Chp 557. OnePlus One CM12 Android Lollipop update crash [RESOLVED]

As some of you may know, I got my OnePlus One phone long before it became available for Indian consumers on amazon.in or other e-com websites. In a way, I am a OnePlus One hipster - I had it before it was cool :P

A very close friend of mine bought one of the early batches of OnePlus One phones which was released abroad, through ebay, way back in October 2014. He paid almost twice the cost of the phone because of the obvious reasons.

I bought the phone from him in November, and even though it was technically a "third hand" phone, I didn't care because I was the envy of every nerd and geek in my circle of friends :)

Finally, OnePlus One was officially launched in India a month later, and even though it was still an "invitation only", more and more people started owning one. The unique invitation codes too stopped being as precious as they used to be, and one could easily get an invite code for free if they knew the right people to ask.

Owning a OnePlus One before most people did was cool, but the downside to it was that I had an outdated version. When my friends started buying OPOs, their version of the phone came with Android 4.4.4 and their phone model was listed as "A0001". My OPO was stuck at 4.4.2 and my model number was just "One".

And as the months rolled by, they kept receiving OTA updates to their CyanogenMod almost every week.

I didn't. Not even once.

No matter how many times I clicked on "Check For Update" on my System Update, it just kept telling me I had the latest version and there was no update available for me. Such a load of bull.

Now you may ask me why I simply didn't flash a ROM or install my own custom ROMs or do a lot of fancy geeky stuff that are possible. Well I have my reasons for sticking on to the original factory build model  -

1. I am not very good at this stuff. You might have read about my ordeal when I manually upgraded my Samsung Galaxy S from Android 2.1 to 2.3.3 and ended up soft-bricking the phone! If it wasn't for the help of my friend Chhanga, that would have been the end of my phone that day.

2. And more importantly, I'm in the mobile games development business. It is important for me to test our games and put them under different limitations. For that I need to have a basic phone with no alterations that most other people would be having, otherwise it wouldn't make sense if I pimp my phone and the games I'm testing work on it, but it doesn't work on other phones.

And so that is how I had to live my life every day - having a phone that was becoming outdated day by day. Around two weeks ago, my colleagues who also bought OPO phones started receiving updates to Android Lollipop! That was like rubbing salt to my injury :(

But last night, something wonderful happened. Something magical.

I got an OTA notification that there was FINALLY an update for my OnePlus One version!




The moment I reached office this morning, I switched on the WiFi and clicked the update command. I was drooling with excitement.




So I got the XNPH22Q update, and right after that, it sent me another OTA notification for an XNPH22R incremental which would provide performance improvements and security enhancements for my device. I said Hell yeah.




So there it was, the XNPH22R update.




After that, I got an update notification yet again, this time it was the XNPH25R incremental which would address improvements for NFC and gyroscope behaviour.




Thadaaaa... I clicked on that as well and it updated. But I was still on 4.4.2 so I was a little disappointed.




But again, there was another update available. It was the XNPH30O CyanogenMod update which also had the Android 4.4.4 update! Yipeeee!




And so finally, I had the 4.4.4. Better late than never :P My Model number also changed from "One" to "A0001".




Again, the update notification didn't stop! There was another update available, the XNPH33R. This maintenance release provided critical security updates. I clicked on "update" again.




So my CyanogenMod version was XNPH33R.




Again, once that was over, another update was available - the XNPH38R. This update was supposed to include RAW camera support, visual experience for lockscreen, and several performance improvements. Again I clicked "update".




Hello XNPH38R.




Still, the update notification didn't stop! Man I was on a roll! There was yet another update available. The XNPH44S which was suppose to provide critical security updates.




So I just kept going along. Hello XNPH44S.




And the music didn't stop. Another update notification came after this. It was the XNPH05Q, which would add new enhancement features and security fixes.






By now I was no longer surprised when there was still another update notification. It was the same XNPH05Q but this time it was to prepare my device for Cyanogen OS 12.0! Oh My God!!! That was so freaking awesome!




I clicked on update and it was done...




Finally came this, what I had been waiting for! An update to Cyanogen OS 12.0 based on Android Lollipop 5.0. Woohoooooooooooooo!




It took more than an hour to download, and once it was downloaded, it installed, and my phone rebooted.




I was crying tears of joy as my phone booted up... it started installing all the existing apps one by one... suddenly when it was almost done, THIS HAPPENED!




Aaaargghhhhh... no matter how many times I reboot, this keeps coming.




Reporting the error made no changes or resolved my issue...




Is there any way of solving this issue without much complication?

Please advice!

After all the updates I went through today, only for them to end this way had been such an Anti-Climax.

I am a nervous wreck right now.... :(

Help!



UPDATE 1: When my phone is switched on with that error message on top, I can actually receive WhatsApp messages, Facebook messages, SMS and even calls, but I just cannot see them on my screen because of the error pop-up button overlapping the screen. This morning my alarm too actually rang, but the error message is still there on top.



UPDATE 2: So after many discussions with my friends, we finally came to the conclusion that my phone was behaving like this (bootloop) because the newly updated CyanogenMod12 conflicted with some of my existing apps, mainly Gapps (google apps). Now there was a long way to resolve this by installing an Android sdk, TWRP, putting it in fastboot mode, unlocking bootloader, flashing different gapps etc etc. Instead... I said screw it, and did a FACTORY RESET (switch off phone, press volume down + power key until there is a short vibration, release buttons, you'll enter recovery mode, and simply select "wipe data/ factory reset" option), and voila, my phone was working perfectly fine after that :)

I didn't lose much data too... it took some time reinstalling back some of my apps, but hey, my phone is working now and that's all that matters! The Factory Reset didn't delete any of my photos, and I could easily get back my WhatsApp messages from WhatsApp server once I installed a new one. I got back all my contacts from Gmail as well, and most of the games I play (like Trials Frontier etc) I could easily get my game progress back from third party game platforms like uPlay, Google Game Service etc. Long live the cloud!

So that was how this problem was resolved. I am now on CM12 Lollipop and it really feels like a brand new phone, hehehe. Cheers everyone.

Chp 556. AC installation pains

As most of you may know, finding an apartment to rent is a big pain in the ass. Different housing societies have different rules. Some don’t accept tenants because of various reasons ranging from nationality and religion, to their place of origin or eating habits or even their marital status or profession.

Nothing is more frustrating than finding the perfect apartment owned by an awesome landlord, and after all the legal agreement and deposit had been done, the building society president refused to give an NOC (No Objection Certificate) just because you happened to be a bachelor. My colleagues (who moved with me from Mumbai to Pune) experienced just that, and I really feel sorry for them.

I on the other hand, had a lucky run. After looking at more than 20 apartments with my broker, I finally zeroed in on a nice pad located at a prime area on Lane no 6, Koregaon Park. It was a tough decision and I had to weigh in a lot of pros and cons among all the apartments I shortlisted. One of them was right on the banks of a river, with a very good view cum refreshing breeze and a wine shop at the ground floor, while another was fully furnished with internal air conditioning and huge balcony, but I had to consider a lot of other factors, like convenience, and accessibility to autorikshaws since I don’t own a vehicle.

The apartment I chose had one drawback - it didn’t have an AC. And since it was on the top floor, the harsh Pune summer heat wasn’t kind to it. I managed to sleep only one night in my new apartment… I mean, “sleep” would be an understatement - I was lying awake the entire night while taking a shower for the umpteenth time. The next morning, I moved back into our Company’s guesthouse :D

And so I spent two more weeks at our guesthouse (which had nice AC) while I tried to figure out how to solve the heat situation at my apartment. I finally decided to buy my own AC instead of renting one, and looked up at various e-com sites and also visited a couple of stores like Vijay Sales and Croma.

(Remember I had just moved in to a new apartment, which meant not just the first month rental but also the deposit and brokerage, not to mention the cost of shifting all my stuff from Mumbai to Pune. I was almost on the tip of being broke-ass).

Finally I found the ideal AC from Flipkart - An Onida S123PBL 1 Ton 3 Star split AC. It was available at an offer of Rs. 21990/- on Flipkart with an EMI option. I looked up the price of the same model at various other outlets and they were all in the range of 26k to 30k from other vendors. And the best part was, the Flipkart seller was WS Retail, Flipkart’s unofficial official seller (quora). It took around a week to deliver, and I continued sleeping in the guesthouse till then.

After my new AC was delivered (yay my first ever personally owned AC!), the technicians from Onida came a few hours later to install it. That was when the nightmare began.

Flipkart mentioned that the installation charge would cost around Rs. 1500/- only, plus extra. I was happy because it wasn’t that much. I just didn’t realize the “plus extra” was going to be so high!

Now I’m not pointing fingers at either Flipkart or Onida, but somewhere deep inside my stomach, I have that unpleasant feeling of being screwed over.

As mentioned earlier, that so called 1500 installation charge was only for setting up the split AC and the output unit outside my window. For the “extra charge”, I was bracing myself for, say 500 to 1000 bucks extra at the most. Oh how wrong I was!

First of all, there was the “core drilling” that was required. For that, they went and got some guys who specialized in doing that. A 3 inch diameter hole needed to be drilled through my bedroom wall, and here’s how it was done -

It was already around 10 in the night and I had to keep telling them again and again to keep the noise down. I definitely didn’t want to be kicked out of the building for disturbing my new neighbors. Finally the hole was drilled and that cost me Rs. 2760/- I wasn’t really expecting it to be that expensive!

And then came the wiring.

Apparently my bedroom didn’t have any AC point, so they had to make a new wiring connection from my bedroom to the fuse box situated outside. They gave me two types of wires to choose from, one that cost Rs. 195/- per feet (with 6 months warranty) and Rs. 225/- per feet (with 1 year warranty). They also said I have to put up an ELCB (Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker) to prevent shock and dangerous voltage, and they gave me the option of choosing one that cost Rs. 1775/- (6 months warranty) and another that cost Rs. 2250/- (1 year warranty). Here is their estimate, in their own handwriting -

The total cost of the wiring came to Rs. 5250/- and ELCB was Rs. 1775/- Man I’ve never spend that much on a few feet of wires in my life.

Yeah that long piece of black wire you see above cost a freaking 5k. Seriously? Finally by midnight, they were able to install the AC correctly with the right connection. It took 12 people in total to set it up. And of course there's poor Ronaldo above, who fell on such bad times after winning both the Ballon d'Or and Ballon d'Floor that he had to moonlight as an AC service guy :)

I paid another 300 bucks for the switchboard (which the Onida guy broke the outer plastic while banging in the plug and they said they’d replace it the next day with no additional cost but till now nobody had contacted me), and so the total amount I spent on an AC installation came to this –

Installation - 1500

Core drilling - 2760

Wiring - 5250

ELCB - 1775

Switch - 300

TOTAL = Rs. 11585/-

Dayyym, that’s more than half the cost of the AC itself!

Yeah, it had been an utter shocker for me. Is this the amount one usually pays for a new AC installation? It’s my first personally owned AC so I really have no idea about it. But I really hope I wasn’t ripped off. Flipkart and Onida are reputed brands and I’m just blindly trusting them, but please do let me know if I was overcharged.

And of course, yes it had been wonderful once the AC was set up. Good sleep and refreshing mornings. I'd give a 5 star rating to the AC model, and for 22k I think it's a really good value for money. But I still can’t fathom if the installation cost was appropriate or not.

I’m not an expert or a person with experience when it comes to this matter, maybe you’ll have a better understanding of this, do let me know if it was worth it.

Cheers.

Chp 555. Of Pune and blog friends

One of the many advantages of blogging is making new friends. I’ve been in Pune for almost a month now, and although it is a completely new city to me filled with strangers, thanks to my blog, I’ve met quite a number of people already.

In a way, writing connects people. We already know what the other person likes or dislikes, their level of humor or sensitivity, where they stand politically or apolitically, what are the issues that keep their engine running etc. Getting to know each other through blogs is another good way of breaking the ice.

On my first weekend in Pune, after a long tiring day of house hunting with five different brokers all across Koregaon Park, it was indeed a refreshing change to catch up with Rami later in the night.

Rami had been a regular reader of my blog since a long time, and it was she who introduced my blog to her then boyfriend Martin. Martin and I bonded immediately and he became a regular face at the comment section, getting to know more about our Mizo culture and history. They even stayed over at my place in Mumbai when they visited from Pune last year after their engagement. I unfortunately had to miss their wedding due to work :(

Of course the dude in the photo above is not Martin, that is his best friend. Martin got transferred to the Philippines from Pune just before I moved from Mumbai to Pune, that son of a bitch :) Well, I guess here's me exploring Pune without Martin then, while trying my best to have fun. Rami took me to Hard Rock Cafe, and although I've been to HRC in Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad, this particular HRC was the first HRC I've been to where the DJ actually played Gangnam Style! That too repeatedly!!! :D And the crowd loved it, and everybody danced! Man I think I'm gonna take some more time to get used to the party scene here in Pune :)

Another person I got to meet again here in Pune was good ol Daniel. He's also another friend I made through my blog, long before he got married. Now he's with two really adorable kids. (Today is their marriage anniversary by the way. Happy anniversary Daniel and Zodin!)

He invited me over to his place last weekend for dinner. And oh did I not mention his two kids are super adorable?

It was also awesome eating Mizo food after such a long time! Smoked pork and bekang is just... OMG combination. Kudos to Zodini for preparing such a lovely dinner.

As I still find transportation a problem here in Pune, Daniel called a cab for me. What I have noticed about Pune so far is, most of the autowallas are assholes. A large majority of them refuse to run on meter, and charge exorbitantly. Maybe I just feel that way because I've been pampered far too long by the awesomely nice autowallas of Mumbai, but this definitely leaves a black mark on my opinion about Pune. Every day I have to negotiate with an autowalla to go to office and back home, charging me 60-80 bucks for a distance not even 30 bucks on meter. Just three days ago, I had to meet some old friends at Flambos Brewpub, and the autowallas charged me 150 bucks. I kept negotiating for almost 10 minutes and finally brought it down to 100 bucks. For my return journey, I took an Uber cab instead, and that cost me 56 bucks!!! Faaak, an Uber ride is cheaper than an autorickshaw ride here in Pune!!!

Anyway, enough of that topic for now. As some of my friends recommended, I should start using the Ola autorickshaw app on my mobile. Other than the autowallas, so far my experience in Pune had been great. The food is nice (we've been to many restaurants and other eateries so far, but I'll make a food dedicated blog post later) and here in Koregaon Park, the ambience is really friendly and cozy. I really like this cheeky sign at a brewery we went to -

Our guesthouse is also located at Koregaon Park, and one of our neighbors had this up on his door.

And the parking section had this -

Maybe I too should get an ATV to solve my transportation problems :D It would also be useful while going off-roading at Tikona, Lonavala, Khopoli and other weekend getaways around Pune (though sadly, quad bikes aren't allowed on public roads here in India).

After that awesome dinner with Daniel and family, the next day, Sunday, my entire stuff from Mumbai finally reached Pune. Remember in my previous blog post, I wrote about leaving my apartment in Mumbai for good? Here's a photo of the movers & packers packing up my entire life in Mumbai.

Well, after finally getting a new place in Pune, the movers & packers delivered my stuff to my new semi-furnished apartment...

After their Pune Mizo Church service, Daniel and family stopped by at my messy new apartment to help me unpack. Zodini cleaned my dirty fridge much to my protest. The kids had the best time! :)

I still have tons of unpacking to do, which I'll do this coming weekend. Currently, it is impossible to spend any time dedicated to unpacking and cleaning the house due to heavy work schedule and tight deadlines. For now, this is how my new pad looks like... I haven't even unpacked my bedsheet box.

Now that I'm officially a Punekar, I no longer need to make the early morning long trips from Mumbai to our Pune office...

...and work for 12 straight hours and then head back to Mumbai in the night, while stopping at various gas stations in spite of being so tired and sleepy...

I will not be experiencing all that anymore as I am now settled in this city. So thank God for that.

For the next few weeks, there's going to be a lot of work done, both at office and home. And it will be tiring because I have to do them alone... I really wonder what happened to that kid Foster Rinpuia. He's also another person from Pune I got to know through my blog. Foster promised to help me with the shifting and stuff, but suddenly he's vanished, never to be seen again :) Some people said he's busy helping a new female student shift her things around... ahhh the folly of youth. Well I don't blame him for not turning up, but hoping to know more people from the Pune Mizo community soon. Until then, cheers.

Chp 554. Weekend shift from Mumbai

As one chapter closes, another opens.

George Bernard Shaw once said, “Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” I must confess, for the past eight years in Mumbai, I have not only found myself, but created myself.

Eight years ago, I was nothing but a lost soul. I had just dropped out from an MBA course then, and appeared for my UPSC exams after a year of coaching classes and still failed to make it to prelims. I was jobless, clueless and reckless.

Mumbai changed all that.

Some of you may know the “magical” story of how I started my career here in Mumbai. I’ve mentioned it once in an earlier blog post. In case it may serve as an inspiration to some of you, here’s my story, in brief.

Back in 2008, I was unemployed. After a long soul searching and introspection, I finally decided to look for work. My first job. My friends told me that since I was creative, I should apply for a job in an advertising agency, specifically a digital ad agency. And since I’ve never applied for any job anywhere (no work experience), they were afraid I might get totally disappointed if I get rejected, so they wanted me to face rejection first.

And so they told me to go to the best agency to apply for a job where I would surely get rejected, and once I was rejected, I would become stronger and start applying for job in mid-rung agencies with more confidence. That was the plan.

Webchutney was the number 1 digital agency back in 2008. I didn’t even apply online for an interview because I had no idea which position I should apply for nor had any understanding of how an ad agency even worked. I searched for the address online, and then went to the office at Versova Link Road directly.

I shocked the hell out of the receptionist (Rihanna) because nobody had ever come to Webchutney for a walk-in interview before. I was the first. Maybe to humor me, she asked me a few questions. I didn’t know what she saw in me, but she left the interview room and brought down our HR (Manisha), who too was equally flabbergasted. She too asked me a few questions, and next, I was called up to the fifth floor (!) for an interview with the ACD (Nishi). He too was amused and impressed with the whole process. We had a long interview, followed by a copy test (my first ever copy test), and then I went home.

Later, when I reached home, I told my friends and sister about my experience, and then we started discussing which lower or mid-rung ad agencies to apply to because I was definitely going to get rejected. And then I got a call from the HR telling me they wanted to meet me again. My friends and sister were like, “Just go, humor them, meanwhile we’ll chalk out your next interview”. The next day I went to the office again, and to my surprise it was the Branch Head (Poornima) and the CD (Creative Director) who wanted to meet me! Holy $hit. We had a long round of interview and most of the questions asked were related to creativity and wit.

I rushed home after the meeting, itching to tell my friends and sister about who I just met, when I got a call from HR saying I got the job! Needless to say, all my friends and sister were completely shocked, and we celebrated.

I joined Webchutney as a copywriter trainee. I had completely no clue what copywriters were supposed to do when I joined. In fact you can read in this post about my first project and the hilarious result due to my misconception of what copywriters were supposed to do.

But I slogged my ass out. I learnt the ropes, and I was guided by the best. I was the first to reach and last to leave office every day. I put in Saturdays and sometimes even Sundays as well. Initially I was a little bit embarrassed because many of my seniors were way younger than I was. But I worked hard, sometimes even staying over in office for the night, and soon overtook them. In just four years, I was promoted from copywriter trainee to junior copywriter to copywriter to senior copywriter to copy supervisor. From the clueless intern who had no idea how ad agencies work, by my second year I was handling important accounts all on my own. I was even given a special designation – Creative Trailblazer in my fourth year.

And then after a very successful stint with Webchutney for five years, my friends and I decided to start our own company - FITH Media, where we develop mobile games. In our first year itself, we were selected by StartUp Chile, one of the world’s most reputed incubators, to join their startup accelerator program! 1577 companies from 68 countries applied, and only 100 were chosen. We were one of them!

So if you ever think life is hard, remember, it is no bed of roses, but hard work, or as we used to say in college, smart work, will get you very far if you are dedicated.

Now it is time to move to the next level, and a part of me is a bit nervous about the future. But like before, there is nothing one can’t solve if we put our hearts and minds to it.

I would like to make this post much more detailed, writing about the wonderful Mumbai Mizo Association and all my Mizo friends, including the crazy house parties we used to have here, but unfortunately the Movers & Packers are coming in an hour so I don’t have the time to do that. Maybe I’ll post about that in my next update from Pune.

I would also like to bid my friends at the North East Helpline Mumbai a warm goodbye, and wishing them all the best in making Mumbai a safer place for Northeasterners. Those were some great times we all spent together, from meeting top officers and CPs and DCPs to conducting awareness events.

Last of all, I will miss my flatmates and our dear Saddam the most. The little beagle who we brought up right when he was a mere puppy to this loving and caring dog lighting up our lives with his greetings and silly antics. Flatmates are like family, and saying goodbye to them is always difficult.

Before I make this any longer than it should be, I think I’ll just end it with a quote from Abe Lincoln – “In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.” Thank you Mumbai for giving me such a wonderful life in these few years. It had indeed been the best ride of my life so far.

Cheers.

Caption: And miles to go, even after sleeping, and miles to go, even after sleeping…

:)