Diagnosing Intermittent Android Events Such As Reboots via Log Capture

When your phone's problem doesn't involve reboots and it is fairly predictable etc you can use tools like "Log Collector" to manually send an email to yourself containing the log of Android's activity after you have noticed the issue occur.

When a reboot is involved (like the HTC one that occurs to me overnight) you really want to record what is happening all the time and the reboot will effectively stop the recording for you :-)

I've been using "CatLog - Logcat Reader!" but another possibility I found was "aLogcat (free) - logcat" (just found a CatLog varient called "LogViewer (LogCat)").

The "CatLog" program has a "Write Period" setting, the smaller the value the closer you will capture to the time of reboot but the more it will impact (I'm guessing) your phone's performance. As it writes to the SDCARD, if its the cra@ppy one that came with your phone the performance won't be as good as with a class 10 card :-)

I'd also recommend that you power your phone or at least watch the remaining charge closely to know how much it impacts your battery life.

If you don't mind being attached to your computer then the Android SDK's "Dalvik Debug Monitor" (DDMS) can capture this trace information also and doesn't have the "Write Period" issue either :-)

Issues with the Android Market

There are many thing right with the market however these are the main issues wit it (in MY opinion):

1. Regardless of what some people think having only FREE & PAID categories (which can't sell for $0.00) force authors to call DEMO and TRIAL products "free" when most people (except perhaps the author or a lawyer) would consider that unreasonable. Free does not just relate to money and no one can take something freely given to me from me. The PadGen standard defines "Shareware", "Freeware", "Adware", "Demo", and others so I'm not alone in thinking two is crazy.
2. You can't sell or transfer purchases (even to yourself on a new email address).
3. If you do choose a refund, you can't do it again when a new release comes out (which hopefully fixes the reason you refunded in the first place)!
4. You only have 15 minutes from when you paid (not after download!) to decide if you want a refund.
5. There are many products where even 24 hours is not enough to evaluate the product which is why products like "Touch Down" are forced into producing trials outside the market or deceptively categorising trials/demos as "free". The author should be allowed to specify the refund period. Hopefully users will be loyal to those authors who allow a longer return period.
6. You can't choose the default install location (SDCARD or PHONE), mine defaults to SDCARD (when the app supports it) and on my HTC DESIRE HD this causes constant issues with A2SD corruption and the SD CARD unmounting itself.
7. You can set up "auto update", however unless you don't pay for 3G data you won't as the there is no "Auto Download on WIFI Only" option.
8. You can't get a clear list of purchases you have made.
9. When you can't auto update because permissions have changed, the permission changes are not highlighted.

Anyway thats my list :-)

SDCARD Unmounts and Android Market Installation Error, Unknown Reason 18

With my new HTC Desire HD I was getting my SDCARD auto-unmounted and with the older firmware there was no way to remount it without pulling the card out and reinserting! This was causing problems with the camera (Please insert an SD card before using the camera) and other apps mentioned the SDCARD being busy or unavailable.

I was originally thinking that it could be a hardware issue but started suspecting the apps2sd functionality in android 2.2+ (aka froyo). Or perhaps some broken "Apps2SD" functionality in some of the market application managers...

Anyway I had the phone repaired for a different reason and it came back factory reset and with the latest firmware and it was still occurring!

However now I was also having a different issue with some apps not installing with an "Installation Error" dialog containing the text "Unknown Reason-18", as this was not all apps (or even most), I suspected that these might be trying to install on the SD card so I started doing some serious Googling...

It was suggested that you run this command in a terminal "rm /mnt/secure/asec/smdl2tmp1.asec", the trouble is that requires root access. In any case this sounds like a temporary solution.

Someone suggested that the solution is to put the sdcard into a card reader and attach to your PC and remove the "\.android_secure" directory (sorry can't remember if this is hidden or not), I did this and can now install the application "memento" and sure enough if you use Android's built in "Manage Application" and click on "On SD card" tab it shows that that application did indeed install on the SDCARD by default.

Hopefully this fix also gets rid of the intermittent card unmounts. I didn't have any apps installed on the SDCARD, if I had of has some then I'd probably have attempted to move them to the phone before trying either of the above.

UPDATE: It didn't fix my unmounting issue (and I just noticed the mount option is greyed out!). Anyway it appears that this is probably a known bug in the "1.72" firmware update! I've also noticed that when the card unmounts the phone loses cell radio signal (NO SIGNAL).

Since I've had the 1.72 firmware my phone has been rebooting overnight (I know as it wakes me up every time), taking a very long time to do so yet not updating the "uptime"...

Exporting Note Everything to CSV - sick of waiting for SYNC

While Note Everything is in general a very good notepad there are two major things wrong with it:

1. There is no sync which means all editing has to occur on the phone.
2. They lock you in by not providing any export functions (NE GDocs only allows you to copy a single note at a time into a flat structure within Google Docs).

The first point is the most annoying but the second is my problem getting off Note Everything...

Anyway I had a look at the backup it creates and its an SQLLite DB, I downloaded the open source SQLite Database Browser and dragged the "notes.db" file onto it and viewed the "Notes" table in the "Browse Data" tab.

Using File, Export, Table as CSV file" I created a CSV which looks good. I'll probably want to clean it up depending on what I want to import it into but for now I'm happy :-)

I am now looking for a notepad that syncs notes and can import CSV files.

Whoa! Google Chrome has crashed. Restart now?

Not sure whose fault it is but after using the "fetch icon" in the Android "ChromeMarks" application (which I like a lot) and it syncing the bookmark's change with Google I was getting the "Whoa!" message every time I tried to start Chrome.

Using IE I found a webpage mentioning the data at "C:\Users\[YourUserName]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default" on Windows 7 and

"C:\Documents and Settings\[YourUserName]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default" on WINXP. I have since also found this at Google Chrome's help page on this error.

Sure enough I could successfully start Chrome after renaming the "Default" directory, it was pretty much back to basics, no extensions etc.

The rename proved that I could recover and something in there was corrupt so I copied the backup back and started playing, my solution was to clean out the files in "..\Default\Sync Data". This stuffs up syncing of computers and turning sync back on will cause the issue to return so for now its a partial solution only...

Update: Removing the last bookmark I changed from ChromeMarks and syncing solved my problem so it would appear that my desktop's user data was perfectly OK and it was the sync that was killing Chrome. Still not sure whether to blame ChromeMarks or Google, but I'm leaning towards blaming Google and as further evidence the issue happens whether the bookmark exists in the "cloud" or on a computer. It has been reproduced and would appear to be a Google issue with the "tinyurl.com" favicon, this is an Chrome export of of the problem bookmark:

<A HREF="http://tinyurl.com/tdbetadroid" ADD_DATE="1283984697" 

ICON="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAQAQMAAAFSOl20AAAABlBMVEX///8AAJncEfieAAAAP0lEQVQImWM4wNDAAMIfGB4AcQAQf2DYwPCf4S8Q/2c4z3AWSLqD4X+GrqsMt2Yz/P8PQruuM+wqZzh2EcgGAJnBHbEe9Z+7AAAAAElFTkSuQmCC">Touchdown USB sync beta</A>

In any case Google do not provide any mechanism to override normal syncing for example a "this browser overrides the Google copy for next sync" option (or way of clearing the data online) and for this they should be shot...

Hope that helps someone :-)

DropBox allows you to Sync across Phones and Computers World Wide

DropBox is a area of your hard disk ("My DropBox") which is automatically synced to the dropbox web site and/or other computers (Windows, Mac 10.4+, Linux, and Mobile).

If you go to a friends place then you will be able to access your files via the web interface (password protected) or if you are on the run with your phone then you will be able the access them that way.

I just found the link "https://www.dropbox.com/anywhere/apps" which I assume is for applications that have been officially certified to work well with DropBox file sync.

I've been using Dropbox for a fair while now and while the Android (iPhone and other phones also supported) version could use some more work it has worked well. The ways I've used it (or plan to):

• Installing portable programs.
• SplashId is not portable but I can sync its data which is in the DropBox, so it syncs between the computers and I just need to sync my phone's SplashId with my home computer.
• I put my favorite tools on there (I used to keep these on USB stick), you know the tools you need when your friend asks for help :-)
• Transferring files from one computer to another.
• I put backups of some important files in DropBox. The web version keeps some revisions of files giving me some additional protection.
• Making files easily accessible via my phone or anyone's internet connection.
• I plan on setting up an encrypted filesystem (perhaps using TrueCrypt) to hold some more sensitive information and sync that along with the rest.
• You can have a public area in your dropbox so you can easily share selected files with others.

Anyway if you want to try it make sure you use a referral from someone as you will be allocated more free space (2.25 GB) than if you just went to the site to sign up. The referrer will also benefit.

Now that I've used it for 5 months I'm happy that its reliable and can recommend it, if you wish to sign up you can use my referal link "http://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTY3MzU2NTM5", thank you ;-)

You can buy additional space if you wish and this allows for more revisions of files being kept and other extra features, I'm using the free version.

Cloud Sync Google Chrome Bookmarks with Android Phone

Hi,

As per my previous post, after losing my phone's bookmarks during a factory reset I decided to either back up my bookmarks or sync them so I installed "GoMarks for Google Bookmarks" to sync with "Google Bookmarks", this was fine except that I really wanted my links in a tree structure and Google Bookmarks only allows a single level of folders. IE 8 has also been having problems with some sites (compatibility mode on or off) so I really wanted to start using Chrome.

I have since moved to "ChromeMarks" on my phone and now use Google's "Chrome Browser" to maintain my links. I have added the Chrome extension "Bookmark Tree - Version: 0.2.3" to display the links in a "proper" tree view (and with the right options return to the same view every time).

It was easy to export the Google Bookmarks and import these into Chrome. I have set up Chrome's sync options so that I will have the same bookmarks across all computers I have running Chrome and now "ChromeMarks" allows one way sync of these (currently manually invoked) to the phone.

"ChromeMarks" doesn't display the tree structure but does allow you to view a single folder and navigate up and down the tree. It is very much early days for the application but it was good enough for me to buy.

I posted these comments on the author's blog and he was quick to respond:

1. Font too small, configurable would be nice
2. It would be nice to at least be able to set where it opens to avoid the "Bookmark Bar", but better to remember where it was opened last and return there
3. ".." should sort first
4. Some color wouldn't hurt, it would help folders stand out more for starters.
5. Its too easy to close it when pressing back button exits, could it actually do same as ".."?

Replaced LockBot Pro with Tasker (now have security again)

Hi,

I think it was a bug in the Milestone's 2.01 firmware but for whatever reason I lost the ability to pattern unlock my phone as removing all exchange related settings and data didn't fix the issue. In any case I was getting desperate as entering PINs every single time the screen blanked was driving me crazy. I found a product called "Lockbot Pro" which basically resolved that issue and allowed for a delayed pattern unlock.

The trouble with it was that its completely unreliable and hardly ever presented the pattern unlock! No security at all! Note I don't autokill tasks :-)

Anyway a summary of pros:

• Its pretty
• It solved the exchange issue I had so I didn't go insane (since "solved" this with a factory reset).

And the cons:

• It doesn't pattern lock the screen when its supposed to.
• The first time after a restart it doesn't work. Sometimes many times after as well.
• Depending on the update you end up with the Android Keyguard as well as the programs!
• Most of the time the Keyguard doesn't appear either.
• All the buttons wake the phone up!!! That plus the keyguard or pattern unlock not working a lot of times means that its easy to wake the phone (small bump or as putting hone in case) and then do something completely random.
• No support or forum for problems or help, no FAQ.

Anyway I've now bought "Tasker" and its replaced "LockBot Pro", "Timeriffic" and it will replace other applications on my phone and generally do a better job than the task specific applications!

I based my "code" for the unlock delay on the "keyguard-off" sample in the wiki. Its not perfect (yet) but its much better and my phone has security again.

Backup and Sync Android Bookmarks

Since the 2.1 update for my Motorola Milestone, I have been having intermittent reboots and one of these removed my google account and it could not be added again due to another apparently well known Android bug... Anyway a factory reset later and I can see the need for backing up my bookmarks as well as the advantage of the cloud (automatic recovery).

There are a number of backup programs for book marks but most of these require you to manually invoke it (and of course remember to do it). I looked for a sync solution as as I already use "Google Bookmarks" (not really flash but at least portable) I decided to try "GoMarks for Google Bookmarks".

This doesn't integrate with the browser but does mean I don't haveto remember or worry about backing up. As most of my existing links are meant for desktops I created a "label" called "(Android Specific Pages)" and because of the brackets this will sort on top of the list of sections in the Android application.

Now I'd like to do the same thing with a "tree" like structure so I'll probably keep looking but this is a good solution for now.