FM Radio not working on /e/ OS?

/e/ OS doesn’t come with F-Droid installed, but you can install it (and SpiritF) from their app store.

What has to be enabled in the OS in order to make the radio work? Isn’t it purely a hardware issue, isn’t the functionality inherent to stock Android?

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For some reason, Teracube made changes to the firmware, and chose not to release it as a new model. There is a thread on their forums that explains the matter. They are working on it, so hopefully it can be rooted soon,

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I misspoke (misstyped). If /e/ OS removed FM radio functionality by accident or design would have been a better statement. Or the possibility that they never really considered it, therefore didn’t test it to see if their build works with it. I’ve known ROM developers to do this on older phones (like my now dead Honor 5x), not even consider FM radio functionality unless a lot of people complain about it not being available.

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I just want to check in with @Sharad about this. Now that there’s an /e/ build for the 2nd batch Teracube 2e, doesn’t that mean that you could do a Magisk root of the phone? To my (admittedly limited) understanding, Magisk works by editing the “boot.img” file found in whatever OS file you have installed. Because the Murena Teracube 2e already has the bootloader unlocked and the /e/ recovery installed, shouldin’t it just work to follow the generic instructions here?

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Hey, so this is just my 2 cents on the FM Radio issue:

You require a proprietary MediaTek Java Native Interface (JNI) in order to actually connect/interact with the FM radio hardware, and that does not automatically “register” on AOSP which is what /e/ and Lineage use as its base. These can be manually added to AOSP, and what we did internally was to remove such classes that were of no use, but then the entire registration functionality didn’t work at all.
On the unified firmware (11.0.0-11.0.2 for zirconia) we faced the same issue, but then we ported over the interfaces and libraries required successfully, and STILL did not get FM radio working. Turns out, MediaTek requires a few routing quirks to the audio output devices and we didn’t have those hooks.
We then used this patchset https://review.lineageos.org/q/topic:eleven-mtk-fm and got it working on unified. This, in the same way, will be shimmed out and ported to AOSP very soon.

About @ecs 's question, yes you can root with the boot image method.

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I just posted the steps I used to root my Murena Teracube 2e (1st batch). If you decide to give the instructions a try with the 2nd batch phone, let me know if it works, or if you need any help.

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I will give this a try. I will first see if I get a response in another thread, asking if it has been done already

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I am also missing a lot FM radio! Internet radio disconnects all the time, my browser eventually stops the music, it drains a lot of battery… And on the other hand FM is so simple and lightweight! It’s a lot more resilient and ecological, and local!

Please keep up your efforts on this :smiley:

Btw @Gagan , is there any progress or blocker on this? What does “very soon” mean? Thanks!

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Hi! It’s been a couple of updates more, is anybody working on FM Radio? I am really missing this feature. Looking for the equivalent online radio is slow and buggy, and consumes so much more energy…
Just to know if I should keep some hope for this or assume we won’t have it :confused:

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I’ll check internally. Expect a reply here in 2 weeks’ time (primarily due to holidays).

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cat

any updates?

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tumblr_n0anroY2bA1rdu90go3_500

I’m using one of these. I wish I could also use my Teracube for that :confused:

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Have you tried the FM Radio APK someone extracted and shared?

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I just did it, thank you!
However, it crashes with

05-15 21:07:54.469 10216 10216 W System.err: java.lang.NoSuchFieldException: No field sHasPermanentMenuKey in class Landroid/view/ViewConfiguration; (declaration of 'android.view.ViewConfiguration' appears in /system/framework/framework.jar!classes3.dex)

and

05-15 21:07:54.558 10216 10216 E AndroidRuntime: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: dlopen failed: library "/system/system_ext/lib64/libfmjni.so" needed or dlopened by "/apex/com.android.art/lib64/libnativeloader.so" is not accessible for the namespace "classloader-namespace"

Something missing…

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What version of /e/OS are you on?

I was using the last version back then, and I am now using the current last version too, 1.15.
I think that I need to flash that native library, as the app keeps crashing, but I don’t know why it isn’t packed and don’t want to make experiments without proper advice.

PS: i totally missed your same day reply, I hope it’s ok to retake this to you.

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oh, I see now, I wasn’t “tracking” the topic and you didn’t reply nor mention me, @Saijin_Naib :slight_smile:

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Hi, one teracube 2e owner here too, with e/OS. Is anybody working on this? Is it in any to-do list? It’s been one year and a half and many releases since that “very soon”.

If you are not making fm radio into this supposedly eco and free-libre smartphone please just say it, the inactivity here already suggests it.

And of course, if I can be of any help, please say it.

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I’ve upstreamed the request to Sharad and the Dev Team, and they are looking into it, but the available information has not changed at this point.

They are looking into it, and are aware that it is a wanted feature, but there is not currently a timetable other than hopefully soon.

Other tasks have taken priority, which understandably has lead to some frustration around this issue.

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