ODK-X Survey on Tecno

Dear ODK community,

we were planning to conduct our survey through Tecno CAMON 12 Pro mobile phones (Android 9). Both survey and tables are not starting properly and we are getting a non-stop “Configuring ODK-X Survey … Please wait a few moments” message. We tried on to install other versions of ODK-X but the problem persisted. I hope this is a known issue and will get answers from this community. Thank you.

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Hi @MekAn! As you are new to the community, when you get a chance, please introduce yourself here .

Can you tell us a little more about the problems you are having? Specifically, have you installed Survey, Tables, and Services as well as OI file manager? Which versions are you using?

Have you tried opening the apps exactly as downloaded (so with the default forms)? Did that work (if the default ones worked then the problem is likely to be specific to your survey/tables)?. Can you share your forms?

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Thank you @elmps2018!

  1. Yes, we installed IO File Manager and the recent versions(2.1.6) of Services, Survey, and Tables.
  2. we were able to connect and download the default forms (and even my forms) through services, the problem is we cannot access the forms through survey as it stuck on “Configuring ODK-X Survey … Please wait a few moments” message.
  3. we tested the forms on a different phone (Samsung) and they are working. The issue is that Tecno phones are already distributed to surveyors for other work and we don’t have the luxury of choosing a different one.

@Mekan thanks for this additional info! Very helpful. So if everything is working on a different phone, then it does seem something specific to the Tecno phones. Hopefully an easily fixable setting… can you share the log files (should be in the output folder) from one of the tablets having problems?

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Here is the log file.

2020-04-24_17.txt (3.5 KB)

@MekAn thank for pointing this out. This is likely a problem that is specific to the phone model.

Historically we have found that Techno devices will run a custom Android operating system that will vary per mobile device model. Unfortunately, sometimes Techno’s custom OS version does NOT match stock Android functionality. Once we identify the issue we fix it. Unfortunately, there are many different Techno models released all over the world so our committers do not always have access to all Techno models to test. We have run into problems with Techno models and have fixed them for earlier versions of the OS. I am guessing with Android 9 maybe something new has come up. We will take a look and try to put a fix in the next version.

Any information you can provide about the exact Techno phone model and the OS build information will help us track down something to test with so we can fix it.

In the meantime I would recommend trying another Android device. We have yet to find problems with motorolas, LGs, etc.

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Dear @W_Brunette @elmps2018 thank you for being incredibly responsive. I have one question though, is it possible to know which earlier version of Tecno OS had a fix?

Please also find the current device details on the attached pic.

Thank you!

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Hi @MekAn,

One thing that you can try is to allow auto-start for the ODK-X apps. On my Tecno device, I have to open Phone Master->Toolbox->Auto-start management and then allow ODK-X Services, Survey, and Tables. I’m not sure if these options are available to you on your phone. For reference, I have a Tecno K7 on Android 7.0.

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@clarice_larson thank you very much. You just gave me the magic wand…

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