Help, I am locking up a lot after a soft reset.

[schmenge]

Earlier this week I decided to do some "spring cleaning" and did a hard reset. With the exception of no reinstalling a phone skin (trying to live with the default skin and save the memory) I have all the same applications as before, installed to the same locations. But about 30-40% of the time when I do a soft reset my device will lockup. I have a Cingular 8125 and the latest HTC ROM.

To try and track this down I removed everything from my startup folder and disabled all Today plugins then started doing reset after reset. I then started adding things back one by one. To make an already long story short it seems to be an issue when the Today screen plugins are being loaded, and is not any particular plugin (I run three, all third party).

Of the three one has a very small memory footprint, the second kind of medium and the third a little larger. There does seem to be a relationship between how many plugins (and size) I am loading and the frequency of the lockups. With only the smaller plugin I have reset 4 times with no problems. With only the medium it is about 1 of three and with all three loaded it is almost 1/2 the time. All the plugins are the same version I was running (without this problem) before the reset.

I am running a few "tweaks" via Tweaks2K2 and SK Tools, but these are also the same tweaks I ran before. 21 megs of storage and 18 for memory. I'll probably forget something else to put into the equation.

Any ideas? I could do another reset and hope for the best, but (insert whining here) I just got everything reconfigured. http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/images/smiles/icon_sad.gif

[mfrazzz]

This may or may not help, but when I was running the straight Cingular 2.25 rom, I had lots of lockups, freezing (requiring a soft reset or even pulling the battery) and lots of dropped calls. For about 6 months I thought the 8125 was the worst device ever made, and was kicking myself for paying $200 for it and was looking at switching to a Nokia device running Symbian (like my old 6620)....

Then I found XDA-Developers. I was nervous at first, but then decided to give ROM flashing a chance. I started by CID unlocking and then going to the Faria AKU 3.3. I was amazed... My 8125 was now fast, and I had ZERO lockups, freezes, and my dropped call issue went away. Suddenly the worst phone / purchase I had made, was now a dream and what I had imagined this device should be like. I've since moved to various WM6 ROMs and while these are not perfect, I still do not have the problems I had with the Cingular stock ROM.

Flashing isn't for everyone, but I can say that for me, most of the issues I had (and made me absolutely hate my 8125) went away when I upgraded to a custom rom (and ones like the Faria 3.3, Molksi 3.3, Molski 2.6 final, and similar) are all VERY stable, fast, and just fantastic upgrades.

If you decide to try this, then make sure you read and understand this thread and the threads it points you to:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=298613

[schmenge]

Thanks for the thoughts and the link. The IT department wasn't thrilled when I upgraded from my original to the current ROM, they could have a heart attack if I go to a cooked ROM. :eek: But if I can't figure anything else out I'm game to try that. I'll be out a lot the next couple of weeks and would rather live with what I have than take the small chance on bricking the phone right now.

I should have mentioned that all three plugins are installed to main memory, however two of the three (iLauncher and PB) are accessing my SD card for program icons and skins. There seems to be a relationship here. When I move the PB skins to main memory rather than SD the lockups seem to drop pretty dramatically. iLauncher loads after PB loads so assuming any issue with the card (maybe initializing) are gone before iL loads. I reformatted the card, but that doesn't seem to matter.

[mfrazzz]

SD cards vary in their performance. Could be if you have some noname SD brand, it may have errors or perf issues. Maybe pick up a name brand (like Sandisk) or somesuch and see if the problem goes away. Also some of the larger (1GB and larger) can be flakey.

[schmenge]

It is a SanDisk card and is 1 gig. But one can never have too many cards, maybe I need another. :)