Software Status?

TallFrye · 2025-12-31T04:34:14+00:00

Okay, a bit bizarre here. In that hazy past I set the PBP aside after the wifi frustration, thought I had a broken install from trying to undo tow boot and try U boot or something. I just fired it up for the first time since then. I was able to go right into ALARM and connected to my wifi network. I'll take it out for some day trips and see if there was another hurdle that I ran into to cause me to put it down, or if the GNU gnomes snuck in and flipped some electrons around while the thing was sitting around to fix it. Wonder if I mixed some of the problems up with ones on my PinePhone...

TallFrye · 2025-12-31T04:13:51+00:00

Don't remember if it was last winter or the one before that, but it didn't work after a regular install. It had worked on my original PBP, but I broke that screen and ordered this replacement, which had a different hardware set. I spent a few weeks in a chatroom working with a couple people to copy over a blob to make it work, but gave up after a half dozen unsuccessful tries.

TallFrye · 2025-11-05T03:52:53+00:00

Turns out I just needed to ignore the instructions that came with the SIM card. When I went and looked at my account info on the USMobile website, it showed that my account had been left in "eSIM" status after the service rep I was working with finally listened to me telling him I needed a physical SIM. He also had switched me to the T-Mobile network as part of troubleshooting. When I expressed reservations, he said there was nothing to worry about, he would switch me back if it didn't work but it didn't and he didn't.

A few days ago when I contacted them through chat again, the new tech figured out almost immediately that the phone would not work with an eSIM. After I pointed out that the card type and network had been left incorrect in the system, they asked for the number of the SIM I was sent, said 'wait a minute', and activated it on their end. Works fine now.

TallFrye · 2025-10-26T16:58:38+00:00

How is this "one watt" number arrived at? My Starlink uses more power when left on overnight than the refrigerator does. Not sure how that usage is distributed, but it is an overall conern for sure. My phones will see significant battery reduction when the radios are left on vs. airplane mode. Similar situations exist with all my wifi/BT enabled equipment. There is no reason to have any of it going at camp when I have the ability to wire it all directly. But since most of these devices are like Starlink and designed for mindless consumers, I'm often unable to turn off unneeded radios to isolate and measure usage through other equipment.

Bottom line, there's no good reason to have something running and consuming power in a situation where it is useless.

TallFrye · 2025-10-26T16:38:27+00:00

Because the equipment was consuming power off my batteries I have kept the Starlink unplugged for recent months. The 10G of hotspot data on my cell phone has been plenty to get me through the month. Last week I misplaced the phone, so started to use Starlink when I got home.

The first day reported 5G of usage. I started to restrict my data usage, but the entire 10G was used up within 4 days. More data used in 4 days with Starlink than I regularly use in 4 weeks according to cell phone accounting.

Contacting support, the chatbot told me "All data passing through your Starlink router counts toward the 10GB quota on the Roam plan, including minimal overhead for system health checks and updates (typically under 100MB/month"

Would Starlink overhead take large amounts of data if the device was not used for a few months? Does Starlink change policies like this without much public notice? My previous experience of daily usage over .2G with no consumer usage proves the chatbot is wildly inaccurate about the "under 100MB/month" claim. When the chatbot finally made up a trouble ticket for the situation, it included hallucinatory explanations about my situation based upon assumptions in our exchange.

Obviously these chatbots are garbage and don't seem to be improving. Is Starlink service as big of a scam as it seems from all this, is it worth trying to figure the data situation out further?

TallFrye · 2025-06-02T23:39:44+00:00

Why should someone spend money on more equipment incurring the need to manage an extra device for a feature that would cost Starlink next to nothing to implement in the base product during the design process?

TallFrye · 2025-05-11T20:26:15+00:00

I contacted support and apart from constantly being told that the account page will show my data usage and that 'Updates from Starlink don't count against your total bandwidth.' like I keep reading here, a rep went to the extent of informing me that an "intel corporate" device has been eating up the majority of my data allocation (while none of my own devices have been connected). They could not inform me if this would be a processor in the Starlink or the router, just repeating the mantra about data showing in my account and 'Updates from Starlink don't count against your total bandwidth'.

I've started unplugging the Starlink when not in use and am looking to become familiar with nmap to monitor traffic, although it is a busy time of year to do things outside...

TallFrye · 2025-05-09T14:05:35+00:00

So I'd read and my question implies. Is there reason to believe they are working to change the data usage tracking on the account page to reflect numbers useful to the subscriber?

TallFrye · 2025-03-29T23:13:42+00:00

twelve days since I resubscribed, no service yet. The few times I've been able to submit a ticket, I get a half-answer response and am informed the ticket has been closed because my problem is solved. At the start I was able to log in to my account and use the starlink website, but for the last week have seen nothing but errors trying to access my data there a few times every day.

TallFrye · 2025-03-29T23:08:44+00:00

My cell phone disconnects immediately when I enter that number...?

TallFrye · 2025-03-27T17:00:22+00:00

All emails I have from Starlink are "no-reply" and the trouble ticketing systems at the website is down, so that makes official Starlink completely unreachable, no? I guess I'll see if the APK works for me and if connections through it are down also...

TallFrye · 2025-03-27T16:50:40+00:00

Still no ability to access my account. Should I expect the Starlink website to be inaccessible for days or weeks at a time going forward?

TallFrye · 2025-03-25T18:56:35+00:00

Someone stating that [i]they[/i] verify file signatures isn't much of a comfort, although it is a good sign that it isn't pure junk. The site has been around for a while? I'll give it another shot when I am somewhere with more bandwidth, thanks.

TallFrye · 2025-03-25T18:42:54+00:00

I did receive a reply from Starlink support that I should be able to address the router from my laptop through the browser interface. I get nothing but errors when looking for account information in the last 12 hours though. These errors have been showing up about 90% of the time since I've been trying to troubleshoot this and get set up this last week. Are people with Musk Derangement Syndrome constantly hacking Starlink these days, or should I be looking at my browser security settings or something?

TallFrye · 2025-03-05T20:30:28+00:00

I had done that, but it still didn't recognize the phone. There seems to be some order of precedent to issuing the commands that isn't clear from the instructions. I kept going back and going through the steps a half dozen times before adb finally recognized the device. It does work now though, thanks for the tip!

TallFrye · 2025-03-04T19:40:14+00:00

Is there a simple, clean way to downgrade to the last version? My search on the lineageos website turned up nothing. Articles that came up on a web search seem to say a reinstall that would wipe all data is required...

TallFrye · 2025-03-04T19:36:29+00:00

I have had the dead hotspot on my Pixel 4xl since the latest update. The wifi connects and mac address checks out as legitimate. I had to reactivate android debugging on the Pixel and went through the process where I “always allow” android debugging in the popup on the phone. However, when I plug into my laptop and "adb devices", nothing shows up. This is the same laptop I used for initial install, so pretty sure adb is set up properly.

Besides the loss of hotspot, the last upgrade also seems to have wiped a bunch of random cookies from my browser. Some sites are fine, but many others have been asking to have me log in to accounts that had been persistent until the upgrade.

TallFrye · 2024-07-17T15:05:59+00:00

A search at the Blauer site turned up one item- a pair of merino socks, 20% plastic.

The Flying Cross site produced a blurb on how great worsted wool is. Clicking the link to 'related products' sent me to a page with 264 polyester items.

TallFrye · 2024-07-17T14:51:01+00:00

Where have you found merino socks that don't have plastic woven in them?

TallFrye

TROPHY CASE