While I appreciate that you have a problem (and thanks to pantera1989 for helping with a solution), I would prefer to keep this thread to generic feature issues on the device, not specific "my phone suddenly started doing X" type issues. New threads can be created easily for one-off issues, or in this case a search would have found several similar threads.

I'm not wanting to turn people off to offering solutions, but I don't want to see the thread turn into a 800 post long help-desk of people seeking help to one-off problems either.

Just to address a few items on device use:

This often is because your ear is hitting the button for speaker on the touch screen. I had this happen on my phone a few times while a friend was using it to talk to someone. I was puzzled, because it never happened to me, but seemed to happen to him regularly. I figured it out by watching him use it a few times.

The problem stemmed from the fact that he was reluctant to press the phone to his head, which caused the proximity sensor to not trigger properly. The result being as he was holding it slightly away from his head as he was walking along. This also caused the back light to flicker on and off as the touch screen enabled and disabled with proximity to his head. Since the change isn't instant, it occasionally was on as the screen headed toward and touched his ear, and *bomp* his ear hit speaker phone and it started blaring.

I could imagine this happening if you have a screen protector cover over the proximity sensor, or if you hold the device at a funny angle. (Or possibly if you have oddly shaped ears?)

Contacts take a while to load from the phone app:

I honestly didn't know about this until someone mentioned it and I tried it. I does take a while, and I'm not sure why. I blame portrait mode.
I've never hit this issue, since when I've wanted to call someone, I would simply look them up in the contact app by typing a letter or two on the keyboard while on the desktop. This brings up the contact list filtered to those with a first or last name matching the typed letters. For example, if I type ch I get:
Christopher Mains
Charles Yost
Jenifer Christmas
Markus Champion

I then tap their name, and tap the phone or sms button to call or text them. (Or the Yahoo, AIM, Facebook, or Skype buttons to IM, or their email address to mail them, etc).

I don't think I've ever opened the phone app directly except to see my call history, which I've usually done via the task manager when I have a yellow "missed call" page.

So, some of the issues may be circumvented by changing how you use the device, or you may not even have the issue if you use the device differently than another person.

i'm not 100% sure if it's a common problem but i guess it is. and i don't have a solution for it so if anyone knows, thanks in advance.

Phone App ALWAYS Switch to Landscape Mode After Each Reboot or Lock/Unlock on Both Automatic and Portrait Mode.

steps to re-produce it:
1) select either automatic or portrait mode for phone app.
2) screen lock the phone.
3) stand the phone upright.
4) unlock the phone.
5) open phone app.

result:
phone app will start in portrait mode but will switch to landscape mode quickly. it will switch back to portrait mode after clicking any control on the screen. opening the phone app subsequently without locking/unlocking the screen will give the correct orientation.

This looks like a bug more than a solution..

Anyways

Searching in desktop google with default microb search & other tweaks
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=620710&postcount=1

it is. i'm posting to see if anyone else experiences the same and who may have a solution.

hi there, im having the same problem, and before pr1.2 comes out where i can flash it without going through all the stuff on the computer, if you guys know any cure it would be great, thanks

Try modifying your transitions.ini
ever since I played around with that, I never had the bug

thanks for the pointer. but what exactly do i need to change in the file?

I've just checked and i dont seem to have this bug either, from whats been said i asume its because im using the Transitioncontrol app.

It also vastly improves the speed of the UI.

In the settings for it i have everything set at 0 except for rotate percent 50, rotate in 10, and rotate out 15

Guys please help me i've installed an app and its icon is not displayed only blue square , I've read that this a is known bug which is fixed in PR 1.2. Do you know a terminal command that will update icons without the need to restart ?