December 31, 2010. Most people were trying to figure out how to celebrate New Years Eve, a few fireworks, a little drinking, maybe a kiss, but a few well known bloggers were more concerned about one thing: Issue 9392 on the Google Code Android project page. The issue has been going on now for about six months, first reported by a Nexus One user on June 28:
Device: Nexus One. One day old. Updated to 2.2 FRF50 Default Android Messaging Application. No apps installed. Messaging. - Send SMS message to RecipientA. - Message appears to be successfully sent to RecipientA. - RecipientX receives message. - 'View Message Details' in RecipientA thread, shows 'To' field as being RecipientX's MSISDN (phone number). Has occurred multiple times on this device now. Interestingly, has never occured on my other Nexus running the same FRF50 build.
Issue 9392 has had 1200 comments in the last six months, many from the last few days since the story first made its rounds on December 31, but has always carried a “Priority-Medium” status. Users commenting they are ready to drop Android if SMS does not work properly, or some wondering if, as of January 1st, the status has now been moved to “Priority-Critical” as seen by the tweet above from @Justin_C_Ellis. Head over to the issue page on Google Code and check it out for yourself, all it took was one blogger in the wee hours of the morning and two others reiterating his story to rally a war cry in the community, “Hey, Google! FIX IT!!!!”
According to the public poll on the Hardware 2.0 blog, only about 26% of people who responded have experienced the issue. I have not experienced it myself, that I am aware of (knock on wood), but I do hope now that the status has changed to critical, it will be taken a little more seriously. I first came across this issue when a friend brought it up on their Motorola Droid and a quick Google Search pulled up a few hits. I was surprised to learn on Friday while catching up on some tech news that it is still an issue. If there is one thing we can take away from all of this, it’s that Google does listen to the community, and if enough people report having the issue, its status may get moved up the chain. There is still no official word from Google, but you can bet the community will stay on top of this.
Have you experienced this issue or does it make you afraid to text outside of Google Voice? Sound off in the comments below and let us know!
Sourece: ZDNET, BGR, EngadgetMobile
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Oh, I don’t know about that. Issue 5669 has been pending for more than a year now, with over 700 users reporting the problem (spontaneously deletion of SMS messages on Android phones).
Google hasn’t done a gd thing about it, and neither HTC, Verizon, nor Google recognize this well-documented issue (check any Android, HTC or Incredible forum) as a “problem.”
HTC and verizon would definetly not address it in time. As for Google…i support android because of the community not Google. When the G1 came out the apps on internal memory was a big issue…the community came out with the apps2sd fix within weeks. 2 years later Froyo finally comes out supporting applications to sd card…2 years… There were several phone models that came out and even still now that suffered from this as they did not have enough internal memory and after a few installs the phone was barely usable…Its about the community in Android..not Google. That is the only reason android is doing so well.
To be fair, there is a technical hurdle there. To make the SD card readable over USB, as the average user uses it, you need to have Fat32. Creating multiple partitions on the SD card, one for Fat32, one for Ext?, and one for Swap space, is not a realistic expectation from most consumers.
The Apps2SD that shipped with Froyo addresses the file system security requirements from a single Fat32 partition. It also gracefully handles USB mounting the SD card or SD card removal; something that cannot be said for the community Apps2SD design. It does this by actually uninstalling and reinstalling applications as required — watch logcat when you are mounting the USB device on your PC or removing it.
Because the Fat32 partition is mounted late in the boot process, and because it can be removed while the device is running, live wallpapers, widgets, and other system applications like keyboards (I’m the Sr. QA Engineer for Swype) cannot be installed to the Froyo+ Apps2SD. This is the trade off.
Honestly, the community Apps2SD was functional, but it was a complete hack. You had to repartition your SD card in a way that was advanced, and most users probably don’t understand the implications for doing so. The original intent for having user serviceable memory was that you might want to swap out one SD card filled with media for another, or to grow your SD card memory when you started to run out of space. The community Apps2SD locked you into however you partitioned your SD card, and didn’t easily give you a way to change that geometry. If you were the type of user who was installing community ROMS, it is safe to say that you were probably grabbing a Class 6 16+ GB card, partitioning it, and never looked back. The trade-off that you were making was that you were locking yourself into using that SD card and are more likely to experience card failures with increased writes.
Initially I balked at the Nexus S’ built in virtual SD card. Once I thought about it though, I realized that I was already using my G1 -> N1 devices as if they had a fixed internal memory. Performance should also be better reading and writing to the iNAND flash than to the SD card. The interesting implication of having a virtual SD card, is that the unmounting and removal problem that plagued the community Apps2SD solution aren’t applicable. Additionally, the Froyo+ Apps2SD solution benefits from this as well since it will only uninstall and reinstall now when booting or when mounted.
With the Nexus S, I think you see the best implementation of Apps2SD. You have 1 GB internal memory where you can install applications, a much appreciated increase over what my N1 provided. You also have 1 GB of virtual SD space which I can elect to use for media and/or applications as needed.
While it is true that there was a community Apps2SD solution shortly after the G1 was released, and it took Google awhile to implement an official solution, the official solution is significantly more refined and acceptable for end users.
Agreed…but you can see how this is a must needed feature when you are releasing smartphones that really heavily on the vast available software and then tell people…oh by the way..don’t install too much or you can’t use your phone…4-5 apps large apps at about 4-5 mb and you are done. Without the community my g1 would have been useless for everyday use as a smartphone.
Yes the froyo approach may be a more refined approach but it took them way too long. This was something that should have been available at release. Everyone I know with an android that has limited hardware and no option to instal on sd cards hates android now. That alone has damaged the android image allowing statements that Apple and iPhone are better because they can do this with no issue.
Honestly…without the openeness of Android and the community to back it up, I personally would not be a supporter and I jump at any chance to show people that Apple is not as great as marketing would have you believe. Things like this make it hard for me to have a case.
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thats a serious issue…and 6 months to label it as critical?? If they were listening to the community they should have addressed it within a week or two. Like the engadget post says “This is akin to an alarm clock that occasionally won’t go off (we’ve been there) or a car that randomly won’t let you turn the steering wheel”…imagine a car manufacturer that took 6 months to label an issue a car had that doesnt always turn as critical after 6 months…you would think that would take a day…
I wonder if this issue affects custom roms too which are based on gb builds or have developers worked around this?
I’ve been using Android for 2 years now, since the G1. I have never knowingly seen this problem. I would have triaged this as critical if it could be confirmed that this bug was happening, but unlike the iOS alarm clock app bug, this specific problem does not appear to be highly reproducible or confirmed in controlled settings. My guess is that this could just as easily be a carrier problem since all evidence on the device suggests that the software is sending the SMS to the correct number.
true..I cant comment on this bug as I have a vibrant…just going off what I read here and engadget. Based on these reports I would state that google listens to the community..I would say the community listens to the community…google listens to cash flow.