Firmware 2.4.19 released - report bugs here

[RJ1]

hello guys,

1st post here. Just bought an A70 8Gb a few days ago. quickly tested it with a few of my 720p videos. the stock video player was working GREAT until I upgraded to the latest firmware<this topic> . NOW when I load it with the same 720p test video, it would not play anymore ..saying I need to BUY the AC3 plugin..

what the ...

I thought it WAS a -fix- for bugs but instead it DISABLED the AC3 audio and MPEG2...

any fix for this? any comments/suggestion highly appreciated.. thank you

Yes, its happened to me after upgrading to the newest firmware
Except the mentioned restriction my archos 70 it is working great .

yes it<device> works great but the fact that the -update- disabled the AC3 audio and MPEG2 is DISAPPOINTING!

I really planned on using this device as my 2nd portable AV device, but now it kinda sucks...

archos guys, whats your say on this? was it really necessary to disable those? you should have mentioned THOSE in your bug fixes in bold letters saying "THIS UPDATE WILL DISABLE YOUR AC3 audio codec and MPEG2 videos"

now I'm wishing I never upgraded mine..really so lame

hope the next update will enable those again... thanks for a lame update!

[barryem]

Just bought an A70 8Gb a few days ago. quickly tested it with a few of my 720p videos. the stock video player was working GREAT until I upgraded to the latest firmware<this topic> . NOW when I load it with the same 720p test video, it would not play anymore ..saying I need to BUY the AC3 plugin..

what the ...

I thought it WAS a -fix- for bugs but instead it DISABLED the AC3 audio and MPEG2...

any fix for this? any comments/suggestion highly appreciated.. thank you

Actually, strange as it seems, this is a bug fix.

The AC3 plugin has been an add on thing that you buy if you want it since the gen 8 first came out. Then with the previous firmware they introduced a bug that played AC3 even without the plugin. Then with this firmware they fixed that bug.

I have 4 gen 8 Archos products and I bought the plugin for all of them. You were lucky and got a free ride for a while but now you have to pay for AC3 too.

I'm not sure why AC3 needs to be purchased but my guess is that it's a licensing issue.

Barry

[rscheller]

hello guys,

1st post here. Just bought an A70 8Gb a few days ago. quickly tested it with a few of my 720p videos. the stock video player was working GREAT until I upgraded to the latest firmware<this topic> . NOW when I load it with the same 720p test video, it would not play anymore ..saying I need to BUY the AC3 plugin..

what the ...

I thought it WAS a -fix- for bugs but instead it DISABLED the AC3 audio and MPEG2...

any fix for this? any comments/suggestion highly appreciated.. thank you

Yes, its happened to me after upgrading to the newest firmware
Except the mentioned restriction my archos 70 it is working great .

I don't recall the exact OS version number but there was an OS release that inadvertently included the Archos "Cinema Plug-in" which, prior to that OS, was a paid only optional download. It was a less than well kept secret that Archos had made this mistake.

Therefore rightfully so, at a subsequent OS update version, Archos corrected their error.

These tablets work per the specs as described for playing various video files. You just need to purchase the Cinema Plug-in to get full benifit if needed. It's not that much. I paid $14.99US.

[wildt]

Did a full reinitialization to check if quirks will be resolved. Observations:
- rotation/icons while on homescreen still sluggish at times (stock launcher)
- angry birds still judders

I'm experiencing something very similar with my archos101. Odd thing is the new firmware (2.4.19) was running "perfectly" for a while. One day I noticed "Cut The Rope" was running VERY choppy (low juddery framerate), and gave all my games a checkup. VERY choppy framerates everywhere.

After some reboots and minor tweaks, I decided to run the "full reinitialization" in the android settings - no change!

Doesn't matter what profile I use in power management.. has the new "overclocked" gpu firmware borked the hardware?

Any ideas what has happened, or even better - what I can do to make it run as it should again?

[Ominous]

It would be comforting if NZ or other Archos officials could time to time report back and say: "We know, we are working on it".

Angry birds "problem" could be just something isolated, some way that AB is coded that doesn't really go along these firmware changes.

On the other hand, "kitten cannon" runs holy S~it fast

I have v7 board, and I was watching battery charge. It charges to a full 100%. Soon after unplugging (~2minutes) it will drop to 99-98% but it will drain power as usual.
If I allow regular sleep mode, tweeter updates, mail checks, media service and other will wake the device and will drain power faster even if I don't use it. (duh )

I didn't notice any big battery drain if I set it to deep sleep.

[Psycho29388]

Firmware works great so far, have not experienced any bugs except for rare app crashes which is due to the app itself (checked the reviews after the app crashed, turns out some other people had the same problem).

I'm not sure if the Default launcher is any faster with the firmware because i started using launcher pro after the update.

[Todd6677]

Firmware works great so far, have not experienced any bugs except for rare app crashes which is due to the app itself (checked the reviews after the app crashed, turns out some other people had the same problem).

I'm not sure if the Default launcher is any faster with the firmware because i started using launcher pro after the update.

Agreed. The last update has really smoothed out my 101 completely. I didn't even do a complete wipe. Once in a blue moon it flakes out on me a bit, but it isn't very often.

I did the same thing with launcher pro and can't vouch for stock either. Don't really care for Launcher pro (It scrolls too slow) but since the VTL launcher I was using would crash every chance it got I swapped over with pretty good results. The scrolling was nice in VTL because you could control the speed and it made the interface seem really slick. Launcher pro also won out because there was a resolution to the off-set icons issue when it would wake up or exit from programs.

LP is "better" than VTL IMO but I do miss the VTL interface a bit... For whatever thats worth.

[arkita]

About ac3:

I'm not much into audio/video so I'm quite confused. I tried playing ac3 sample files online and they played. When I checked settings>about device>plug-ins it says "cinema, registered". Is that the plug-in that's supposed to be purchased? I never bought any plug-ins and my device seemed to have it since I got it and never lost it even after two updates.

About video sound when mute, yes, my device also gives off a faint sound even when muted.

[rscheller]

About ac3:

I'm not much into audio/video so I'm quite confused. I tried playing ac3 sample files online and they played. When I checked settings>about device>plug-ins it says "cinema, registered". Is that the plug-in that's supposed to be purchased? I never bought any plug-ins and my device seemed to have it since I got it and never lost it even after two updates.

About video sound when mute, yes, my device also gives off a faint sound even when muted.

Perhaps once the Cinema Plug-in is installed whether by purchase or the update that erroniously included it... it will stay registered on the particular device unless a hard reset is done before an update that eiminated it.

It's all purely speculation on my part.

[RJ1]

About ac3:

I'm not much into audio/video so I'm quite confused. I tried playing ac3 sample files online and they played. When I checked settings>about device>plug-ins it says "cinema, registered". Is that the plug-in that's supposed to be purchased? I never bought any plug-ins and my device seemed to have it since I got it and never lost it even after two updates.

About video sound when mute, yes, my device also gives off a faint sound even when muted.

what firmware version are you on?

another question to the gurus, w/c of the 2 ways "destroy" that plugin? the firmware update ? or device RESET?

[tazzarias]

Did a full reinitialization to check if quirks will be resolved. Observations:
- battery really doesn't get to 100% whether charging on stand by or while turned off
- rotation/icons while on homescreen still sluggish at times (stock launcher)
- angry birds still judders

Generally, performance was the same as when I updated via OTA without reset.
(Archos 70 8gb V6, previous firmware 2.1.8 )

Same issues for me, I also have a 7oIT 8gb V6. Moreover, I don't really see any performance gains.

[arkita]

About ac3:

I'm not much into audio/video so I'm quite confused. I tried playing ac3 sample files online and they played. When I checked settings>about device>plug-ins it says "cinema, registered". Is that the plug-in that's supposed to be purchased? I never bought any plug-ins and my device seemed to have it since I got it and never lost it even after two updates.

About video sound when mute, yes, my device also gives off a faint sound even when muted.

what firmware version are you on?

another question to the gurus, w/c of the 2 ways "destroy" that plugin? the firmware update ? or device RESET?

2.4.19, updated from 2.1.8. A70 8gb v6. I did OTA update and then performed full reinitialization.

[barryem]

AC3 is the audio codec most often used in DVD's, so when a video is made from a DVD some converters will use the same codec, while other converters will use whatever is their default. The result is that a lot of the videos distributed on the web have AC3 audio. Most have MP3 or AAC but AC3 is also pretty common.

Barry

[deet]

My cheapo bluetooth keyboard now seems to be working properly for the first time ever.

It paired on the first try (!!!!) And let's me type without going into some sort of weird autorepeat mode.

Keyboard echo on Gmail is good, but it is a little slow (but accurate) when typing into a web page like this one.

For me, this is a huge improvement as I had given up on ever getting a BT keyboard to work.

Thanks Archos.

Dang. It only worked for one day and then started behaving badly again.

[dlarkin_dc]

Sometimes, not everytime, I get crackle/pops when I turn on the tablet. Anyone else?

[Bouldergeek]

Unhappily, my A70 is now worse after the 2.4.x update. I was happily on 2.1.8 and resisted all of the 2.3.x updates. I should have missed this on,e as well.

Screen refresh coming out of apps will give me a screen with background, but no apps or widgets. It may stay like this for 30 seconds, wile i try to swipe to get some activity on the display. I am running Launcherpro, so this may play a role. I can revert to the stock launcher and see if that makes a difference.

Graphics performance is degraded from 2.1.8 in my use. Window animations in the Nook app are now jerky where they were fluid on 2.1.8. Plants vs Zombies faults out and crashes to the desktop. Angry Birds is a known issue.

I lost my settings for SMB browsing, so I no longer have access to my NAS (now I have to go dig the configs up, but I can't just browse to it and authenticate).

Outside of Microsoft, I have never seen such a string of software fixes that disable features and degrade the user experience as the last half year with this device. But, I've only been working with personal computers for 26 years.

[FZelle]

As you are one of the few people having these Problems, there has to be something with your hardware ( boardversion )
or your installed Software.

I have used every FW update that came out ( even beta's ) and have never had this type of problems.
With 2.4.19 my archos is alot smoother then 2.1.8.
Tried to backup your device, and start from scratch?

[tazzarias]

Unhappily, my A70 is now worse after the 2.4.x update. I was happily on 2.1.8 and resisted all of the 2.3.x updates. I should have missed this on,e as well.

Screen refresh coming out of apps will give me a screen with background, but no apps or widgets. It may stay like this for 30 seconds, wile i try to swipe to get some activity on the display. I am running Launcherpro, so this may play a role. I can revert to the stock launcher and see if that makes a difference.

Graphics performance is degraded from 2.1.8 in my use. Window animations in the Nook app are now jerky where they were fluid on 2.1.8. Plants vs Zombies faults out and crashes to the desktop. Angry Birds is a known issue.

I lost my settings for SMB browsing, so I no longer have access to my NAS (now I have to go dig the configs up, but I can't just browse to it and authenticate).

Outside of Microsoft, I have never seen such a string of software fixes that disable features and degrade the user experience as the last half year with this device. But, I've only been working with personal computers for 26 years.

Same issues here, I have a V6 board in my A70. I'm not using any 3rd party launchers.

[arkita]

Unhappily, my A70 is now worse after the 2.4.x update. I was happily on 2.1.8 and resisted all of the 2.3.x updates. I should have missed this on,e as well.

Screen refresh coming out of apps will give me a screen with background, but no apps or widgets. It may stay like this for 30 seconds, wile i try to swipe to get some activity on the display. I am running Launcherpro, so this may play a role. I can revert to the stock launcher and see if that makes a difference.

Graphics performance is degraded from 2.1.8 in my use. Window animations in the Nook app are now jerky where they were fluid on 2.1.8. Plants vs Zombies faults out and crashes to the desktop. Angry Birds is a known issue.

I lost my settings for SMB browsing, so I no longer have access to my NAS (now I have to go dig the configs up, but I can't just browse to it and authenticate).

Outside of Microsoft, I have never seen such a string of software fixes that disable features and degrade the user experience as the last half year with this device. But, I've only been working with personal computers for 26 years.

Same issues here, I have a V6 board in my A70. I'm not using any 3rd party launchers.

I also have v6 board. Homescreen icon refresh occassionally sluggish on stock launcher, probably some memory problem. I also noticed that keyboard won't pop up while browsing when screen is not zoomed in a little, clicking links also needs some zooming in to work. Other websites would not even scroll, also has to zoom. I didn' t notice these problems when I was at 2.1.8.

[pfontaine2]

I too have a v6 board and my A70 is certainly more sluggish. Screen rotation is slower and the screen seems to be slower to respomd as well. More importantly, my battery no longer charges to 100%. I can charge it until the green LED flashes. When I disconnect the tablet from the charger, it shows approximately a 90% or less charge. The battery does seem to last a long time, but it just refuses to charge up to 100%.