Streak Froyo OTA Update for O2 Customers

this all (points at forum posts relating to 2.2 OTA update) looks almost as wonderful* on dell's part as the 2.1 update a few months ago.

you may recall my exercised posts a few months ago, & my return to 1.6.

the instructions are excellent*- I must've been round the "backup/restore" loop a dozen times before pinching the screen down small enough to find the "proceed to update" link. if you're designing & deploying a software update to a mobile device, try the deployment out on an actual device & have a think about the GUI design.

basic stuff, this.

the backup/restore s/w comes with caveats which are skilfully hidden behind the info button.... you will lose any photos you took on the phone, along with some other stuff... music you've downloaded, possibly even paid for.

the old dell pc sync software won't work. I installed the nero- doesn't recognise my 1.6 streak. some posters here have had issues* getting their contacts into & back out of outlook. this is looking very good*.

then there are things like the inverted display, the non-wifi data connectivity.... I see from other posts, but not from dell, that these things may be fixable with a bit of patience & a factory reset. where does it say that in your instructions, amy?

& of course, my own personal favourite, as older readers will know- we get flash playback, which apple have almost certainly done for anyway, but we will miss the photo editor. also the "rooms", which I personally liked to keep populated with themed shortcuts- business, pleasure, contacts, music apps, photo apps.... & we have instead this enormous strip of one picture.

why aren't these changes described somewhere? why are dell playing "catch-up" with this update instead of using the 2.2 o/s to introduce something wow-some instead of just taking things away?

I'm not even going to try 2.2 on my streak. in fact, I may write to O2 & ask them to change it for something else. I like the big screen, but frankly the support & updates from dell are just awesome*.

duncan.

(*please replace these words with the genuine articles when you read this. I'm trying to discern the workings of the dell filtration on this forum)

Hey everyone!

I have a rooted Dell Streak (bought from Rogers) which is unlocked to Telus.  It had 2.1 Eclair on it today, and when I rooted it, I guess it changed the baseband to O2's firmware (as the startup screen shows the O2 water logo).

Anyways, I tried the download link from a couple days ago, and I got the FOTA Name Mismatch error.  I gave up and continued to use the 2.1 update, as it was sufficient, but really wanted to try Froyo.

So, I tried the link Amy posted in the beginning of the post.  It worked!  Froyo is now on my rooted, Rogers, unlocked to Telus, Dell Streak!! It's running 2.2 and it is miles ahead of any of the previous updates that the Streak used.  It's fantastic!!

Hi Amy

Followed the instructions and installed the sync program by Nero. Now what! no instructions about how to transfer from computer to phone, also i wanted to include my contacts list from outlook 2010, managed to add them into  the list but nothing happens.

Hi Amy

Forgot to mention that there appears to be a problem with streak reading my sd. When I put it into my sd reader it shows alot more apps than appear on the phone, things like viewranger and miner game plus about 5 other things on there. should I reformat my sd card while in the phone ? or delete them another way and get download again?

martin

I think it only fair that I update my status from my previous post...

Since the issue with Airplane mode, and reading around a little, I decided to try fixing the problem by backing everything up and doing a factory reset.  This cleared the problem imediatly, and the phone hopped merrily onto the 02 Phone network without any issues.

Sadly, it was only onto the phone network; the data network, it was unwilling to co-operate with.  However, after talking to 02 support, (and verifying that it was not anything to do with my account, or my sim), I took it into an 02 shop to check out...

... where it was revealed that the phone had lost it's APN settings.  The guy behind the counter raised an eyebrow, but was able to input them manually.  Voila, all happy now.  He even said, if it happens again, the actual APN details are easily findable on the web, although I admittedly have not gone looking for them yet.

Essentially, it looks like the 'upgrade' procedure, much like when trying to do the same with windows 7, has 'issues' over, say, a fresh install, (reset to factory settings), but as long as you back things up before hand, and understand that the odds are you will need to do a factory reset after the 2.2 update, you will be fine.

That said... I am not really impressed with the new Dell Mobile Sync, provided by Nero.  It is...flakey at best.  It took a lot of prompting to get it to see my device, then to get it to  import items off of the device onto my computer's hard drive.   It refuses to actually 'sync', as the button does nothing, nor can I see a way to tell it _what_ to sync.  If I try to copy something manually, it works for a single item, multiple items it just crashes the desktop application.  We won't even talk about the fact the app on the phone is 'irritating' and manages to spawn multiple copies of itself for me... or that the 'connect over wifi' feature does not work, although I have yet to lay my hands on some documentation on what may be needed to set that up.

In summary...  aside from the sync software, the update hasn't gone too badly.  I've had worse on my iPhone.  I miss some of the screen real-estate that was lost switching from the 'rooms' to the stage, although I do plan to, now it IS working, tweak the thing merrily.

Hi Amy,

Feedback on the 2.2 (Froyo) update so far:

Biggest problem: Backup & Restore has returned only a tiny fraction of my contacts. This is incredibly frustrating - how do I get them all back...?

I'm not particularly enamoured with the revised screen layout, with a big sun on my "HOME" page having been "Getting location" for days, and this is the start of a long list of minor gripes.

Having to go through this problematic upheaval with the product for the second time in only a few months, I am sorry to report that I am fundamentally inimpressed.

Regarding your "stuck in Airplane Mode" problem. Have you checked your APN settings?

Under Settings -> Mobile networks -> Access Point Names, make sure 02 Pay Monthly MMS is present and selected and that all the fields are correct.

When it was stuck in airplane mode, the option to check the APN settings was greyed out, so I could not confirm if they were present or not.

Hi Amy

Perhaps this needs a new general thread.

I just bought a sim free Dell Streak in the UK at Tescos, one of our leading supermarkets.

The device was running android V2.1 but on setting up it prompted that updates were available, so let the phone update itself and it is now sucessfully running V2.2.    It looks very slick but the trouble is the supplied PC Suite (extracted from the Streak's sim card)  is only suitable for V2.1.

So, here is the problem... which all of your customers will find as their Streaks prompt for the upgrade....

Without a current PC Suite there is no means of syncing contents other than manually moving V cards around... but if you are running the phone for business use this is an intolerable situation as new contacts on the phone are not backed up.

Had I known to ignore the 'update me' prompt I would at least have been able to stay with the V2.1 PC Suite.... although I read that V2.1 had a few bugs.

I am defecting from Apple and can only say that what you guys need to be aiming towards is a hassle free system like tiunes.   Plug the phone in and up pops the sync software and both media and contacts can be updated automatically.

I had a long chat with your colleague today and she was very helpful, but I am still left with a phone which cannot be synced, has no contacts loaded.... and I diddnt even mention that it wont log on to my email server!!

Seriously though, if there is to be no PC Suite I think my Streak will have to go back to Tesco.

So..... Are you guys working on a PC suite for the current operating system?

Mike

Hi Amy,

I am an O2 / Streak user

Well, yes, hmm...

I was told on Sunday by the auto update process that I had an update available.  A quick check proved it to be the illusive Froyo update.

I was finally able to run through the process this morning and am currently "playing" with it.  The comments:

The update would not complete successfully using a third party web browser for some reason.  I unistalled the web browser and used the originally supplied.

The package downloaded in 15 mins or so...

Clicking on the downloaded package caused the update process to run

It took around 15 mins

after an initial reboot, I was presented with a screen, a clock and two widgets (one appeared to be a lock and the other I can't quie remember)

I discovered that I could slide the padlock up.  As soon as I did this I was thrust into a calendar application failure loop.

I was able to get out of this by pressing the power button and waiting for the power off button to become available.

Restarting the Streak and sliding the padlock did the same failing calendar thing...

I then read the internet and stumbled across a suggestion to factory reset the device (Power off the device. Press both voloume buttons then, while holding the volume buttons, power on the device.  Select factory reset.)

After the next restart, I was able to slide the padlock and the beastie started running through it's startup processes.

I have now understood the differences between the GUI for this version and V1.6

BUT

And this is a biggie...

I have download the Dell Synchronization Tool.  Uninstalled the previous version, installed the new version...

Starting the new version, it has scurried through my computer looking for media.. I didn't ask for that... Another application wanting to take control - Sigh

So, I remove its capability to scour my machine for things to synch. 

I now look for synchronisation to Outlook for my contacts and my Calendar.

GONE

NOT AVAILBLE

This is a disaster!! 

I signed up with this device with the understanding that it synchs Outlook contacts and calendar... necessary for my business.  It no longer does.  It is now just a toy.

The Streak is not meant to be a toy.  It is a serious business machine.  It does not need Twitter or Facebook.  It doesn't even need music - though that is a nice to have... It does need calendar capabilities and it does need to work with me.

Now, I have to go and spend another $90 to do what it did only yesterday... (buy a synch tool)

I am sorry Dell, but this is a biggie.  It would have stopped my choosing this if I knew that the capability was going to be removed from me.

So, all in all, not enough information on what to expect from the update, what would be lost after the update, a screwed initial startup and all in all, a less functional machine than 24 hours ago. 

Tough I can now have moving backgrounds...

I will let you know if I have any other thoughts

Gary

I checked carefully before buying the Streak that it would sync outlook calendar/tasks/contacts/notes.

So now on 2.2 it doesn't...

So I've spent $40 on two copies of gsyncit (one for main PC, one for laptop) and that is working well, in fact better than Dell PC Sync did on 2.1

Have experimented a little with this.

If I install the 'Bubble' apps from Android market they show my position sensor calibration is way off - the bubble is not in the centre until I have the phone nearly upright.

If I use the calibration routine in those apps then the apps work properly. This suggests my sensor needs calibrating but otherwise works ok. Unfortunately these apps don't calibrate the device, they just calibrate the apps, so this doesn't fix the autorotate problem.

So how to calibrate the position sensor on the device? Apparently if I root it then there is a utility, but I haven't rooted it.

So  tried factory reset, keeping the phone level hoping it would recalibrate on factory reset. Apparently not. I tried again holding the phone upright - no better.

So how do I calibrate it so that autorotate will sense the position correctly? Or does it need returning to O2/Dell?

Hi Amy!

Re my original post of 12-19-2010 12:03 PM:  I've not seen any new posts that will help me with the backup & restore, as a part of the OTA update, utility's failure to backup/restore the 134 contacts out of  a total of 145 contacts, being the contacts that I had previously synched from Outlook.  The 11 contacts that it did backup/restore being contacts that I had created on my Streak.

I've not seen any new posts offering any solutions to the new Nero synch s/w's lack of functionality where synching Outlook Contacts/Calendar is concerned.

I guess that I'm not going to get any good news on either of these topics.

I completely agree with the reply Posted by Nubink replied on 21 Dec 2010 9:17 AM that your failure to include Outlook synch in the new s/w is a disaster, and has just turned my Streak from, what was, for me, a business device, into a very expensive toy (unless I spend yet more money on a third party app), which I would not have bought had I known that this was going to happen.

Stephen

I received the update automatically.   All went well with back up and installation until phone restarted and then I have had numerous problems since.

Error message regarding calendar - this prevented me using the phone whatsoever as it would not go away no matter how many times I pressed quit.   Luckily I found the answer to this problem via these forums as others had the same issue.   It was not easy to sort though as involved ridiculously quick and fiddly finger work to try and get into the menus to clear the calendar data whilst avoiding the error message popping up over and over again.

Second issue - the awful sync programme.   Why is there no guidance on using this?   Particularly to point out the Dell Sync programme on the handset that needs to be switched on if you are to have any hope of sync working (found this out by trawling these pages) Dell Mobile Sync no longer syncs calendar surely this should be standard for a sync programme?   It came with previous sync programme Dell PC Suite so why not with an upgrade - surely upgrades should go forwards not back.   Then sync of contacts - well it took 3 hours to sync mine with repeated error messages from Outlook (I have 600 contacts but still this is surely not right!)    With previous software it took hardly anytime at all to sync calendar and contacts.   I am currently using Google Calendar for 2 way sync and can't bear to take another look at contacts will maybe think again and find a different programme.

Third issue - music programme no longer seems to find music, tried to sync with the new Dell Sync to reload all music but had to stop before I decided to throw something out the window - would it not have been sensible to provide some sort of help with this new software?   The help button takes you nowhere and there is nothing on this website. Are Albums music albums or photo albums?   Do you have to turn albums into playlists to sync?   If so why do they reorder all the tracks alphabetically?  Decided to work with Double Twist instead which finally means I have my music back and a decent and useable way to sync with my PC.   

Fourth issue - where is my mobile data connection.   Completely lost and annoying that the extremely useful drop down menu for data connections has now gone.   The widgets for settings don't provide you direct access to the mobile data settings either - doh!  Again trawling through these pages found me the answer and it was an APN default reset that was required.  Mobile data back on.

Would it not have been possible for someone to make maybe a YouTube video to run through what may or may not happen when you update?   Or are these things totally unpredictable?   Thank heavens for the collective knowlege of the users otherwise I would be stuck fast.

Is there any chance you could get someone to take another stab at the Sync programme?   One of the best things about the Streak when I first got it was that the PC Suite just worked (I had my doubts and was so pleased to be found wrong) can we have one that 'just works' for 2.2 please!  

On the plus side - flash/swype/portrait orientation/WiFi hotspot/USB tethering

Don't get me wrong I love the Streak but it is getting increasingly difficult to fend off the 'should have got an IPhone' crowd.