New TyTN owner: disappointed with freezes

[newtronic]

I've been a long term HTC fan, having had a Cingular 8125 for over a year. I just got a TyTN and immediately added a 2 G micro SD card and then loaded that up with software: uBook, NewsGator Go for blogs, Egress for podcasts, SBSH Weather, and MortPlayer. It was very unstable, freezing about half a dozen times a day. Doing a little research, I found that the presence of a micro SD card was implicated in freezing. Freezing is where the phone part of the TyTN continues to work (green light continues to blink), but the Windows part is locked up. I've removed the weather and Egress items from the Today screen, and so far that's reduced the freezes to once a day.

I would like the Hermes to be as reliable as the wizard which went weeks without me resetting it. I'm currently on ROM 1.18.255.3. Is moving to a new ROM version likely to fix this freezing problem? Are there people out there using a 2 G micro SD without a freezing problem? I understand there's a new ROM due out at the end of January, should I hold off till that comes out?

[newtronic]

I mean to add that I have a HT636 serial number in case it is hardware related.

[newtronic]

By removing various software from the today screen, there was no reason for any software to look at the micro card. The phone had not crashed, and yet the file manager showed that the micro card was not present.

But this stinks, I got the phone so it would hold a gigabyte of stuff, mostly podcasts.

At least can feel confident in the problem. Any chance it could the SANS micro SD card?

[MikeChannon]

Not sure why your file explorer is saying there is no micro-sd card.

I use the same card as you and do not have as many hangs as you.

Some things to be aware of.

Best practice suggests putting in main memory anything that is used on the today screen or by phone application. In other words anything the device would need on coming out of sleep mode is best placed in Main memory.

Everything else can be placed on the SD card.

If you do not use push email you should carefully apply the "fake server" trick

You probably are, but you must use a task manager (say magic button or the like) to properly shut down applications.

I personally steer clear of today plugins that automatically connect to the net for data - e.g. weather/traffic/news type programmes.

Mike

[newtronic]

Thank you for your ideas.

I guess I was spoiled by the 8125. Perhaps that it uses the regular SD instead of the micro-SD is the reason. All my apps on the 8125 were on the storage card, and I didn't force applications to quit.

I guess I just need to accept that the TyTN is more touchy about the card and try working around it.

Thanks for the feedback.

[RemE]

I did the same as you, added a 2 gig card from the start. I have journal bar running for weather and news, loaded in main memory, everything else is on the micro SD card. I had the same lockups as you are seeing but it's not the microSD in my case.

I found that the phone "wakes" often for calls, notifications etc. while in it's holster. When it wakes all keys are "unlocked" and subject to getting pressed. From this forum, I applied all the patches and tweakes like Auto-lock on power up, PTT button re-mapping, and many registery tweaks for bluetooth accys.

Mine almost never hangs now. The main culprit now seems to be when connecting/disconnecting it to a charger sometimes turns off bluetooth or hangs the unit, but it's intermittent.

Overall I'me very happy now, till "Kaiser" comes out...

[newtronic]

Thank you for the info. I'm going to move the sensitive applications to the main memory. Do you think the ROM version could be contributing to the failures? I have 1.18 and I believe there is an official 1.35 out that is later.

Thanks

[sohaibrafiq]

This Might Help You Making Performance of your Hermes Better


WM5_Tweaks_Performance (http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=WM5_Tweaks_Performance&action=BackLinks)

Espacially by:
Enable FileSystem cache
Increase FileSystem cache
Increase FileSystem filter cache

NOTE: These Tweaks Helped Me ALOT.....

[newtronic]

Thanks for the ideas about tweaks. I'm going to see how stable I can make it before applying any of them.

[joej]

applied all of them and it does seem significantly faster now.

[daedalia]

I'd definitely recommend the ROM upgrade, I have never experienced the silly lock ups that I used to since.

[ben2004uk]

I just experienced my first freeze on my Vario II (UK).

I got the phone on saturday, and used it for the first time as an alarm clock yesterday and everything was great (sunday I forgot to turn it off silent - boo that you have to remember).

This morning my alarm didn't go off, when I woke up the phone had frozen and wouldn't display anything - but the light was still flashing. I haven't got a MicroSD yet.

Would I have the latest ROM as I have only just got the phone? If not, how do I upgrade or find out what version of the ROM I have?

[simon_darley]

i am on the std rom released by imate in australia 2.3 i think. i have used many including xdaII and the universal.

the current hermes is the most reliable, most stable, and most amount of uptime with the best battery life, so overall i am very happy.

by the same token, i have been here long enough to know exactly what needs to happen to totally rebuild these devices from the basic rom to a device that works efficiently.

it is vital that you apply all things that are required or used during the initial startup, including things in the startup directory, and on the today screen to be present in main memory.

i have also found that icons on today or in start menu that are loaded on an sd card can slow the device down.

having memory readers on the today screen, reading the SD card memory isnt good either.

using and going through a lot of the registry hacks are useful, but not necesarily for the speed, hangs, but for functionality.

also, custom applications that are installed on the sd card i move out of the program directory to a sub directory called custom apps. this is simply to ease the speed of opening, and when i open custom, i accept a minor second or two delay rather than immediate.

i did have (not recently) have problems with the system loosing the sd card directory, which a soft reboot fixes. which is all the more importance of hiding the icons and applications from day to day interaction that use the SD card.

you can also look at reformatting the card.

i also did find that doing a full back (SPB) and doing a restore speeded up the device noticably.

there may also be speed issues if you dont synchronise regularly, and the notifications queue on previous devices also caused problem, but havent found much here.

doing other simple stuff like error reporting, disabling bluetooth auto beam is also a good start.

using ring tones or themes that are on the sd card are also not as reliable than locating in immediate ram.

so rule of thumb, you need to be able to boot up and use your device completely independently of your SD card, and only access the storage card for apps that you call for, and for data that isnt needed immediately on boot up, to store songs, files, documents and related types.


hope it helps. but in answer to your question, if you can get a more updated rom, you will definitely get a benefit, but quantifying the benefit is hard. new roms are released for a reason, so consider them seriously.

that said, if you dont need to wait for a supported rom rather than crossing platforms, this is always difficult and should only be done with extensive knowledge. as such, i dont have that many problems i cant overcome, and so am waiting for the official imate rom to be released....


hope it helps with some ideas and areas to consider

S.

[daedalia]

ben2004uk; have a read of the wiki, it's all there should you wish to upgrade. It is fairly simple.

[newtronic]

Ok, I feel a lot better. I've moved the one critical today add-in (weather) to main memory. I've only occassionally accessed the external storage. But with that configuration I now was able to go about 5 days without a freeze!
So I conclude that the storage card is not waking up quick enough or something like that. Other people have said it, but don't put any "always running" or "today related" software on the storage card.
I'm still on 1.18 ROMs, but I think I'll hold off for a while before upgrading. I just don't feel like rebuilding the machine right now.

[newtronic]

I just experienced my first freeze on my Vario II (UK).

I got the phone on saturday, and used it for the first time as an alarm clock yesterday and everything was great (sunday I forgot to turn it off silent - boo that you have to remember).

This morning my alarm didn't go off, when I woke up the phone had frozen and wouldn't display anything - but the light was still flashing. I haven't got a MicroSD yet.

Would I have the latest ROM as I have only just got the phone? If not, how do I upgrade or find out what version of the ROM I have?

It took me the longest time to find this as the wiki did not address it. go the start menu, then settings. Then click on the system tab at the bottom. Select the Device Information control panel. Now go to the TyTN wiki: http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Hermes_Upgrades

and review your options. At Feb 1, 2007, 1.35 appears to be the latest official one.