Question Troubles with Nokia T21 after latest security patch from June 2024

[krumplycelloids]

It started with the notification area glitching out on me while I was watching videos online when I realized the tiles in the quick settings area were for some reason starting to overlap each other and more commonly peek out from under the media player box, sliding down on the screen, makes them slide out from under the media player and head back to their place when the normal behavior of this should be them disappearing until the notification center is fully expanded.

I thought this might've been because of me, because I don't like updating my devices all that often for reasons such as this, because in my experience they always tend to introduce more bugs and issues than fix anything, but I thought maybe it would be different this time. The device is running Android 13 and has been since it received the big A13 update in april, and since then, I haven't updated, been rather satisfied with the low but albeit acceptable performance of this cheap tablet. I didn't notice this bug before, it just kind of appeared at one point, and after updating last night, it all began to snowball, and now I'm noticing more and more bugs all over the place and issues. There's quite a few, so i'm just going to list them, because i don't know if these are current android bugs or if there's something truly wrong with the latest Nokia T21 update, it's not a particularly popular tablet either, so I don't even know where to report this, HMD support has been completely useless and only suggested giving it a factory reset, meaning there's nothing to do besides nuke the entire thing, which i'd rather not, as I have lots of side loaded apps and general data that would be a pain to backup at a moment's notice. The current build number of my tablet is: 00WW_2_470_SP01

I have attached what the quick settings bug looks like as well as the scaling bug.

The issues i'm currently having:

• Quick settings tiles overlapping, not respecting their places only while the media player is active, it doesn't matter which app is providing said media, it happens with all of them.
• The scaling issues seem to be messed up in some way, making the lock screen clock appear bigger if I mess up with the display scaling in any way and even if i return it back to default, the lock screen clock will remain massive until a reboot is performed.
• Wallpapers on both lock and home screen seem to be way too zoomed in and otherwise do not respect the position which i'm giving them when initially setting up the wallpaper, I have tried even cropping the image to the exact screen dimensions of my tablet (1200x2000) and this still happens.
• The overall volume seems to be incredibly loud, even while on the absolute lowest setting by just pressing the volume button once from mute, sliding the volume bar with my finger doesn't work, seems like it absolutely refuses to go below the first setting. It was not this loud before the last update, which was released sometime in June 2024, I can guarantee it was a lot more comfortable placing the tablet somewhere and watching something on the lowest volume setting and being pretty comfortable, now it's impossible with how loud it is. Even worse, this applies to the headphones as well, making listening to anything really difficult with how loud it is on the minimum setting. Music is impossible to listen to, especially anything that's quieter by genre.
• App icons sometimes seem to be unresponsive unless i drag the notification center down and back up on the home screen.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Do all of these issues persist in Safe Mode? https://www.hardreset.info/devices/nokia/nokia-t21/safe-mode/

 

[krumplycelloids]

Just tried safe mode, and the volume problem likewise the notification quick settings tiles retain that glitch. Forgot to mention, but the glitch goes away temporarily if i rotate the tablet in portrait mode while the notification center is pulled down and then rotate the tablet back to landscape, the tiles will look okay again, but if i say choose another video and look at the notification center, they're glitched again. I can deal with the tile bug sort of, i'm hoping it's just the update that messed those up, but the volume is now my biggest priority, because I cannot listen or play anything anymore on just the tablet's speakers, I am forced to use headphones, otherwise it's simply too uncomfortably loud and don't want to disturb others around me in the home because of how loud it is on the lowest volume setting.

I tried a workaround with an equalizer app and turned down all the frequencies to the minimum which helps a bit, but it's still a messy work around and takes precious cpu cycles away which are important to me when playing games.

 

[B. Diddy]

It sounds like a buggy update, which would be on Nokia's side (not Google's). When you contacted support, was it through here? https://www.hmd.com/en_us/support/nokia-t21-user-guide/update-software.

They may not be able to offer much of a fix right now, but at least you can report all of those bugs, and hopefully they'll investigate and push out a patch in the near future that fixes them.

Sometimes a factory reset is necessary, since I don't think a cache partition wipe is possible on that device.

 

[krumplycelloids]

I contacted them through live chat where the representative told me there wasn't anything else they could do, which i was very disappointed with, because i'd like at least to know if this is indeed a bug with the update or something is acting up on my side. I already sent them a mail, hoping that one goes through more appropriate/higher channels. Besides that chat and mail, they seem to have absolutely no other way of reporting bugs like this, the 'My device' app that came with the tablet doesn't even work right, there's no manual, no FAQ, nothing in there, the live chat in the app likewise doesn't work, after you send a message, it just gives you an error, leaving me no choice but to do it from their site. It worked when nokia still took care of the tablet and brand, after they changed it all to HMD, the app just broke, not that it was useful to begin with, but probably a telling sign of HMD's business.

I opened a thread on google community support too, but I doubt i'll get anything from there.

 

[B. Diddy]

Ugh -- sorry to hear about that poor support. At least you were able to reach someone, but that still seems fairly useless. It's unfortunately not that surprising to have this kind of experience (both the bugs and the poor support) from a budget brand like Nokia. You could check the forums at XDA-Developers.com to see if there's a way to flash the previous non-buggy firmware.

 

[krumplycelloids]

I have zero experience when it comes to flashing or modding android in general. I'm assuming there's no way of doing it without wiping the entire tablet? I did find a page that hosts the OTA updates for nokia devices which includes the original A13 update which worked best for me, but i'm assuming i can't just directly flash that now? I'll link it, because I don't know otherwise if it's even the right files for it. https://t.me/s/nokiarepoen This to me seems like just the update files, so I don't know if i can just downgrade immediately from here.

 

[B. Diddy]

I don't have any experience with flashing, and the process can be different between manufacturers. I think the device would need to be wiped, but I can't say for sure. The listing in that site for the T21 did have a link with instructions: https://telegra.ph/How-to-manually-install-the-updates-07-20

 

[krumplycelloids]

HMD support finally replied back, and though i have asked them nicely if it's possible to forward this to another department, seems like they really just want me to wipe it, despite this update itself possibly being bugged, even if I do factory reset it, if i let it update fully again, it'll eventually land back on the bugged update.

I took a look through the logcat via webadb out of curiosity, and i'm unsure if this is normal, but the number for the suggestedstream is obscenely high, maybe it's a clue? I'm not a programmer, but I really don't want this to turn into having to factory reset it. If so, is there a way of doing a backup of everything on it, including the data and all side loaded apps? Would copying the android> data and obb folders be enough to save all my settings and data for every app if i paste them back after a factory reset? I hope this shows something, otherwise i'm not sure, maybe i'm hunting for something that can't be found this way

2024-07-17T18:33:16.000Z14091409 Warnvol.EventswriteEvent show_dialog volume_changed keyguard=false
2024-07-17T18:33:16.000Z10752473 InfoAS.AudioServiceVolume controller visible: true
2024-07-17T18:33:16.000Z10752473 InfoMediaSessionServicedispatchVolumeKeyEvent, pkg=com.android.launcher3, opPkg=com.android.launcher3, pid=1704, uid=10148, asSystem=true, event=KeyEvent { action=ACTION_DOWN, keyCode=KEYCODE_VOLUME_DOWN, scanCode=114, metaState=0, flags=0x8, repeatCount=36, eventTime=1739976417178, downTime=1737794543000, deviceId=2, source=0x101, displayId=-1 }, stream=-2147483648, musicOnly=false
2024-07-17T18:33:16.000Z10752473 InfoMediaSessionServiceAdjusting suggestedStream=-2147483648 by -1. flags=4113, preferSuggestedStream=false, session=null
2024-07-17T18:33:16.000Z10751075 InfoAS.AudioServiceadjustSuggestedStreamVolume() stream=-2147483648, flags=4113, caller=android, volControlStream=3, userSelect=false
2024-07-17T18:33:16.000Z10751075 VerboseAS.AudioServicegetActiveStreamType: Forcing DEFAULT_VOL_STREAM_NO_PLAYBACK(3) b/c default
2024-07-17T18:33:16.000Z10751075 InfoAS.AudioServiceadjustStreamVolume() stream=3, dir=-1, flags=4113, caller=android
2024-07-17T18:33:16.000Z14091747InfoKeyguardSubsidyControllernot Support SubsidyLock

 

[B. Diddy]

Sorry, that would be far beyond my scope of knowledge. Hopefully someone else might be able to weigh in, but that tablet isn't very common, so I'd say the chances are fairly low.