CM9 beta2 Android 4.0.4 for Epic 4G Released

The Epic CM team is proud to announce the release of CM9 beta2 for Sprint's Samsung Epic 4G. Please follow us on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter for the latest news. This release contains bugfixes and a major version upgrade to Android 4.0.4!

Tour of Android 4 CM9 on Samsung Epic 4G

Changelog of CM9 beta2 (see previous)

• Wired Headset Microphone volume now louder in calls.
• Loud Speaker Volume now louder.  Both phone calls and media (music, Netflix, etc.) should both be louder.
• Added emulation for RotationVectorSensor2.
• Android 4.0.4 brings a few fixes and improvements.
• Users report a smoother overall experience and better battery life than 4.0.3.
• One user reported sync with Exchange server failed in 4.0.3 but now works with 4.0.4.
• Camera pinch to zoom.
• Updated to 4.0.4 crespo blobs.
• Enabled tun in the kernel for VPN users.
• mdnie re-enabled.

News

• The Epic CM team welcomes Alias8818 (AOKP developer) and gTan64 (Ubuntu developer) as new partners!  We have many of the same issues, so by collaborating hasten development of all three projects.
• See bbelos' news update about progress on the kernel-3.0.x port.  gTan64 has been very helpful in fixing sdcard and audio!  Much work remains before kernel-3.0.x becomes usable on our phone.

Release Notes

• If you have trouble with auto rotation after enabling the settings in the Customization Guide, try calibrating your sensors with the temporary EL30 sdcard utility.

Links

See the CM9 Status page for more details. Then proceed to the CM9 Install Guide.  Please check if your bugs are already filed in the Epic CM Issue Tracker.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Epic CM team. Thank you!

EL30 to FC09 modem CWM upgrade Zip

zanderman112 has taken the FC09 update.zip that was found on Google's servers and created a CWM flashable zip that will upgrade your EL30 modem to FC09. If you are currently on CyanogenMod (or any other mtd ROM), you will need to use the CWM5 BML kexec zip file found in this post.

There has not been much testing as far as stability or performance on this modem, but if you would like to try it, here it is!

Please note, if you decide to use the delta zip to upgrade your modem and you experience strange issues, you should assume your modem is corrupted and Odin back to EL30.  From past experience of delta flash upgrades EC05->EI22->EL30 it seems modem corruption happens 10-20% of the time, even with pure stock phones!  We have not seen any real difference with FC09 modem, so if your existing EI22 or EL30 modem is stable, you may be better off keeping your modem.  See this post if you need to flash the older modems.

If you are on the FB15 modem, you must use Odin to load the EL30 modem if you want to upgrade to FC09 modem.

Download EL30 to FC09 delta 
Mirror: [1] | [2]

Please reply in the comments or on Google+ with any issues you may have with the zip or with your experience with the new modem.

Test Feedback Needed: Experimental Kernel saves 7MB RAM

Update 4/7/2012: Due to code review we have decided to go with a more conservative 1.5MB RAM savings for the upcoming CM9 beta2.  We will further investigate for later releases if it is 100% safe to further reduce the RAM usage by reverting triple buffering to the video decoder double buffering behavior used in gingerbread.

noobnl found a simple hack that reduces the kernel framebuffer memory, giving 7MB to userspace on Epic 4G.  We need your help to test this kernel and report any changes in behavior that you see.

There *has* to be a drawback to this, perhaps in a very rare corner case.  If you find a failure case, please verify it by doing the reproducer on the previous kernel, then again on this kernel.

Download

• Temporary Kernel *Recommended*
• temp_kernel_beta1_experimental_7mb_fb.zip
• md5sum ad934cb0c416aa5d08757f859fc002b2 
• This temporary kernel is strongly recommended as you can easily reboot into the previous kernel.  The ease in switching back and forth makes it much easier to confirm any differences in behavior.
• Permanent Kernel
• flash_kernel_beta1_experimental_7mb_fb.zip
• md5sum cf9cd7d778585653988bb0489e250315

This experimental kernel works with both CM9 beta1 and the experimental CM9 beta1-test-4.0.4 and contains the following changes since CM9 beta1's kernel.

• mdnie enabled.
• tun enabled for VPN users.
• Kernel framebuffer memory reduced by 7MB.

Please report any changes that you see here or in this Google+ thread.  Thanks!

Testing Feedback Needed: Android 4.0.4

This is NOT A RELEASE!  This is our first working build of 4.0.4 and with very little testing so it may have hidden breakage.  Please test only if you plan on providing feedback to help us improve before CM9 beta2.  CWM backup is highly recommended!

Help Needed - Advanced Users Only
CM9 beta1-test-4.0.4 is CM9 beta1 with Android 4.0.4 built on March 30th, 2012.  The audio fix is not ready so it is not included in this build, although mdnie is enabled.  Please help by testing this ROM and reporting any of the following.

• See anything different from CM9 beta1?  These are not bugs but just changes in behavior.
• Any regressions since CM9 beta1?  These are ONLY new bugs.  If something worked in CM9 beta1 but no longer in this build, we need to know about it.  Important: Please post your feedback even if it is the same bug as someone else's report.  We need multiple reports to better confirm new bugs!

Warning!  3rd party themes are known to break this ROM.  Do NOT use 3rd party kernels with this ROM or your test feedback may confuse the developers.

Download CM9 beta1-test-4.0.4

Mirror [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
md5sum b4543959168db320ea2c9f58f057c01b

Please reply here in the blog or here on Google+.  Your feedback will help us to improve CM9 beta2.  Thank you!

Kernel 3.0.x Boots! (Sort of...)

After weeks of effort, bbelos got the kernel-3.0.x to boot on the Epic 4G!

Well... nothing works.  No radios.  No camera.  No sdcard.  It also crashes very quickly.

Anyway, this is progress!  bbelos continues work on the kernel merge.  Still could be a few weeks before it is as stable as our existing 2.6.35 kernel.

UPDATE 3/27/2012: I forgot to mention, we are not 100% sure this is possible yet, but we are hoping the crespo kernel merge will allow us to use crespo4g (Nexus S 4G) proprietary blobs including the crespo4g modem and menus that allow Activation, Profile, PRL Update and sensor calibration. If crespo4g's modem works on Epic with this new kernel, then we will be able to provide a complete flashable Heimdall image to flash any Epic directly to CM9, and you would have no reason to ever go back to TW rom.

UPDATE 4/1/2012: bbelos wrote this status update on Google+.

Just a quick update on the Epic4g Kernel 3.0.x port:

What works
MTD/YAFFS2 partitions, Calls / texts, 3G Data, GPS, Bluetooth (activates, device pairing untested), Touchscreen, Softkeys, 
Keyboard (mostly), Reboot to recovery, adb

what doesn't work yet
Sleep issues (system is stable when connected to a pc), Audio, Wifi, sdcard

Anything not listed has either not been attempted to date or has just gone untested.

The Journey toward CM9 beta2 for Epic 4G

Update: CM9 beta2 has been released!

CM9 beta1 for Epic 4G Released

The Epic CM team is proud to announce the release of CM9 beta1 for Sprint's Samsung Epic 4G. Please follow us on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter for the latest news!  This release contains bugfixes and a few minor features since beta0.

Tour of Android 4 CM9 on Samsung Epic 4G

Changelog of CM9 beta1 (see previous)

• Voicemail Notification option for those suffering from the "Phantom Voicemail" bug.  Phone < menu button > Settings > Voicemail Notifications is disabled by default.  Epic users on non-Sprint or overseas CDMA carriers may want to enable this option if they want voicemail notifications.
• CM9 boot animation version 2
• Device Encryption kernel support enabled.
• Currently Untested!  Not compatible with CWM! Do not use!
• 1.9MB memory freed by disabling the FIMC1 mmap and reducing mmap usage for the JPEG driver.  It is unclear what if any negative effects this causes.  crespo is also testing this currently.
• Disable Samsung's mdnie improves color quality.
• New CM9 Features
• Holding Volume Up/Down while screen is off will change the current playing music.
• Settings>Profiles
• Settings>Developer Options>Root Access allows you to choose your root access mode.
• Settings>Display>Rotation now has additional rotation options.

Release Notes

• Thanks to user feedback, bbelos decided to leave the Dock Audio behavior as-is.  Alarm and ringtones will play from the phone's speaker, not the dock.
• The newly working Sprint Visual Voicemail (see Customization Guide) has a few glitches, the most annoying of which is that it does not block the text messages from 9016 that you receive when there is a new voicemail.  We will fix this eventually.

Known Bugs

• When using a wired headset, users have reported that the microphone volume is too low, making it difficult to be understood on the phone.
• These issues are targeted to be fixed by, or after the crespo kernel merge.  bbelos is making good progress on the kernel-3.0.x port.  Not booting yet but getting closer.
• CM9 for Epic is missing 5 of the 8 motion sensors usable in Gingerbread.  This apparently is the cause of auto-rotation not working for the minority of users.  Many of these users are able to make auto-rotation work by calibrating sensors using the temporary sdcard EL30.  Thanks to Joseph Shugzda for identifying this issue!
• Maximum speaker volume is much smaller than Samsung's ROMs.

Links

See the CM9 Status page for more details. Then proceed to the CM9 Install Guide.  Please check if your bugs are already filed in the Epic CM Issue Tracker.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Epic CM team. Thank you!

Help Needed: Test Kernel for beta0

boot_beta0_disable_mdnie_tempkernel.zip
md5sum 851618ac07a41b4ef074012fe43e0732

This is a temporary kernel with two of the experimental patches we are testing for the upcoming CM9 beta1.  You can boot it by "flashing" in CWM.  Nothing is actually flashed.  It just boots this alternate kernel and your phone behaves like normal except with these changes below.  When you want to switch back to the beta0 kernel, just reboot.  Your feedback will help to determine if we will keep these changes for beta1 or not.

• Disable Samsung's mdnie.
• I have no idea what mdnie does, but noobnl says it "makes the color look bad".  I personally think it makes some fonts look bad.  What changes do you notice?  Which do you prefer, beta0 or the way things look with this temporary kernel?
• Free more RAM by disabling FIMC1 mmap and reduce mmap usage for JPEG driver. 1.9 MB is freed.
• This has something to do with the camera, but we don't know what.  It seems to work.  Can you find anything that this breaks or slows down?

Please reply with your feedback here or on our Google+ page!

Work in Progress toward CM9 beta1 for Epic 4G

UPDATE: CM9 beta1 released!

CM7 Beta 1 Released

Well folks, its that time!
Yes, for those of you still using good ol' CM7, there's a new version for you!
The Epic CM team is proud to announce CM7 beta 1 for the Samsung Epic 4g. This new build has very few bugs, and some fixes backported from CM9. This is the last chance to test before RC1!

Changelog

• Radio Fixes, such as the 'Ring of death' issue and the "Call has been lost" dialog on a far-end call hangup
• Audio fixes, which improve sound quality and allow better in-call volume changing
• Disappearing sdcard ringtone fix. Changes to the media provider to keep ringtones from disappearing randomly.

Links
Check the CM7 Status page for download links and installation directions.
If you still have any issues with CM7, you can report them to the thread on xda.

CM9 beta0 for Epic 4G released

The Epic CM team is proud to announce the release of CM9 beta0 for Sprint's Samsung Epic 4G. Please follow us on Google+ or Facebook for the latest news!  This is an exciting new release as we now consider CM9 for Epic 4G to be of beta quality because all critical bugs are now fixed.  What remains are only annoyances or missing non-core functionality not yet implemented upstream in CM9.

Tour of Android 4 CM9 on Samsung Epic 4G

Changelog

• 36MB memory has been freed!  Upgraded the MFC driver to match crespo, then found the minimum amount of cache necessary to allow camera, camcorder and video playback to work.  This allowed us to free 36MB memory from the kernel.
• Fixed the annoying disappearing sdcard ringtone issue.  Thanks to everyone who contributed discussion and logs on the problem!
• Fixed visible artifacts during video playback.  Youtube, Netflix and other videos should be less distorted now.
• Fixed 720p video playback skipping caused by the video artifacts fix.
• Fixed the signal bars to behave like stock ROM.  No real change in signal, it just makes users feel better about the signal bars and Time Without Signal percentage.
• Dock audio kernel support.  Requires the Galaxy Dock Sound Redirector app from Market.
• Fixed (one cause of) data reconnection failures that otherwise aren't remedied by toggling mobile data or airplane mode, but only by reboot.
• Quiet Hours settings allow you to customize the behavior of notifications during the night.
• XZ compression of kernel shrinks the ROM size by 1MB.
• Improvements to kernel build and debug support scripts.  Not relevant to users, but helpful to Epic kernel developers.

Known Bugs (The Most Annoying)

• Gallery: There is a serious bug in the Gallery app where it thinks certain recent photos are from year 1969.  This affects both CM9 Gallery2.apk and Google's GalleryGoogle.apk.  We are trying to diagnose this problem.
• Battery: Sometimes the camera is stuck on after you are no longer using the camera app, causing the battery to drain quickly even when the CPU is in deep sleep.  Until we fix this bug, please reboot the phone if you notice faster battery drain after using the camera.  Camera and Google Talk have been known to trigger this bug.
• Battery: If your sdcard has many files you should add .nomedia files to all directories that do not contain media like photos or music so the media scanner will skip them.  You especially want .nomedia in directories containing CWM or Titanium backups.  For most people media scanning takes only a few seconds, but some experience 30+ minutes of 100% CPU usage during media scanning due to a rare bug that we have not yet been able to isolate.

Links

See the CM9 Status page for more details. Then proceed to the CM9 Install Guide.  Please check if your bugs are already filed in the Epic CM Issue Tracker.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Epic CM team. Thank you!

Customization Guide

Updated 9/30/2013:This guide is a menu of options to customize your experience after you have installed CM9 on the Samsung Epic 4G.

Battery Optimization Guide

Updated June 2nd, 2012
This guide gives recommendations on Epic 4G batteries, explains the many options you can customize to improve battery life and how to diagnose battery drain problems on CM9 for the Samsung Epic 4G.  Some of this advice is based upon our current understanding of bugs in CM9 and how to best workaround causes of battery drain until the developers are able to fix their causes.  We will update this guide as we learn more.  If you have suggestions for further improve this guide, please reply in the comments below.

Shipping Epic 4G to Spain

Today we bought an Epic 4G from Craigslist for $60.  It works fine but the glass is cracked.  Tomorrow we are shipping it to Spain!  Makes total sense, right?

Sometimes I wish I had a real camera...

The CM9 crespo maintainer KalimochoAz will help us with our kernel-3.0.x port.  We will merge the Epic and Nexus S kernel into the same kernel tree, currently based on kernel-3.0.23.  Epic uses many of the same hardware drivers as crespo.  By merging our kernel source, we can more easily benefit from the combined efforts of our two sizable development and testing teams.  In the medium term we can explore the possibility of merging in other Samsung Galaxy S phones.  In the long-term, we hope to rebase the kernel to upstream kernel-3.4+ after Android mainlining is complete.  Perhaps we will one day be able to push our device drivers to the linux-next staging tree.  That is the vision.

Meanwhile, bbelos will have our team's Nexus S 4G.  He will work with KalimochoAz on the kernel-3.0.x port.  That way both developers will be able to verify that changes made to one phone does not break the other phone.

Should we begin calling it the Nexus Slide? =)

Update 4/25/2012:
This March 6th attempt to ship an Epic 4G to Spain seems to have disappeared in the mail.  We have now shipped another Epic, this time USPS Express Mail International with tracking and insurance.

Update 5/3/2012:
KalimAz finally received an Epic 4G in Spain!