I like the way that GrapheneOS is evolving. I wanted to report a few issues on Github but was unable to create an account there because it's nonfunctional with my privacy tools.

Here is the list. Feel free to open Github issues on my behalf if nobody else has done so.

It may well be that some of these are upstream issues. I'm sure somebody here will know where to direct this feedback, in either case.

Ask me if you need more details.

  1. MTP takes too long to disconnect after large USB transfer.

a. Connect the phone to your laptop over USB.
b. Enable file transfer in the USB options that pop up in the drawer.
c. Copy gigabytes (how many?) of files to the laptop.
d. Sit idle for a while (how long?). I don't believe this is the result of improper USB power management, like suspending power to the bus. I think this is all on the phone side.
e. Try to eject the phone from the laptop.

Then I get a notification on the laptop that MTP is disconnecting. It does finally succeed but it takes literally minutes. This is long after all the files have settled, so this isn't a buffer flushing issue. It should take milliseconds.

  1. Getting DCIM (photo) folder contents (as in just filenames) can take minutes.

a. Connect the phone to the laptop over USB.
b. Enable file transfer in the USB options that pop up in the notifications on the phone.
c. Click through to the DCIM folder on the laptop. It should have hundreds if not thousands of photos or videos.
d. The file explorer on the laptop side just sits there spinning for minutes. Eventually, the photos do appear.

This transaction involves literal kilobytes of data. It should be done in trivial time. But I would imagine that the algorithm is grossly inefficient, resulting in some vast number of round trips over USB instead of consolidating the results in one efficient transaction.

  1. Wake-on-lift burns battery and serves no purpose.

a. Let the phone fall asleep on your desk.
b. Lift it forcefully.
c. Watch the screen wake up.

There is no advantage to this. I'm perfectly capable of pressing the power button to wake the phone. It just drains battery fruitlessly most of the time because the phone experiences random forces in transit (in your bag or pocket or whatever). GrapheneOS already seems to have severe battery inefficiency (like 3X drain rate relative to my stock Android with comparable battery capacity). This exacerbates the problem to no material user advantage. At minimum, it would be nice to know how to disable this.

  1. PIN code still necessitates fake fingerprint scan.

a. Set a PIN code on your phone. Disable fingerprint lock.
b. Wake the phone up.
c. It asks you to put your thumb on the screen before you can enter the PIN.

There is no point to this. It just increases phone access latency without either increasing security or protecting from accidental touches. (I can create plenty of havoc by accidentally touching the phone. For example, once my phone turned on the flashlight inside my bag and started overheating as a result. All because the drawer can be accessed without unlocking the phone. This redundant fingerprint contact requirement does not prevent that.) At minimum, it would be nice to know how to disable this.

    BillHurdle re: #4, are you on Android 14? did you set up a fingerprint at setup, or skip it? I always skip it since in my jurisdiction the govt can unlock your phone with a print against your will, as opposed to a pin. After skipping, I have never had any prompt for fingerprint for a pin unlock, but based on your wording it seems like you skipped too. Fwiw scramble is disabled, enhanced privacy enabled, auto-confirm disabled

    Also I do not have wake-on-lift enabled, I think it was disabled by default because I don't recall disabling it

      233328 Yes, that's it, thanks. I may have been mistaken and disabled it myself after all...

      233328 Thank you very much! I notice that you can also disable "Tap to check phone" which is equally troublesome.

      sonicbackdrop Good insights! I think you found the problem with the fake fingerprint scan. I had previously tried to set it up but was never able to get it working. So instead of doing the right thing, which is to default to whatever other authentication method is enabled, the OS does the wrong thing by forcing me to put my thumb on the screen in order to show the PIN UI. But it doesn't compare my fingerprint at all. It's totally wasted effort.

      To make matters worse, I tried everything to disable fingerprint authentication entirely, but was unable to do so. The only way to fix the issue was to get the training process to actually work this time (thanks to a new screen protector). Now I can open the phone with my finger and it won't show the PIN UI unless the former fails. But I still can't disable fingerprint scanning.

      Yes, I have Android 14.

      I'm aware of the whole fingerprint-vs-PIN debate and they're both less than ideal. There are obvious ways to attack both, legal or not. Biometrics is just fraught with vulnerabilities. Thanks for pointing out yet another example. Even keypad scrambling isn't necessarily beneficial because it extends the amount of time that your PIN entry activity can be observed.

      BillHurdle Wake-on-lift burns battery and serves no purpose.

      If everybody agreed the feature served no purpose, it likely would not exist. I have it turned on and prefer it that way.

      BillHurdle At minimum, it would be nice to know how to disable this.

      Launching the Settings app and typing "lift" in the search box at the top of the screen may be of interest.

        de0u I had actually been accumulating a list of Android (not necessarily GrapheneOS) annoyances for a long time. I discovered the wake-on-lift thing long ago on a phone that had no option to disable it. It was my mistake for not rechecking that GrapheneOS suffered from the same lack of an option, before reporting it above. And, no, it doesn't need to be disabled entirely. The switch is good enough, although I think if it were possible to take a vote, we'd find most people dislike it. It's a battery leech with a tiny occasional benefit.

        • de0u replied to this.

          BillHurdle If you want it disabled and you have it disabled, that sounds like success. Enjoy!