If you don’t then just keep trying. Then just volume down to “apply sdcard:update.zip” and press the power button.

1) Copy the radio.zip to the root of your sdcard, however you please.

2) Boot in to RA and pick “Flash zip from sdcard”

3. Pick your zip off the list and then hit the power button to tell it to flash.

4. When it finishes running it will tell you to restart your phone. Just pick “reboot” off the top of the menu.

5. After you click reboot it will say “writing radio image”.

6. Your phone will then go to a black screen and disconnect from your computer. It will then show a picture of a phone. It will stay on this picture for about 30 seconds. Do not freak out. Let it do it’s thing.

7. It will then reboot and go to a picture of the phone with a progress bar.

8. It will then reboot again and this time it will boot up. When your phone first boots you will be greeted with a message telling you it’s checking for a firmware update. You can click cancel.

9. If you don’t click cancel it will time out after a minute or so.

10. You will then get a message saying you successfully flashed but it doesn’t display the radio version here so it’s safe to ignore.

11. You can go to Menu < Settings < About < Software and read under baseband version to find your current radio version. That’s it!