Many times I will attempt to turn on the PPC-6700 from a dark screen and it simply won't turn on.

I have to soft reset.

This is probably 50% of the time.

Really, making this whole PPC experience far less then fun, ultra unreliable, and just not worth it.

I assumed it was a software problem, since I do like to try tons of apps. Who knows, maybe its a hardware problem but doubtful...

So i did a clean install, and paired it down to just some basics, for me, which is still 9 apps, yet the problem persists.

My primary use for this machine is SJPhone and Newsbreak, which are both great apps, assuming they are not responsible for causing lock ups.

I followed the Voice Command thread precisely this time...

- Reco File Explorer, Registry, and FTP addin
- Voice Command 1.5
- vBar (removed, sort of)
- Newsbreak
- SJPhone

- GS Player
- TCMP
- Pocket Diet
- PocketEarth (MS Virtual Earth)
- Pocket Guitar Reference

Now, to me, one of the likely offenders would be one of the 1st half of the list. I can't imagine the following half are as likely.

Worthy of note is every time I soft reset, i get:

1) this message repeated twice:

"Notification Error - Cannot execute \Storage Card\Program FIles\Newsbreak\Newsbreak.exe"

2) "vBar.exe - The file 'vBar' cannot be opened. Either it is not signed with a trusted certifcate or one of its components cannot be found. You might need to reinstall or restore this file."

THIS IS EVEN THOUGH I UNINSTALLED VBAR, AND MADE SURE NO TRACE WAS IN THE REGISTRY. MADDENING...

3) "VoiceCommand - The file 'VoiceCommand' cannot be opened. Either it is not signed with a trusted certifcate or one of its components cannot be found. You might need to reinstall or restore this file."


Am I all alone in this?

Are you all experience totally smooth sailing?

No difficulties in waking the machine from sleep?

I would be happy to hear that this is the case, but I am somehow doubtful it is just me.

Unless I truly have a hardware lemon, which I suppose is possible but seemingly unlikely.

Or my combination of software is exceedingly bad...

The perma-black screen thing has happened twice to me... both times were around 11am (on consecutive days I think) early last week. It has not happened since (knock wood).

The only apps I have in common with you are Resco and Pocket Earth.

The storage card error is likely due to the fact the the OS is trying to launch an app on startup that you have installed to the storage card, but the storage card subsystem has itself not initialized yet. This is the type of thing that is likely to get tweaked in a ROM revision, but it's also good practice to install apps that run at startup to main memory instead of a card.

Your second error may be due to a vbar entry lurking in the notification database or something.

Voice command, I dunno, but that is one app you have to install to main memory.

Sounds like you just need to do a hard reset.

Dan

I've seen this also. Ejecting the storage card seems to wake it up. I only have three programs on my storage card, neither of which runs at startup.

I've done a hard reset and still get the same result.

I have Resco File Explorer, TCPMP, and WiFiFoFum on my storage card.

Voice Command is in main memory.

The fact that ejecting the card wakes the unit up makes me think something on the card is causing the hangup, but the only thing linking to the storage card was that I had Outlook storing attachments on the card. Unchecking that option doesn't help either.

__________________
iPhone 3G ..:.. Jailbroken 16GB Black
AT&T 8925 Tilt ..:.. WM 6.1 ..:.. SIM/CID unlocked
BlackBerry 8830 on Sprint ..:.. crappy work phone

thanks dan
i'll check the nofication db.
but it didnt show up with the scary bear's
Check Notifications software.

what software are you using to check that?

good idea about the storage card.
i hadn't thought about any delays in mounting the storage card.

VC also is installed to the storage card, because others here said it will work.

this is sad cause i just did a hard reset and wasted a day installng those 10 apps.

now i got to do it again.

this is gonna be the last time...

Now that is good infor URPREY! I had not thought of trying to wake it up that way. You may be onto something there. The only app I keep running that has anything to do with the storage card is Egress (another RSS reader). In my case the program itself is in main memory (as it should be) but it keeps its data and attachments on the card. It is also set to update itself every hour.

So if your theory holds then my issues could have been due to Egress waking the device up and trying to store something on the card before the card subsystem was ready... well it's an idea, anyway.

I will keep an eye on this for a while and the next time it happens I will try popping out the card to see if that makes a difference. After that, I'll try disabling Egress's autoupdate and see if the issue goes away.

Dan

interesting, so what happens when you reinsert the card? all is well?

the thought being that reinserting the card then remounts the filesystem?

I also have WifoFoFum on my external card.
I failed to mention this, because it was never *installed* to the card, just a leftover from a previous hard reset.

It is one of these apps that can just live on the external card, and only run if clicked.

So i didn't imagine that could be causing the problem, unless i initiated it to memory. I also have a number of other similar apps on the external card that i failed to mention for similar reasons, since without running them, i dont see how they could be the culprit.

well that is in interesting theory.
at one point i even had my IE cache going to the external card. but at this point i dont even remember how i did this.

Heh... hard resetting is just one of those things you have to live with if you want to be on the edge of the PPC world. Have you tried Sunnysoft backup mgr? I think racedog tested it out and confirmed it works with WM5. You could get things set up and do a baseline backup.

Back when I had my 6600 there were a few times when I had to hard reset four times a day (when I was screwing with ROM updates, etc.). What a pain in the arse. That prompted me to get the cab files for all of my essential apps and put them on my storage card in a single folder. Then, if I had to hard reset it was a fairly trivial thing to just click each cab file, one after another, until they were all installed. Actually I took it one step further and made my own cab file with my settings, ringtones, registry tweaks, registration codes for my apps, etc. and made that autoinstall after a hard reset.) Haven't done that yet for my 6700 but probably will eventually.

The only apps I install to the storage card are ones that I only run occasionally (and on demand as opposed to the OS launching them automatically). So for me that is TomTom 5, PhonTuner, KMetronome, Pocket Earth, and a few games.

Although I may have issues with Egress (as noted in my previous post), which sucks because there's just not enough main storage for egress's data files... hopefully an updated ROM will speed up the interval between wakeup and initialization of the card subsystem.

Dan

Reinserting the card causes the OS to see it as a second storage card and prevents the apps from running. I believe that it eventually figures out that the storage card is the same and re-mounts it, but it's not immediate. Hopefully this will be fixed in the ROM updates.

__________________
iPhone 3G ..:.. Jailbroken 16GB Black
AT&T 8925 Tilt ..:.. WM 6.1 ..:.. SIM/CID unlocked
BlackBerry 8830 on Sprint ..:.. crappy work phone

i didn't know that.. actually, i held out till WM5 for years. this is my 1st Pocket PC. i was really hoping that by revision 5 the kernel space would be protected from the app space...

OK, thanks I guess I'll check this out.
What is the strategy?
Is it realistic to use software such as this to backup the whole PDA before each and every new app install?

Hopefully an app like this makes this kind of thing easy. I can't wait until WM5 makes installing apps drop and drag OS X like...no registry/db dependencies.


wow...that's pretty cool. how did u do that?

wow, that's bad news indeed.

good news, i guess, in the fact that you've figured out how to possible get the black screen to wake up....but then you're just as hosed until it figures itself out volume name wise...

while i find it very interesting and intriguing to explore a new OS and handheld device, i find myself wasting far too much time than i should.

these are clearly not devices that *just work*, rather a device for tech enthusiasts, like me.

unfortunately, by pairing a tech device like this with a crucial phone device, while there is an immediate reduction in devices one must carry, the net result, at least for me so far, has been an extremely unreliable, as well has unweildy and heavy phone.

it is no wonder apple has not released a convergence device.

i've got some more time to decide, but unless i can get reliabilty soon, i am sad to say my first convergence device will probably have to go back.

I had the same frustrating problems fescribed above, my unit would not turn on after being suspended, I also discovered that removing the MiniSD would force the unit on. So I used the Program Check Notifications by Scarrybear and deleted the only item refering to a program on the MiniSD and have not had a single problem since (the program was StarTap a Palm emulator. which was not working right to begin with)

what column contains the app path in the Check Notifications app? i don't see any reference to any paths, internal nor on the miniSD card.

this doesnt make sense to me, since i'm saving rss feeds to the card.

also I tried Phatwares DBExplorer (to try to get rid of the startup Notification Errors". It only shows 2 databases, and nothing useful at all.
I dont think I'm using this app correctly at all... others have said they saw useful stuff in this app

Search My Friend:

http://www.scarybearsoftware.com/ppc_cn_overview.html

i don't know what type of problems you've experienced but this is my first windows mobile based device (i've been using a nokia 3650 for like 3 years) and i've had alot of fun setting it up and customizing it and find alot of the features extremely useful - as far as the crucial phone part goes, the phone has functioned perfectly for me has not given me any type of trouble whatsoever - everything else is just the toy part...so i am compeltely satisfied, though i see there is still alot of work to do...

-jeff

__________________
AT&T Tilt aka HTC Kaiser aka TyTn II
PPC 6700 is now my TV remote control and favorite paperweight lol

docangle
i wasnt clear....

i am using scary bear.
( as well as phat's dbExplorer)

in scary's Check Notifier application, where do you see any directory paths?

in the 3rd column? (see the screenshot you linked to)

i don't see anything like "Program Files\foobar" or "Storage Card\Program Files\foobar" for any of the 20 some odd rows i have...

so in my case, how do i clear the multiple startup errors i listed above...?

I was able to confirm the behavior URPREY mentioned above, in that for me, ejecting the card does indeed Un-freeze the 6700.

Now...reinserting the card, I did not see a new directory created called Storage Card1 or anything like that. I will have to re test what, if any, negative impact is had by using this eject/reinsert method to fix my routine hangups.

Are people still experiencing this problem? I too am getting a black screen in which only a soft reset or removing and inserting the SD Card wakes it up.

I only have pocket earth on my SD card and Macromedia flash. I'm also storing Outlook attachments there. I don't know why but it all seems to happen randomly.

Has anyone been able to isolate the problem?

URPREY identified the same problem...move your outlook attachments back to main storage, possibly the others too, if they activate themselves (pocket earths timers?)

i have temporarily moved most active apps back to main storage.

the main culprit, i think, for me, was newsbreak accessing the storage card.

for now, i believe the problem is gone.

i will keep this thread up to date...

URPREY: i was not able to duplicate this behavior. how did you see this and what was the card referred to on second mounting?

It has happened a couple of times after insert/reinsert card to wake up. It then shows as Storagecard2

Just wanted to mention that it has happens to me about half the time, always when I get ready to leave for work and I take the phone out of the cradle. I can tell by the status light now, for some reason it's solid amber when the device is frozen, green when it's fine (since it's fully charged). Removing the miniSD card unfreezes it. And this has happened to me when the device has been hard-reset, meaning that there were no apps installed other then what came with the phone.

One other thing I'm going to have to address soon is that my phone barely lasts a day on a single charge. I barely used it, maybe one or two brief calls, and it would be critically low by the time I got home from work.