Android 3.2.1 Rolls Out for Acer Iconia Tab A500

[Icebike]

Well, after both updates I can say the wifi dropout is less but not totally gone. It was dropping out every 20 seconds or so but now every couple of minutes.

On your wifi router, try setting the DHCP lease time to 1 day.

Many Android devices have a problem with "forever" leases.

Leases are supposed to expire, DHCP was designed to work that way, and there is no downside to having lease times as short as an hour.

 

[Icebike]

OK, I'm having issues w/ app updates. When I try to install an update, the tablet tell me the app is already installed and gets stuck in a loop, even pushing STOP does nothing.

Anyone else have this issue? Any advice on fixing it?

Just get out of the loop by what ever means necessary and don't check for app updates for a while.
Go into Settings Applications, Find Market, Force Stop, Clear data, Clear cache.

Next time you start the market you will have to log in again, but everything else will be normal.

 

[Icebike]

ICEBIKE:
Were you rooted in regular 3.2? If so, how did you get the update to install?

I'm running a rooted, but 100% stock 3.2 and the update won't install for me. I have all the bloatware installed and have done all the typical "I can't get the OTA update to install" fixes. I think the problem is my rom may be slightly different than stock due to however it was rooted (it was a prerooted ROM that I flashed; I did not root after installing the ROM). I say this because the update log says something about my kernel not being the same size as what it should be.

Also, if you were rooted, did it keep after the update?

Sent from my A500 using Android Tablet Forum

Spex..:

You contradicted yourself.

You say you are stock, then you say it was a pre-rooted rom. It can't be both.
You are not running the stock rom, so the OTA is not going to install.

You have to wait till someone pushes Acer_A500_7.014.02_COM _GEN2 to one of
the download sites. And you may lose root when you apply it.

I'm not rooted. I won't root till after ICS comes out, which is rumored to be sometime
in January/February. So for me; not worth the trouble to root.

 

[spexwood]

Spex..:

You contradicted yourself.

You say you are stock, then you say it was a pre-rooted rom. It can't be both.
You are not running the stock rom, so the OTA is not going to install.

You have to wait till someone pushes Acer_A500_7.014.02_COM _GEN2 to one of
the download sites. And you may lose root when you apply it.

I'm not rooted. I won't root till after ICS comes out, which is rumored to be sometime
in January/February. So for me; not worth the trouble to root.

I didn't know I was contradicting myself :/
To my understanding, stock meant that it wasn't a modified ROM like Cyanogenmod or any other custom ROM. I didn't think that rooting changed a ROM from stock to not stock. The ROM I installed though was 100% "stock" + root (all bloatware and the same exact files that would have come with the OTA... except root added). I kind of figured that that was why the update wouldn't go through for me. Like I said too, the error log mentioned something about the ROM sizes not matching.
I just hope that I can get a 3.2.1 rooted stock ROM OR decrypt the OTA update, root it, then flash it (I have the OTA update's zip file, but just need to decrypt it and figure out how to push root to it.... not sure if the newly-discovered 3.2 methods will work though).


Sent from my A500 using Android Tablet Forum

 

[Icebike]

Error log mentioned rom sizes not matching.

Exactly.

When they push an OTA update, it check-sums and byte counts the existing rom, and uses that to determine if it is stock and it it matched to the updates they are going to apply.

They have to do this because the updates that came are not complete replacements, but rather location specific patches, insertions, replacements that are targeted at specific locations and lengths in the existing rom. ANY deviation is enough to prevent applying the patch for fear of bricking the tablet.

Its not this sensitive when a full replacement is sent OTA, but this update was only like 8.8meg, far less than the 400(ish) meg full replacement.

So maybe you still get ICS when it comes out, but these incremental little patches are much more fussy.

 

[Shelleyr25]

got both in NJ, scary screen and all

 

[spexwood]

Error log mentioned rom sizes not matching.

Exactly.

When they push an OTA update, it check-sums and byte counts the existing rom, and uses that to determine if it is stock and it it matched to the updates they are going to apply.

They have to do this because the updates that came are not complete replacements, but rather location specific patches, insertions, replacements that are targeted at specific locations and lengths in the existing rom. ANY deviation is enough to prevent applying the patch for fear of bricking the tablet.

Its not this sensitive when a full replacement is sent OTA, but this update was only like 8.8meg, far less than the 400(ish) meg full replacement.

So maybe you still get ICS when it comes out, but these incremental little patches are much more fussy.

Makes sense. Thanks for that info.


Sent from my A500 using Android Tablet Forum

 

[Greg_E]

So I saw this pop up today and told it to remind me later... Anything that breaks (like an Archos update) or does this pretty much all work after the updates? I'd like to root mine to remove a bunch of the junk but want to wait until at least 4.x arrives (if it arrives). The only thing that I'm not happy with is the stock music player, it never found all my music (though Winamp does) and the EQ is very much off through line out or BT out and I can't find a way to correct it. Also the BT remote control triggers both Winamp and the built in music app, need to figure this one out but since it sounds bad not a big deal right now.

 

[frnkws]

So I saw this pop up today and told it to remind me later... Anything that breaks (like an Archos update) or does this pretty much all work after the updates? I'd like to root mine to remove a bunch of the junk but want to wait until at least 4.x arrives (if it arrives). The only thing that I'm not happy with is the stock music player, it never found all my music (though Winamp does) and the EQ is very much off through line out or BT out and I can't find a way to correct it. Also the BT remote control triggers both Winamp and the built in music app, need to figure this one out but since it sounds bad not a big deal right now.

I have 2 Archos products and the only problem I had was the USB failure on the 101.
People complained it was software related since they noticed it after doing an update.
I bought the Acer because I could not trust the USB on the Archos.
None of my Acer port have failed.
I'd rather have an update bug than a failed port.
Unless you want to pay twice as much you are probably going to get a product with some sort of bug or failure.
I still get wifi dropout the update was suppose to fix. It is not as bad but still happens.
If I use static mode it works fine.

 

[gerryex]

Jut got mu update to 3.2.1 this evening
. . .
The first brought me to Acer_A500_7.014.01_COM _GEN2,
the second brought me to Acer_A500_7.014.02_COM _GEN2

After the second upload My Microphone was back to its old horrible status. AARRRGGGAHHH!
First they fix it, then they break it again.

Hi Icebike,

I just got both the updates - the first and then the second one with the scary notice. Once it came back up I tried the built-in mic with the recorder app. The first thing I noticed is that the meter moved quite a bit more then it use to and then when I played it back while not real loud nor real clear, it was definitely better than before the updates.

Then I tried the voice test on Skype, first with the built-in mic. And while it had a fair amound of background noise (I have a vinyl case on the tablet and that may be blocking the other noise canceling mic in the back) it was definitely louder than before the updates. Then I tried a headset with mic and I was pleasently surprised that the playback from Skype was reasonably loud and quite clear. This was how I remembered it was when I first got the headset and mic. So it seems to me that they did do something with the mic volume, but it would still be better if they let the user adjust its volume.

Gerry

 

[Greg_E]

OK, the last update to my a43 broke music playback over bluetooth and made the device so sluggish I couldn't use it. I've never tried USB on it so I don't know if it ever worked. I ended up having to go back as far as it would allow me to go, and still not happy.


Since I haven't read any negatives I'll give this a try and see if it wrecks anything.

 

[cb2000a]

Update seems to make wifi better and faster...

 

[Icebike]

OK, the last update to my a43 broke music playback over bluetooth and made the device so sluggish I couldn't use it. I've never tried USB on it so I don't know if it ever worked. I ended up having to go back as far as it would allow me to go, and still not happy.


Since I haven't read any negatives I'll give this a try and see if it wrecks anything.

What is an A43?

There are no reports of these OTA updates (there are two) causing any problems for un-rooted devices so just go for it.

 

[Greg_E]

Archos A43it "tablet" notorious for breaking things with updates including possible GPU death since they decided to overclock it in one of the updates. I think mine might be one of the dead GPU devices because it just doesn't work as smoothly as it once did.

I haven't really used my a500 since the update so hard to tell if anything is odd, seems OK so far.

 

[Icebike]

Ok, so totally non germane then. Archos != Acer.