Will you download the contact tracing app?

plodder

I wonder if clearing the cache deletes your Bluetooth contact history, which would be unfortunate if true. So, I wouldn't do it unless absolutely necessary.

There really needs to be a better support channel/forum for the app. They do respond to emails, but some kind of FAQ and site with other support information would be useful.

_Kaiser_

Wildly Boaring wrote: »

1.5 million is not low.
How many smart phone users in the Republic?
Maybe 3m? 50% uptake

App fixed now according to Newstalk
Mine fine since cleared Cache

I'd imagine there's a lot more than 3 million smartphones in this country. I think we can assume that 95%+ of the population would have at least one (have 2 myself - one personal, one work).

Given our population of about 5 million at this stage, 1.5 is low.

seamus

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

I'd imagine there's a lot more than 3 million smartphones in this country. I think we can assume that 95%+ of the population would have at least one (have 2 myself - one personal, one work).

Given our population of about 5 million at this stage, 1.5 is low.

There are about 3.6 million smartphones in use. That's an app pentration of 45%, without taking into account how many of those phones are owned by under-16s, or second/third phones, etc.

whomitconcerns

i was wondering why my battery went from 60% to nothing overnight...had to uninstall, only app in use of battery, but its only used 3% it said!

Rattlehead_ie

seamus wrote: »

There are about 3.6 million smartphones in use. That's an app pentration of 45%, without taking into account how many of those phones are owned by under-16s, or second/third phones, etc.

Correct, Also on top of that there may be some accounting for smartphones that don't have the supported version of Android or IOS on them.

murpho999

the_syco wrote: »

It uses bluetooth, and probably not passively. Turn off bluetooth when not walking around, I suppose?

No it's a problem with the app itself.

It's not bluetooth.


I wish people would stop thinking that Bluetooth is a major drain on battery.

Bluetooth Low Energy has been in use since 2009 and as a result it does not use as much battery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_Low_Energy

Beta Ray Bill

Quick one on this

If a person downloaded the app, and the issue discovered with the App caused the persons phone to overheat so much to the extent that the phone now wont take a charge and becomes very hot when connected to a charger... Is that person entitled to have their phone repairs paid for by the government?

My mother has a Samsung phone and this has just happened to her phone over the weekend.
It's to coincidental to just be a fluke.

G.

Peregrinus

Wouldn't think so, no. Unless this happens with a lot of phones, or at least with a lot of Samsung phones, the issue would seem to be not the app but the phone, which seems to be incapable of running an app that other phones run without this problem. The phone doesn't seem to be fit for purpose. Is it a very old or somewhat degraded phone?

MrMusician18

Beta Ray Bill wrote: »

Quick one on this

If a person downloaded the app, and the issue discovered with the App caused the persons phone to overheat so much to the extent that the phone now wont take a charge and becomes very hot when connected to a charger... Is that person entitled to have their phone repairs paid for by the government?

My mother has a Samsung phone and this has just happened to her phone over the weekend.
It's to coincidental to just be a fluke.

G.

Lol. Some people...

Beta Ray Bill

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Lol. Some people...

What?
It broke it.
She's to buy a new phone now. She wouldn't have downloaded the App had Government not advised her to.

In any case having read more about it, I believe the issue is actually with Android and not the App... "Technically"

Regardless, her phone is basically bricked now. And is out of pocket as a result of it.
She just text me as I'm writing this to say she's bought a new A10 and has downloaded and installed the App again

G.

fly_agaric

plodder wrote: »

I wonder if clearing the cache deletes your Bluetooth contact history, which would be unfortunate if true. So, I wouldn't do it unless absolutely necessary.

There really needs to be a better support channel/forum for the app. They do respond to emails, but some kind of FAQ and site with other support information would be useful.

I continued having trouble (Android) and followed some suggestions here.

Clearing all [i.e. not just the cached] the Google Play Services data removed my history of key checks in Exposure Notification and also turned off contact tracing. I had to reenable it in the App again. It also turned off Google backup and card had to be re-authorised in Google Pay. My phone and the app all appear to be working now (no more OS warning messages about excessive cpu usage or power drains) but that is obviously far from ideal edit: may have been better to have been a bit more patient and wait till whatever is wrong is fixed. It's some mess imo. Google-apple wanted to control this + provided their api to states but maybe they need to be applying stronger qa to changes/updates they are making.

BailMeOut

when you clear the cache you must then disable and then re-enable Google Play Services (button will be accessible one you clear local data and cache).

When you do this Play services will revert to original factory version which is much older than the broken update over the weekend so the bug is now gone. The app will then auto update to the new version from Google by itself or you can force that update from Advanced and clicking on the version. Mine reverted to 16.x when I disabled / enabled and then auto upgraded to the fixed version 20.26.14 and all is ok now.

swampgas

I did the following:

When the problem first occurred:

• Uninstalled the Covid App.
• Powered down & Powered On

Today, did the following:

• Settings > Apps > Google Play Store > Storage > Clear Data.
• Installed Covid App.

So far all good, phone behaving normally.
I don't remember clearing the cache at any point either.

(This is on a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.)

BailMeOut

swampgas wrote: »

I did the following:

When the problem first occurred:

• Uninstalled the Covid App.
• Powered down & Powered On

Today, did the following:

• Settings > Apps > Google Play Store > Storage > Clear Data.
• Installed Covid App.

So far all good, phone behaving normally.
I don't remember clearing the cache at any point either.

(This is on a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.)

What version if your Play Services now?

swampgas

BailMeOut wrote: »

What version if your Play Services now?

Version 20.26.14 (040408-320008519)

fly_agaric

Also 20.26.14, running fine (Samsung phone) for over 24 hrs.

Did not stop or uninstall Google Play Services, or touch the Covid App itself.
Just deleted all stored data for Google Play Services and restarted the phone (but as said that destroyed the Exposure Notification check history and turned off contact tracing until I reenabled it in the App so was sorry I did that. At least it all seems to be working now.

BailMeOut

fly_agaric wrote: »

Also 20.26.14, running fine (Samsung phone) for over 24 hrs.

Did not stop or uninstall Google Play Services, or touch the Covid App itself.
Just deleted all stored data for Google Play Services and restarted the phone (but as said that destroyed the Exposure Notification check history and turned off contact tracing until I reenabled it in the App so was sorry I did that. At least it all seems to be working now.

20.26.14 is the fixed version.

If you see a lower version of this you just click on the version and it will prompt to update now.

I clicked 'Disable' and then 'Enable' to revert to the factory 16.x version and then updated to 20.26.14.

My exposure notifications and symptom history are all still available but I never uninstalled the covid app as it was never the problem. The problem with with the Google covid framework.

Beanybabog

If it’s all anonymous does that mean the contact tracers don’t know who you were in contact with if you get a notification? Do you get told to isolate for 14 even if the person you were in contact with was in contact with you say 11 or 12 days ago?

Irish Steve

The problems with Samsung were not the covid app, I cleared the play service cache and store, but did not delete the covid app, or any of the data it stores. It took a number of attempts to clear the Google play cache completely, with no other apps running, and after a power down restart, but after that, the battery usage has returned to normal, so as far as I am concerned, this was/is NOT a Covid app fault, Google have changed something at their end that resulted in some sort of internal loop that was using significant CPU, but finding out what it was, or how they fixed it is likely to be complex.

There are a number of things that don't work after clearing the Google play data, the covid app wasn't doing contact trace, but after restarting that, the battery usage has stayed as it was before the problems occurred, so hopefully, this problem is now resolved.

The Covid app would appear to be safe, so I'd really like to persuade all the people that uninstalled it to put it back on their phones again, the country really does need every possible tool that works to help defeat this virus as soon as possible

Peregrinus

Beanybabog wrote: »

If it’s all anonymous does that mean the contact tracers don’t know who you were in contact with if you get a notification? Do you get told to isolate for 14 even if the person you were in contact with was in contact with you say 11 or 12 days ago?

Yes, the contact tracers don't know who you were in contact with. At least, they don't know that from the app; they may of course know it from conventional contact tracing methods.

On the second question, if the contact is identified via the app, it shouldn't be anything like 12 days after the contact that you are notified. A day or two, tops.

Beanybabog

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yes, the contact tracers don't know who you were in contact with. At least, they don't know that from the app; they may of course know it from conventional contact tracing methods.

On the second question, if the contact is identified via the app, it shouldn't be anything like 12 days after the contact that you are notified. A day or two, tops.

It could though... say I meet my friend today. In 5 days my friend feels unwell and rings GP. They get a test the day after. Wait two days for results. It’s positive and they upload their number- it’s 8 days since I last saw them. The contact tracers might get me in a day or two in which it’s 10 days since o saw them- but I still isolate for 14 more?

plodder

Beanybabog wrote: »

It could though... say I meet my friend today. In 5 days my friend feels unwell and rings GP. They get a test the day after. Wait two days for results. It’s positive and they upload their number- it’s 8 days since I last saw them. The contact tracers might get me in a day or two in which it’s 10 days since o saw them- but I still isolate for 14 more?

I don't think the app tells you when the contact occurred. The technology could provide that information, but it probably doesn't for privacy reasons. The more precise the time information then the more likely you could tell who it was that tested positive.

Also, I think you only need to isolate until you get a test result yourself, which should be less than two days, assuming you test negative obviously.

El Weirdo

Beanybabog wrote: »

It could though... say I meet my friend today. In 5 days my friend feels unwell and rings GP. They get a test the day after. Wait two days for results. It’s positive and they upload their number- it’s 8 days since I last saw them. The contact tracers might get me in a day or two in which it’s 10 days since o saw them- but I still isolate for 14 more?

As soon as they uploaded their keys, you would be notified through the app very soon afterwards, afaik. That would be day 8 in your scenario.

Beside, if it's a friend, surely they'd contact you as soon as they suspected they might have it, no? The app is really useful for identifying contacts where the people don't actually know each other.

FutureTeashock

Great to see tens of thousands are now deleting the spyware from their phones.:o

https://twitter.com/irishexaminer/status/1292558267529527297

Absolutely no chance of hitting 60% now.:o

FutureTeashock

FutureTeashock wrote: »

Great to see tens of thousands are now deleting the spyware from their phones.:o

https://twitter.com/irishexaminer/status/1292558267529527297

Absolutely no chance of hitting 60% now.:o

Both massively incorrect (hardly surprising) and a stinking attitude.

FutureTeashock

FutureTeashock wrote: »

Great to see tens of thousands are now deleting the spyware from their phones.:o

https://twitter.com/irishexaminer/status/1292558267529527297

Absolutely no chance of hitting 60% now.:o

Have you got any idea what the linux foundation is?

Trampas

If you get a matched key count is that something to be worried about. Was in my local shop. Didn’t talk to anyone. Had mask on. Only picked up a few things so not even a full shop

Irish_peppa

I downloaded the app, I doubt its "spyware" sure can you imagine the fallout from the a whistle blower revealing the government was actually secretly taking your information lol. In any event I did download the app but noticed my battery was not even lasting a day. I assumed the battery was at fault until recently I was like hang on this battery cant be this bad. A bit of googling quickly estabished the app was a battery vampire. Deleted app and my android is back to 24 hours battery time as opposed to 12 to 14 hours:cool:
I dont know what way that app is programmed but it sucks battery juice !

igCorcaigh

Did Google not fix the issue with Play Services?
I still haven't received an update for it.

is_that_so

igCorcaigh wrote: »

Did Google not fix the issue with Play Services?
I still haven't received an update for it.

Think it was rolled it out automatically. Little to no effect on phone now of app.