Palm TX Hangs in User Dictionary?

[Anonymous]

Hi Mike -

I have 1.02b, and am happily using the flashcards, making lists for each chapter in my NPCR. However, when I found, to my delight, the custom entry dictionary (I wanted to use it for names and phrases not in the dictionary), I encountered a problem. When I try to edit an entry, the system hangs. When I go into the USR dictionary, and try to edit, the system hangs. Forgive me if I am missing a fix - any suggestions?

Cheers,

Eric

P.S. When do we get stroke animation?

 

[sfrrr]

Is stroke animation that useful? Shouldn't you learn the rules for the order of the strokes on their own?

I'm concerned that stroke animation would be memory intensive, and, it seems to me, one outgrows the need for it quickly.

Or am I just being a b*t*h?

Sandra

 

[mikelove]

Hmm... we haven't seen this behavior on a TX here yet. So you're sure you're using 1.02b? Are you running any other memory-intensive programs on your TX, like a PDF viewer or an MP3 or video player? Do you have an SD memory expansion card for your TX, or are all of PlecoDict's data files installed to its built-in memory?

On the stroke order animation subject, this is something we're hoping to add in the next big version (Pleco 2.0). sfrrr, you needn't worry, the stroke order data would be included in a separate (and optional) data file, and it actually would be used for things besides stroke order animations - a stroke order tester in flashcards, for example, and we think also some sort of a souped-up radical input system where you can select any of a character's components (or a combination of 2 or more) in order to look up a character.

 

[Anonymous]

TX Hangs in USR

Hi Mike et al.

I checked in the 'About' screen when I saw the same question posted to another user - I have 1.02b. I have an SD card (128mb) and I tried to put as many files as would go there on it. The only other software to speak of on this machine are: Lingvosoft C-E dictionary, KingHanzi, and a program called 'ePocrates', a database of prescription drugs. No PDF readers or third-party MP3 players except for pocket tunes, which came on it, and which I do not use.

Is there an easy way to un-install and re-install without losing all of my flashcard lists? I know the answer is yes - I can export them - but tips would be welcome. Sounds like I'll have to try iterations of unloading other software?

Oh, and yes, in this my 7th week (or so) of part-time self-tuition, I am starting to develop and intuition for stroke order. But with little time to spare, the stroke order would be nice, as I'm still a bit shaky on the more complicated characters.

Cheers,

Eric

 

[mikelove]

None of that sounds likely to cause problems, so this is very odd... how much free storage space does your TX have? (you can check this by going to the "Info" screen, accessible through the "App" menu in the application launcher) When you say that the system hangs, do you mean that it brings up an error box / reset button or just that it stops responding to input until you reset it? And is the system hanging as soon as you go into the add/edit entry screen, or does it only hang when you press the Done button?

Is the entry you're editing or deleting a single-character entry by any chance? We recently uncovered a bug that could potentially cause the system to freeze when editing or deleting the one remaining single-character entry in a user dictionary, so if you're editing one of those then that bug might explain it.

As for your question about how to reinstall without losing your flashcard lists, you can indeed do this without an export/import; just HotSync your TX with your PC, then look in your Palm Desktop "Backup" folder (c:\program files\palm\(your username)\Backup) for the files "PlecoDict Flashcard Database" and "PlecoDict User DB C-E" - check the modification dates to make sure that these files were just backed up, and assuming they were, move them to a safe location on your hard drive and you can then proceed to uninstall / reinstall PlecoDict (installing those backed-up files along with the rest of the software).

 

[Anonymous]

TX USR hang, cont.

Hi Mike -

Thanks as always for the help...

I have more than 80Mb free in both the internal and SD memory.

'Hang' means that it becomes unresponsive until I reset with the reset button on back.

It does not hang when I go to edit an entry, and I can 'Cancel' without consequence. If I try the HWR or click Done or Delete, it hangs. The entry is a 3-character entry.

I deleted the LingvoSoft dictionary - no luck.

Best regards,

Eric

 

[mikelove]

Well if it happens when you try to use the HWR then it's probably not a bug in the user database system (since that's only used when you open and save an entry). In fact it's difficult to find any likely point of failure there, the handwriting recognition engine is initialized on startup so nothing at all happens with that until you actually hit the Recognize button - the only thing that happens when you launch the HWR is that the screen layout is loaded from storage and a little bit of code is run to initialize the character grid.

Have you experienced any other crashing problems with your TX? Does installing the recently-posted 1.0.3 preview help at all? Failing that I would have to recommend a reinstall - this time, make sure that you use the "Oxford E&C Dictionary Only" installer, and try changing the setting in the "Install to SD Card" box in the installer to the opposite of what you used last time.

 

[mikelove]

One other thing you can try before reinstalling. I've posted a special version of PlecoDict 1.0.3 preview that uses 1/4 as much database cache memory as the normal version (at the expense of performance); it's available here:

http://www.pleco.com/pd103s.zip

Version number in the About box is 1.03s. It's possible that your TX's database cache memory (separate from the storage memory, and not normally visible to the user) could be getting fragmented or running low - if that's the case, you could potentially have a situation where there wouldn't be a large enough block of free memory to load the HWR screen's layout resource, which would explain the crash. If this version fixes it, we can easily add an option to reduce the cache size in the offiical 1.0.3 release.

 

[lmcjipo]

One other thing you can try before reinstalling. I've posted a special version of PlecoDict 1.0.3 preview that uses 1/4 as much database cache memory as the normal version (at the expense of performance); it's available here:

http://www.pleco.com/pd103s.zip

Version number in the About box is 1.03s. It's possible that your TX's database cache memory (separate from the storage memory, and not normally visible to the user) could be getting fragmented or running low - if that's the case, you could potentially have a situation where there wouldn't be a large enough block of free memory to load the HWR screen's layout resource, which would explain the crash. If this version fixes it, we can easily add an option to reduce the cache size in the offiical 1.0.3 release.

Is that the only difference between 1.0.3s and 1.0.3p?

 

[mikelove]

I think there was also a fix for the flashcard percentage bug in there, but I'd advise against downloading it since the smaller cache really does make things feel slower - it's only useful for people who are still having serious crashes with 1.0.3p.

 

[Anonymous]

1.03 fixes the bug

Hi Mike -

I tried re-installing, and got the same problem - it hangs in USR, when editing an entry - one need not activate HWR, just trying to 'delete' or cancel caused the problem.

I then installed 1.03 - guess what? The USR dictionary (flashcard) bug is gone, though I'm experiencing other non-reproducible bugginess, including the failure to auto power-off in flashcard test mode. In any case, its working pretty well for the most part, and I suspect that once you get the kinks out of 1.03, that will be it.

One last question: Can you point me to instructions for a clean install, were I to want to do so? How do I make sure that all of the files are gone off the card and the built-in memory?

Thanks for your help,

Best regards,

Eric

 

[mikelove]

Glad to hear that 1.0.3 seems to have fixed it. This was the 1.0.3s version I posted here, right? (as opposed to the 1.0.3p version posted in another thread?) We'll certainly make that cache fix an option in the final 1.0.3 then.

The flashcard power-off bug should definitely be fixed in 1.0.3 final - have you encountered any other bug that hasn't already been reported here?

There aren't clean install instructions on our website yet (though they're definitely something we'll want to put in the soon-to-be-unveiled Knowledge Base) but basically all you should need to do is use the Palm OS' built-in "Delete" command; that'll get rid of any PlecoDict files or preferences installed to your TX's internal memory. If you've installed files to an SD card as well, you can use a file manager utility like the free Filez to delete them from the card.

 

[Anonymous]

1.03p

Hi Mike - It was the 1.03p version - I couldn't bear the idea of slowing it down. So, suspect it was not the cache issue...
Best regards,
Eric

 

[mikelove]

Hmm... well in that case I'm not entirely sure what fixed it - we did make one bug fix in the user dictionary system but it was only supposed to make a difference for single-character entries. Anyway, since nobody else has reported any improvement with the cache fix we'll leave that out of 1.0.3.