8 replies to this topic

[vformrh]

Hi all,

I have just a brief history of my phone, and call it a dinosaur, but in 3 months, I will have owned my Nexus One for 2 years.
This past spring, I had updated my radio and flashed the phone's ROM so I could play with CM 7.0.0.

Everything has worked well and reliably on the phone since then; only exception being a nagging Bluetooth issue.

The phone pairs fine to either my bluetooth headset, or my in-car bluetooth. Once in a blue moon, the calls go through properly without audio distortion. More often than not though, when I connect the phone up to any bluetooth device and place a call, the person on the other end complains of static and audio interference.

I haven't managed to iron out exactly what is causing this on my end, I've tried swapping batteries, charging the batteries to full, even connecting the phone to my car charger then placing a call. All situations typically lead to this mysterious static on my end (by the way, the listening party usually can only make out 10% of my voice). Also to clarify, I can hear the person I am calling just fine... so the incoming audio over bluetooth works great. It only seems to be my outgoing audio over the phone's bluetooth connection.

If I flip the bluetooth off and go back to either standard phone speaker or speakerphone, there is no static. But once I flip the bluetooth back on, the static resurfaces on my signal. I've tried a few family member's phones on both my in-car bluetooth as well as the bluetooth headset to try to narrow things down; and those phones work fine with the said devices.

I have an Otterbox Commuter case which I use on my phone: http://www.otterbox....default,pd.html , but I do not think this is the issue, as the problem still persists even if I'm using the phone without the case.

I have had 2 or 3 drops at work with the phone, where the phone fell from about waist high onto the ground. But never did it once fall without the Otterbox on it. No physical damage has occurred to the phone.

With all of the above info given, what could be causing this audio static over the bluetooth connection? Could it be a hardware issue on my old phone?
Another thing I am gearing up to do is upgrading my phone to the latest version of CM 7.1 stable. I'm just curious if the newer CM version might remedy the issue.

Has anyone else come across this, or have a suggestion for me?

Thanks for your input,

- vform

[bassmadrigal]

I know there have been some fixes with bluetooth over the course of development, but this seems to be a constant problematic thing for CM. Some people have problems and others don't. I personally don't use bluetooth, but in the few times I used it with the car dock, it seemed to work fine.

Give 7.1 a chance and see if it is fixed. You should be able to upgrade without wiping the phone. Just flash it over the old install.

[vformrh]

Thank you very much for your expertise, bassmadrigal.

I most definitely will flash up to CM 7.1, but I saw some posts (some of yours too ironically, lol) that mentioned that ClockworkMod 3.x puts your SD card data at risk. Is this true? I have a 16GB microSD card currently installed, with most of my apps and app data on it. And if so, would Amon-RA be the safer bet for me to get up to 7.1 ?

And with regard to the other topic you replied to me in, I will also try the radio downgrade to 5.08. Thanks! I'll let you know how things go...

[bassmadrigal]

So far, any ClockworkMod version 3 and above has been known to occasionally cause corruption on the ext partition, but only if you created the ext partition with one of those versions. Just running one of those versions won't cause the corruption. But if you are using an ext partition, I recommend staying away from it. You can either use Amon_RA (which doesn't have an option to wipe the /system partition) or any clockworkmod in the v2.5.x series. I think the latest is v2.5.1.4. I am still running clockworkmod because of the option to wipe /system (which can be done through Amon_RA with a flashable zip). If you did create an ext partition with v3 or v5, simply switching to another recovery won't prevent the corruption, you have to repartition the card with a different recovery (or in the computer if your computer/partitioning software can handle ext partitions).

[samarium]

I use CWM 2.5.1.4 and radio 4.06, and dont have problems with CWM or BT, but I only use BT for A2DP and OBEX as the BT on my Sony head unit in the car is unusably full of feedback, so I have the headset profile disabled for the car in BT settings.

[vformrh]

Sorry guys, been having to take the process in baby steps, since I had to go back to work Monday, and haven't gotten much time to mess with the phone since last night.
I tried to use CWMR to downgrade my radio to v.5.08 after getting into the recovery. I was unable to do so though, because of an error saying Amend scripts were no longer supported, and to use Edify.

Have you guys come across this before?

[bassmadrigal]

You need to downgrade your recovery to something below v3 (I think the latest 2.x version is 2.5.1.4) or switch to Amon_RA.

You other option (if your bootloader is unlocked) is to flash it through fastboot. This is actually the recommended way as it is the least likely to brick your phone).

[vformrh]

Sorry for the crazy long delay... the approaching (and past) holidays have been keeping me busy, but I thought it was necessary to come back and say THANK YOU!

Bassmadrigal, first of all, you were correct on using the 2.x version of recovery. Worked like a charm, and I was able to move forward with the radio downgrade.

So I did downgrade the phone onto the older 5.08 radio. But sadly, it did not fix my Bluetooth quality inconsistencies. Also, I do not notice much of a difference in signal/reception from it and the previous 5.12 radio which I had... However I am going to sit tight with the 5.08 radio for now, unless I run into any major issues (and if I do, you'll probably hear from me again, lol). The phone is working good though from phone-service provider perspective.

The last thing I tried, which was about 3 weeks ago now (sorry again for not checking back sooner), was flashing up to CM 7.1. I must say, I did not expect the issue to resolve itself, but I have been using the bluetooth constantly since then, and nobody has been complaining about my audio quality since! I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have the bluetooth calling audio working consistently again, thank you for your help guys! I was even able to toy around with the bluetooth music/audio a bit, which seems to be working properly as well.

So I guess the only thing left to ask is.... when my contract is up in February, which new CM-supported Android phone should I purchase? ;-)

I appreciate the feedback Bassmadrigal and samarium.

Cheers, and Happy Holidays all!

- vform

[bassmadrigal]

February is too far away to know for sure, but the Galaxy Nexus is probably one of the better choices right now.

And I am glad you got everything working