ice cream sandwich bug on a500

[darthbubba]

Kudos to Mrhelper for this info, I was on a flashing rampage and beating my head against the wall until I stumbled across this thread.

My troubles with this bug started when I went away from a stock bootloader. I initially loaded v6 of Skrillax's bootloader, with v160 of Thor's TegraOwners ICS ROM. That was when I first noticed that auto-rotate no longer worked. I tried all the easy fixes, including trying to hard reset by pinhole, and the Auto-Rotate app. I then tried several different flavors of ICS, including stock rooted. I also tried v7 and v8 of Skrillax's bootloader, but in all cases, the bug was still there.
So I gave up, and decided to return to stock.

I loaded up stock 3.1, and *still* had the bug! I loaded aLogCat, and the logs were STILL full of error code 26's!! So I ran After OTA, and ran its' Back to full stock option, which reloads the stock HC bootloader and stock HC recovery. Now auto-rotate works again, But I'm back to stock 3.1 (4.010.13)

So far, no bug. But now I'm scared to go back to ICS.

I think I'm going to allow it to update via OTA to ICS, and see what happens. Now that I've done it once, I know how to go back to stock HC.

 

[Mrhelper]

Many thanks for your post, and it's great to hear that you have been able to work around this.

Kudos to Mrhelper for this info, I was on a flashing rampage and beating my head against the wall until I stumbled across this thread.

Many thanks to phlashbios also... because he's the first one I know of who was able to isolate an effective workaround to prevent the race condition. That had to require hours of methodical testing to arrive at a working bootloader combination.

I loaded up stock 3.1, and *still* had the bug! I loaded aLogCat, and the logs were STILL full of error code 26's!! So I ran After OTA, and ran its' Back to full stock option, which reloads the stock HC bootloader and stock HC recovery. Now auto-rotate works again, But I'm back to stock 3.1 (4.010.13)

So far, no bug. But now I'm scared to go back to ICS.

I think I'm going to allow it to update via OTA to ICS, and see what happens. Now that I've done it once, I know how to go back to stock HC.

It would sure be useful to a lot of people if you could write up a simple step-by-step procedure for going back to stock 3.1 as you did here.

Many people are seeing this problem, and it may take as long as several weeks to never before Acer will even identify and fix this problem with their ICS boot timing. They don't seem to want to know about problems like this, and have no apparent way to collect such information from users, so it seems unlikely that this will be resolved soon.

I'd write something up but I have not tried this yet myself, so it would be hard to hit every important detail. If you could tell them where to download the ROM, describe how/if they have to decrypt the file, which file to copy to the SD card, how to activate the recovery, etc. ... and then fill in any blanks that you feel are important based on your experience. Just a simple list of steps 1, 2, 3... I know that people can piece this together from various posts here, at XDA and various other forums, but that process can be extremely intimidating to most users who could still benefit from this, but would not be sure which procedure of many to use to reach this goal.

 

[sgleon]

I called this # 800-845-2237 (Acer) and they said my tablet was still covered, so i am sending it back.
But the tech said that people need to call about the issue, if we want Acer to work on fixing the bug.
He said that there have not been a lot of calls so far for the issue.


he also said that the fix is installing ICS (clean install).


I asked if they can post for download the OS and instructions for others that have the issue and are out of warranty can fix it them selves.
His rely again was, "you guys need to call and complain for that to happen"


Pickup the phone guys.
And thanks for everyone that helped me with all the info you guys posted.

 

[Douvie]

Apparently they have a FACEBOOK page to send info up to ACER.

I'm not on FACEBOOK.

Not a clever idea ACER how about an email address that we can blast you over that.

They must keep an eye on this forum - they'd be stupid if they did not. Maybe someone can tell them how many posts are here.

 

[darthbubba]

Many thanks for your post, and it's great to hear that you have been able to work around this. Many thanks to phlashbios also... because he's the first one I know of who was able to isolate an effective workaround to prevent the race condition. That had to require hours of methodical testing to arrive at a working bootloader combination.

Yeah, this is a pretty nasty bug to get rid of. And thank God for Titanium Backup, to get me back to a semblance of normalcy once I got a working software load on my tablet.

It would sure be useful to a lot of people if you could write up a simple step-by-step procedure for going back to stock 3.1 as you did here. Many people are seeing this problem, and it may take as long as several weeks to never before Acer will even identify and fix this problem with their ICS boot timing. They don't seem to want to know about problems like this, and have no apparent way to collect such information from users, so it seems unlikely that this will be resolved soon.

I'll get to work on that, but it'll probably be later this week before I can gather up the links and write out a how-to. It was kinda scary, but I learned a lot, and can hopefully pass on a bit of that knowledge.

I'd write something up but I have not tried this yet myself, so it would be hard to hit every important detail. If you could tell them where to download the ROM, describe how/if they have to decrypt the file, which file to copy to the SD card, how to activate the recovery, etc. ... and then fill in any blanks that you feel are important based on your experience. Just a simple list of steps 1, 2, 3... I know that people can piece this together from various posts here, at XDA and various other forums, but that process can be extremely intimidating to most users who could still benefit from this, but would not be sure which procedure of many to use to reach this goal.

I think one IMPORTANT thing to take away from this is how I *STILL* had the bug, and the error code 26s in the log, after flashing back to stock 3.1 OS (but still had a custom BootLoader, which was Skrilax's v8, IIRC) That tells me that not only Acer, but devs in the modding community need to be aware of this bug, and how to work around it. Skrilax's v8 BL is based on the latest Acer BL 0.03.14-ICS, and it caused the bug in my system.

After my initial post, I flashed up to the current version of Thor's ICS, and rotation kept working. I then crossed my fingers, and applied an older version of Skrilax's BL (v6, I believe), along with the new TWRP recovery. And my rotation continues to work normally.

 

[izza]

is the screen rotate and the games not working the same issue or is it two sensors not working?

im not sure what youre asking. well it rotates on apps. for example like words with friends it goes to portrait mode automatically and when i exit its still on portrait mode. same goes for landscape mode so it hasnt been much of a bother but yah my accelerometer does not work. so no racing games for me :c

 

[izza]

i just wanted to tell you all that my tablet has fixed itself. after giving up i jus got use to it. my tablet was also resetting itself a lot idk why. but i was playing a game and decided to reset it. i waited till the vibrate went off remembering someones post and i was so surprised it turned xD thanks a lot you guys

 

[Douvie]

i just wanted to tell you all that my tablet has fixed itself. after giving up i jus got use to it. my tablet was also resetting itself a lot idk why. but i was playing a game and decided to reset it. i waited till the vibrate went off remembering someones post and i was so surprised it turned xD thanks a lot you guys

Sometimes that works - but I don't have the bug. Everything seems to work even the racing games.

 

[iamkoza]

I did a factory reset on my A500 and the rotation problem was still there. From what I've read in this thread I either need to root and upload a custom bootloader... or just live with it since the factory reset did not fix the problem? I bought mine at costco so I may try to just get a new one since what I read on here not all units are affected by this problem (although they no longer sell them, so not sure how getting a new one would work)? Thoughts? thanks.

edit: I went back to acer chat support and they told me to send the unit in for repair... with my luck they get it, start it up and the auto-rotate will work fine and it will all just be a waste of time

 

[Mrhelper]

The hardware reset (pinhole button) clears the condition on my a500. It returns intermittently, but the pinhole reset has cleared it every time I have used it. I just thought I'd mention that detail in case you missed it. It works for some, but not all.

Some Acer support techs are now telling some people that they are aware of the bug. They apparently recognize there is a problem for some units that was triggered by the ICS update.

I've also seen where more people are getting this problem repaired by sending it in. I suggest you provide clear written instructions about the problem when you return it, to improve your chances of getting a good solution.

Update: Another glimmer of hope from a new ICS ROM (1.054.00, to replace 1.041.00) that was leaked around July 6th: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1785279. This apparently fixes the sensor problem as reported by cryptonym, and I thank him for the tip.

The stock leak of 1.054.00 (rooted): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1633907

 

[iamkoza]

The pinhole reset does not fix autorotate for me. I am finally sending it in to ACER today since my one year warranty expires in a few days. I'll report back in a few weeks if ACER sends it back to me and it is actually fixed... if ACER can't fix it I will probably just take it back to costco... we thought about doing that first instead of running through acer since we would probably get our money back from costco.... but other than autorotate we are quite happy with the a500, and a new tablet would require us to buy a new case and new spare charging cable... so we are hoping ACER fixes it.

edit: read this thread http://www.acertabletforum.com/forum/acer-iconia-tab-a500-help/ the OP describes the return process and what they do on page 2 of the thread, seems simple enough, when I get my a500 back, I'm expecting to have 1.054 installed and that my tablet will autorotate again!

 

[iamkoza]

The pinhole reset does not fix autorotate for me. I am finally sending it in to ACER today since my one year warranty expires in a few days. I'll report back in a few weeks if ACER sends it back to me and it is actually fixed... if ACER can't fix it I will probably just take it back to costco... we thought about doing that first instead of running through acer since we would probably get our money back from costco.... but other than autorotate we are quite happy with the a500, and a new tablet would require us to buy a new case and new spare charging cable... so we are hoping ACER fixes it.

edit: read this thread Acer Iconia Tab A500 Help the OP describes the return process and what they do on page 2 of the thread, seems simple enough, when I get my a500 back, I'm expecting to have 1.054 installed and that my tablet will autorotate again!

welll... I'm none too happy, I got my tablet back.... and the repair notes say replaced the mainboard.... and everything seemed to be working fine, until I noticed android 3.2.1 was installed... so I update to 4.0.3... and sure enough, no autorotate.... WTF, I was cyrstal clear and even included a written note explaining my problem... but they supposedly replaced the mainboard and then didn't bother re-installing 4.0.3 to see if it worked or not... I got the same 1.033 versiont hat has been causing problems... I can't believe it.... I knew I should have just accepted the fact that I couldn't get ICS.. but I figured the mainboard fix or whatever they did was a proper fix.

 

[Mrhelper]

What a pain! I would call them back soon. I've seen several posts now where users state that when they call Acer back with the same problem after using the mail-in service, that Acer then pays all subsequent shipping costs both ways when they have failed to repair the unit on the first attempt. It's still an inconvenience, but they do appear to resolve more problems on the second try when this happens.

 

[iamkoza]

What a pain! I would call them back soon. I've seen several posts now where users state that when they call Acer back with the same problem after using the mail-in service, that Acer then pays all subsequent shipping costs both ways when they have failed to repair the unit on the first attempt. It's still an inconvenience, but they do appear to resolve more problems on the second try when this happens.

I'm going to root, install unlocked bootloaders and custom recovery... then try the 1.054 rom... if that doesn't fix it, I'm going to take it back to Costco to see if I can use their 2nd year warranty to either get a new one or get cash which can be used towards a new tablet. Or I can possibly unroot and send it back to acer... (I sent it in 3 days before warranty expired as I had been waiting for OTA fix...). Thanks for the tip on them actually following through and fixing things the second time... I may try that route

 

[iamkoza]

I was able to root my tablet but I could not flash new bootloaders as several excellent GUI tools simply would not work with my tablet.... I'd get tot he point where it is about to flash the bootloaders and the tablet just disappears from the computer and the process stalls. Tried two different computers too...

so finally I am giving ACER a second try. hopefully better luck this time, I'll find out in 2 weeks when I get the tablet back. This time the tech assured me they will re-update the tablet back to 4.0.3 to test it.... a novel idea it is to properly troubleshoot an ICS problem... make sure the system is on ICS... LOL