OnePlus Class Action?

Ten days ago I did a post about touchscreen issues I’ve been having with my (previously) beloved OnePlus One smartphone. Since then all I’ve experienced from OnePlus customer “care” are delaying tactics and an obvious reluctance to address a systemic problem with their phone design. While I loved this handset while it worked, I won’t be owning another OnePlus product and I encourage my three readers to avoid the company like they would the plague.

I really didn’t expect much from the support process and I wasn’t disappointed. OnePlus has always struck me as a company with great ideas but they’ve always seemed a little over their head when it comes to actually implementing them. But I decided to soldier on and go through the process. I sent in a support ticket on May 11th:

One Plus Support Request 1

The next day (well, about 13 hours later) I got a reply. Not bad, actually, and I developed some false hope that this would work out.

One Plus Support Request 2

So “Kathy” wants me to send in a video. Okay, no worries. I made the video and sent them the link. This seemed to satisfy Kathy who escalated my issue, but then “Leah” also asked for a video.

One Plus Support Request 3

WTF? Okay, definitely a FAIL on reading comprehension, but I replied with a link to the original video and asked them what else they wanted to see. The next message, from Canoy Gem, asks for, you guessed it, another video:

One Plus Support Request 4

At this point it time it has become obvious to me that they are just stalling. There are a number of threads about this issue on their forums (here is the first one and now there is a second – both with pages and pages of comments). So I write back to Gem, again with a link to the video, and he replied with even more requests, this time for pictures:

One Plus Support Request 5

As I’ve seen with the replies from others on their forums, this seems to be pretty common – asking for videos and pictures. I waited until I had some decent light and took really nice pictures of my undamaged phone. However, I was unable to get the back cover off for the final picture. I’ve disassembled a number of devices over the years and while I could probably get this cover off it wouldn’t be without damage. If I damaged it, OnePlus would use it to deny warranty coverage. However, it looks like they are not going to proceed until I do.

One Plus Support Request 6

Note that in this entire exchange they have never mentioned that it might be corrected with a firmware fix (as talked about in the forums). I doubt this is the case with my phone as a) it just started happening and b) it seems restricted to the upper half of the screen, but I would have been willing to test it for them if they’d bring it up.

Also, I’ve noticed that most of the people responding to me have female names. This is a tactic in customer support as women are often treated better in such situations. While they may exist I’m pretty sure OnePlus technical support consists of one overworked guy named Zhang Wei.

I replied that my patience was at an end and either they would let me send them the phone that they could then examine to their heart’s content or I would pursue other actions. All I’ve done for now is replace it with a Nexus 6, but it seems to me that this is a prime example of a use case for a class action lawsuit: A large class of consumers has been apparently defrauded by a vendor supplying faulty products.

I’m talking to friends of mine with some experience in this, but if you have any suggestions for a firm to handle a class action lawsuit, please let me know.

Early/Often on the Horizon

Lots of stuff, and I mean lots of cool stuff is going on and to paraphrase Hamlet I have not enough thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. I spent this week in the UK but I should be home for awhile and I hope to catch up.

But I wanted to put down a at least one thought. When we made the very difficult decision to split OpenNMS into two products, Horizon and Meridian, we had some doubts that it was the right thing to do. Well, at least for me, those doubts have been removed.

It used to take us 18 or more months to get a major release out. Due to the support business we were both hesitant to remove code we no longer needed or to try the newest things. Since we moved to the Horizon model we’ve released 3 major versions in six months and not only have we added a number of great features, we are finally getting around to removing stuff we no longer need and finishing projects that have languished in the past.

In the meantime we’re delivering Meridian to customers who value stability over features with the knowledge that the version they are running is supported for three years. Seriously, we have some customers upgrading from OpenNMS 1.8 (six major releases back) who obviously want longer release cycles, and even if you don’t need support you can get Meridian software for a rather modest fee coupled with OpenNMS Connect for those times when you really just need to ask a question.

Anything OpenNMS does well is a reflection on our great team and community, but I take personally any shortcomings. At least now I can see the path to minimize them if not remove them completely.

It’s a good feeling.

OpenNMS 16 Released

In keeping with our new Horizon release policy of a new major release every three to four months, we are happy to announce the availability of OpenNMS 16, codenamed Daredevil.

Most of the changes in OpenNMS 16 are under the covers. We are trying to streamline the code and thus have removed both capsd (which was deprecated) and linkd (which was replaced by enhanced linkd). This version also requires Java 8.

The main visible feature is that the Dashboard has been rewritten and should be a considerable improvement to those who use it.

A nearly complete list of changes is as follows:

Bug

  • [NMS-863] – "24hr Avail" went negative
  • [NMS-2213] – SLM categories totals are not being updated during runtime
  • [NMS-5631] – Deadlock inside RTC's DataManager during shutdown
  • [NMS-6100] – The Stp interface box page throws an exception
  • [NMS-6158] – When displaying Linkd link info on node, ifAlias data in interface columns missing opening quote
  • [NMS-6536] – NRTG is throwing ConcurrentModificationException
  • [NMS-6567] – IfIndex not updated in ipinterface table on change
  • [NMS-6568] – Requisition UI has inconsistent field labels for building the provisioning requisition
  • [NMS-6583] – linkd can't make use of learned MAC addresses on ports to determine path mapping
  • [NMS-6593] – sort order interfaces on node page
  • [NMS-6802] – EnLinkD IS-IS Link discovery fails on Cisco routers
  • [NMS-6902] – Geomaps are quite slow
  • [NMS-6905] – Remove Link Status Menu Item
  • [NMS-6912] – lldpchassisid not properly decoded for DragonWave in Enhanced Linkd Lldp node discovery
  • [NMS-6972] – test failure: org.opennms.netmgt.provision.detector.SmtpDetectorTest
  • [NMS-6974] – Link Status Provider is still an option for older Linkd Topology Provider
  • [NMS-7029] – Java 8 build fails some tests
  • [NMS-7089] – MAC 00:00:00:00:00:00 should be treated as null
  • [NMS-7090] – IpNetToMedia Table: Manage duplicated ip address
  • [NMS-7096] – Toggle icons on Node List Page are too small on resolutions greater than Full HD
  • [NMS-7148] – Geo-Maps running on a server without internet connection breaks the UI for valid nodes.
  • [NMS-7175] – Alarms dashlet: "ago" and node label columns can overlap when tiled
  • [NMS-7183] – LLdp link discovery: lldpRemLocalPortNum value 0
  • [NMS-7184] – LldpHelper decode exception
  • [NMS-7192] – Remove the logging directories from the DEB package
  • [NMS-7207] – Switch direction to zoom in and out in the topology
  • [NMS-7251] – Change filterfavorites.filter to 'text' SQL data type
  • [NMS-7294] – Enhanced Linkd inserts wrong Local Port bridge number
  • [NMS-7320] – Java environment in Debian has to be configured twice
  • [NMS-7337] – Database Report "Response time by node" Not Working.
  • [NMS-7358] – IllegalArgumentException on ipnettomediatable
  • [NMS-7362] – No CDP neighbors on a topological map
  • [NMS-7372] – ACLs ineffective in geographic map
  • [NMS-7379] – Unable to display performance data from Host Resource processor table
  • [NMS-7400] – KSC Reports with non-existing resources generate exceptions on the WebUI
  • [NMS-7410] – Title information on the node detail page are confusing
  • [NMS-7412] – Double footer in resource graph page
  • [NMS-7432] – Normalize the HTTP Host Header with the new HttpClientWrapper
  • [NMS-7434] – Disabling Notifd crashes webUI
  • [NMS-7456] – JRB to RRD converter no longer compiles
  • [NMS-7466] – Reload Collectd and Pollerd Configuration without restart OpenNMS
  • [NMS-7467] – Path Outage severity is not indicated in Web UI
  • [NMS-7481] – DrayTek Vigor2820 Series agent bug: zero-length IpAddress instance ID
  • [NMS-7485] – queued creates its own category for loggings
  • [NMS-7518] – SNMP version syntax inconsistent across components
  • [NMS-7531] – Surveillance View configuration is no longer dynamic
  • [NMS-7533] – EventconfFactoryTest fails with no events eventconf.xml
  • [NMS-7537] – Vaadin SV on index page not fitting to view
  • [NMS-7543] – Vaadin:Dashboard SV dashlet no longer indicate context of other dashlets
  • [NMS-7549] – NPE on admin/notification/noticeWizard/chooseUeis.jsp
  • [NMS-7554] – Smoke test is failing with the new dashboard
  • [NMS-7563] – gui and maps does not display lldp and cdp links
  • [NMS-7570] – Dashboard Auto-Refresh runs JVM out of memory (Full-GC)
  • [NMS-7576] – The XSD for the SNMP Hardware Inventory Provisioning Adapter is not included on the RPM/DEB packages.
  • [NMS-7577] – Search by foreignSource or severityLabel doesn't work on Geo Maps
  • [NMS-7590] – List of service names in the requisition editor should be pulled from the poller conifguration instead of capsd
  • [NMS-7597] – Tog depth for VmwareMonitor and VmwareCimMonitor is wront
  • [NMS-7598] – Varbinddecodes are being ignored on Notifications
  • [NMS-7603] – Some parameters logged out of order since slf4j conversion
  • [NMS-7604] – Replace PermGen VM arguments with Metaspace equivalents
  • [NMS-7610] – Remote Poller throws ClassNotFound Exception when loading config
  • [NMS-7615] – RPM dependency for JDK 8 is wrong
  • [NMS-7616] – Compass can't make a POST request from FILE URLs in some cases
  • [NMS-7617] – Test failure: org.opennms.netmgt.provision.service.Nms5414Test
  • [NMS-7620] – Scrolling issue
  • [NMS-7622] – Memory leak in RTC
  • [NMS-7626] – The PSM doesn't work with IPv6 addresses if the ${ipaddr} placeholder is used on host or virtual-host
  • [NMS-7629] – Timeline image links are not working with services containing spaces
  • [NMS-7630] – Database reports don't run in 16
  • [NMS-7631] – Match event params for auto-ack of Notification
  • [NMS-7633] – include-url doesn't work on poller packages
  • [NMS-7634] – ClassCastException in BSFNotificationStrategy
  • [NMS-7636] – Node resources are deleted when provisiond aborts a scan
  • [NMS-7637] – Default date width in Database Reports is too small
  • [NMS-7640] – Test failure: testImportAddrThenChangeAddr
  • [NMS-7641] – The IP Interface page is blank.
  • [NMS-7642] – The global variable org.opennms.rrd.queuing.category is set to OpenNMS.Queued and should be queued
  • [NMS-7643] – Test failure: testSerialFailover
  • [NMS-7644] – Fixing Logging Prefix/Category on several classes
  • [NMS-7645] – Test failure: tryStatus
  • [NMS-7650] – XML data collection with HTTP POST requests is not working
  • [NMS-7651] – Improving exception handling on the XML Collector
  • [NMS-7657] – Vaadin surveillance view configuration doesn't work with Firefox
  • [NMS-7658] – Error in Debian/Ubuntu init script

Enhancement

  • [NMS-1504] – Add option to turn off snmp v3 passphrase clear text in log files
  • [NMS-2995] – Trapd is not able to process SNMPv3 INFORMs
  • [NMS-4619] – XMPP: Make SASL mechanism configurable
  • [NMS-6442] – Set vertex to focal point
  • [NMS-6581] – Drools Update to 6.0.1 Final
  • [NMS-6963] – PATCH — Bridgewave Wireless Bridge
  • [NMS-7146] – Move RTC over to Spring and Hibernate
  • [NMS-7229] – Be able to set the rescanExisting flag when defining a scheduler task on provisiond-configuration.xml
  • [NMS-7310] – add Siemens HiPath 3000 event files
  • [NMS-7311] – add Siemens HiPath 3000 HG1500 event files
  • [NMS-7312] – add Siemens HiPath 8000 / OpenScapeVoice event files
  • [NMS-7318] – Move notification status indicator to header
  • [NMS-7424] – Add pathOutageEnabled="false" to poller-configuration.xml by default
  • [NMS-7441] – Change varchar to text for CDP and LLDP tables
  • [NMS-7453] – Update Smack API
  • [NMS-7461] – Update asciidoctor maven plugin from 1.5.0 to 1.5.2
  • [NMS-7473] – Remove Capsd from OpenNMS
  • [NMS-7474] – Modify WebDetector/Monitor/Plugin/Client to expose ability to enable/disable certificate validation
  • [NMS-7476] – Add support for gzip compression on REST APIs
  • [NMS-7479] – Allow RRD data to be retrieved via REST
  • [NMS-7480] – Make resource data accessible through ReST
  • [NMS-7505] – The DefaultResourceDao loads all child resources when retrieving a specific resource by id
  • [NMS-7528] – Use the default threshold definition as a template when adding TriggeredUEI/RearmedUEI on thresholds through the WebUI
  • [NMS-7579] – Remove unnecessary output from opennms-doc module
  • [NMS-7593] – BSFMonitor creates a new BSFManager every poll which makes caching script engines ineffective
  • [NMS-7595] – SNMP interface RRD migrator should create and clean up backups interface-wise
  • [NMS-7609] – Create a ReST API to expose the available detectors/policies/categories/assets/services required to manipulate foreign sources
  • [NMS-7612] – Need upgrade task for collection strategy classes
  • [NMS-7619] – Create opennms.properties option to choose between new and old dashboard
  • [NMS-7632] – Deprecation of LinkD

Story

  • [NMS-7299] – Allow user to create and modify surveillance views
  • [NMS-7303] – Migrate Surveillance view GWT UI component to Vaadin
  • [NMS-7304] – Migrate Alarms GWT UI component to Vaadin
  • [NMS-7305] – Migrate Notifications GWT UI component to Vaadin
  • [NMS-7306] – Migrate Node Status component from GWT to Vaadin
  • [NMS-7307] – Migrate Resource Graph Viewer component from GWT to Vaadin
  • [NMS-7323] – Update user documentation
  • [NMS-7325] – Allow user to select surveillance view in the Dashboard
  • [NMS-7326] – Remove the GWT dashboard from the code base
  • [NMS-7429] – Remove "report-category" attribute
  • [NMS-7430] – Add surveillance view's name in the left header cell
  • [NMS-7431] – Add an option to disable "refreshing"
  • [NMS-7469] – Add preview window in config UI
  • [NMS-7489] – Icons for alarms and notifications
  • [NMS-7490] – Modal window to show node, alarm and notification details
  • [NMS-7491] – Admin configuration panel shows dashboard instead of surveillance view
  • [NMS-7492] – Allow to configure refresh time per surveillance view
  • [NMS-7530] – Rename the surveillance config panel link in Admin menu
  • [NMS-7540] – Dashboard Dashlet: Refresh indicator
  • [NMS-7542] – Vaadin Dashboard: Alarm Dashlet should have severity sorting by default

Dev-Jam 2015 – Magical Number 10

We are just about a month away from one of my favorite weeks of the year: The OpenNMS Developer’s Jamboree, or Dev-Jam.

This is the tenth one we’ve had, which is hard for me to believe. I think it is a testament to the community around the OpenNMS Project that we can have these year after year (and not a testament to the fact that I’m quickly becoming an “old guy”).

We have people from all over the world who contribute to OpenNMS, and for one week out of the year we get together to hack and hang out. It was an “unconference” before such things were popular.

The first one was held at the Pittsboro OpenNMS HQ in 2005, but we quickly learned that we needed a bigger venue. The requirements for a successful Dev-Jam are as follows:

  • A room big enough to hold everyone
  • Fast Internet
  • A place for everyone to sleep
  • Food

We found a great home for Dev Jam at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus in Minneapolis, specifically in a dorm called Yudof Hall. We lease the downstairs “club room” which is a large rectangular room that is big enough for our crowd. On one side is a kitchen and on the other side is an area with a television and couches. In the middle we set up tables for everyone to work.

We also get rooms in the same dorm, so people can come and go as they please. Some people like to get up in the morning. Others stay up late and don’t come down until noon. The campus offers a number of places to eat, and in the evening we can walk to a restaurant for dinner and drinks. We try to see a Twins game while we are there as well as take a trip to Mall of America.

This will be the first year that access to the light rail system is available from campus, which will make getting around so much easier.

For those of you who haven’t spend a lot of time embedded with an open source project, you probably don’t understand how much fun an event like this can be, or why just writing about it makes me eager for June to arrive. Technically I’ll be at work, but it is unlike any other job I’ve ever had.

If you would like to come, we still have a few places left. Check out the Registration page for more information. Everyone is welcome, but be advised that this is a “code” heavy conference with little formal structure. For more casual OpenNMS users, there is the User’s Conference in September.

Hope to see you at Dev-Jam, and if not there, at the OUCE.

Touchscreen Issues with OnePlus One Phone

Last September I was able to purchase a OnePlus One phone, and my initial impressions were very positive.

Having owned it now for over six months, I can state that this is the best smartphone I’ve ever owned, a list which has included two iPhones, several Nexus devices, a couple of Samsung devices and an HTC One. It is fast, runs well, has a wonderful screen and is the right size for my hand.

Being a fan, I have followed the drama surrounding OnePlus and CyanogenMod, and I am very unhappy about the new OxygenOS being closed source. But still, I decided to upgrade to Lollipop (Cyanogenmod 12S) when it became available and that’s when I started to notice an issue with the touchscreen.

I play a game called Ingress, and within the application is a mini-game called “Glyph Hacking“. In the mini-game you are presented with a number of patterns on a grid, and you have to replicate the patterns, in order, in a certain amount of time. I really enjoy the game as a mental exercise, but I started noticing that as I was trying to draw the glyphs it would often just stop drawing or jump to the next glyph in the sequence. This was frustrating.

I found a thread that suggests a number of other people are having this issue with the phone and that it may be a software problem. I’m not so sure this is the case with my handset, because up until this last week it has been working fine (never seen the issue before). But just in case, I was able to restore the phone to KitKat and (CyanogenMod 11S) the problem remained. All of the suggestions I’ve found on-line, from plugging the phone in to “ground” it to rebooting, haven’t helped.

Using a program called “Yet Another Multitouch Test” I was able to demonstrate that the screen is registering additional touches that I did’t make, especially near the top of the screen. I’ve contacted OnePlus support so we’ll see what happens. Here is a video demonstrating the issue.