[xenial] Anbox installation on Pro5 causes OS issues

[mattbel10]

• Device: Meizu Pro5 64 GB
• Channel: 16.04 devel
• Build: 2018-07-15

Steps to reproduce

I installed Anbox following the guide reported HERE. Everything went fine and Anbox was correctly installed along the system without any error or complain. I knew that the installation process was accomplished well, because, after throwing a message on the terminal saying something like "all good", rebooting the phone I found a bunch of new Android applications showing off in the App scope. Most of them worked well, as expected.

Expected behavior

Since Anbox is supposed to be confined in a container, I expected no interaction with the host OS.

Actual behavior

Instead I experienced 1 benefit and 3 issues after Anbox installation, against the OS itself:

Benefit:

1. For the first time since I purchased the Pro5 and installed UT on it (either 15.04 or 16.04) the wi-fi Access Point was launched and connected at every phone reboot, without the need to reinstate the password. Before, even if correctly storing the AP credentials, at every reboot the OS was not able to automatically retrieve the previous connection details and to launch the wi-fi connection. For detailed information, please check the thread on the UBports Forum

Issues:

1. Camera refused to start-up after being fixed along with the previous builds (I confirm it was also fixed for my Pro5 as well).
2. GPS not working anymore after being fixed along with the previous builds (I confirm it was also fixed for my Pro5 as well, even if still very slow to find a GPS signal).
3. The worst issue I found out was the apparent loss of the IMEI number. Please, see the attached picture:

Additional information

To fix the missing IMEI number issue, I decided to try switching between the available channels, passing from devel to RC, knowing that a complete flash of a different image would have wiped all the APT installation performed by temporarily enabling the image as writable with sudo mount -o rw,remount. It seems to have worked up to now, as the IMEI number came back in the "About" section. As a side-effect however, I lost the ability to have the wi-fi automatically logging in at every reboot.

[TartanSpartan]

I can confirm that the WiFi password not persisting between reboots issue affects me also on Vivid OTA-3. I wonder if this is related to the fact that I flashed from the 64GB/4GB FlymeOS version of the MP5, as I believe you also did.

[mattbel10]

My pro5 was delivered from Hong-Kong and therefore is the chinese version, originally with stock FlymeOS. Once received, I first flashed UT 15.04 and afterwards I updated the phone to 16.04 following all the available guides (refer to UBports Forum for the complete story). I always experienced that problem with the wi-fi connection, even on the 15.04 UT. What seemed unexpectedly to fix that was the Anbox installation, introducing other issues, as we know, by the way.

[mihaelmilea]

My Pro 5 32GB was chinese version, FlymeOS. I switched it to international and then installed UT. I'm on vivid. Never had that issue with wifi credentials.

[mattbel10]

I noticed an other side effect on the OS after Anbox installation: the sim card isn't recognized at all so I cannot use my device as an actual phone anymore.

[mihaelmilea]

@mattbel10 @mariogrip Sorry to sound this desperate but I need help :)

Once I run sudo fastboot flash $PARTITIONNAME anbox-boot-$CODENAME.img and the rebooted my turbo device running xenial stable, the sim was no more recognized (no imei either under settings).

How can I restore my phone to functionality? - it is my daily driver...

Is there any other .img that I can write to my bootimg partition?

[mihaelmilea]

Ok, I fixed this by switching channels - I switch to RC channel in updates and did an update - I understand now that it writes the boot img as well.

[mattbel10]

@mihaelmilea sorry to reply you just now but it seems you caught in the same issue I unpleasantly faced before and for which I opened the present ticket...yes, switching channels resolves it but up to now I don't know what happened with Anbox and it doesn't seem any of the devs are interested to this topic up to now because they are focused on other priorities. Lets wait until OTA 8 (February 2019) to see how this will be treated. Glad you resolved though.

[mihaelmilea]

@mattbel10 yes, let's keep each other informed whether a fix comes and thank you as well. Also, please check this discussion: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/1204/anbox/15

[mihaelmilea]

@mattbel10 I can confirm that the new image http://cdimage.ubports.com/anbox-images/anbox-boot-turbo-test.img works!!!

[mattbel10]

@mihaelmilea thank you for reporting but...what exactly it does work? Has any of the issues reported here been solved? What about IMEI, GPS, SIM card and Camera issues?

[mihaelmilea]

IMEI, SIM and camera are working. I still have to check the GPS signal. I notice battery drain but I will ask that in the forum: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/1676/development-testers-for-anbox/45

[mihaelmilea]

GPS works as well :)

[Adam-W-1]

After flashing http://cdimage.ubports.com/anbox-images/anbox-boot-turbo-test.img Wifi hotspod not work. After flashing http://cdimage.ubports.com/anbox-images/anbox-boot-turbo.img SIM card isn't visible.

[mattbel10]

After flashing http://cdimage.ubports.com/anbox-images/anbox-boot-turbo-test.img Wifi hotspod not work. After flashing http://cdimage.ubports.com/anbox-images/anbox-boot-turbo.img SIM card isn't visible. Adam, I don't really know what's going on with Anbox, since I'd never re-installed it because of the issues above but...is your Pro5 the chinese version? What model is yours? If you flip over your phone, on the back side you should see written "TD-LTE" which is probably the chinese version, an updated model respect to the one that came with UT OS pre-installed during the Canonical days. This model, as my model, has weird issues and it's not 100% supported for the UT OS.