BLU Life One (2015) & Lollipop

[rchang24]

Has anyone had a good upgrade to 5.0.2?

Finally got my notice to upgrade. We have a couple of reports of bad upgrades. Any good news from anyone?

 

[Robert Whitley]

I updated it yesterday and no issues so far.. I am on Tracfone BYOP and it changed the APN settings.. I was able to put in correct ones and get it all working.. some things in Lollipop that I am not fond of, but overall I am happy so far..

 

[rchang24]

I updated it yesterday and no issues so far.. I am on Tracfone BYOP and it changed the APN settings.. I was able to put in correct ones and get it all working.. some things in Lollipop that I am not fond of, but overall I am happy so far..

I am on Tracfone as well, not that it should make a difference. So, you don't have the storage problem reported by others? Where your internal storage gets used up and doesn't come back if you delete an app?

I'm waiting for Lollipopnto give external SD card access to apps.

 

[Robert Whitley]

there is a setting for where you want apps installed.. three choices, phone, sd card, or let app decide..

 

[rchang24]

there is a setting for where you want apps installed.. three choices, phone, sd card, or let app decide..

Okay. I know this setting on KitKat --- I didn't know if it existed in Lollipop.

Does tethering to tethering still work?

 

[Robert Whitley]

Not sure if it works, but there is a setting for tethering and mobile hot spots..

 

[rchang24]

Not sure if it works, but there is a setting for tethering and mobile hot spots..

If you turn it on, does it tell you to go away because you don't have this feature in your plan? I can tether on mine in KitKat (also on TF).

 

[Robert Whitley]

It works as a wifi hotspot and I was able to tether via Bluetooth also.. I could not check the usb cable tethering as I don't have a cable that would work..

 

[Robert Whitley]

There is one issue I still have not fixed.. I am unable to get pictures to save to the sd card.. I have been able to set music to use the sd card, but nothing else.. I am going to try a different card later today..

 

[Robert Whitley]

There is one issue I still have not fixed.. I am unable to get pictures to save to the sd card.. I have been able to set music to use the sd card, but nothing else.. I am going to try a different card later today..

tried a different sd card and same thing.. will try and complete reset later today.. If that doesn't work, will just have to forget about it..

 

[Robert Whitley]

tried a different sd card and same thing.. will try and complete reset later today.. If that doesn't work, will just have to forget about it..

did not do any good.. still can't set camera to store to sd card.. oh well.. not a big deal..

on another thing, I checked the memory thing that has been reported.. I deleted some apps and free memory went up as it should.. Funny thing is when I check memory, it shows everything under internal memory, even things like music that I loaded on the sd card.. I may try to load some more music in order to get it over the internal memory capacity and see what it shows then..

 

[Robert Whitley]

did not do any good.. still can't set camera to store to sd card.. oh well.. not a big deal..

on another thing, I checked the memory thing that has been reported.. I deleted some apps and free memory went up as it should.. Funny thing is when I check memory, it shows everything under internal memory, even things like music that I loaded on the sd card.. I may try to load some more music in order to get it over the internal memory capacity and see what it shows then..

I loaded some more music and it reports correctly.. On internal storage it breaks it down into catagories, but external storage just shows space used..
I got a message on Blu's facebook page to send a message to Blu support re the inability to determine default location where things are stored.. Be interesting to see what they say, if anything..

 

[rchang24]

I took the plunge and upgraded to 5.0.2.

The installation went fine. I did not have the problem where the internal storage is permanently taken up by apps. If I delete a big app, I get the storage back. It is true that many fewer of my apps can be moved to the SD card, but I did not have any problems moving the ones that can be moved. When I moved all of them, the free space on my internal storage did increase --- just not by as much as I would expect from KitKat. One issue is that after moving an app to the SD card, its total storage can actually go up. I read somewhere that even after you move an app to the SD card, it still takes up some space in the internal storage. For small apps, it might not save any storage to move it to the external SD card.

The stock camera app cannot store photos on the SD card. I found one app that can do this: Snap Camera HDR. There are probably others. But even in this case it does not store the photos in DCIM. It has to store the photos in the Android/media/com.marginz.snap subdirectory.

Generally, managing the SD card is a big problem. Android 5.0 is supposed to have a mechanism whereby the user can grant permission to individual apps write access to specific directories of the external SD card. For example, I want ES File Explorer to have full access, and Rocket Player to be able to write to Music. When I go thru the steps for ES File Explorer, there is supposed to be a menu item that says "Show SD Card". This menu item does not appear. So, I cannot select a directory to grant ES File Explorer permission. This bug has been reported many times. I cannot post links yet, but if you google "issue 94083 android 5.0", you will see the problem.

This is a shame because most things are working fine. But this bug renders the external SD card nearly useless and the internal 8GB of storage is not much to work with!

 

[Robert Whitley]

The ability to save camera pics to the sd card would be nice, but I can live without it.. I got a follow up from Blu that they are working on several issues.. I also noticed that battery life does not seem to be as good as it was with KK, but that might be due to me playing with it a lot.. I will update if I hear from Blu on any of the issues..

 

[rchang24]

The ability to save camera pics to the sd card would be nice, but I can live without it.. I got a follow up from Blu that they are working on several issues.. I also noticed that battery life does not seem to be as good as it was with KK, but that might be due to me playing with it a lot.. I will update if I hear from Blu on any of the issues..

Have you tried Snap Camera HDR? It does save photos to the SD card.

I just posted a bug report to BLU as well.

 

[rchang24]

Usability note: the File Manager that comes with the system upgrade is able to move and delete files & folders from the SD card. It does not have the same features as ES File Manager, but at least you can move your files around without connecting to the computer!

Also, the upgrade comes with two photo galleries: Gallery and Snap Gallery. Both can delete photos from DCIM. Snap Gallery looks like you could uninstall it. I wonder what would happen if you deleted Snap Gallery and reinstalled it? Would it still have permission to write on the SD card?

Edit: I was mistaken. Snap Gallery must have come with Snap Camera HDR (duh!). I confirmed that it can delete photos from the DCIM directory on the SD card. Then why can't Snap Camera store photos there???

 

[rchang24]

Update: unable to send picture MMS using the system's Messages app. I can send them using other apps, so not a phone configuration problem. (Yes, I'm sure they were sent through the carrier and not thru the internet.)

 

[Robert Whitley]

I was able to send picture messages.. My only issue now is the battery life seems to be worse in lollipop then it was in KK..

 

[scarolina1387]

My MMS messages won't sent either. Have yall found a fix for this? I have no problems getting online, it's just the messages. And it's driving me insane!

 

[rchang24]

I can send MMS if I use the Hangouts app (to send regular MMS not Hangouts MMS).

Messaging+ 6 also worked.