Cyanogenmod Epic 4G

Latest Builds for Epic 4G

2013-03-24T02:17:00.001-07:00

http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/cyanogenmod-10-1-m2-release
Get CM10.1-M2 official from CyanogenMod.

https://plus.google.com/114278817778674561147/posts
Best place to discuss is the EpicCM Google+ page.

Epic 4G News

2013-02-07T18:17:00.003-08:00

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2046033
The latest recommended CM10.1 preview builds and instructions are in this thread.

It is amazing that Epic 4G is still among the top 10 Android devices according to this February 2013 chart by Localytics.

CM9 Stable for Epic 4G

2012-08-20T00:22:00.003-07:00

CM9 stable for Epic 4G was released a while ago at Cyanogenmod. Get the latest stable build from get.cm. The install instructions in our CM9 Install Guide still apply.

Update 12/21/2012: CM10.1 Preview for Epic 4G.

Update 9/29/2012: If you are running CM10, you will need the temporary FC09 utility v4 in order to update Profile and PRL. Thanks to mkasick and bbelos for fixing it!

The same team works on CM10, news is posted elsewhere on the Google+ page.

CM9 RC1 for Epic 4G Release Notes

2012-06-26T13:18:00.004-07:00

UPDATE: CM9 RC2 Warning

CM9 RC2 for Epic has been released. Unfortunately, it has a major bug where it fails to retain addon .zip's, causing folks to have problems like broken gapps or losing Sprint VVM after they upgrade. You are fine if you manually flash addons immediately after upgrading RC2. You may want to wait for the next release if you want a stable experience.

The CyanogenMod Project has released CM9 RC1 for all supported devices including Sprint's Samsung Epic 4G. CM9 RC1 contains primarily stability and branding changes since Epic 4G's beta4. Please follow CM for Epic 4G development on Google+ and Facebook!

Release Notes

If you have trouble with auto rotation after enabling the settings in the Customization Guide, try calibrating your sensors with the temporary FC09 sdcard utility.
If you use any 3rd party kernels, mods or "tweaks", please do not report any bugs to the CM team. We are not able to help you if you have modified your operating system in any way.
CM9 RC1 is officially supported by the CyanogenMod project. So if you are using the CM9 RC1 build, you may now report bugs directly here. See CyanogenMod's official announcement of CM9 RC1.

Changelog of CM9 RC1 (see previous)

One cause of the keyboard backlight failing to turn on when desired has been fixed. It is possible other causes have not been fixed. Please report if you continue to run into issues with the keyboard backlight.
Switch from binary libsensor to source-built libsensor from aries. Theoretically it should behave identical to the old libsensor. Please report any differences you notice with sensors.
Rescaled signal levels to fit AOSP's signal bar thresholds. It should be roughly equivalent to the behavior in beta4. Please report if you experience any major problems with signal bar behavior.
The new CM9 boot animation featuring the Cid mascot is now included. If you want the old boot animation, download the flashable .zip from the boot animation page.

Links

See the CM9 Status page for more details. Then proceed to the CM9 Install Guide. Please check if your bugs are already filed in the Epic CM Issue Tracker.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Team Epic. Thank you!

Testing toward CM9 RC1 for Samsung Epic 4G

2012-06-12T18:17:00.008-07:00

Nightly Builds
Download nightly builds of CM9 for Epic 4G from get.cm.

News

Big News! 6/18/2012:

noobnl got the crespo4g modem (from the Nexus S 4G) to mostly work on Epic 4G, allowing CM9 to Update PRL and Profile natively for the first time! Currently it has stability problems that noobnl is attempting to fix. This is very experimental and unstable so no test builds are available yet.
If public testing of the crespo4g modem on Epic 4G does commence, it will initially be for advanced users only. Flashing the crespo4g modem means you cannot use any other ROM on your phone. Even temporary stock from sdcard will no longer work. Users will need to know how to manually flash the crespo4g or Epic 4G modem with Odin or Heimdall in order to safely test the upcoming test CM9 builds.

Update: 6/16/2012: Fixed MMS Sending

Download [1]
md5sum d8af976c1cfec0c272984fbf5658dad6
Read below for changelog. Please test and report here on Google+.

Update 6/12/2012: CM9 beta5-pre1

Download [1][2]
md5sum 29cf30a6b2f138cd01944f4e00af0285

Changelog

Fixed MMS sending.
Switch from binary libsensor to source-built libsensor from aries. Theoretically it should behave identical to the old libsensor. Please report any differences you notice with sensors.
Rescaled signal levels to fit AOSP's signal bar thresholds. It should be roughly equivalent to the behavior in beta4. Please report if you experience any major problems with signal bar behavior.
The new CM9 boot animation featuring the Cid mascot is now included. If you want the old boot animation, download the flashable .zip from the boot animation page.

CM9 beta4 for Epic 4G Release Notes

2012-06-06T15:12:00.001-07:00

CyanogenMod's Team Epic is proud to announce the release of CM9 beta4 for Sprint's Samsung Epic 4G. CM9 beta4 is contains mainly new features merged into CM9 since beta3. Please follow us on Google+ and Facebook as we post the latest news and test builds there quite often.

Release Notes

If you have trouble with auto rotation after enabling the settings in the Customization Guide, try calibrating your sensors with the temporary FC09 sdcard utility.
If you use any 3rd party kernels, mods or "tweaks", please do not report any bugs to the CM team. We are not able to help you if you have modified your operating system in any way.

Tour of Android 4.0.4 ICS CM9 on Samsung Epic 4G

Changelog of CM9 beta4 (see previous)

epicmtd: Fixed photo taking after video recording.
epicmtd Kernel: Add CIFS and FUSE.
Phantom Voicemail fix now merged in CM9.

Non-Sprint carrier users probably will want to enable Phone > Settings > Message Wait Indicator if they use non-visual voicemail.

Changes in CM9 since beta3.

Option to hide the IME switcher. Settings > Language & input > Selector notification
Lockscreen Calendar.
Lockscreen Weather.
Apollo music app, although reportedly it needs more work to look good on smaller screens like Epic.
Lockscreen Shortcuts.

Key repeating in recovery enabled for epicmtd.

Links

See the CM9 Status page for more details. Then proceed to the CM9 Install Guide. Please check if your bugs are already filed in the Epic CM Issue Tracker.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Team Epic. Thank you!

Progress toward CM9 beta4 for Samsung Epic 4G

2012-05-29T01:27:00.019-07:00

Update: CM9 beta4 has been released.

News

Update 6/6/2012: CM9 beta4-pre8

Kernel: Add CIFS and FUSE.
Language & input Settings crash fix
Download [1][2]
md5sum 951c690603868f1995ce3cc1924d6773
Read below for changelog. Please test and report here on Google+.

Update 6/4/2012: CM9 beta4-pre7

IME selector hide option
Phone > Settings > Message Wait Indicator

Needs testing by users affected by Phantom Voicemail.
Needs testing on non-Sprint carriers.

Download [1]
md5sum 408c11e464c04f85904f3869ffc2d65d
Read below for changelog. Please test and report here on Google+.

Update 6/1/2012: CM9 beta4-pre5 with Lockscreen Calendar

Fixed the broken 4G in pre4, thanks to bbelos!
Download [1] [2]
md5sum e4d3a5cc1dbbe6a64540733cf34b5337
Read below for changelog. Please test and report here on Google+.

Update 5/31/2012: New builds will come after something worthwhile was fixed for Epic, or something noteworthy is committed in CM9. Today's build mysteriously has broken 4G. Investigating...
Netflix Nerd Challenge: Nathan was first to guess the Netflix show and episode number in our last two challenges. Can you beat Nathan this time? (David Lehr won too quickly.)
CM9 beta4-pre3

Download [1] [2]
md5sum 51ca2d1bc0ef3b1a890edbf6e4d343a1
Read below for changelog. Please test and report here on Google+.

In Progress for CM9 beta4
These are issues that the developers are interested in targeting for beta4. If you want a different bug fixed in beta4, please be sure it is well described and get other users to vote on it in our issue tracker.

CM9 beta3 introduced the option to disable the cap lights. Known regressions:

The keyboard backlight can fail to turn on if you use manual brightness.

Guess the Netflix show and episode number.
Are you nerd enough?

Long-press home fails if you had double tapped. Single long-press works.

Team members are working on replicating the signal strength thresholds of Samsung's ROM, implementable as generic knobs for CM9's CDMA framework. This will be necessary for Epic to ever achieve "stable" status in CM9 in the future.
nullghost's Phantom Voicemail patch needs further work to be suitable for CM9 inclusion, another requirement for Epic to achieve "stable" status in the future.
wispoffates is investigating a mysterious wakelock that sometimes causes severe battery drain on Epic 4G.
bbelos continues work on the 3.0.x kernel in cooperation with KalimAz.
DRockstar is working on the keymap, so it will be possible to type characters like ` (backtick) and Tab.

Epic 4G Kernel 3.0.x Progress

2012-05-11T17:31:00.005-07:00

This post documents our progress porting kernel-3.0.x to work on Epic 4G CM9.

News

Update 6/23/2012:

Haptic feedback is now working, thanks to nubecoder.
Updated the test kernel download files. If you were using a previous test kernel, redownload the zImage and boot.cpio.gz.

News 6/20/2012:

The orientation sensor has been fixed with the switch to CM9 libsensor source, although the test kernel is not yet updated for it.
WiMax is working, although there are still some big bugs to work out. The test kernel will be released when it is stable enough to use.

News 6/18/2012:

nubecoder is working on porting the vibetonz driver to the 3.0.x kernel.

Update 6/9/2012:

Reverted display drivers to match stock 2.6 which results in much better colors.
Incorporated the 200MHz min frequency fix from 2.6.
Switched the default governor to Ondemand and added the ability to control the min/max cpu frequency via the Performance menu.
Added sysfs controls from 2.6 for disabling the capactive key backlights via the Advanced Settings menu.
Updated to 3.0.33
Updated the test kernel download files. If you were using a previous test kernel, redownload the zImage and boot.cpio.gz.

Update 6/4/2012:

Added a "Bugs" list.

Update 6/3/2012:

Capacitive key backlights are now timing out with the keyboard light.

Update 6/2/2012:

Mic recording and proximity sensor now properly continue to work during calls.
Kexec test kernel posted under Links section with instructions. Feel free to test and report any findings as a comment to this blog post.

Update 5/19/2012:

Fix light & proximity sensors. This also allows for Autobrightness to function.
Fixed camera snapshots. ~~Front facing camera still needs fixing.~~ Fixed front facing camera.
There appears to be a bug during calls where the mic recording gets disabled as the CPU goes to sleep. Waking the phone with the power key re-enables the mic. Calls are not dropped and you are still able to hear the other person, but they obviously won't hear you. Using an app like Softlocker to disable deep sleep allows the mic to function continuously during the call.
Proximity sensor fails to operate the screen after above mentioned suspend issue, until manually reactivating the sensor or after initiating a new call session.

Update 5/17/2012: Call audio is now working.
Update 5/11/2012: Wifi is now working.

What Works

Haptic Feedback
Call Audio
Wifi
SDCard
USB Mass Storage
3g & Text Messaging
GPS
Light/Proximity Sensor
Bluetooth, A2DP
Ringtones, Notification Sounds, Media Audio (Speaker & Headset)
Incoming/Outgoing Calls
Recovery Mode
adb
Keyboard
Touchscreen & Softkeys
Autobrightness
Capacitive backlight timeout
Camera Snapshots (Front and Back)
Video Recording
Screenshots
/system, /data, /cache mounted as mtd/yaffs2
Suspend/Resume
Charging

What Doesn't Work Yet

WiMAX - In progress.
Headphone mic (need to confirm)
More to add as we find it

Bugs

Capacitive key backlights become dim at some point (happens after first suspend).
adb uses Google vendor id (18d1) during recovery mode instead of Samsung id (04e8).

Linux users may need to adjust your usb udev rules to recognize device. (Permanent flash only)

Registers a generic adb device serial number.
Charging bugs (seem to be tied together, but doesn't always happen)

Statusbar battery icon not properly reflecting actual charge state. (possibly occurs after first suspend, still unconfirmed.)
Phone enters deep sleep while on charger. (might have been a fluke, need to confirm)
Charge LED does not stay lit with screen off. (Presumably when enters deep sleep)

Powered off device on charger will automatically boot up (Permanent flash only)

Links

Temporary kexec test kernel instructions:
Files last updated: 6/23/2012
Note: The orientation sensor should work if you are on Beta5-pre1 or newer. If north is pointing the wrong direction, consider a quick calibration as seen here:

Download the 3 files: zImage, boot.cpio.gz, & boot_zImage_with_boot.zip
Place the files at the root of your sdcard (/sdcard/zImage, etc.)
Flash boot_zImage_with_boot.zip from CWM.

IMPORTANT: The phone's stock browser saves zImage as zImage.bin. You *must* rename it back to zImage.

Please test anything in the list above, whether we specify it working or not. If something isn't working fully, or not working at all, please let us know in a comment. Anytime you want to go back to your normal kernel, just reboot the phone.

CM9 beta3 for Epic 4G Release Notes

2012-05-11T03:08:00.002-07:00

CyanogenMod's Team Epic is proud to announce the release of CM9 beta3 for Sprint's Samsung Epic 4G. Please follow us on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter for the latest news. This release contains many new features and significant bug fixes!

Release Notes

IMPORTANT! Before you upgrade to CM9 beta3, DO THIS to prevent possible issues.

Remove Voltage Control, SetCPU, and uncheck "Set on boot" in Settings > Performance > Processor.
If your GPS navigation was broken in CM9 beta2, uninstall and reinstall Google Maps.
If you have had trouble with Gallery displaying photos in the wrong order, or thumbnails matching to the wrong photo, see this thread for a tool to run before you upgrade to beta3.

If you have trouble with auto rotation after enabling the settings in the Customization Guide, try calibrating your sensors with the temporary FC09 sdcard utility.

Project News

Launch of Team Epic - CyanogenMod's Sprint Samsung specialists

Due to the success of EpicCM and the generous support of the Epic 4G community, we were able to recruit many developers and non-dev leaders to help with QA testing, documentation and answering questions. This has allowed us to purchase additional dev phones in order to aid development of Epic Touch, Nexus S 4G and Sprint Galaxy Nexus. We also have productive teamwork with Epic 4G's AOKP developer Alias8818, allowing us fix bugs faster in both CM9 and AOKP. We are now continuing fund raising to purchase additional dev phones including Sprint's upcoming SGS3.

kernel-3.0.x News

One of our long-term goals is port a newer 3.0.x kernel work on Epic, and to maintain that kernel together with the very similar hardware of the Nexus S 4G. KalimAz (CyanogenMod's maintainer of Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus) received an Epic 4G in Spain on May 3rd. Now KalimAz, mkasick and bbelos are slowly getting closer on this goal, most recently they were working on fixing the wifi driver.

Tour of Android 4.0.4 ICS CM9 on Samsung Epic 4G

Changelog of CM9 beta3 (see previous)

Theme Chooser

The ability to customize look and feel of CM9 to user choice using predefined themes or community driven user inspired ideas. Preview the theme before applying to make sure its exactly what your looking for in a theme before applying to the phone.

Lockscreen Shortcuts

Allows you to choose lock screen shortcuts (1-5) anything from browser, Facebook, twitter and messaging, the choice is yours, with customizable icon's.

Capacitive Buttons/Keyboard Backlight Disable Option

One of the most exciting new features in CM9 beta3 for Epic 4G is the ability to disable the capacitive touchkey backlights. Unlike other phones with multiple brightness levels, the touchkey lights on Epic 4G have only on and off. Using the Epic in the dark would be often annoying as the touchkey lights are blindingly bright.
Settings > Advanced > Disable Touchkey Lights turns off lights after a 750ms delay since you last touched it. We designed it this way on purpose so the user has enough time to recognize the location identity of the four buttons.
Settings > Display > Automatic backlight > Edit other levels... allows you to further customize when touchkey lights and even the keyboard backlight will be enabled based upon the light sensor levels. 0 means off and 255 means on.

Unique Bluetooth MAC Address Fix

Previously Epic CM9 used a generic MAC address instead of a unique per-device MAC address. Since the bluetooth address has changed, all users must re-pair their bluetooth devices before they may be used again. This resolves several known issues with some newer bt devices.

Gallery Photo GPS Fix

All previous versions of CM9 for Epic 4G would an erroneous date of 1969 in the photo EXIF data if you have GPS enabled at the time of taking the photo. This would cause the Gallery app to become confused and display photos in the wrong order. All new photos taken by the Camera of CM9 for Epic 4G will no longer have this issue. bbelos and Cyc of Team Epic wrote this tool and instructions for fixing your older photos.

Conservative Overclocking

CyanogenMod aims for maximum stability, so we have decided to include only the most conservative overclocking and no undervolting in the standard CM9 kernel. Undervolting is known to work 99.99% of the time, but rare timings involving certain apps can cause the phone to spontaneously reboot. It is our belief that many reports of random reboots are the result of unsafe overclocking or undervolting. We will not ship the means for users to shoot themselves in the foot in the default operating system.
We have added only the 1.2GHz step, disabled by default. You enable it in Settings > Performance > Processor > Maximum CPU frequency. Since voltages cannot be changed, no add-on tools like Voltage Control are necessary.
While 1.2Ghz maximum seems to be stable for most users, we do not recommend using it if you care about maximizing stability.

Smoother cpufreq scaling

All previous kernels have had trouble where it would no longer use the 100MHz step if you have changed your cpufreq or governor settings. Major fixes were made to the kernel to allow cpufreq to scale more smoothly. As a result, the cpufreq governors now behave differently. The powersave governor has been removed as it causes extreme slowness, failures and consequential higher battery consumption.

GPS Navigation and Google Maps Fix

CM9 beta2 added emulation for RotationVectorSensor2. Unfortunately this exposed a race condition that can cause sensors to entirely deadlock, the cause of the rare reports of GPS Navigation failures we have been hearing lately. beta3 contains teamhacksung's fix to the magnetometer driver to prevent this failure.

If your GPS was already broken in CM9 beta2, you may need to uninstall and reinstall Google Maps in order to fix it.

Camera Timer

The Camera app now has the ability to set a countdown timer before a photo is taken. While in the Camera, hit the Settings button, then the action bar (three dots), then tap the camera button. The on-screen camera button will turn red and you will see a red countdown in the top left. When it reaches zero it will take a photo.

Links

See the CM9 Status page for more details. Then proceed to the CM9 Install Guide. Please check if your bugs are already filed in the Epic CM Issue Tracker.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Team Epic. Thank you!

Team Epic Development Fund

2012-05-10T02:29:00.003-07:00

Dear Epic 4G community,

We have merged the Epic 4G donor list to Team Epic's new blog. Your support has made it possible to raise nearly $5,000 in funds toward build server upgrades, phones and other development expenses. This generous community underwriting has made it possible for the team to expand and begin to support development of other flagship Samsung phones on Sprint like the Epic Touch and Galaxy Nexus.

The team is is now fixing bugs to prepare for CM9 beta3 for Epic 4G. A great many bugs have already been fixed and new features are working! If you follow us on Google+ you can help us to test builds as we approach release. Epic 4G is still a great phone and this team will continue to update CyanogenMod to support it for the foreseeable future.

In an unusual but highly successful move, we have invited Alias8818 of Epic 4G AOKP to collaborate on common issues as a member of Team Epic. This has turned out to be a healthy partnership as we have learned about fixes in AOKP to merge into CM, and AOKP relies on CM for device bug fixes.

If you appreciate our work, please consider supporting our team with a tiny contribution of $5. We are currently saving up reserves to purchase Sprint's upcoming SGS3 for our lead developers, as we believe it will be the best Android phone on Sprint. We sincerely hope it will have a slider keyboard like the first generation SGS Epic 4G, but even without a keyboard it will be an awesome phone that we want CyanogenMod to work well with.

Thank you!

Pictures Repair and Cleanup for Epic CM9

2012-05-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

Epic isn't that old!

All pictures taken since the start of CM9 for the Epic have contained invalid GPS data that have affect how the pictures are shown in Gallery, this caused photos to appear out of order as Gallery thinks they were taken in year 1969. Additionally there were previously issues with removable storage but people's thumbnails were still incorrect and not matching their respective pictures. Also Beta2 and earlier suffered from an issue where if CPU minimum and maximum frequencies were modified they would lose 100Mhz setting so the phone would idle at 200MHz instead of dropping to 100MHz when idle.

Beta 3 has all these issues resolved but the pictures already taken are still affected as well as settings saved for the processor.

This patch does the following:

Removes ALL GPS data from CM9 and CM7 pictures

Pictures taken with Touchwiz ROMs are not affected
Pictures taken with GPS Location ON with Beta 3 and newer as well as CM7 WILL lose GPS data from those pictures if they are not backed up elsewhere before flashing!

Clears Gallery's thumbnail cache and databases so it can rescan all the images fresh

Gallery may show some of your pictures with GPS data in details but that is just stored in the database and not in the file and will be lost after the script is ran.

Wipes the /data/system/throttle folder so CPU governor and states will start at default frequencies

Depending on the number of pictures this can take several minutes. I recommend keeping the phone plugged in while running to ensure the process is not interrupted.

Time stamps shown by Gallery will be off by your Time Zone (-4 hours to -6 hours here in the US). This is a bug affecting all android OSes to present and is NOT device specific. Even with the time-stamps being off the pictures have the correct order and will be read correctly when uploaded to the web or other devices.

Download picture-gpsdate-fix-cwm.zip [1]
Flash in CWM Recovery.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Epic CM team. Thank you!

Goals for CM9 beta3 for Epic 4G

2012-05-02T01:00:00.000-07:00

Update: CM9 beta3 has been released!

News

Update 5/10/2012: CM9 beta3 candidate1

Download [get.cm] md5sum 02e0d22b5da67830f48b2491dc51d524
This may become beta3 unless we find any serious regression bugs.
Changes since pre12:

Fixed black screen/cap lights on deadlock.
Cap button responsiveness should now be fixed.
Epic Parts has returned.
Camera settings crash fixed.

Please report success/failure in the Google+ thread.

Update 5/7/2012: CM9 beta3-pre9 adds Theme chooser and lockscreen shortcuts! We are still working on a few Epic-specific fixes and we need confirmation that these major changes in CM9 are stable before we do the real beta3. Please provide feedback in this Google+ thread.

Download [1] [2] [3]
md5sum c51ff91fa18b24d540a7885020d3db29
Release Notes

System Settings -> Themes
System Settings -> System -> Lock screen

Update 5/4/2012: New experimental kernel for users of CM9 beta3-pre7 below. This kernel contains a fix to allow other cpufreq governors to work. This kernel is not recommended for beta2. Both temporary and permanent kernels are available for download here. We need to know if the phone remains stable in the long-term with these cpufreq changes. Please report results in the Google+ thread.
Update 5/2/2012: Please help us to test all these fixes in CM9 beta3-pre7.

Download [1] [2] [3]
md5sum 712dc903d1b84b9598807d02276cde34

Release Notes

If you have overclocked anytime in the past, make backups before you flash.
Delete the /data/system/throttle folder or uncheck Settings > Performance > CPU > Set on boot before upgrading to this build.

This build contains all fixes mentioned below. Please confirm that these things really are fixed and watch out for any regressions since beta2. Please provide feedback here in the blog or this Google+ thread.

Update 5/2/2012: mkasick simplified the OC code and fixed the 100mhz step!
Update 4/28/2012: bbelos is nearly done adding an option to disable the capacitive button backlights! See details and a screenshot below.
Update 4/24/2012: We are still working on bug fixing. Meanwhile please help us to test this experimental build named CM9 beta3-pre3. If you wish your test results to be the most accurate, please do not install other kernels or mods.

Download [1] [2] [3]

md5sum 2c278d6b91ab4d4f21f77eaabbd0c129

Release Notes

This build contains the GPS navigation sensor fix, 1.2GHz conservative overclocking (disabled by default) with undervolting disabled, and a fix for Camera writing bogus gpsdata that caused Gallery to display pictures out of order.

Uninstall and reinstall Google Maps if it broke earlier in beta2.
This should fix only photos taken *after* the upgrade. We will soon release a tool that will fix your existing photos.

Please provide feedback either in blog comments or this Google+ thread.

Update 4/22/2012: Included experimental 1.5MB memory savings. We need to know if this change causes any problems with video recording or playback. It is included in beta3-pre3 above.

Update 4/17/2012: GPS fix and conservative overclocking now available for testing, included in beta3-pre3 above.
Warning about Theme Mods: Before complaining about bugs, PLEASE be sure to retest after you have flashed stock CM9 beta2. Various themes have sometimes been known to cause bugs. Contrary to what some mod makers have stated, a theme mod must be rebuilt for every CM9 or AOKP release as they replace random chunks of the operating system. If they claim their theme mod works on both CM9 or AOKP be especially wary.
Waiting for SGS3: The overwhelming responses from the Epic 4G owner's poll: either folks are very happy with CM9 and do not plan on upgrading anytime during 2012, or they are waiting for the mythical Samsung Galaxy S III on Sprint. A tiny minority expressed interest in the Galaxy Nexus 4G LTE coming to Sprint within the next few days. The vast majority expressed a desire for Sprint's future SGS3 to have a slider keyboard like the Epic 4G.

This fellow expresses our community's desire for SGS3 with a slider keyboard. Will Sprint deliver?

Netflix Nerd Challenge: The winner of beta2's Netflix nerd challenge was Nathan. Who can guess the Netflix episode first this week? (Screenshot below, not the video above. Duh.)
Deadline begins with "Dead": Many of the team including myself have been very busy with end of semester deadlines. The pace of development should pick up again after the end of the semester.

Goals for CM9 beta3

Can you guess the Netflix show and episode?

Done: Convert epicmtd device repo to CM9's new standard of building the kernel during CM build rather than storing prebuilt kernel binaries in git. This will require moving the kernel source from Kernel to .. and
Done: Fix the bogus GPS data causing issues in Gallery where photos appear in the wrong order because Gallery thinks they are dated in 1969. teamhacksung recommended that we look at their kernel ce147 and libcamera.
The MFC cache reduction that freed 36MB memory to userspace introduced in CM9 beta0 caused rare but tolerable bugs in video playback, most visible while toggling the video overlays and seeking often in Netflix. Unfortunately these bugs became far worse in CM9 beta2 with Android 4.0.4 where Netflix will now completely fail to output video after you seek backward.

We need to first verify that backing out the matching framework and kernel MFC cache reduction actually fixes this issue. Update 4/22/2012: It turns out the Netflix failure may be unrelated, affecting nearly every CM9 or AOKP device but not AOSP. See this G+ thread.
The other video playback bug caused by the 36MB MFC cache reduction was some glitches while playing 720p video with an OSD. This needs to be retested with CM9 4.0.4 to see if it is still an issue.
teamhacksung has tweaks to aries MFC (framework/kernel) that we can try.

Done: Find a possible solution for setting the correct Bluetooth MAC address to fix bluetooth tethering and various other issues. A couple of ideas stem from aries implementation of bdaddr local library that reads and formats the MAC address from the EFS partition in other galaxy s devices. The epic, however, has an empty EFS partition. The goal is to find a way to read it either right before MTD conversion, or to figure out a way to back it up.
Done: Add an option to disable the capacitive touchkey backlights. There are still limitations being investigated but progress so far seems promising. Currently the option allows the lights to timeout normally, but will not allow the backlights to turn back on unless you press them. This allows keyboard or main screen use without seeing the buttons.

CM7 RC1-Update1 Released!

2012-04-23T05:53:00.004-07:00

Exciting news for some of you: A new CM7 update!
This fixes some of the little bugs left in CM7:

Audio fixes:

The speaker volume has been boosted to match EL30 and CM9
The headset mic volume has also been boosted to match EL30 and CM9
Dock audio redirection has been enabled, but you'll need this app to use it

Liblight changes: Restored the Touchwiz stock 6 second softkey and keyboard backlight timeout
Sensors: A fix for a deadlock condition within the sensors, should fix issues with GPS navigation locking up
Tun: Tun is now built in, for anyone that uses a VPN

Check the CM7 Status Page for download links and more!

Coming soon: An optional kernel with a 1.2ghz step. There are some code conflicts to work out between the CM9 kernel implementation and the CM7 kernel, mostly due to the aggressive memory work for CM9. Check back later for status.

Update PRL and Calibrate Sensors for CM9 / CM10

2012-04-13T00:31:00.000-07:00

Utility for CM9 / CM10 Epic 4G
This is a temporary ROM that boots Samsung's FC09 firmware entirely from sdcard without making any changes to the ROM installed on your phone. Simply reboot to return to your normal ROM. This sdcard ROM is useful for several purposes.

Settings > About Phone > System updates >

Update Profile.
Update PRL.

Settings > Display > Horizontal calibration

Do this if you have problems with auto rotate on CM9.

Sprint Activation.
Dial codes and diagnostic mode.
Test Samsung FC09 behavior to aid in CM development.

Changelog

v4: September 28th, 2012

Fix kernel to boot from CM10.

v3: April 13th, 2012

FC09-based with working 3G, 4G, Update Profile, faster speed.
Uses 500MB on sdcard instead of 1GB.
Includes Connectbot and GPS Status.

v2: April 8th, 2012

Fixed 3G, 4G and Update Profile, and faster speed.

v1: January 25th, 2012

EL30-based

Download

epic4g-fc09-sdcard-utility-v4.tar.xz

md5sum a9ccdc8b7f9374d1955aef736994a84e

Upgrade Download

If you already have the utility setup on your sdcard from v3, you don't need to redo the whole process. Download the following upgrade zip, and extract the contents to your /sdcard/multiboot/FC09 directory. This provides an updated boot_FC09.zip and a new zImage.

epic4g-fc09-sdcard-utility-v3-to-v4.zip

md5sum dae2699c4891b0c14cb3ca6fcbb300fa

How To Use

Download the epic4g-fc09-sdcard-utility-v4.tar.xz tarball.
Unpack using 7-Zip (Windows) or Keka (MacOS X) or any other xz capable archive software. Recent versions of Linux can unpack it with tar xfvJ filename.tar.xz.
If you have v1 or v2, you may want to delete /sdcard/multiboot/EL30.
Plug your Epic 4G into your computer and mount as USB storage. Copy the entire multiboot folder into the base of your sdcard. Safely remove the USB storage device from your computer to ensure it wrote everything properly.
Boot into CWM5 on your Epic 4G.
Install zip from sdcard > choose zip from sdcard > multiboot > FC09 > boot_FC09.zip
WAIT. It will take a while to boot. You might see a "com.android.phone is not responding", do not worry, it is harmless. Wait until Media Scanning is complete before doing anything.

Warnings!

DO NOT MOUNT USB STORAGE ON YOUR COMPUTER. BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN. DO NOT USE AS DAILY DRIVER. It will be a bit slow because your sdcard is slow.

[XDA Discussion] [Google+ Discussion] [Source]

If this tip was helpful, please consider supporting the Epic CM Team with even a tiny contribution.

CM9 beta2 Android 4.0.4 for Epic 4G Released

2012-04-09T13:07:00.003-07:00

The Epic CM team is proud to announce the release of CM9 beta2 for Sprint's Samsung Epic 4G. Please follow us on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter for the latest news. This release contains bugfixes and a major version upgrade to Android 4.0.4!

Tour of Android 4 CM9 on Samsung Epic 4G

Changelog of CM9 beta2 (see previous)

Wired Headset Microphone volume now louder in calls.
Loud Speaker Volume now louder. Both phone calls and media (music, Netflix, etc.) should both be louder.
Added emulation for RotationVectorSensor2.
Android 4.0.4 brings a few fixes and improvements.

Users report a smoother overall experience and better battery life than 4.0.3.
One user reported sync with Exchange server failed in 4.0.3 but now works with 4.0.4.
Camera pinch to zoom.

Updated to 4.0.4 crespo blobs.
Enabled tun in the kernel for VPN users.
mdnie re-enabled.

News

The Epic CM team welcomes Alias8818 (AOKP developer) and gTan64 (Ubuntu developer) as new partners! We have many of the same issues, so by collaborating hasten development of all three projects.
See bbelos' news update about progress on the kernel-3.0.x port. gTan64 has been very helpful in fixing sdcard and audio! Much work remains before kernel-3.0.x becomes usable on our phone.

Release Notes

If you have trouble with auto rotation after enabling the settings in the Customization Guide, try calibrating your sensors with the temporary EL30 sdcard utility.

Links

See the CM9 Status page for more details. Then proceed to the CM9 Install Guide. Please check if your bugs are already filed in the Epic CM Issue Tracker.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Epic CM team. Thank you!

EL30 to FC09 modem CWM upgrade Zip

2012-04-02T12:32:00.001-07:00

zanderman112 has taken the FC09 update.zip that was found on Google's servers and created a CWM flashable zip that will upgrade your EL30 modem to FC09. If you are currently on CyanogenMod (or any other mtd ROM), you will need to use the CWM5 BML kexec zip file found in this post.

There has not been much testing as far as stability or performance on this modem, but if you would like to try it, here it is!

Please note, if you decide to use the delta zip to upgrade your modem and you experience strange issues, you should assume your modem is corrupted and Odin back to EL30. From past experience of delta flash upgrades EC05->EI22->EL30 it seems modem corruption happens 10-20% of the time, even with pure stock phones! We have not seen any real difference with FC09 modem, so if your existing EI22 or EL30 modem is stable, you may be better off keeping your modem. See this post if you need to flash the older modems.

If you are on the FB15 modem, you must use Odin to load the EL30 modem if you want to upgrade to FC09 modem.

Download EL30 to FC09 delta
Mirror: [1] | [2]

Please reply in the comments or on Google+ with any issues you may have with the zip or with your experience with the new modem.

Test Feedback Needed: Experimental Kernel saves 7MB RAM

2012-04-02T00:56:00.003-07:00

Update 4/7/2012: Due to code review we have decided to go with a more conservative 1.5MB RAM savings for the upcoming CM9 beta2. We will further investigate for later releases if it is 100% safe to further reduce the RAM usage by reverting triple buffering to the video decoder double buffering behavior used in gingerbread.

noobnl found a simple hack that reduces the kernel framebuffer memory, giving 7MB to userspace on Epic 4G. We need your help to test this kernel and report any changes in behavior that you see.

There *has* to be a drawback to this, perhaps in a very rare corner case. If you find a failure case, please verify it by doing the reproducer on the previous kernel, then again on this kernel.

Download

Temporary Kernel *Recommended*

temp_kernel_beta1_experimental_7mb_fb.zip
md5sum ad934cb0c416aa5d08757f859fc002b2
This temporary kernel is strongly recommended as you can easily reboot into the previous kernel. The ease in switching back and forth makes it much easier to confirm any differences in behavior.

Permanent Kernel

flash_kernel_beta1_experimental_7mb_fb.zip
md5sum cf9cd7d778585653988bb0489e250315

This experimental kernel works with both CM9 beta1 and the experimental CM9 beta1-test-4.0.4 and contains the following changes since CM9 beta1's kernel.

mdnie enabled.
tun enabled for VPN users.
Kernel framebuffer memory reduced by 7MB.

Please report any changes that you see here or in this Google+ thread. Thanks!

Testing Feedback Needed: Android 4.0.4

2012-03-30T23:13:00.000-07:00

This is NOT A RELEASE! This is our first working build of 4.0.4 and with very little testing so it may have hidden breakage. Please test only if you plan on providing feedback to help us improve before CM9 beta2. CWM backup is highly recommended!

Help Needed - Advanced Users Only
CM9 beta1-test-4.0.4 is CM9 beta1 with Android 4.0.4 built on March 30th, 2012. The audio fix is not ready so it is not included in this build, although mdnie is enabled. Please help by testing this ROM and reporting any of the following.

See anything different from CM9 beta1? These are not bugs but just changes in behavior.
Any regressions since CM9 beta1? These are ONLY new bugs. If something worked in CM9 beta1 but no longer in this build, we need to know about it. Important: Please post your feedback even if it is the same bug as someone else's report. We need multiple reports to better confirm new bugs!

Warning! 3rd party themes are known to break this ROM. Do NOT use 3rd party kernels with this ROM or your test feedback may confuse the developers.

Download CM9 beta1-test-4.0.4

Mirror [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
md5sum b4543959168db320ea2c9f58f057c01b

Please reply here in the blog or here on Google+. Your feedback will help us to improve CM9 beta2. Thank you!

Kernel 3.0.x Boots! (Sort of...)

2012-03-26T20:49:00.001-07:00

After weeks of effort, bbelos got the kernel-3.0.x to boot on the Epic 4G!

Well... nothing works. No radios. No camera. No sdcard. It also crashes very quickly.

Anyway, this is progress! bbelos continues work on the kernel merge. Still could be a few weeks before it is as stable as our existing 2.6.35 kernel.

UPDATE 3/27/2012: I forgot to mention, we are not 100% sure this is possible yet, but we are hoping the crespo kernel merge will allow us to use crespo4g (Nexus S 4G) proprietary blobs including the crespo4g modem and menus that allow Activation, Profile, PRL Update and sensor calibration. If crespo4g's modem works on Epic with this new kernel, then we will be able to provide a complete flashable Heimdall image to flash any Epic directly to CM9, and you would have no reason to ever go back to TW rom.

UPDATE 4/1/2012: bbelos wrote this status update on Google+.

Just a quick update on the Epic4g Kernel 3.0.x port:

What works
MTD/YAFFS2 partitions, Calls / texts, 3G Data, GPS, Bluetooth (activates, device pairing untested), Touchscreen, Softkeys,
Keyboard (mostly), Reboot to recovery, adb

what doesn't work yet
Sleep issues (system is stable when connected to a pc), Audio, Wifi, sdcard

Anything not listed has either not been attempted to date or has just gone untested.

The Journey toward CM9 beta2 for Epic 4G

2012-03-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

Update: CM9 beta2 has been released!

We update this page often as things are fixed, so please check back periodically.

News

Name the Netflix show and episode # for brownie points

Update 4/8/2012: Due to code review and testing we have decided to abort the video decoding buffer RAM savings. We will investigate for later releases and change this only if it is found to be 100% safe to reduce the RAM usage by reverting triple buffering to the video decoder double buffering behavior used in gingerbread.
Update 4/7/2012: Temporary kernel is available to help confirm the loud speaker volume fix. Please reply in the Google+ thread if it works for you.
Update 3/31/2012: Please help to test and provide feedback for our first working Android 4.0.4 build.
Update 3/29/2012: Android 4.0.4 landed in AOSP, CM9 is now merging it. This means the upcoming CM9 beta2 will be Android 4.0.4. We will fix minimally the audio volume issue below, and test vigorously to be certain 4.0.4 did not introduce any regressions.
Update 3/28/2012: We now have an implementation plan to get rid of the text messages from 9016 that annoy Sprint VVM users.
Update 3/28/2012: See this post for the latest status of the kernel-3.0.x porting work by bbelos.
New 3/26/2012: The cause of the annoying bug where photos appear in the wrong order in Gallery has been identified thanks to Cyc! We will try to fix this... although we're not sure how at the moment.
Meanwhile KalimochoAz who agreed to help us with the kernel still has not received the Epic that we shipped to him on March 6th. Not sure what is going on with USPS Priority Mail International shipping to Spain.
The winning guess of beta1's Netflix Name that Show made by smith. Can you folks figure out this one?
Our sister phone Epic 4G Touch made their first CM9 alpha release. Good work darchstar and sbrissen! The Epic CM team is waiting for SGS3, hopefully with a slider keyboard and LTE.
See this Google+ post about the experimental ClockworkMod Touch for Epic 4G MTD. It is not stable enough for CM9 inclusion anytime soon, but interesting to play with for advanced users only.

Changelog - Fixed for CM9 beta2

Wired Headset Microphone volume now louder in calls.
Loud Speaker Volume now louder. Both phone calls and media (music, Netflix, etc.) should both be louder.
Android 4.0.4 brings a few fixes and improvements.

Users report a smoother overall experience and better battery life than 4.0.3.
Camera auto flash is now fixed with Android 4.0.4.
One user reported sync with Exchange server failed in 4.0.3 but now works with 4.0.4.
Camera pinch to zoom.

Updated to 4.0.4 crespo blobs.
Enabled tun in the kernel for VPN users.

Please see the Epic CM Issue Tracker to see currently known issues and what the developers are currently working on. More details are available in the CM9 Status page.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Epic CM team. Thank you!

CM9 beta1 for Epic 4G Released

2012-03-18T18:27:00.008-07:00

The Epic CM team is proud to announce the release of CM9 beta1 for Sprint's Samsung Epic 4G. Please follow us on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter for the latest news! This release contains bugfixes and a few minor features since beta0.

Tour of Android 4 CM9 on Samsung Epic 4G

Changelog of CM9 beta1 (see previous)

Voicemail Notification option for those suffering from the "Phantom Voicemail" bug. Phone < menu button > Settings > Voicemail Notifications is disabled by default. Epic users on non-Sprint or overseas CDMA carriers may want to enable this option if they want voicemail notifications.
CM9 boot animation version 2
Device Encryption kernel support enabled.

Currently Untested! Not compatible with CWM! Do not use!

1.9MB memory freed by disabling the FIMC1 mmap and reducing mmap usage for the JPEG driver. It is unclear what if any negative effects this causes. crespo is also testing this currently.
Disable Samsung's mdnie improves color quality.
New CM9 Features

Holding Volume Up/Down while screen is off will change the current playing music.
Settings>Profiles
Settings>Developer Options>Root Access allows you to choose your root access mode.
Settings>Display>Rotation now has additional rotation options.

Release Notes

Thanks to user feedback, bbelos decided to leave the Dock Audio behavior as-is. Alarm and ringtones will play from the phone's speaker, not the dock.
The newly working Sprint Visual Voicemail (see Customization Guide) has a few glitches, the most annoying of which is that it does not block the text messages from 9016 that you receive when there is a new voicemail. We will fix this eventually.

Known Bugs

When using a wired headset, users have reported that the microphone volume is too low, making it difficult to be understood on the phone.
These issues are targeted to be fixed by, or after the crespo kernel merge. bbelos is making good progress on the kernel-3.0.x port. Not booting yet but getting closer.

CM9 for Epic is missing 5 of the 8 motion sensors usable in Gingerbread. This apparently is the cause of auto-rotation not working for the minority of users. Many of these users are able to make auto-rotation work by calibrating sensors using the temporary sdcard EL30. Thanks to Joseph Shugzda for identifying this issue!
Maximum speaker volume is much smaller than Samsung's ROMs.

Links

See the CM9 Status page for more details. Then proceed to the CM9 Install Guide. Please check if your bugs are already filed in the Epic CM Issue Tracker.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Epic CM team. Thank you!

Help Needed: Test Kernel for beta0

2012-03-14T01:19:00.005-07:00

boot_beta0_disable_mdnie_tempkernel.zip
md5sum 851618ac07a41b4ef074012fe43e0732

This is a temporary kernel with two of the experimental patches we are testing for the upcoming CM9 beta1. You can boot it by "flashing" in CWM. Nothing is actually flashed. It just boots this alternate kernel and your phone behaves like normal except with these changes below. When you want to switch back to the beta0 kernel, just reboot. Your feedback will help to determine if we will keep these changes for beta1 or not.

Disable Samsung's mdnie.

I have no idea what mdnie does, but noobnl says it "makes the color look bad". I personally think it makes some fonts look bad. What changes do you notice? Which do you prefer, beta0 or the way things look with this temporary kernel?

Free more RAM by disabling FIMC1 mmap and reduce mmap usage for JPEG driver. 1.9 MB is freed.

This has something to do with the camera, but we don't know what. It seems to work. Can you find anything that this breaks or slows down?

Please reply with your feedback here or on our Google+ page!

Work in Progress toward CM9 beta1 for Epic 4G

2012-03-13T02:02:00.015-07:00

UPDATE: CM9 beta1 released!

We update this page often as things are fixed, so please check back periodically.

News

Name that Netflix Show and Episode # for Brownie Points

As noted on the Epic CM Google+ page, beta0's freeing of 36MB caused very rare glitches in video playing. We need your help in identifying 100% reproducible methods of exposing these glitches. Please reply in the linked G+ post.
When using a wired headset, users have reported that the microphone volume is too low, making it difficult to be understood on the phone. What is a brand and model of headset that can reproduce this problem?
Thanks to user feedback, bbelos decided to leave the Dock Audio behavior as-is. Alarm and ringtones will play from the phone's speaker, not the dock.
The newly working Sprint Visual Voicemail (see Customization Guide) has a few glitches, the most annoying of which is that it does not block the text messages from 9016 that you receive when there is a new voicemail. While there is a desire to modify CM9 to hide 9016 SMS messages if Sprint VVM is active, currently none of the devs actually use Sprint VVM, so it is uncertain if this issue will be fixed before beta1.
These issues are targeted to be fixed by, or after the crespo kernel merge, which will likely take a few weeks to stabilize.

CM9 for Epic is missing 5 of the 8 motion sensors usable in Gingerbread. This apparently is the cause of auto-rotation not working for the minority of users. Many of these users are able to make auto-rotation work by calibrating sensors using the temporary sdcard EL30. Thanks to Joseph Shugzda for identifying this issue!
Maximum speaker volume is much smaller than Samsung's ROMs.

Changelog - Fixed for CM9 beta1

Moved

Please see the Epic CM Issue Tracker to see currently known issues and what the developers are currently working on. More details are available in the CM9 Status page.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Epic CM team. Thank you!

CM7 Beta 1 Released

2012-03-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

Well folks, its that time!
Yes, for those of you still using good ol' CM7, there's a new version for you!
The Epic CM team is proud to announce CM7 beta 1 for the Samsung Epic 4g. This new build has very few bugs, and some fixes backported from CM9. This is the last chance to test before RC1!

Changelog

Radio Fixes, such as the 'Ring of death' issue and the "Call has been lost" dialog on a far-end call hangup
Audio fixes, which improve sound quality and allow better in-call volume changing
Disappearing sdcard ringtone fix. Changes to the media provider to keep ringtones from disappearing randomly.

Links
Check the CM7 Status page for download links and installation directions.
If you still have any issues with CM7, you can report them to the thread on xda.

CM9 beta0 for Epic 4G released

2012-03-07T20:24:00.005-08:00

The Epic CM team is proud to announce the release of CM9 beta0 for Sprint's Samsung Epic 4G. Please follow us on Google+ or Facebook for the latest news! This is an exciting new release as we now consider CM9 for Epic 4G to be of beta quality because all critical bugs are now fixed. What remains are only annoyances or missing non-core functionality not yet implemented upstream in CM9.

Tour of Android 4 CM9 on Samsung Epic 4G

Changelog

36MB memory has been freed! Upgraded the MFC driver to match crespo, then found the minimum amount of cache necessary to allow camera, camcorder and video playback to work. This allowed us to free 36MB memory from the kernel.
Fixed the annoying disappearing sdcard ringtone issue. Thanks to everyone who contributed discussion and logs on the problem!
Fixed visible artifacts during video playback. Youtube, Netflix and other videos should be less distorted now.
Fixed 720p video playback skipping caused by the video artifacts fix.
Fixed the signal bars to behave like stock ROM. No real change in signal, it just makes users feel better about the signal bars and Time Without Signal percentage.
Dock audio kernel support. Requires the Galaxy Dock Sound Redirector app from Market.
Fixed (one cause of) data reconnection failures that otherwise aren't remedied by toggling mobile data or airplane mode, but only by reboot.
Quiet Hours settings allow you to customize the behavior of notifications during the night.
XZ compression of kernel shrinks the ROM size by 1MB.
Improvements to kernel build and debug support scripts. Not relevant to users, but helpful to Epic kernel developers.

Known Bugs (The Most Annoying)

Gallery: There is a serious bug in the Gallery app where it thinks certain recent photos are from year 1969. This affects both CM9 Gallery2.apk and Google's GalleryGoogle.apk. We are trying to diagnose this problem.
Battery: Sometimes the camera is stuck on after you are no longer using the camera app, causing the battery to drain quickly even when the CPU is in deep sleep. Until we fix this bug, please reboot the phone if you notice faster battery drain after using the camera. Camera and Google Talk have been known to trigger this bug.
Battery: If your sdcard has many files you should add .nomedia files to all directories that do not contain media like photos or music so the media scanner will skip them. You especially want .nomedia in directories containing CWM or Titanium backups. For most people media scanning takes only a few seconds, but some experience 30+ minutes of 100% CPU usage during media scanning due to a rare bug that we have not yet been able to isolate.

Links

See the CM9 Status page for more details. Then proceed to the CM9 Install Guide. Please check if your bugs are already filed in the Epic CM Issue Tracker.

If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting the Epic CM team. Thank you!