WRAP: the Wizard Reliable Alarm Project

[elyl]

I have started this thread so that we can begin development of a program or a solution which will make the alarm system on our Wizards totally reliable.

As we know, a number of us have a problem whereby our devices fail to wake up when an alarm is due to go off, causing us to sleep in, and be late for work. This is an unacceptable situation. It is my intent to develop a program which will replace or augment the alarm system in WM5 so that we never again have to worry that our PPCs won't wake us up in the morning.

So far, we know there are a number of problems which might be contributing to the failed alarms:

1. Duplicate alarm/calendar notifications being entered into the notification database (same alarm shows repeatedly in the database)
- This can be resolved with CheckNotifications (http://www.scarybearsoftware.com/ppc_cn_overview.html) which will remove duplicate entries. It does not prevent the duplicates from being entered in the first place.

2. Alarm settings not saved to registry. It seems there may be a problem whereby registry changes are not being copied from RAM to Flash immediately, so if you Standby the device shortly after setting/changing the alarm, the alarm is not saved.
- This can be resolved by leaving the PPC for a minute or so before putting it in Standby after changing an alarm.

3. The big one. An alarm notification not turning the device on from standby. Why this affects some people and not others, we don't know. Some users report than when an alarm is due to go off, the device doesn't wake up. When the device is turned on manually, the alarm then sounds. This seems to happen randomly (with some alarms working OK, and others not) but doesn't affect everyone.
As yet, there is no known solution to this problem. This thread is intended to develop that solution.


My idea so far is to develop an application to replace the standard alarm on WM5. Our main objective is to create an event which will, reliably, and without fail, wake the device from standby. Once we have developed this program, a new alarm system can be tacked on to it, or the source code can be made available for developers of current alarm systems to integrate into their programs.

My PPC programming knowledge is limited, so the intention is for this project to be a joint effort, and I would urge anyone who has any useful input to contribute it on this thread.

[elyl]

I have noticed a few people mention that a program called Pocket WakeUp is a reliable alarm system, and doesn't suffer from the known bugs in the WM5 one.

http://www.pocketpcfreewares.com/en/index.php?soft=1299 (French version - see below for translated English version)

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to have been an update of the program for quite a while, and also, the program is in French, so there aren't many people using it to see exactly how reliable it is.
I have done a quick-n-dirty translation of the program into English (I hope the author doesn't mind - no other changes were made), and attached it to this post. The interface isn't great, and it can be quite convoluted to use, but perhaps with an English version, more people can give it a try and see if it actually is reliable.

From what I can gather, Pocket WakeUp adds a notification when an alarm is due, which loads with WakeUpStart.exe program, which then loads the main program and sounds the alarm.
If this program is actually reliable, then I expect the author has found a way to make the device wake up from standby without fail, and the WakeUpStart.exe is the important part.

Please let me know if you use Pocket WakeUp and it works reliably, or randomly fails. Also, if the author of this program reads this board (or someone knows how to get in contact with him in English) I'd be interested to hear your views.

[Koksie]

Good effort, I'll try the cab and report back over the next week.

[cbrow51]

Excellent endeavor! I have been using PPC devices for sevearl years and this has always been my biggest problem. Its hard to believe that MS has issued 3 new versions of their WM platform, all with this issue. This should be one on the first things you need to get right in these devices.

On the WM2002 and WM2003 platform I have good success with both PhoneAlam with AlarmToday for Pocketmax and also SuperAlert. But since moving on to the KJAM, the current versions of these programs just don't work.

I am not a developer, but will certainly help with testing etc. I'll try the FR prog now and will also post results.

Regards

Chris

[MilanoRex]

The alarm not waking up on standby bug was fixed in the leaked 9100 test rom.. so whats the point in fixing a problem thats already been fixed

[elyl]

The alarm not waking up on standby bug was fixed in the leaked 9100 test rom.. so whats the point in fixing a problem thats already been fixed

Says who? I'm using the latest i-mate ROM and the problem still persists.

[ZeBoxx]

I've been using Pocket WakeUp to check - *zap* - and so far it seems to work fine. Problem is, that's what I thought of the standard alarms until they failed a couple of times on me. Unfortunately, it also seems that my battery is draining faster now - but I would have to confirm that absolutely with a full copy of pocketbatteryanalyzer. I'm using my old phone in the mean time to make sure I do wake up.

For me, just not switching the device to standby is still the best bet. This also negates any issues related to point 2. Point 1 remains, and is actually a cause for old alarms going off when they shouldn't - and the cleanup thing is something I still do.

One thing that I think I should point out, though, is that the problem isn't just with a wake-up alarm. Pocket WakeUp may very well be a perfectly fine solution to that (no way to be 100% certain, I guess). The problem is that on at least one occasion, the device failed to wake up for a meeting event. Thankfully I was keeping an eye on the clock and I was leaving only 5 minutes late - and with a little speeding got there in time just fine. Point is, a wake-up alarm won't fix -those- :\

[elyl]

ZeBoxx, as far as I can see, Pocket WakeUp does use the notification system. Set an alarm with it, and check the notification queue. Delete the item from the notification queue and the alarm never sounds.

If we can work out how Pocket WakeUp reliably brings the device out of standby, then there's the possibility of writing a program to tack a wake up event in front of every calendar entry.

[ZeBoxx]

gah.. WakeUpStart? totally missed that.. I'll stfu now :)

[elyl]

gah.. WakeUpStart? totally missed that.. I'll stfu now :)

Yep! Thing is, if WakeUpStart can wake up the device without fail, then it will be simple enough to tack a similar wake up event a few secs before each alarm or appointment. Just need more people to test Pocket WakeUp to see if it's reliable - and hopefully we can get a hold of the author so he can tell us how he did it!

[texasez]

I upgrade to the new KJAM rom and now my alarm works.

[elyl]

I upgrade to the new KJAM rom and now my alarm works.

Yep, the whole problem with this bug is that it affects people randomly. Some people have the bug, some don't. Some people just get it one day for no apparent reason. There is no one solution to everyone's problems. Upgrading worked for you - good for you - doesn't mean it will work for everyone, and there's always the possibility that you never had the bug, and then you upgrade to the latest ROM and you start getting the bug!

[rosberg]

thanks alot elyl !!

the translation of this program is the best news in months! I have been using this prog for 3 months without any problems. It seems very reliable to me. I dont understand French thoug, so it has been a little bit hard to use.

Before I started using the program, I had alot of problems with the alarm...

[cbrow51]

I tried Pocket wake up yesterday with mixed results. My KJaM seemed to be waking up for each event, but I was expecting it to continue to repeat the alarm beyond the few repeats that you get with the built in reminder. That did not happen though... I have set Pocket alarm wake up call take is set go in a few minutes, so will see if that works (guess that I am already awake though, so it won't be a big deal if it doesn't go off :-))

[elyl]

I tried Pocket wake up yesterday with mixed results. My KJaM seemed to be waking up for each event, but I was expecting it to continue to repeat the alarm beyond the few repeats that you get with the built in reminder. That did not happen though... I have set Pocket alarm wake up call take is set go in a few minutes, so will see if that works (guess that I am already awake though, so it won't be a big deal if it doesn't go off :-))

Did you try setting a snooze time for about 5 mins? It will repeat then if you don't cancel it. Also, if you are using a short audio file for the alarm, make sure you increase the Minimum time of alarm to be X number of seconds - then it will repeat your alarm sound for however many seconds.

[cbrow51]

Hi Elyl

Yes, stumbled into that in the end. My French is very poor, so I had to guess at the options. Still, that seemed to work. I did notice that if you change the settings and then let the device go into standby, the alarm did not repeat...:-( I had to reset a new time, then it worked. I will now set a reoccuring alarm and not touch the settings and see how that goes... Will post back at end of day today..

Regards

chris

[loegel]

In an effort to be thorough, I'll add my experience so that maybe a developer can read a solution. I use my kjam as a daily alarm. It has almost always worked when I leave the device plugged in and though the backlight is off but the actual system never goes into standby (everyday except one in six months). I have also experimented with using the alarm from a battery power source, but again, making sure that the device never goes into standby (this is a real battery drain).

I have used SPB time, Ptravel Alarm, and the built in alarm. SPB time is completely unreliable and has never worked (not even when set immediately after a more reliable alarm). Ptravel alarm has worked over the past week when I have tried it in both power/active and non-powerd/active, but I haven't tried it when the system was in standby. The Ptravel Alarm developer (Burroak Software) is a very very active developer and seems to really care about making his products work. The only flaw I have is the interface (i.e. stop button) is somewhat small to press first thing in the morning.

The built-in alarm is the one I have used most and seems to work well from a power source. Again, it does not work from standby reliably.

I know this is re-hashing the obvious for all of you, but thought it might give some more background. There simply must be something that is develop-able, which wakes up the device from standby (a turned off state) in time for the system to register and activate an alarm program or a few seconds before.

Could there be a way to extrapolate the program which activates the device or part of it to remotely activesync on a time schedule?

I will use the WakeUp program and report back.

[pzucchel]

just to stress the point, i will also use wakealarm and report at the first failures. If 100 users would do the same, we can improve our evaluation time by 100X. If even to a single user it will not work, i cannot fully trust the program for professional reasons or travelling.

Today, I have the test rom, SPB pocketplus, and yes ONCE the standard wm5 alarm didn't work on this configuration (over about 20 alarms and 200 calendar reminders that worked successfully). i use once in a while checknotifications and sktools to keep the notify queue clean - should i do it or not? sometimes, i am afraid that the alarm i loose are those that these two programs remove by believing they are unnecessary duplications....

i noticed that - in the infamous occasion of a missed alarm in the morning - i forgot the wifi connection on while the system was recharging beside my bed, and in the morning i had a pop-up message it complaining about the absence of network (instead of waking me up...).

Did i understand it correctly that - at midnight - the wizard does some internal procedures and wakes up? do i guess that - after waking up - it had to deal with the wifi network search instead of some alarm critical procedure? if it would be so, i would be happy - for example - to do the alarm critical procedures every few hours, so to be sure not to miss any.

Few hours later, finally at work, i saw the wizard rebooting by itself (second time ever, the first one was with the 1.6 ROM!) and, at reboot, started sending a list of alarms that i could not easily dismiss (since the system was in an early phase of reboot, no today screen available yet). i had to softreset a couple of times, after dismissal of the pending alarms it started to work correctly again.

I am reporting this in order to increase empirical understanding of the reasons why the standard alarm fails.

[elyl]

Hi Elyl

Yes, stumbled into that in the end. My French is very poor

That's why I translated it! See the attachment.

[Robster]

Maybe its just me but I cannot see any link to a translation?

I can see the link to the cab file and I can see the link to the web site but no document?

Robin

[cbrow51]

Hi Elyl

Whoops :-o Missed that! I downloaded the French Version!! I'll overwrite it when I have finished with this test

So far so good. I have 3 alarms running in paralell, each with a 5 minute repeat. No misses yet. I even had to take the battery out to switch sims and when I put the original back, the alarms started right back up, including, it seemed , to play the ones that were missed when the battery was out..! So right now I would say we have a pretty reliable repeating Alert function..

Regards

chris

[bubism]

IMPORTANT INFO:

Whatever you do, DON'T use the Italian translation of PocketWake Up from MaxCorrad's website. It is VERY incomplete, VERY unformatted, and most of all IT SCREWS UP YOUR PPC royally.

I had to hard-reset to remove it, and I substituted it with the excellent AlarmClock - but then again I was mostly interested in an alarm clock function wor my wake-up call... I don't know how functional that would be for other purposes.

[elyl]

Maybe its just me but I cannot see any link to a translation?

I can see the link to the cab file and I can see the link to the web site but no document?

Robin

The cab I attached is the English version. Edited post to make it a bit clearer.

[cbrow51]

Hi Elyl

Well, I ran all three alarms in parallel for the day and they never faltered. Even had the battery out a couple of times, plus a couple of soft resets, but it pick right back up again, repeating at 5 min intervals. So I would say this is a good base...

Now where would we go from here? From my perspective, I am looking for a capability that reliable sounds all reminders and notifications, with the ability to repeat them until the user dismisses them. I am guessing that this would require pocket alarm to be integrated or interfaced to the built in sounds and notifications app. Is that the plan..?

As an aside, PocketMax are working toward this with their PhoneAlarm and AlarmToday apps. Also, Wittaker Moore's SuperAlert is (supposedly) being upgraded to support WM2005. I have tried the latest beta of PhoneAlarm and AlarmToday, but they do not seem to work reliably. Have not tried SuperAlert, but I may do that today to see how the WM2003 version goes. They are not the quickest at getting new versions out, so a WM2005 version is probably some way off. I will try it as a coparaison however and report back

Regards

chris

[elyl]

cbrow, we'll need a lot more people testing this program to see if it actually is reliable - we shouldn't count our chickens yet! If it is, my plan is to work out how the author did it, and adapt the code to a more general system. We would then release the source code for other developers to tag onto their alarm systems.

We could also program a small utility to periodically tag a wake up a few seconds before every calendar and alarm event on the Wizard, so the built in alarm system would function as intended.

I also plan to program my own alarm system which will have a much slicker and more intuitive interface than Pocket WakeUp.

[cbrow51]

:-) What happened to 'code it and then fix what doesn't work' when you need it!! :-)) Seriously though, I agree, more testing needed... I'll try superAlert and let you know how I get on. If you need more testing, just let me know.

Regards

chris

[Koksie]

My first experience with the Pocket Wake Up app are good so far. I set different alarms with various intervals and every time the alarm sounded and the snooze worked. At the same time the built-in alarm also worked, so i have no idea if Pocket Wake up will work when the microsoft app fails. Will try that over the next couple of days.

I mostly use the calendar to wake me up by setting an appointment at 7.00 AM or something. Shame this prog does not integrate with the calendar app as well.

[Koksie]

And then is went wrong...Second Alarm did not sound untill I woke the phone, snooze did not work as well. Seems like the same flaws as the built-in alarm.

Pitty, alarms that cannot be depended upon are useless, so back to using my 3 year old Siemens phone for alarms.

[jla001]

Hi,

Im using a program called pocketAlarm.

Can be found here

http://pocketalarm.iit-bsuir.com/

It´s a russian site, but the program is english.

It has´nt giving me any trouble (yet), but it would be nice if others would "play" with it.

[ZeBoxx]

And then is went wrong...Second Alarm did not sound untill I woke the phone, snooze did not work as well. Seems like the same flaws as the built-in alarm.
Unfortunately I have to agree with you - I don't know *why*, but I got woken up this morning at 7:05 a.m by my Sagem. Glared at myself for shutting down the Wizard at first (hey, you never know), but I brought the Wizard out of standby and it was all bells and whistles.

back to using my 3 year old Siemens phone for alarms.
Well, on to the next alarm for me - my Sagem will save my butt if the Wizard fails. In the end, though, I'll probably keep my Wizard out of standby and simply with the screen off - that's yet to fail on me (must be a couple of months since my last pot about the alarms issue and when I started trying the WakeUp thing) and is safer with other notifications as well.

[cbrow51]

On thing I did find with PocketWake up is it appears very sensitive to how you set the alarm up in the first place.

For example, if you set an alarm and then immediately turn the phone off (into stand by) the alarm does not go off. I think it is the issue described in the first post... So I set the alarm parameters and just let the device go into stand by on its own (mine is set to 2 mins) then alarms worked fine.
I try PocketAlarm too...

Regards

chris

[Puckster]

I keep the AC charger beside my bed and use my sleep time to charge the k-jam as it is in use nearly all other times (especially now i have push email :D ) I then have it set to turn the backlight off but not sleep on external power therefore never missing a single alarm.

This setup means that i always have the battery full for the long day ahead as well as making sure i actually get out of bed to use it :wink:

Cheers

[andonevris]

I use a program called ptravel alarm.

I've had it for a while now, on both my mda compact and now vario. It has never failed to go off in that time.

Features I like,

Alarm volume independant of system volume (will still ring through if phone is muted)

Today screen plugin which shows the current status of your alarms. Useful if you need to quickly check alarm.

RELIABLE


http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=1&jid=B77E3921AC99XEEB49618B1EB1786CC6&platformId=2&N=96806&Ntt=travel%20alarm&productId=16589&R=16589

[ZeBoxx]

I keep the AC charger beside my bed and use my sleep time to charge the k-jam .. I then have it set to turn the backlight off but not sleep

Yep, that's what I'd been doing. One note - instead of just letting the backlight turn off, consider getting a utility that will turn the entire screen off. Otherwise you may eventually suffer from LCD 'burn-in' (charge persistance)

[ZeBoxx]

RELIABLE
The question is - did you ever have failing alarms - e.g. with the built-in alarm options - before ?
If you've never had problems before, it's impossible to tell whether this software is 'reliable', or whether you're just one of the happy people who never had the problem referred to to begin with :)

[ammar]

Hi all,

i know that not all wizards are reacting the same way regarding the alarm issue but this is what happend with mine. i had the same problem as all of you and my alarm was failing all the time until i installed an old software which i was using with my old wm 2003. it is from the same maker of (checknotify) program, it is called (clearnotify) what is does is each time you soft reset your PPC it will automatically remove dublicated notifies from system data. No icons or shortcuts only an exe file in the startup folder.

now my alarm is working like a charm.

[ZeBoxx]

that's been in my startup, and Check Notifications is run regularly, for ages - 'fraid it's no 100% solution for the failing alarms :/ Does help perfectly with not getting alarms I'm not supposed to, though

[andonevris]

RELIABLE
The question is - did you ever have failing alarms - e.g. with the built-in alarm options - before ?
If you've never had problems before, it's impossible to tell whether this software is 'reliable', or whether you're just one of the happy people who never had the problem referred to to begin with :)

Yes, I did have failing alarms, which is why I went hunting for different solutions.

Ptravelalarm has NEVER failed once to activate an alarm. I've been using it long enough now to trust my vario as my only alarm.

Give it a go, it's free to try

:)

[ZeBoxx]

d'oh.. nevermind, I had tried pTravelAlarm already (apparently completely forgetting the name) - no go. In fact, they also state that indeed it may fail. Check way at the bottom of the page;
http://www.burroak.on.ca/pta.html
"If you have a Windows Mobile 2003 device and are experiencing problems with alarms, please see the WakeupTweak application."
That same problem appears to plague various WM2003SE and WM5 devices.

I then tried WakeUpTweak, and the "Always wake up PPC to full power mode" option therein did make sure I never missed an alarm - at a cost: the device would randomly blink on and back off.. usually stopping after a while (30 minutes, few hours).

Edit: clarification - it would stop the blinking behavior after a while, it wouldn't 'stop working' - it was just fine :) But the blinking drained a lot of battery and in general just annoyed the crap out of me. No fault of the developers' - some events try to bring the device out of standby, but not to full power on.. with the tweak in place, they do go to full power on (hence the tweak's name), and so you get it blinking on/off. Well, on - and back off again if you have it set to go to standby after N minutes :)

[elyl]

Crap, back to the drawing board...

[elyl]

ZeBoxx, what is your experience of not shutting the phone down (backlight and LCD off)? What sort of effect on battery life?

I'd like to turn the screen off instead of going in to standby, but don't like the fact that the buttons are still active when not in Standby... perhaps we can develop a program that gives the impression of standby (screen off, buttons locked) but none of the disadvantages (alarms!)

[wizardragon]

ZeBoxx, what is your experience of not shutting the phone down (backlight and LCD off)? What sort of effect on battery life?

I'd like to turn the screen off instead of going in to standby, but don't like the fact that the buttons are still active when not in Standby... perhaps we can develop a program that gives the impression of standby (screen off, buttons locked) but none of the disadvantages (alarms!)

I never tried an alarm - but i noticed the backlight would not come out of standby - perhaps the two problems are realated.

I fixed it by finding someone with a similar problem who had fixed it on MoDaCo.

Wher urye n scoatlin, amfrae glesga so um ur?

[ZeBoxx]

ZeBoxx, what is your experience of not shutting the phone down (backlight and LCD off)? What sort of effect on battery life?
Over 8 hours, battery was down 4% over having it in standby. I'll take those 4% if it means reliable alarms :) Especially as, like mentioned above, I charge the phone overnight anyway.
I'll see if I can dig up the results again or get you one for full drainage in both modes with PocketBatteryAnalyzer... see if there's any quiet day coming up where I can stick my current SIM in my old phone :)

I'd like to turn the screen off instead of going in to standby, but don't like the fact that the buttons are still active when not in Standby... perhaps we can develop a program that gives the impression of standby (screen off, buttons locked) but none of the disadvantages (alarms!)
I think Mort Saver does that? Not entirely sure - I haven't tried it. I've not had a problem with buttons getting pressed randomly when turning the screen off.

A couple of notes, though...

1. If you only turn the backlight off, you might suffer - eventually - from LCD 'burn in' (charge persistance). So anybody wanting to pursue this, please do get a utility that turns the whole screen off, and not just the backlight.

2. If you've got a bunch of active applications, I suspect that just turning the screen off will drain much more than the 4% I mentioned. This is probably especially true if you've got active Today Screen items. This is conjecture - I haven't tested - but it would make sense as the applications would still be running in the background, you just can't see them. I don't think this would be much of a problem except with the most busy of Today items though (Baseball Today game, Animated Theme stuff - most others (e.g. today screen 'launch' applications) don't refresh all the time and hardly use any CPU)

3. This is only my experience. I'm quite confident that, given that the whole issue is related to the device coming out of standby, not letting the device to go to standby is a 100% solution - but I'm still just one guy, and you would do well to check others' experiences with this before committing to it.

[x-X-x]

I have started this thread so that we can begin development of a program or a solution which will make the alarm system on our Wizards totally reliable.
I'm using re-occuring appointment as an alarm and had no prob so far.

[dvinnola]

I have had success with pTravelAlarm. At first I installed to to the mini-SD card, and the notification turned on the screen, but the device locked up (I assum) because it couldn't launch the program from the card on wakeup. I have moved it to main memory, and am doing fine.

[andonevris]

d'oh.. nevermind, I had tried pTravelAlarm already (apparently completely forgetting the name) - no go. In fact, they also state that indeed it may fail. Check way at the bottom of the page;
http://www.burroak.on.ca/pta.html
"If you have a Windows Mobile 2003 device and are experiencing problems with alarms, please see the WakeupTweak application."
That same problem appears to plague various WM2003SE and WM5 devices.

I then tried WakeUpTweak, and the "Always wake up PPC to full power mode" option therein did make sure I never missed an alarm - at a cost: the device would randomly blink on and back off.. usually stopping after a while (30 minutes, few hours).

Edit: clarification - it would stop the blinking behavior after a while, it wouldn't 'stop working' - it was just fine :) But the blinking drained a lot of battery and in general just annoyed the crap out of me. No fault of the developers' - some events try to bring the device out of standby, but not to full power on.. with the tweak in place, they do go to full power on (hence the tweak's name), and so you get it blinking on/off. Well, on - and back off again if you have it set to go to standby after N minutes :)

Have you tried the tweak with just the default settings? The develpers don't recommend using the "always wake up ppc..." option.

Personally I didn't even need the tweak, it cured my alarm problems as soon as I installed it .

Oh BTW as someone has also mentioned you must install to main memory for it to work properly.

[ZeBoxx]

Have you tried the tweak with just the default settings? The develpers don't recommend using the "always wake up ppc..." option.
Of course - that didn't work, so that's why I tried the 'wake up to full' option :\

Oh BTW as someone has also mentioned you must install to main memory for it to work properly.
I didn't have my MiniSD card at the time yet - so it was installed to main memory :) Even now I have only 2 applications on the storage card because of so many reported problems with applications on the storage card :\

[gwassef]

i am using the ptalarm for a while and it is doing fine for me, also i have installed it on my SD, but it fails to wake up, when i installed it to main memory it works like a charm.

[stegz]

pTravelAlarm is what I use, and I must stress before anyone relies on it that it is not reliable at all.

Again, the fault lies in wm5. With my O2 XDA Mini S, if I switch it off (standby) overnight, the alarm does not sound at 6am as planned. Then when I turn on the phone (at, say, quarter to 8!!) the alarm sounds. However, what I do notice just before that is that the clock is at 00:00 then jumps to the correct time - then the alarm sounds. The notifications are obviously being created correctly, but the phone does not know what time it is!

[elyl]

what I do notice just before that is that the clock is at 00:00 then jumps to the correct time - then the alarm sounds. The notifications are obviously being created correctly, but the phone does not know what time it is!

That's interesting. I have noticed before that turning the device on, for about half a second the clock shows as the time it was when I put it into standby, then corrects itself. I don't think that it is anything to do with the clock being the wrong time, however, I think it's just the fact that the screen hasn't been updated - but I notice you said it shows as 0:00... did you use that as an example, or does it always show as 0:00? That could be quite significant - as the Wizard runs certain calendar/alarm based cleanup/notify tasks at midnight... perhaps one of those is the cause of our alarm woes!

[mobileadam]

Although I don't use the alarms I do have the issue where the clock is not showing the correct time when it is turned back on. It will always update very quickly but it clearly has the time displayed when the unit was turned off. I think this issue is related since I have a sync schedule set for every 15 mins and I might know I have new mail but the Vario isn't telling me this because it hasn't checked since it was last switched off. When you power it back on the clock is updated and instantly the GPRS / Activesync process starts and it goes off and syncs. If I am quick enough I can stop the current activesync process and see that the last time it tried to sync was some hours before (possibly when I switched the thing off) and not 15 mins ago when it should have.

This follows the same behaviour as the alarms, in that once powered back on it trys to catch up with everything it has missed and all the alarms start.

So I feel the clock not updating is more than a display issue although I don't know why it happens, whether it is a case of not enough memory / resources to keep the time updated?

[edsub]

- This can be resolved with CheckNotifications (http://www.scarybearsoftware.com/ppc_cn_overview.html) which will remove duplicate entries. It does not prevent the duplicates from being entered in the first place.


I noticed CheckNotifications does not work ok on my 2.8 Qtek rom. It allways hangs when I take the action to remove duplicate notifications. I noticed that when this happens the wip counter on the screens says something like "Processing 25 of 24"
Seems like a loop programming error to me. never had this on WM2003 with this same software.

[ZeBoxx]

edsub - I get that on my ROM when there's a "Null" event in the list - have to clear it out specifically first before using the "Clear All" button.

The number going 1 over the actual count seems to always happen even when it works fine.

[elyl]

I think this issue is related since I have a sync schedule set for every 15 mins and I might know I have new mail but the Vario isn't telling me this because it hasn't checked since it was last switched off. When you power it back on the clock is updated and instantly the GPRS / Activesync process starts and it goes off and syncs. If I am quick enough I can stop the current activesync process and see that the last time it tried to sync was some hours before (possibly when I switched the thing off) and not 15 mins ago when it should have.

I don't use GPRS sync, so I have no experience of this, but it does seem to be similar to the alarm problem. One question - can you reproduce this? Does it happen all the time, or just from time to time?
Biggest problem with trying to solve this issue is the fact that it happens randomly - finding a way to easily reproduce it will help us solve it.

[mobileadam]

I think this issue is related since I have a sync schedule set for every 15 mins and I might know I have new mail but the Vario isn't telling me this because it hasn't checked since it was last switched off. When you power it back on the clock is updated and instantly the GPRS / Activesync process starts and it goes off and syncs. If I am quick enough I can stop the current activesync process and see that the last time it tried to sync was some hours before (possibly when I switched the thing off) and not 15 mins ago when it should have.

I don't use GPRS sync, so I have no experience of this, but it does seem to be similar to the alarm problem. One question - can you reproduce this? Does it happen all the time, or just from time to time?
Biggest problem with trying to solve this issue is the fact that it happens randomly - finding a way to easily reproduce it will help us solve it.

I haven't really tried to reproduce it - I will try to run loads of programs and turn off it and see if this causes a problem. Although I have noticed this 'refresh' problem from day one it only occurs occasionally and has only happened once this week. If I get any joy I will post some details.

Adam

[ccrrazzzy]

Worked for me so far, over 40 alarms per day! My device is set to sleep after 30 seconds.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=254799#254799
Latest Beta is working good.

[BullShark]

I have found a FREE Alarm Clock and it works GREAT. I have found no problem with it & a few of my friends also use it with no missed alarms.

It's called "AlarmClock Ver.0.04".

Here is the url to dl it.

http://page.freett.com/todamitsu/AlarmClockE.htm

[elyl]

I think we can safely say there is an inherent flaw in the notification system in WM5, so any alarm program which uses it (which is ALL OF THEM!) is vulnerable to the problem.

Just because a program works for one user "100% of the time" does not mean it will work for every other user, nor does it mean it actually will work 100% of the time for that particular user. By all means, try what other people suggest, but if you follow this thread you'll see there have been a number of solutions offered which someone thought was the holy grail, but which turned out to fail when someone else tried them. That's the problem with this bug, it is not easy to reproduce - it happens randomly. That is the worst kind of bug, believe me, as a Test Analyst, I know!

If we could reliably reproduce the bug whenever we want, then we could test what actually works, but the problem is it happens randomly, so sure, you might THINK one program solves the problem, and you'll go on thinking that until it randomly fails one day! If anyone can make their alarm fail 100% of the time, and can document the steps taken to make sure it fails, then we'll be 90% of the way there to find a solution!

[elyl]

Reading over the beta notes for AlarmToday (http://www.pocketmax.net/alarmToday.htm beta:http://www.pocketmax.net/smf/index.php?board=24.0), the author seems to be trying to address the WM5 alarm problem, but it appears some people are still having problems with it. It seems his WM5 wakeup trick is a patch which keeps the phone awake a little longer at midnight (when the alarm/notification cleanup is run) - this is something I had thought might help since stegz's post earlier in the thread, where the clock was sticking at 0:00. I'd urge others to try AlarmToday, and what ccrrazzzy suggested in his post, and report back their findings here.

Maybe the problem can be solved as simply as having a little program wake up the device at 23:59 every night, and put it to sleep again at 0:01, making sure the device is fully awake when the WM5 calendar/alarm cleanup is run.[/url]

[jmiller2000]

I was also annoyed by this problem a couple of months ago. After reading a blog about WM5 standby modes, the solution I found was to use the utility "ScreenLock" instead of going into standby. Since then I have not had any alarm problems, and the effect on battery life is negilible.

[ZeBoxx]

yip... although it'd be nice to have a solution for the alarms, it won't help with appointments and anything else using the notification queue when the thing is in standby.. sure-fire solution is not to go standby.

Even Microsoft themselves are probably going to step away from all the various power modes and go with 'always on'; used on smartphones.

[elyl]

Hey ZeBoxx, I've been using MortSaver for the past couple of days, and my battery use seems quite high in comparison to your's. What settings are you using for MortSaver?

I had an idea to reduce the battery drain - I've made a link for MortSaver which uses OmapClock to underclock the processor before it turns the screen off...

OmapClock.exe -clock 162 -launch MortSaver.exe -restore

My usual clock speed is set to 216MHz when turned on. Now, the problem is I can't check if it actually does underclock the device while MortSaver is activated... I have a feeling it is just dropping the speed to the normal 180...
perhaps we can develop a solution which brings together the functionality of OmapClock, MortSaver and SmartSKey so that during use we can have a high clock speed, and when not in use we drop the speed to below normal, and when we turn it on again it resumes the high speed... What I'd really like to work out is if it's possible to intercept the Standby button to run MortSaver instead of turning the device off... I suspect this isn't possible, but it would be cool if we could.

[ZeBoxx]

I'm not using mortsaver, myself - I use the 'screen off' application that comes with psShutXP

[RizzzO]

How's the battery use when using "screen off" im comparison with the normal standby?

[ZeBoxx]

I noticed about 4% more with the screen off than using standby over a period of roughly 8 hours. Note however that...
- no applications were left running
- today screen had no fancy plugins that continually updated
- I'm not sure how the behavior is further down the line - e.g. 100% to 96% always seems to go slower than e.g. 10% to 6%.

In general, as I normally charge my phone overnight anyway, I can't say I see any ill effects from it that would outweigh the benefits.. if it drained half the battery, I certainly wouldn't use this route :)

[elyl]

I seem to be getting mixed results with MortSaver. Some days it goes a couple of hours and stays 100% battery, other days it will drop about 15% in the same amount of time. I'm experimenting to see what is affecting it.

[stegz]

After my previous comment that I noticed the time updating from 00:00 when I switched it on manually (usually once I'd slept in) I now make sure I've had it on after 00:00 (even if only briefly) and I've not missed an alarm in two weeks with PTravelAlarm.

[elyl]

Interesting. How frequently did your alarm fail before you did this? I'll start writing something next week as soon as I get back to my desktop to turn the phone on for 00:00 every night... have patience!

[mrfil13]

Ive been using PocketAlarm for a few days (using an lod mobile as a backup alarm). the alarm is set to go off at 7:30 every morning, when i took my phone out of standby this morning the clock said 7:30 then jumped to 7:33 then the alarm went off.

Now you were saying about windows clearing stuff up at midnight, i found this program for 2003 that is for a problem that sound similar

http://www.pocketpcfreeware.com/en/index.php?soft=876

basically says that at midnight windows powers up for 15 seconds to do its checks etc, but 15 secs sometimes is not enough, this extends that time. dont know if its valid for WM5.

I was thinking of using PocketAlarm to set an alarm off for about 3 mins at 11:59pm every night. As you can set-up multiple alarms you will be able to create a silent alarm that basically will wake the system up for x amount of time. will try it out next week when im at work.

[1-2tje]

@ elyl

Maybe you can use the CeRunAppAtTime API call to launch an application on or around midnight. I'm not much of a programmer myself but maybe you're interested: http://www.pocketpcdn.com/articles/cerunappattime.html

[tdk007]

I upgraded from the Qtek AKU2 to the new O2 AKU2 ROM, and the Alarm clock now works correctly and calendar notifications now work correctly.

[elyl]

I upgraded from the Qtek AKU2 to the new O2 AKU2 ROM, and the Alarm clock now works correctly and calendar notifications now work correctly.

Both based on the same code, so shouldn't make any difference. You probably got lucky.


I'll have a test version of my software up soon(ish) - not got lots of time to develop, unfortunately.

[tdk007]

I think there's a little more than luck going on, as the Comm Manager also shutsdown without any error's as well.

[Andy-M]

I also upgraded the ROM for my O2 Xda Mini S and switched to using Pocket WakeUp. Since then the alarm has worked every day for the last 3 weeks. Before it would fail nearly every day. In addition the calendar reminders haven’t failed since the upgrade, before they would fail occasionally.

I upgraded the ROM via http://xda.o2.co.uk/xdaMiniSoftware.aspx?a=true (this is only for O2 UK and Ireland customers)

The new ROM version is 2.21.4.1 WWE
ROM date: 3/9/06
Radio version: 02.07.10
Protocol version 413.1.03
ExtROM version: 2.21.4.101

After the upgrade I noticed the version of Windows Mobile 5.0 is also more up-to-date and the new version is 5.1.195 (Build 14847.2.0.0)

It also fixes other problems, such as Windows Media Player forgetting the play list when songs are on the mini SD card and the phone is switched off too long. There are also other minor improvements and changes to the calendar, Today screen and Comm Manager.

I would be interested in knowing if anyone else still has problems with their alarm and reminders after upgrading to the above version. For now I won't be relying on it completely, but it certainly looks promising.

[TheGMan]

Please tell me that this thread is not dead.

I am a very willing tester if anyone needs assistance.

[elyl]

It's on sabbatical. I'm awaiting the results of the AKU2.2/2.5 ROMs to see if it solves anything before beginning development.

[mrnikt]

I CAN'T guarantee you that it works ... i'll check it tonight BUT :)...
First of all .. alarm not waking up your PDA in the morning should NOT happen if you leave yor PDA on charging.... BUT not on USB charging.. ONLY the (excuse me my english) ordinary charger connected to mains. IT MIGHT WORK...
Second solution - install (this is NOT crypto advertising :) ) SPB Tips & Tricks and in Tweaks section check "Fix 2003 alarm problem" and check "Wake up off time" .. This might be different names of tweaks .. but look for it in SYSTEM section.

[elyl]

Yeah, keeping your phone on charge overnight does definitely work. The Spb trick is similiar to other tweaks, like WakeUpTweak. As far as we can tell, it makes the problem better, but doesn't cure it.

[mrnikt]

Elyl .. Glad it helped you.
But remember that charging MUST be not from USB (craddle) but from mains...
And SPB -yes it's very similar to other tweaks ....BUT it works with WM5 :)

[asmout]

Hi,

I have tried a large number of alarm programs, and none of them are reliable except for AlarmClock (http://page.freett.com/todamitsu/AlarmClockE.htm). The website for this freeware product advertises that source code is available, but the link is broken. However, you could try contacting the developer directly (his email is linked from the bottom of that page).

With all other programs I get the bug where the alarm only happens when I turn the device on. This seems to be mitigated if I tediously wait several minutes before pressing the sleep/power button. But with AlarmClock, all is fine. It works great, EVERY time.

I have not tried pTravelAlarm, it may also work, I cannot comment.

I have tried wakeup treaks & notification clearing, to no real avail.

Cheers,

Andy

[Turist]

Please tell me that this thread is not dead.

I am a very willing tester if anyone needs assistance.

Unfortunately it seems like we still have no reliable solution :(

Funny situation: hundreds of willing beta-testers, but nothing to test. As a member of russian wizard community i can say, that nearly all useres are interested in solving it.

[notpj]

i second that. we still don't have a reliable solution to our problems
i'm using pocketwakeup (advertised in the first page) and it has missed most of the alarms i have set it

i was late for two consecutive first-days of classes :(

btw, what is that spb tweak? maybe someone could share so we don't need to but the app? it's just a tweak...

[alese]

I don't know if my post will help, but I don't have problems with alarms/reminders starting on any of my machines.
This problem is draging for years, at least from version 2002 of PocketPC and I have encountered it first on my iPAQ 3870.
After some reading, and testing I came up with rather elaborate system for solving this problem.

I have installed on all my devices (Himalaya, Wizard and Universal) the WakeupTweak and Check Notifications.
Basically WakeupTweak is there just in case, what I do is I use Check Notifications on a regular basis to see if there are any duplicate entries (the ones in red) and I delete them. One note though. With new ACU 2 ROMS in WM5, CheckNotifications does not clean duplicate entries by using clear button on top. You have to manualy delete each entry, by press and hold and selecting delete.
Another note - duplicate entries are typically "created" during reseting.

The other thing I strictly enforce is that I (almost) never use Power button to switch off the device. I allways let it switch off (go to suspend) by itself, using the power settings, this should prevent situations when WM "forgets" to save alarms/notifications if you switch it off too soon.

I'm not sure if this would work for others, but I must say that after starting to use this "procedure" I did not have any problems with alarms going off neither on my iPAQ, not now on my Himalaya, Wizard and Universal...

[pat12]

following asmout's advice I insatalled AlarmClockE yesterday and for the first time in weeks my alarm rang at 7 this morning. I will see if it was just beginner's luck or if it's indeed THE solution
By the way, I noticed that in my case if I power off my wizard after midnight, then the alarm works, but if I turn it off before midnight I have a 99,9% failure rate. Anybody else noticed this?

PS: yesterday I turned my device off at 11:30 so time will tell if AlarmClockE was lucky to grab the 0.01% slot or if it solved the problem.
It puts an AppRunAtTime item in the Notification queue. Whereas the built in clock program seems to use a custom notification...

[notpj]

tweaks2k2 has the "wm5/2003 alarm fix. turned it on and i've been alarmed at the right time since (although i don't wake up to the alarm ;). but that's my probem)

anyone know what tweaks2k2 does?

[cyben76]

Using SPB time 2.01 now... seems like workin fine, there's a option to enable "wake up tweak"

[Diver]

I have another problem, and it is driving me CRAZY....

I set the alarm and when it went off, I turned it off (dismissed it) and the darn thing keeps going off!!! I have performed a soft reset numerous times, and have removed the battery several times, but it keeps doing it.

The amber light keeps blinking and the alarm keeps going off, but there is NO WAY to turn it off!!

There is no notification notice or any other way to access the stupid thing!

I have noticed that when I try to beam an appointment or contact to the device, that the notification pops up and then disappears very quickly. I have to beam it several times and then I get a notification that says "you have X number of items," and I can keep them or delete them.

Any suggestions?

Jim

[meschle]

I have another problem, and it is driving me CRAZY....

I set the alarm and when it went off, I turned it off (dismissed it) and the darn thing keeps going off!!! I have performed a soft reset numerous times, and have removed the battery several times, but it keeps doing it.

The amber light keeps blinking and the alarm keeps going off, but there is NO WAY to turn it off!!

There is no notification notice or any other way to access the stupid thing!

I have noticed that when I try to beam an appointment or contact to the device, that the notification pops up and then disappears very quickly. I have to beam it several times and then I get a notification that says "you have X number of items," and I can keep them or delete them.

Any suggestions?

Jim

It's a notification error try deleting all the repeating notifications with check notifications - attached. If that does not work use sktools to sort out the notificaton queue.

[jko]

I've installed this and it seems to work (so far). One question though - is it possible to get the alarm to 'loop' the selected alarm sound rather than just play it through once? (Or am I missing something obvious?)


edit - Doh!! I was missing something obvious - Minimum time of alarm setting.

Cheers,
John

[uwaku]

Funny, I read through all these earlier posts, downloaded several alarm clocks, then stopped reading about a month ago when I found one that works.

GSAlarmClock Ver 1.20. I don't have ANY of these other tweaks you guys keep chattering about, the alarm works every single morning, and it never fails.

Maybe it's your Wizard that's the problem, not the alarm program.

[MPIIIMan]

Ugh. I been using AlarmClock app for a few weeks now.

It failed this morning. When I looked on the screen it said "registration error"

Um isn't this app FREEWARE.

Luckily today was kind of optional to work so wasn't that big of a deal.

But any other day and I would of caught hell.

[cdevine]

There are 3 types of event that cause the reminders and alarms not to work in my experience and those are:

1) Duplicate events
2) NULL events
3) Reminders for past events whihc have not been deleted from the queue

memmaid and check notifications deal with the first 2, but intervention is required for the last one. fortunatley previous events which have been dismissed or reset/postponed sometimes do or or do not pick up the change and stay in the notification queue. until these events are deleted no further reminders can be generated, although the device may or may not spriing to life the reminder will fail to generate and audible or visible alert.

to find an event which has already occured but not removed from the queue (in MemMaid) look in the ntoification queue and brose for each calendar or task event. when my problem orccured i went down the hard reset route until it occurred again just the other week after many weeks of no issues...

Calender reminders will show like this in Memmaid

POOM: 107374457 2006 7 3 19 30 2006 7 3 21 0
<<< Name of EVent >>>

as you can see this event starts on the 3rd July at 1930 and completes at 2100

this is fine of it is a future date, however my issues have been when this date has been in the past, once deleted the thing sprung to life and reminders flowed again.

i am just finihsing a route which will run throughthe notification queue at remove expired events...

hope this helps

Colum Devine

[elyl]

Hey you could be on to something, and if so, this is easily fixable. If anyone is still experiencing the problems with alarms (I'm cured, for the time being) check your notification queue and post the details here.

[punkaled]

tried alarmclocke, didn't work.
tried spbtime with its 'wake up tweak', didn't work.

I've had this phone less than a month and already i've missed 2 meetings. if it was an employee I would have sacked it by now. might as well go back to using a written diary and a digital watch with alarm.

[cdevine]

try following the approach listed above using memmaid to look at the notification queue. the use of 3rd party components usually will not work as they use the same queue and the calendar and task reminders. Good Luck. - Colum :)

[MACkjam]

Hi Guys,

Maybe I am just lucky, but I haven't experienced most of the problems encountered by users in this forum. Maybe it's because I haven't got tons of plugins etc. My KJam is stock standard and my alarm has yet to fail me. It goes off religiously every morning at 06h00 with a custom alarm ringtone as well. I have tried using Mortplayer's alarm but it doesn't work. But it's great as an MP3 player!!!

All I have is smallmenuplus which I bought. I have several apps and games, and the only other plugin I have is uptime monitor. THAT'S it folks.

I have read amny horror stories but I am just lucky I guess.

Thanks for all the great info guys.

Regards,

MAC

[Skijackz]

Well, I've been reading this thread and testing some of the applications. I settled on spb Time 2.0.1 and here is what I've found.

I currently have Direct Push enabled on a Cingular 8125. The security settings that my Net Admin has done is that if there is no activity on the device for 30 minutes, it will lock. I then have to put a password in.

In my tests, if the device doesn't lock, the Alarm will kick off in sleep mode IF it is set to Ascending or Max. If it is set to Normal, it won't work.

If the device is locked, the alarm will not wake the device. If I wake the device and put a password in, the Alarm is ringing full bore.

My conclusion is that this something akin to when Windows XP locks after a certain amount of time. You don't get any notifications or alarms until you unlock the machine. Therefore I may be screwed trying to use the alarms because of this.

Thoughts??

Ski

[SorcererXIII]

Well I almost didn't get paid last week because the phone didn't remind me to fill out my timecard (luckily my manager intervened, but he shouldn't have to). Testing it several times today I discovered that old weekly notifications don't work nor do new ones that I just made.

Of the 1001 solutions presented in this thread (no single one of which seems to work for everyone), I have only tried ClearNotify.ARM.CAB. It doesn't work.

[Echoloc8]

cdevine, any progress on the expired-event autodeletion app? I'm struggling with the same issue with my Cingular 8125, and deleting the expired events seems to have cleared the problem!

-Rich

[mlehtola]

Nothing much to say, but anyway, hope this helps someone:

Qtek 9100, problem with alarms not working while in standby.

I have/had this problem as well, I have tried several alarm softwares discussed here, same problem with every one.

But, for me, this has been working so far (knock, knock...):

*Wakeup Tweak, idle timeout set to 120 secs
*Never putting the phone into standby myself, using 3 mins time period on settings for it.

ps. it's RIDIGILOUS that Microsoft doesn't have prober support for it's software!

[kiter25]

I'm starting to love Pocket WakeUp on my HTC Artemis! It seems reliable (2 times successfully woken up so far) and it's good for practicing my French!
I've used Ptravelalarm before, but I couldn't get it to work on the new ROM from Meschle...too bad.

[sheska]

Guys , i tried many wm6 and all the roms do the same thig with different software, after i got tired i returned back to wm5 the original rom, i had it for 8 month and i didn't face a single hang or alarm missing, i'm using spb time 2.1.5.