SignalCheck - Android app to monitor your Wi-Fi/2G/3G/4G LTE/5G-NR signal strengths

[mikejeep]

37 minutes ago, dkyeager said:

We have legitimate PCI 0 at a number of sites.

Oh that's right.. I have never seen one in New England so I always forget about that. Carry on!

-Mike

[mikejeep]

Finally got a SignalCheck Pro update pushed out yesterday afternoon! By now I'm sure many of you already grabbed it, but here are the version 4.47 highlights..

Added option to hide "Unknown" neighbor cells.
If you enable this option, you will not see "Unknown" neighbors displayed individually.. instead the total number of unknowns (if any) will be mentioned in the neighbor cell header. "Unknown" cells are usually nearby cells that are on a different band than your active connection. Android used to handle these without an issue, but since 7.0 it's been broken.

Resolved issue with missing signal information on GSM devices reporting 99% BER.
There's a decent number of older Samsung devices (and possibly others) that report a bogus GSM bit error rate (BER) even when the connection is valid. This should work around that.

Overhauled implementation of Android 6+ runtime permissions requirements.
This has been a nightmare, but it's getting better. Essentially, you need to grant SignalCheck the location, phone, and storage permissions it asks for if you want full functionality. There is still a glitch where you may not be prompted for every permission if more than one is pending in the background, but I'm working on it. There is an explanation of why these permissions are needed on the website FAQ, but please ask if you have any questions.

Overhauled Wi-Fi channel and bandwidth routines.
Wi-Fi channel/frequency/bandwidth information should be greatly improved for those who were lacking this information before. Still some occasional reports of issues with DFS, please let me know if anything doesn't look right.

Changed AT&T LTE band 17 indicators to display as "B12/B17" if EARFCN cannot be obtained.
I'm probably getting the technical explanation wrong here, but AT&T is deploying B12 and B17 together with MFBI. SignalCheck will now show either B12 or B17 if the EARFCN confirms one of those, or "B12/B17" if it's not sure.

Added additional indicators for AT&T LTE band 2, 4, 5, 12, 17, and 30 cells.
Added additional indicators for Sprint CDMA Airave cells.
Added additional indicators for Sprint LTE band 41 Magic Box cells.
Added Data/EPST and Debug/Engineering shortcuts for rooted Pixel devices.
Added indicators for T-Mobile LTE band 71 cells (excluding East Coast & Western US).
Added support for newest LTE bands in 3GPP spec.
Reorganized Display Settings screen.
Resolved force closes on devices with multiple user accounts.
Resolved force closes when necessary permissions have not been granted on Android 6+.
Resolved force closes with Send Diagnostics function when storage permission is not granted.
Resolved issue with CDMA BSL display failing on Android 8.1.
These should all be self-explanatory but feel free to ask if you want more information.

 

As always, thank you to everyone for your support! There WILL be an update to SignalCheck Lite this month to catch it up to this release. I have been holding out because I was hoping to get all of the permissions issues ironed out before doing that, but my patience has run out.

-Mike

[JossMan]

Mike I noticed on my S8 that the BSL isn't displaying, instead I get "click for map."  Is this a known issue?  

 

[mikejeep]

Mike I noticed on my S8 that the BSL isn't displaying, instead I get "click for map."  Is this a known issue?

Yes, a reboot should fix it. The geocoding service will sometimes just stop working for no reason:

http://www.bluelinepc.com/signalcheck/known-issues/

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/36956130

-Mike

[JossMan]

8 hours ago, mikejeep said:

 

Yes, a reboot should fix it. The geocoding service will sometimes just stop working for no reason:

http://www.bluelinepc.com/signalcheck/known-issues/

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/36956130

-Mike
 

 

Rebooting my device doesn't fix it, hopefully it gets fixed in Android since its a known bug.  

[swintec]

8 hours ago, mikejeep said:

 

Yes, a reboot should fix it. The geocoding service will sometimes just stop working for no reason:

http://www.bluelinepc.com/signalcheck/known-issues/

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/36956130

-Mike
 

 

BSL has not worked on my essential phone...ever.

[mikejeep]

41 minutes ago, JossMan said:

Rebooting my device doesn't fix it, hopefully it gets fixed in Android since its a known bug.  

11 minutes ago, swintec said:

BSL has not worked on my essential phone...ever.

Until now I do not think I had any reports of this not working. You do need an active data connection (it looks up the address using an unknown Google server) but otherwise it should just work. Can you try sending a diagnostic report after you are connected to a CDMA site for a bit? Maybe there's an error getting thrown in the background.

-Mike

[JossMan]

5 hours ago, mikejeep said:

 

Until now I do not think I had any reports of this not working. You do need an active data connection (it looks up the address using an unknown Google server) but otherwise it should just work. Can you try sending a diagnostic report after you are connected to a CDMA site for a bit? Maybe there's an error getting thrown in the background.

-Mike

Will do I'll send a few reports from various sites.

[swintec]

7 hours ago, mikejeep said:

 

Until now I do not think I had any reports of this not working. You do need an active data connection (it looks up the address using an unknown Google server) but otherwise it should just work. Can you try sending a diagnostic report after you are connected to a CDMA site for a bit? Maybe there's an error getting thrown in the background.

-Mike

okay i sent one over.  just for reference, what needs to be enabled in the settings for BSL to display correctly?  i could have missed a setting migrating from my nexus device.

[mikejeep]

 

38 minutes ago, swintec said:

okay i sent one over.  just for reference, what needs to be enabled in the settings for BSL to display correctly?  i could have missed a setting migrating from my nexus device.

There's only one option (enabled by default); if you had it disabled, you wouldn't see the line at all.

I got your report and immediately see the issue.. the latitude and longitude are flipped. It's trying to geocode coordinates in Antarctica, not Maine. A bug caused this to happen on Android 8.0, so SignalCheck flips them back -- I wonder if the Essential folks implemented a fix on their end, so my "fix" is really breaking it. Ugh! I'll have to implement a smarter fix.

EDIT: Actually, something more widespread is going on.. @JossMan I just got your report, and your lat/long is flipped too. The "fix" must have rolled out in an interim 8.0 update for some devices. It wasn't fixed on the Pixel until 8.1 so that's what the app looks for.. ugh..

-Mike

[JossMan]

48 minutes ago, mikejeep said:

 

There's only one option (enabled by default); if you had it disabled, you wouldn't see the line at all.

I got your report and immediately see the issue.. the latitude and longitude are flipped. It's trying to geocode coordinates in Antarctica, not Maine. A bug caused this to happen on Android 8.0, so SignalCheck flips them back.

EDIT: Actually, something more widespread is going on.. @JossMan I just got your report, and your lat/long is flipped too. The "fix" must have rolled out in an interim 8.0 update for some devices. It wasn't fixed on the Pixel until 8.1 so that's what the app looks for.. ugh..

-Mike

So is this just a fix to SCP Pro? 

[mikejeep]

3 minutes ago, JossMan said:

So is this just a fix to SCP Pro? 

The initial release of Android 8.0 had a bug in the OS that switched the BSL latitude and longitude. When Android 8.1 came out for the Pixel, it was fixed. So SCP checks if you're on 8.0, and if so, it swaps the lat and long. Until now, it was working great as far as I knew. Your devices must have a flavor of Android 8.0 that does not have the original bug. Perhaps it wasn't fixed in time for the initial rollout to pure Android devices, but it was fixed for other devices (either by the Android developers or the individual OEMs).

@swintec and @JossMan can you confirm that the BSL stopped working once you moved to Android 8.0?

If anyone else is experiencing issues with the BSL display, please let me know; include your device and OS details. I am thinking I could just limit my workaround to Google devices, but I want to confirm no others are impacted.

Thanks,
-Mike

[JossMan]

21 minutes ago, mikejeep said:

 

@swintec and @JossMan can you confirm that the BSL stopped working once you moved to Android 8.0?

If anyone else is experiencing issues with the BSL display, please let me know; include your device and OS details. I am thinking I could just limit my workaround to Google devices, but I want to confirm no others are impacted.

Thanks,
-Mike

Yea Mike once I updated to Oreo (8.0) on my S8 the issue started. 

[swintec]

1 hour ago, mikejeep said:

 

@swintec and @JossMan can you confirm that the BSL stopped working once you moved to Android 8.0?

 

Ive been on the Oreo 8 beta since essential came out with it..i cant remember when that was though, december?.  However, when I was on 7 for a little bit in the beginning, I want to say BSL was not working then either.  That is why i thought there was a setting ive been missing all along once i swapped to this device.  Dont attack this problem based off that though as I could be mistaken so hopefully someone in the essential post is still running version 7.

 

I believe 8.1 is coming out very soon though, if we can believe the essential team.

[JossMan]

1 hour ago, mikejeep said:

 

@swintec and @JossMan can you confirm that the BSL stopped working 

Thanks,
-Mike

Mike, I sent a 3rd report for good measure.

[swintec]

i installed the Essential phone 8.1 beta and signal check BSL location stuff is working again.

[mikejeep]

SignalCheck Pro update was pushed out a few minutes ago! Not a huge update, but laying the groundwork to be able to raise the minimum Android version so I can move forward with new features I really want to add. Trying to tie up loose ends by fixing all significant bugs I am aware of. Grab the update on Google Play, should be available shortly if you don't see it yet..

Added additional indicators for Sprint LTE band 41 Magic Box cells (up to 0FC).
Magic Boxes are confirmed up to GCI prefix 0FA as of right now. This will continue to evolve as more Magic Boxes are deployed.

Internal development changes.
Stuff nobody would really notice without seeing the source code, but important nonetheless.

Resolved force closes on certain Android 7 devices with the 1X status bar icon enabled. (Pro)
Resolved force closes on some devices when Location Service is stopped before it finishes initializing. (Pro)
Resolved issue with CDMA BSL display failing on certain Android 8.0 devices. (Pro)
Resolved issue with missing Wi-Fi data on Android 8.1 when location permission was not requested.
Bug fixes, more bug fixes, yay bug fixes!

 

As always, please let me know if you have any issues, and thanks for everyone's support!

-Mike

[kg4icg]

Update now loaded up. 

[jthawks]

So haven't seen this. Sprint band 41 mm hc?

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[mikejeep]

So haven't seen this. Sprint band 41 mm hc?

Band 41 on a high-capacity mini macro! I've yet to see that in the wild myself.. a rare bird, indeed..

-Mike

[jthawks]

I was in a grocery store in downtown Denver across from Coors field.  I know that site next to Coors field gets killed so if it is that site then it's good to see this being a high capacity site now.  I assumed that's what hc stood for.  

[Dkoellerwx]

4 hours ago, jthawks said:

I was in a grocery store in downtown Denver across from Coors field.  I know that site next to Coors field gets killed so if it is that site then it's good to see this being a high capacity site now.  I assumed that's what hc stood for.  

Probably was a Clear site that was converted to Nokia mini-macro, and they did this to add capacity for the stadium area.

[dkyeager]

Mike, I sent in diagnostics last evening for the last GCI showing an AT&T LTE site via Sprint Roaming from an hour before despite having passed many Sprint LTE sites which had been see by SCP.

[jthawks]

Found this today. Tb?

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[Flompholph]

Triband.

Triband antenas have been found where sprint puts what we guess could be their 4th carrier GCI ending.