I have a Librem 5, and I am really happy to utilize it. When I purchased the device, I knew that it would be far from perfect and that I would be supported the development of a product I wanted to exist.
However, it has many flaws and I just wanted to make sure these were expected/seen by other members of the community. For mine, it is really slow and shuts off regularly (maybe a battery connection/life issue?). It also sometimes has this issue where the modem disconnects.
These are all normal errors with the device, right? I have a device purchased from around this time last year and wanted to ask here before running off to support.
Also, just in case any devs/maintainers see this: please do keep up the good work!
I absolutely love all the mobile apps so far and the ability to run GNU/Linux on my phone.
I just wanted to ask in case there were an issuse with my hardware or any user errors.
Thank you all so much.
Look at this thread for your disconnect issue. Yes, itâs expected, it doesnât fully work out of the box, but mention your problems, provide enough details and maybe you can get some help.
My Librem 5 is often hot, I have to put it into my chest freezer sometimes, I canât send MMS, receiving MMS isnât straightforward as I have to switch to another Access Point Name, SMS donât work reliably, I have some echo on calls, Internet doesnât work when the modem seems to sleep, Phosh just crashes sometimes, I have to retry many times to mount it as a USB storage device, etc.
This is nothing you should have to expect. There are still a lot of errors, but the Librem 5 runs mostly stable with PureOS. Issues @gouessej has have to do with the choice using Mobian instead, which works, but is not as well supported as PureOS is.
But I agree that you should tell more about your issues, so we can try to help you or tell you what issue is common and which one is unique. Even if there is a issue without fix, we can share information when improvements are expected as far as known.
Especially for your shut down errors you could look into the log files via journalctl command (look about date options to find issues easier) and share related ones to us. If you have more issues, donât wait and just ask us.
My phone runs usually for weeks and it shuts down on some âeventsâ that happen (doing something and an action unexpected leads to resetting the phone). But thatâs really rar and not regularly or even every 2-3 days.
@Ick Sorry for having forgotten to mention that Iâm under Mobian Linux, youâre right. By the way, when I used Pure OS Byzantium, I couldnât send MMS, I had to switch to another Access Point Name to receive MMS, the autonomy wasnât good, I had occasional Phosh crashes and I had the same problem with Jumpdrive.
Itâs worth pointing out that the reliability/stability of the LIbrem 5 seems to vary from one example to another.
I have two Evergreens, which i assume ought to behave identically if the software is identical. But they donât.
The first (lower serial number) has the âblank screen on startupâ problem discussed elsewhere on this forum, and then problems seeing the modem or WiFi adaptor after being lucky enough to actually get prompted for the LUKS key. Six attempts (and typically 10-15 wasted minutes) to simply get the device into a usable state in the morning is not unusual.
Also, regarding Bluetooth audio. I only ever tried connecting it to my carâs receiver, but it never succeeding in pairing.
However, the second L5 (which I bought second-hand more recently) has none of the above problems, even after I cloned my disk image from the first L5 to it using Jumpdrive. Iâm not saying it doesnât have any problems that sometimes force me to reboot it (such as it occasionally being impossible to re-enable cellular from the soft-key), but its overall reliability is in a different league.
The problems you are having â and particularly with the unexpected shutdowns â suggest that you may have been even more unlucky than I was with my first Librem 5.
That sounds like firmware issues with the first device. As far as I know there where updates at some point. How old is your first device?
Firmware shouldnât be an issue for cyn17140 I would say, because my phone is older (summer 2023) without any issue. But who knows, first we need to investigate logs etc to knowing more about. And hopefully someone can help (in worst case Purism support should do).
As a side note, do you also have the issue where it doesnât work if its really low battery on charger?
Mine will turn on and then turn off effectively immediately.
No, it boots up and fills the battery without any issue. It sounds to me that your device does not get enough energy. Do you charge it via PC or similar? Or did you try to turn cable around? You can plugin the cable in different orientations and I read on forum that for some people powering works better in another orientation. Iâm may just lucky that it works in any orientation for me.
But what I can tell, when Plugin into my monitors USB (can charge this way) and USB is set to data mode, it has not enough power to charge my phone, instead it discharges a way slower than unplugging at all. But when using monitors powering mode, I have no issues and phone loads. Since the device starts all components at start up, your device may gets discharged for a short time (takes more power than idling), which shut it down. But I may wrong.
Can you not run the device from a standard USB C cable?
If so, that explain at least some of my electrical issues.
The device primarily charges by being plugged in with an energizer USB C cable to my Desktop.
It depends whatâs on the other end of the cable.
The maximum current that can be negotiated over PD is 3A (which equals 15W). Some USB-C ports provide 1.5A, which should still be enough for comfortable charging. With a USB-A source, the maximum current depends on whether and what it signals over BC1.2 - it could be 1.5A, but it could also default to 500mA which will be barely enough to charge while idle and may even make it slowly discharge while in use.
To see which protocol was used and whatâs the current limit being set:
As a side note, can I fix this somehow on my desktop? I prefer to keep it plugged in so I can access it through the USB network for apps like KDE Connect.
My data point: No, that is not normal or expected.
Just to emphasise that point ⌠using Jumpdrive to image a phone will not do much with firmware. So it would be desirable for @Aequale to locate the topic that spells out how to check the firmware version for each relevant component and then compare the two phones.
This could be a Bluetooth profile issue. You would need to find out what profile the car expects.
In other words, the port on the desktop is not expecting to be a comprehensive implementation of USB-C PD and basically just gives a default 500mA - but maybe check the documentation for the desktop as to what it should be capable of and also maybe try some other devices that expect power via USB-C PD when connected to that port.
You would need to check the documentation for the desktop. Or you might have to ask the vendor / manufacturer as this is a fairly niche question.
Thereâs an outside chance that you could work around this by using a dock that has an external power supply.
Iâm sure your cat has learnt much from you over the years.
