HandsetsNews

Cyanogen Mod for Samsung Vibrant (T-Mobile Galaxy S) Support Dropped Due to 911 Issue

32

While the Samsung Vibrant may not be the newest kid on the block anymore, it’s still quite the capable device and one that has gotten tons of support through community development. One community ROM was the ever-so-popular Cyanogen Mod. I say “was” because support is no longer being offered for this device. Not, it’s n0t because Steve Kondik and his buddies don’t love you anymore.

It’s because of a 911 re-routing issue that causes problems when dialing the nationwide emergency help service. Workarounds have looked promising, but with the 911 operator not able to hear whoever’s calling from this phone with CyanogenMod it kind of defeats the purpose.

We are no longer supporting the Vibrant due to the inability to dial 911. We consider the issues related to this unresolvable without source code from Samsung related to the Radio interface layer and its interactions with the Audio layers and have taken the decision to no longer support this. We apologize for the inconvenience and strongly suggest that Vibrant users use a Samsung ROM due to the 911 issues with any ROMs based on open source code.

You can probably guess why they will no longer support this device. They don’t want to be held responsible for someone not being able to call 911 in a true emergency and time of need. Continuing to support and offer the ROM would be gravely irresponsible of the team.

Although most disclaimers remind users that anything that happens to their phone is not the developers’ fault, this issue is too sensitive to handle improperly and therefore they won’t. Instead,  they’ll opt to direct users to TouchWiz-based ROMs based on official firmware versions.

Of course, those on Cyanogen Mod will still be able to use it and if you can find a download somewhere you can flash it, but until this 911 thing gets figured out on some of Samsung’s devices (the Epic 4G also has this issue and is a big reason why Cyanogen Mod was never officially released for it) you can pretty much say goodbye to future updates.

I do strongly encourage users to find and download a Samsung-based ROM that looks good to them because not having an emergency response service is not something you want to have to deal with. Trust me, I know from experience. [Cyanogen Mod via Androinica]

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

Rogers Expands LTE Coverage, Aims to Reach 30% of Canadian Population by Year’s End

Previous article

Verizon Allegedly Getting the Galaxy Tab 7.7

Next article

You may also like

32 Comments

  1. If Sammy is willing to play nice and give us unlocked bootloaders, why won’t they give us a patch for this?

    1. It’s probably proprietary T-Mo crap…meaning Sammy probably couldn’t even if they wanted to (They did hire Cyanogen…)

      1. It’s a T-Mo issue even though the Epic 4G would have the same issue as well? Hmm… 

        1. I doubt the Epic 4G is the same issue.  As reported elsewhere, this issue with thwe Vibrant is a T-Mo issue only.

          Who really knows though…  They could all be wrong and maybe Cyanogen just hates the Vibrant. :p

  2. I have MIUI for my vibrant and its based off of cyangenmod and my 911 works just fine….maybe its an awesome fluke.

    1. Based on cm7, not 9.

      1. So Miui is based of CM9 for the Vibrant? But if it’s based, does that mean they “STILL” have to use the same radio code or whatever?

        And if Miui can have it working, doesn’t that mean CM should be able to as well?

        Dugh!! I can’t wait to learn Java and other programming languages so I can understand this. -_-

        1. MIUI is based off of CM7.

          CM9 is ICS code….and hardly release-quality yet.

  3. Uh, dude, don’t you work for Samsung now? Get your hands on the source and make it happen. 

    1. Stealing from your employer is usually frowned upon. ESPECIALLY stealing intellectual property.

    2. Seriously? Risk a job he just got, to steal closed-source proprietary code from the place that is paying you and put it in a rom that gets him little thanks or money and demanding users like this?  I hope this is a troll, because someone cannot be this dense.

    3. Yes, I was only joking …

  4. And this cyanogenmod 9 is never going to be a reality

    1. False. It’s already available on a few devices.

  5. Title says ‘Cyangen’, not ‘Cyanogen’.

    But that’s too bad about the Vibrant. But it’s a very important issue, so it was the right decision to make.

    1. Come on Quentyn, your better than that. Looks like Phandroid needs a proof reader, because I know I’m not the only one finding grammatical errors.

      Easy example: “Not, it’s n0t because Steve Kondik”  Come on lulz…

      1. Lmao I know I wasn’t the only one who noticed the drunk typing.

  6. You mean they finally finished a ROM for the Vibrant?LOL. I mean really, when I had the Vibrant , waiting on them was like a long line for a new ride
    at Disney, you could stand there, but why when there was so much else to choose from.

    1. Samsung’s fault.  Their source-code is…crap.

      Had the same long wait on the Fascinate (VZW’s GS1) until jt1134 finally wrote his own RIL.

  7. This little “secret 911 sauce” news probably gave a carrier executive somewhere wood, thinking he just had a bright idea.

  8. It’s not due to T-Mobile.. it’s due to Samsung’s proprietary code in their Radio Interface Layer.. from what I understand Samsung’s code is quite unconventional and the CM team always has to do a fair bit of reverse engineering to get things to work. When I had a Vibrant with CM7 nightlies it took a long time for GPS to work, Samsung had tied GPS into their RIL and the CM guys had very little to work with

    1. Maybe I was wrong. :)

      I know their RIL is crap.  One of the devs for the fascinate had to basically write it from scratch to get our device merged. 

      Hopefully they’ll (samsung) do better with ICS…right?  Right???

  9. FML…. i really like my vibrant , too. I really wanted ICS on my phone. 

  10. now suddenly all new phones will have this 911 issue

  11. Damn, no more ICS for vibrant

  12. Easy solution!!

    Carry a dumb phone with you. :D I have lyk 30 of them lying around our house along with the chargers. :P

    Or learn the numbers of your local stations and have them saved on speed dial. 

  13. So this is probably a newbie question, but what does this mean for the Galaxy S 4G? I know it is very similar to the Vibrant but I don’t know how similar.

  14. I’m curious how this kind of stuff gets tested.  I mean, you can’t exactly dial 911 and be all “Can you hear me?  Good.  Just testing, thanks.”  Is it just a write-the-code-and-pray kind of thing?

    1. I’ve had to call 911 a few times from my cell phone after witnessing an accident where someone was injured or seeing a building on fire.

  15. The Cyanogen mod on the Vibrant wasn’t that great anyway, so not too big of a loss. Not to bash it, ‘case it was fantastic and a life-saver on my G1, but there are better out there for the Vibrant. Bionix comes to mind.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in Handsets