There have been scores of threads recently from people having problems with (and/or complaining about) missing features or what not on the N900. The most comprehensive one being a good source for most of the fixes listed here. Most of the feature gaps can be filled by free apps, by tweaking a few settings, or by slightly changing the way one uses the device.

What I'd like to propose is taking those "lists" of issues people have created and detailing a few of the fixes for each of those so people can look at the alternatives. This will help existing (and/or frustrated) owners and those considering purchasing the N900.

If the list becomes too extensive for a thread/posting, maybe we can shift some of it to a Wiki page. The idea being rather than interject for 20 items in a list of 23 (say, to mention fMMS for the 50th time) we can point people looking for solutions to a single place where most of the issues and workaround are listed.

I don't want to get into a debate about using an app for functionality the device should have natively. That's not the point of this thread. The point is to steer people with an existing issue toward possible solutions.

Please note, unless otherwise noted, when apps are discussed here, we're talking about community developed apps, which are free. If you're posting a solution with a for-pay app, please note that explicitly. Most people are saying things like "needs a 3rd party app", which the general public will consume as "you need to pay for it", which is often not the case.

To kick off the list, I've capped a few of the key issues lots of people have with the phone below:

No MMS support:
The app fMMS (now in extras-testing) supports sending and receiving MMS in a very transparent way.

Locking lock volume controls:
This is an issue that has been fixed in PR 1.2, but it's user fixable in previous versions as well, as documented here.

The built in OVI maps sucks and is missing turn by turn:
There are a few options for this, some free some for purchase. The purchasable option is by Sygic, searching for threads will find lots of people with tips and tweeks. A free option is ModRana, a great navigation program for the N900, capable of also running on other platforms as it's 100% python. There are also script hacks for Nokia's OVI maps that allows turn announcement and a few other things.

No call timers / SMS logging / etc:
There's a wonderful logging system built into the phone, but the default Nokia apps don't display most of the info collected. One of the nicer apps to help get this info is glogarchive, which can export the data in a CSV format, or display the info locally in it's own display. The app "Extended Call Info" is also very nice for showing actual numbers and times, vs the default UI which clumps calls together and shows only the contact ID (vs contact ID and number).

Battery life sucks:
There are a number of things that affect battery life, including usage, what version(s) of data connectivity you use (3G/Wifi/2.5), and what apps you have loaded and/or running. A stock phone with minimal usage should last about a day before needing a charge (which is common with most smart phones on the market today.) There are a few "solutions" for extending battery life, only some of which are mentioned here.

One is using the Kernel Power updates originally by Titan, now maintained by Pali. By default they use the same voltages and speeds as the stock Nokia kernel. By loading under voltage kernel most users have seen a 20% to 50% increase in battery life, without "over-clocking". I run in low voltage mode with a slight over-clock to 850Mhz and routinely see battery life of 30 to 46 hours with moderate usage and 24/7 IM running on 2.5G/Wifi.)

Using BatteryGraph you can see when your battery is taking the hardest hits. Sometimes knowing when your battery is draining can tell you what activities are causing a rapid drain.

I can't chat on Yahoo/Facebook/AIM/Jabber/...
The default set of IM interfaces is somewhat Eurocentric, and not the most useful list even there. Early on plugins were made by the community to use libpurple and a few other base libraries from IM clients like Pidgin to allow most popular IM protocols with direct support from the contact pages.

There's no JAVA/J2ME support
There are a few packages for Java, including IcedTea6 and a common Java package in the testing repository. The MicroEmulator package adds an app that can support most J2ME programs. Most games work fine, as do many utilities. A few (notably those using blue-tooth or device-specific APIs) seem to not work yet.

No grouping on the phone
Thanks to cjard for this useful idea:
You can use the nickname attribute like groups for SMS (and maybe a few other apps). It doesn't currently work for e-mail, but may work for other extensions or apps. It works by placing the same group name (or names) into the Nickname field for people in that group. Then when creating an SMS, type in the group name and hit the TO button. Everyone with that nickname will be in shortened search list, and you can tick each one quickly without hunting though hundreds of contacts.

Image tagging of existing libraries takes forever
This one bit me not that long ago, importing thousands of images I wanted available on my cell for quick search and display. The built in tracker system is really nice, and support tagging. Saddly, Nokia's viewer uses a non-standard tagging system. There's a script though that allows for quick and easy image tagging for large batches of files at once.

My device sometimes locks up on heavy graphics use
There's a small driver issue with sgx_misr, in that when you have too many programs (or just one or two) updating the screen too often it can get stuck in a resource staved state and lock up. This happens mainly with very resource intense programs (like GPS/nav or high frame-rate games). There's a script that can monitor it in the background and reset the device if it starts to lock up.

My money-tracking program only has iApps
Why would you want to funnel all your financial information through an app developed by a third-party developer? Your best solution is to use an app that works on the device AND on your desktop and shares a common, encrypted data file. That eliminates the middle-man and keeps your information secure. Moneydance is the solution I found. It runs on anything that runs Java, including PCs, Macs, Linux, and even the N900. Best of all: It's free to try, and very inexpensive to buy, with $0 maintenance costs.



There is also an interesting thread on things you may have missed that the N900 can do. Tricks, hidden features, etc. The list is quite extensive, take a look!

Please add things here!

I don't even have my N900 yet and i love this thread....Posting Solutions instead of bitc...problems...

Flash poor performance

Since N900 still using Flash V9 you might find tone useless flash creations on the web that harm your device. In terms of battery life is recommended to install some flash blocker (as far as I know 2 are available) and allow you to play only content you wish and trust on demand/click.

if you like to play some Flash swf files / game / application, there is new application in testing repository that allow you to launch Flash file directly and avoid all of unnecessary functionality that typical web browser has. FlashLauncher. Your flash files perform a bit better as well as let you chose quality of the movie.

If you still aware about battery life and performance but you addicted to movies use some free apps, sort of youTube browsers available in extras instead of YouTube website.

P.S. Feel free to correct this text in terms of English grammar

A thought on Media Syncing like iTunes/iPod:

I believe Banshee (for Linux) should be able to handle this. At the worst, you'd have to do something like this; but I'm pretty sure Banshee identifies this as a media player now.

I'll goof around with it at home; if the file is required it would be extremely easy to package a simple "app" to place a pre-made file in ~/MyDocs (default 30GB media storage place that gets mounted on USB) that points the media files to ~/MyDocs/.sounds.

Only a solution for Linux, though. As, IMHO, that's the only OS worth worrying about

(last part was a joke.. people.. no need for trolling/flaming )

GUI is not smooth enough for me.

1. First off all don't put all available widgets and shortcuts on the screen
2. Secondly be aware that screen protector will destroy your touch enjoyment
3. There is solution available how to tweak your transitions to improve general performance http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=43964
4. Some people overclocking their devices to achieve satisfaction with that. But this is not officially recommended solution if you are not power user.

2. is untrue.

Enhancements have been made that may increase your battery life when overclocking. (Edit) And I mean increase them over when NOT overclocking!

A good program to check how much space is left on a partition is "Conky" or even better "Storage Usage"

Music/Videos/Images not found
1. Check your home partition (2GB) and your rootfs (256 MB) and see that they are not full.
2. Use tracker-cfg to edit paths where media is searched and restart the tracker. Please be careful when editing things here, however it has revert to default for safety.

Applications not installing for missing dependencies
Try disabling extras-devel. Let it update the repositories and if you find the same app (it will be in extras), it will most probably install.

How to 'enable' hot-swapable microsd cards
Not a fix in itself. This is unknown to most people. If you take off the back cover, the microsd will not be displayed in the file manager because there is a sensor (magnet) that knows when the back cover is on. This means you can remove and replace your microsd cards at will without taking out the battery.

Catalogues not displayed? SMS cannot be saved because 'Device is full'? N900 not working properly
Check your rootfs (256 MB) partition to see if it is full. Search for 'optifying n900' in the wiki pages to learn how to free it a bit.

SMS cannot be saved because 'Device is full'?

Sometimes the message database seems to end up corrupted.. SMS messages disappear after reading and the conversations application may appear empty.

Check your free disk space by running this command in an x terminal
df -h / /home

The Use% column shouldn't be beyond 95% really.. If you have lots of free space, you can try wiping the data base (it will lose all your conversations, though). Run this command in the x terminal

cd .rtcom-eventlogger
rm el.db*

then restart the phone

Please I'v got a little problem so I felt it wld be okay to share it here. I plugged in my device to my PC and as always, it prompted me to scan and fix(not a virus scanning..something abt scanning d hard disc or sth like that). During the process, I mistakenly unplugged the device and now, I cant seem to save anything unto d device...like if I attempt to dolwnload from the internet, fter I specify destination folder then click save, all I get in response is 'not allowed'...cant receive files via bluetooth also. Please help!

Well it seems that your file system was corrupt. Try formatting the memory. Feel free to do a backup. You can also (if using win xp) try the following:

Connect your device via mass storage mode. Right click on the corrupted memory, Properties, Tools, Error Checking and check both options.