Each update makes my Librem5 worse

Hardware Librem 5
1

It seems that with each update to my Librem5 (now on the Crimson release), more things work more poorly. Today’s particular annoyance is the now noticeable lag between tapping a conversation in the chat app and the thread actually being displayed. Also it doesn’t ever scroll to the end, even after I hit “send” on a just-typed message. Now, I can no longer type in a phone # for a new text message by reading an existing conversation, which I could previously. Even though both the main window and the new message window are both shown in the task list, tapping the main window shows only the child window. So I cannot use chat as a reference while I create a new message to a new number.

Next in line is the significantly increased power burn, especially during phone calls, so my phone is practically a cook stove. Don’t even think about disconnecting power during a call.

In my fantasy world, software should become easier to use with each new release. Changing the interface and task flow does not make it easier. An update should behave the same or better.

I’m actively looking for something other than PureOS to load onto my phone to be able to use it reliably. Gnome is a very poor choice for a phone “desktop”, IMO.

2 Likes
2

Yes, it should. However almost every platform has eventually violated that precept.

1 Like
3

What is your uptime like? Have you restarted your device after installing updates? I haven’t experienced these slowdowns and in general, my experience has improved since upgrading to Crimson :thinking:

4 Likes
4

I almost always restart after updates.

New failure: tried to dial 911 last night, and after 30-45 seconds the 4G icon went dark, then after another 30-45 seconds, the signal strength bars greyed out, while phone indicated “Calling…”.

It just keeps getting worse. Now it isn’t even functioning as a backup/emergency device.

3 Likes
5

Maybe something went wrong during the upgrade. I would suggest reflashing to get a clean install after backing up your files.

2 Likes
6
  1. I use PostmarketOS and I am on their most recent stable version. It works quite well for me.
  2. Reflashing is probably a good idea anyway.
  3. I have found that relatively frequent reflashing is just part of the game with the Librem 5. I do not like it, but that is how I feel.

It is interesting because the freedom to do what you want with it means, for me, breaking something in the software every 3-4 months. I admit to a lack of sufficient Linux skill (sometimes) to fix the otherwise fixable problem. I try, but when in doubt, I just reflash it.

2 Likes
7

Are Purism products really that experimental that “reflashing” is the way forward in the face of unwanted behavior? If so, I will have to rethink my reliance on them.

Next question: is there a typical expected battery life for the Librem5? With only chatty, a terminal, and the text editor open, mine is now draining in just a few hours.

8

Were the cellular modem and wifi radios on? Those are major sources of battery drain, especially if the connection is spotty,

Battery running out “in a few hours” is not rare.

9

Yes, mobile modem was/is on. Other two kill switches are almost always off.

What is surprising is that this is new behavior, especially as the phone super-heats during a phone call.

1 Like
10

From the perspective of an internet rando, who doesn’t know the history of what has happened on your phone, and who doesn’t see exactly what is occurring on your phone, it can be that reflashing is the most expeditious approach.

If nothing else, imaging the phone (so that it can be restored later), then reflashing, then retesting the troublesome behaviour, then restoring the phone … can be useful fault isolation.

If you are not otherwise using the µSD card, you may be able to shortcut that process by reflashing onto the µSD card. Then you can retest troublesome behaviour just by booting from the µSD card.

11

Are there clear instructions somewhere for imaging the phone, for reflashing, and for creating and booting from the uSD card?

12

If “clear” means “clear and simple” then only “booting from the µSD card” is simple. Refer: Boot from the microSD card - Purism user documentation …

When powering on the device, hold the Volume-down button.

If going down that route then you don’t need to either image the phone or reflash the phone. (Hence the only other required task would be creating a suitable µSD card, which you would do on a host computer, before shutting down your Librem 5 and inserting the µSD card therein, then booting from µSD card whenever desired. I’ll see whether I can come up with some instructions for you.)

However reflashing the phone is covered comprehensively at: Reflashing PureOS - Purism user documentation

13

2 posts were split to a new topic: Are blobs sticky?

14

I did the opposite of reflashing. I have one installation of phosh PureOS that came with my first liberty phone in late 2023, and since then if I dropped or damaged the phone I ordered another and then bit-for-bit imaged the same files and system onto the new handset memory. So I kept using the same configuration as it aged.

But this also means I never broke it. I never have used an L5 to call emergency services, and I dont install flatpaks in general and keep my software coming from apt on command line, or use browser apps, or write my own apps to solve problems.

15

Hello @7sigmaDave

It would be very interesting to have a look at your phone in details. The Librem 5 has been my only phone for almost 3 years, I’ve never had to reflash and, yes, some things got worse (omg I can’t read anymore folder names in the file manager!) but the absolute majority of things keep getting better and better. And I am no fanperson.

I can easily leave home with 40% charge and hold a 2 hour conversation without fear of running out of juice. Of course, I will get home at 20% or 5% depending on what else I have running.

I use a HP 712/60 with nextstep 3 times a week and it is the fastest-feeling computer I own. So I agree with you here. Modern software sucks. I honestly wish RAM prices to multiply by 10 just so software houses stop forcing developers to ship junk.

Purism, and most of our fellow forum-dwellers, do an AWFUL job at describing what the Librem 5 is.

You will NEVER get the battery life and the performance of a modern Apple or Samsung smartphone. Forget about it. Even if Purism would have access to a priority lane at TSMC, we would still not get the same battery life. The reason: freedom.

What sold me into the Librem 5 is the fact that, instead of having a huge SoC that does everything from GPS to RAM including the modem, we have dedicated circuitry for each task, and that means that you get more ICs running and they all consume power. Now, since we are running dedicated circuitry, we have all the means, as as community, to keep the Librem 5 up-to-date even if Purism goes under.

And, most importantly, this freedom also applies to software. Apple will force (is it still true?) you to use their browser engine, meaning that every single competitor browser is just a Safari skin. Of course, Apple has an army of developers optimizing hardware and software. What about us? We can run whatever we want. The developers of your browser are not forced to do extensive testing, making sure the software sleeps aggressively to allow the system to get into a low power state, etc.. If you are like most of us, you are probably running desktop Firefox.

I am a very advanced user - I’m the kind of person who has been running an email server from my living room for 5+ years, and that’s my MAIN email. And yet, no matter how hard I optimize Firefox (I don’t even let it download custom fonts!), Firefox is by far the worst culprit when it comes to power consumption. It is not your phone call.

Does Firefox suck? Not at all. But the Web sucks. Even our forum. What is the point of that stupid animation when the forum is loading? It runs at less than 10 fps on my Librem 5 and it pushes the CPU to the top. It conveys NO INFORMATION WHATSOEVER. Turn off your modem during that loading screen and the dots will remain there forever, destroying your battery life.

Use the Librem 5 for normal offline work and the battery lasts waaaaaaaaaaay longer.

And yes other things suck, too. sudo killall waydroid is a command I use everyday, because otherwise I’m afraid my Librem 5 will never suspend and will set my handbag on fire. Sometimes a lousy tab will also have your Firefox preventing the Librem 5 from suspending. But the same freedom we have to do whatever we want with our phones, the developers of open source apps have to not really care about making sure their applications sleep and wake at the same time, or to make sure they are not getting stuck in the background for no good reason, or that they won’t sleep when idle. It still happens to me to go to my handbag, find myself at 10% battery, everything hot, and then I do a top and there’s whatever piece of crap using 100% of CPU in the background for 2h.

So, in conclusion,
I usually charge my Librem 5 only to 70%, to preserve my battery and I never run out of battery. I keep an eye to make sure I don’t keep things that don’t need to be open open (iOS and Android will force background apps to sleep at some point), and that’s pretty much it. I made dozens of Skype and Signal calls from Waydroid in the past, I use my bank, I use the GPS/Maps, I make and receive calls, I watch videos, I listen to music.

But freedom comes with a responsibility. There’s no one policing the software you want for you. You must keep an eye. We got all the software for free. Our part of the deal is to use it well, submit bug reports, help the community. This is our part in the bargain.

So, maybe reflash, maybe have a look if there’s nothing in the background during your calls. My chats (2+ years of messages) come up instantly (maybe 300ms after I tap on a thread), so maybe something was eating up your CPU?

I’ve posted a few times about how I have my Librem 5 set, check if it won’t help you. And many here are happy to help you, but make sure you give us details…

  • chat is laggy: this doesn’t help anyone help you
  • chat is laggy when this and that and this program is running in this version or that version: this helps

And remember… the Librem 5 is about Liberty/Freedom. It’s not about 900fps gaming or 72h battery life. It’s in the name!

3 Likes
16

And yes, one more data point about the absurdity of the web.
I own a classic Mac Pro for some proprietary hardware/application reasons. It has a Vega 64 and with 64GB of RAM (6 DIMMs), it idles at 150W. When the forum animation is running, it goes to 190W because it takes the GPU out of a rest state. When you are scrolling the forums, it only goes up to 160-170W.

It’s wasteful. It’s corporations and development groups saving money on our backs. Imagine if software today was still written like in the past, being mindful of resource usage… our computers would only go out of the lowest clock speed when doing significant processing. Our daily activities would never get them out of the lowest clock. And imagine how much less compute power (and how much longer our devices would remain useful for) on a global scale with more efficient software.

Apple does it really well, credit where credit is due. If the web and others would follow, it would truly be great.