FreeCalypso on Mot C139 back on the agenda

[Mychaela Falconia]

Hi David and DS!

David wrote:

> I'm currently using a Pirelli, but - @ Mychaela - I have located my
> freerunner *and* the unlock cable, co I'm going to put a saved dump from
> an early C139 (now lost) on the new C139 to get around it being locked
> to a single provided :-)

Just curious: from the perspective of a pure end user, while any FC
end user fw offering is still far beyond the horizon, which do you
favor, Mot C139 running its original proprietary fw or Pirelli DP-L10
running its respective original proprietary fw?  I strongly prefer the
Pirelli, but then I enjoy running rvtdump, rvinterf, fc-fsio and
fc-tmsh against Pirelli's fw - how would the comparison look from the
viewpoint of a more pure end user who doesn't care about such tools?
The few times I did try Motorola's official UI on the C139, I didn't
like it at all, especially compared to Pirelli's.

For me personally, the absolute worst problem with using the Pirelli
with its original proprietary fw as my everyday personal phone is that
if some thoughtless person sends some MMS to my phone number, that act
inflicts enormous pain on me.  Pirelli's fw unfortunately includes MMS
support (the one thing I will never-ever-ever include in FC), and
there is no way to tell this fw to completely and totally disable MMS
and reject any incoming MMS with extreme prejudice - instead when the
networks sends its binary SMS to the phone that indicates "there is an
incoming MMS message available for download", Pirelli's fw always
accepts this incoming MMS notification and attempts to download the
MMS body over TCP/IP.  But that TCP/IP download attempt will always
fail with 100% certainty because I refuse to configure GPRS data
settings (APN and whatever else may be needed) - I don't want any
mobile data, just circuit-switched calls and SMS - and I never enable
Pirelli's WLAN either.  The result is Pirelli's fw popping up an
"MMS download failed" window.  Furthermore, the evil fw would then
attempt that will-never-succeed MMS download again and again and
again, never giving up, with no way to ever cancel that unwanted MMS
download, except by erasing and reprogramming FFS with fc-loadtool!

I did find a partial solution: going into MMS settings, one can set
"automatic download" to off.  But the evil MMS network still finds a
way to deprive me of sleep even then!  With the "automatic download"
set to off, when some evildoer sends MMS to my phone number, the phone
makes the same noise as if it received SMS - except that it's MMS
instead.  I have to very carefully go into the MMS inbox, and
*without* "opening" or "reading" the new MMS (which would cause a
TCP/IP download attempt that can never succeed), select Delete
instead.  It works - but only for about 10 minutes or so.  I don't
know if the network resends the binary SMS saying "hey, there is MMS
available for download" when it sees that the expected TCP/IP download
hasn't happened, or if the Delete button in Pirelli's fw does not
truly clear the state, but I get *another* noise notification for the
same MMS, as if it is being resent over and over and over!  The phone
will then basically keep me awake with incoming message notifications
every 10 min for 3 days or so, all stemming from one thoughtless
person sending one MMS to me!

I have actually had to cut people out of my life (change my phone
number and not give them the new one) because they sent me MMS.  Of
course with source-enabled fw the solution would be trivial: detect
the binary SMS that indicates MMS being available for download, and
silently discard it without making any noise or UI indication
whatsoever - this way even if the network resends it every 10 min for
3 days, the user won't be kept awake all this time.  Or if you use a
phone that has no MMS capability whatsoever (like C139 official fw),
then the problem probably won't happen either - I assume that such fw
with absolutely no MMS capability will also discard these MMS
notifications - but I never used C139 official fw long enough to see
what it would do if some miscreant sent me MMS.

Das Signal wrote:

> Be careful when reflashing the firmware, first of all you want to avoid
> rewriting the bootloader unless absolutely necessary to prevent the risk
> of bricking the device.

Unfortunately rewriting the boot sector is unavoidable when changing
from one Mot C139 official fw version to another: the main body of the
fw starts at 0x2000, but the sector boundary does not come till 0x10000.
Our flash erase-program-boot command reduces the risk to an absolute
minimum though.

> Also if you flash the image from another phone you might rewrite the
> calibration values, this could less to suboptimal or even non working
> operation.

You don't just take a complete flash dump from one phone and "restore"
that flash dump in its entirety onto a different unit, instead you
rewrite only the firmware portion of the flash as follows:

flash erase-program-boot new-motorola-fw.bin 10000
flash e-program-bin 10000 new-motorola-fw.bin 10000 360000
flash erase 370000 50000

The last command erases the FFS sectors - Mot C1xx FFS does NOT store
any calibration values or IMEI or any other vital data, it is user data
only, and a new FFS will be automatically created by the new fw the
first time it boots.  flash e-program-bin is new with fc-host-tools-r13.

> I'm sure Mychaela will be able to provide you with useful advice in how to
> remove your SIM lock in a completely safe manner.

The only way I know of is to replace the operator-branded fw version
with one that has no operator branding, i.e., Motorola branding only.
If David didn't have a flash dump from another C139 he wishes to use,
I would be directing him to flash one of the fw versions from our FTP
site.

It also goes without saving that David should save a complete flash
dump from his current SIM-locked C139 in its original state before
doing anything to it.

M~