Multiple Serious Issues On O2 XDA IIs

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I have had an XDA IIs for a week and the thing is *riddled* with bugs. A few that come to mind:

Add a new profile to connection manager and then add a 'modem' to that connection. Go and fiddle elsewhere for a while. Often when you come back to change the settings for that connection the 'modem' has dissapeared. (its still there, a soft reset will cause it to re-appear).

Take the unit out of range of your wifi while running an app that does nots of network activity, and you will have to do a soft reset in order to restore network connectivity. This occurs mainly with skype

WiFi Reception is **attrocious** my laptop will tell me that I have a full signal and the XDA IIs will barely register when at the same location. Even holding the damned thing 1 ft from the base station does not cause the signal indicator to head to maximum.

When you use bluetooth, for network access, all the stuff in connection manager gets reset.

Often, after setting connection manager to always use certain profiles, and then encountering a problem, you head into connection manager and find that your selections never stuck

VPN connections do not always stick when set, they dissapear from the menu.

I have tried for ages and failed to make a VPN connection over anything GPRS, WiFi etc. VPN was one of the reasons that I bought the device (access to home and work networks), but it just does not work. Additionally, the instructions with the unit offer no help about how to get it working.

The bundled O2 active stuff is very flaky. Take the end programs applet - it often crashes its self while trying to force an app that is 'not responding' to stop. The built in 'stop app' applet (which they burried in settings) seems to work but...

Getting an app in a not responding state is well easy - just use it normally! Messenger prog is the worst. Usually requires use of 'end now' option

IMAP support is very very bad. Its quite common for an IMAP server to not store mail folders in the root. In decent clients you can specify the root imap folder, not in pocket outlook, it ends up pulling the entire dir struct from your home dir!! I rebuilt the imap daemon on my linux box to compile in a default root folder. This solved the previous problem, but the imap support is not suitable for use away from wifi cause its so damned slow. It does not just look for new messages, and there is no way to tell it to do this. Also, when you send an item it ends up in the default sent items, not the imap sent items. Imho, the main reason to use imap is to keep your emails intact (be able to see what you sent from the mobile device from a desktop).

Outlook 2K3 on the desktop has the same issue btw, but at least that supports rules so you can put it right.

Billy wrote pocket outlook for connecting to an exchange server, which, I suspect only 50% of the devices purchaced will ever do. Pocket Oulook *always* starts pointing at the exchange folder structure, not your POP3/IMAP account, and there is no way to config this. Unessesary taps required. Why can I not DELETE the default exchange folders if I dont need them?

There are a load more issues as well... I currently do around 10 soft resets/day. My basis is that a wait of more than 10 secs means that the device has crashed. Perhaps if I was willing to wait 5 mins all the time for it to get its arse into gear then the number of soft resets could be reduced!

I shall have to create me a site with XDA IIs bugs on it. I suspect that most of these issues are also present on other devices using windows mobile 2003 so it aint just gonna be the XDA. MS will likely fix them, and then O2 will take years to make the fixes available to its customers.

To be honest, I wish I had stuck with a symbian based device.

Has *anyone* managed to get a IPSEC/PPTP VPN connection running either via wifi or GPRS???

Has anyone managed to get skype PPC working **reliably** Mine works OK if I sit next to the AP, but I might as well use the PC version if I have to do that. Moving further away causes skype to give up due to lack of bandwidth. WiFi also locks (no network access period) even though the PPC still indicates that it has a single from the AP. The only fix for this is yet another soft reset.

Some other stuff:

Refuses to connect to a network that is not broadcasting the SSID. In general, when you want to add a new box, you can set AP to broadcast SSID, it will then find the network, after it has connected, you can hide the SSID. For future connections from 'pre-registered' boxes, no SSID is required. Not so for the XDA IIs, refuses to connect to a base station that is not broadcasting an SSID, or in some cases, creates a new connection with the name "" (i.e nothing) (which again refuses to connect).

Right, now, if you have 2 wifi networks listed in PPC settings, it will sometimes sit there for ever failing to connect, do a soft reset and it connects.

Another one: you have two connections in the 'configure wireless networks' dialogue, one is 'connecting' other is 'unavailable'. The one that is connecting is obviously not gonna connect despite 100% correct settings, so I select 'remove' it does not dissapear!!!

If I had written this software, the user would see a dialogue box thus 'This network is connecting/connected, are you sure you wish to remove its settings?' Selecting yes, would either terminate the connection attempt, or terminate the connection and then remove the damned setting with no further agro!

In network settings, I often get some *stupid* status info. It sometimes says that my home network is 'available' when I am at work. Clearly it isn't, wifi does not travel 10 miles!

And some more:

Sometimes bluetooth fails to start complaining about insufficient driver space. I write windows KMD's all the time, I suspect its somet daft like a lack of available stack space, or stack recursion. Soft reset cures

Also, sometimes when I try to start bluetooth, I get a daft message saying that the licence for the bluetooth stack has expired!!! It then starts BT and all is OK.

All pretty in-excusable bugs for post beta software. This is MS's 4th attempt now at a mobile operating system and its still a bag of sh1te!

A PDA is supposed to be a productivity tool, not something that you have to put 4 hours into to save yourself an hour. When I pull the damned thing out I want it to do **exactly** what it says on the box.

Bugs in software are inevitable, but this just was not even tested - there are *obvious* bugs that should have been detected in QA and delayed the relrease date. I suspect most users will trip over these issues in the first few hours of use. The workaround for most is a soft reset - the blooming reset switch will be worn out in a week!

My advice: AVOID until they fix some of the bugs. Does O2/MS have a route for bug submissions? I'll write these up as formal bug reports with reproducers and send them off.

If it were not for the appeal of skype/skypeout (only with 10 metres of base station otherwise wifi dies, reset required!) then it would have gone back by now. Not of merchantisable quality imho.

I write C/CPP/Java software for a living, if I let something this bad out the door I'd loose my damned job!

And some more:

- If you reconfig your shortcuts (so you can find stuff!) Then the applets 'camera' and 'O2' always seem to copy themselves back out into the root of StartMenu-->Programs again.

Go into the find applet and get it to do a search that takes some time. Wait for it to get going and then click stop. PDA hangs. It does come back eventually (2-3 mins later), but remains sluggish until you do a soft reset. Trying to suspend while its hung just switches the backlight off!

Wish there was some kind of formal bug raising email address or somet.

Nigel

Agree with you

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Got the Orange m2000 variant and have same issues!

wifi has week signal (got 3 overlapping base stations in one open plan office) and can only get 25% signal.

can get vpn connection to work but after a few mins gets bored and drops!

phone reception is poor

bluetooth keeps crashing

going to send back to orange and get a new nokia 6230 and dell pda. cant rely on phone which crashes 10 times a day

Richard

how did you get the VPN to connect at all??

My WiFi connection is marked as 'connects to work' which means that the VPN profiles setup under 'work' should be offered to me. I would expect that after I have wifi up and running, clicking the icon at the top would show:

'Work - Wifi'

Unfortunately, it refuses to show anything other than 'The Internet - Wifi'. If I could get it to connect to wifi using the 'work' profile then perhaps it would show me by VPN connections underneath so that I could connect these too, but it **refuses** to do so.

BBB

(BuggedBeyondBelief)

Nigel

More issues

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Hi

I have been adding new bugs to my original post as I find them. Here's a couple more:

Sometimes (no real causer for this) When the WLan auto disables its self (set to 5 mins), I will head into the Wireless Lan manager, tick the 'Wireless lan ON' box and click OK.

It still stays disabled!!!

I then head back into the wireless Lan manager, and find that my tick did not stick, same result if I try again. The only way to get the Wlan back is to restart the damned thing.

Additionally, if I go into tools-->network cards from the wireless lan manager, it says that the Wlan is 'connected' it IS NOT connected!!!

This problem shows its self more when the 'Wireless lan Manager-->Settings Tab-->Auto Turn off WLAN if not connected' option is ticked but it will also do it without this.

Seems to be partially caused by poor wifi signal and having previously run an app that hammered the network.

Sack of Cr@p!

Nigel

u seem to be having a mare!

I've no probs with WiFi at all, none of the issues U raise have occurred, WiFi works fine all over my house (I'm tapping this in upstairs & my router is downstairs) & I've got the settings set for best battery life rather than strongest signal. In the hotels I've stayed in recently I've also had faultless WiFi!

A couple of the users @ work have had trouble wiv GPRS overriding WiFi but I put this down to TNBTK!!

I've also seen the lost modem settings problem(also cured by soft reset).

Bluetooth performance has been a touch hit & miss but fiddling in the advanced settings seem to help!!

I've not tried VPN as I'm actively moving us away from this @ work towas web based services. Just a thought though, isn't "connecting to the internet" what you'd expect to see? surely you are using an internet gateway to VPN onto your network?

One other issue I've had is a logon problem with MS sharepoint, I'm hoping to cure that next week by playing about with authentication on the server.

I'v got a route in to some technical contacts at O2 so I'll ask bout the bug reporting for U tomorrow.

Hi

Aye, fun and games at the moment, just like my hardware to do what it says on the box!

Have you tried Skype? I have a feeling that you too will suffer the wifi lock-up problems if you give skype a go at the extreme of your wifi reception. I dont think its skype's fault though, but rather just the XDA not liking what skype gets up to! I am not gonna complain if it drops the wifi connection, its the lock-up that requires the reboot that winds me up.

Most of the time, my wifi is OK as well. Many of the problems I have had are related to use of skype, and having setup the auto-off wifi setting (which is now off again).

You have an XDA IIs? Perhaps mine has old firmware? I certainly dont believe that this is hardware related. I intend to come up with some repeaters for the problems I have, at the moment, they just occur 'when they feel like it'.

>A couple of the users @ work have had trouble wiv GPRS overriding WiFi >but I put this down to TNBTK!!

I have had this with bluetooth, but not with wifi. I think this connection occurs while on bluetooth when using ports that are not passed by default by ICS on the windows host box.

>I've also seen the lost modem settings problem(also cured by soft >reset).

This one really winds me up cause there is no way such a bug should have got past QA.

>Bluetooth performance has been a touch hit & miss but fiddling in the >advanced settings seem to help!!

Apart from the stupid messages about kernel space when trying to start BT, and the daft popup box saying that the BT stack license has expired, the BT on the XDA IIs is one of the more stable implementations that I have seen. You would think that since BT is now around 5 years old, it would be 100% stable these days.

>I've not tried VPN as I'm actively moving us away from this @ work >towas web based services. Just a thought though, isn't "connecting to >the internet" what you'd expect to see? surely you are using an internet >gateway to VPN onto your network?

It seems that there are two main connection methods in PPC, work, and Internet. The Proxy and VPN settings are not available when connected using a profile that is associated with 'internet' they are only available when connected through a 'work' profile. Again, the documentation is very lacking in the manual. O2's idea of a 'work' connection is WAP to O2 active!! A 'work' connection can be made to allow internet connections by checking the checkbox under proxy servers.

The various guides that I have found all suggest using the same profile for 'work' and 'internet', and setting the checkbox under proxies to allow internet access.

The layout of the whole connections applet in PPC is just a mess - completely unintuative!

Anyway, whatever the correct method, I've tried the lot and cant get the VPN to connect!!

>I'v got a route in to some technical contacts at O2 so I'll ask bout the >bug reporting for U tomorrow.

Cheers!

Nigel

Just got a reply from O2 About Above Bugs!

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Hi

Ammused the hell out of me since its obviously a standard reply! There are not hardware problems, they are software problems so exchanging the hardware when the software remains the same aint gonna help!!

Nutters....!

I like the unit, I dont want to return it, I just want then to be aware of, and then fix the bugs and release new firmware promptly. O2's idea, is that if user sends in a bug report that refers to the *software* the unit runs, offer said user a new unit with same software - must cost them a bl00dy fortune!!

See O2's reply below:

Dear Nigel,

Thank you for contacting O2 Customer Service.

Please accept my sincere apologies for any inconvenience that may have
been caused by this matter and thank you for your patience.

I am sorry to know your handset has become faulty within 14 days of
purchase. However, we if you wish to get a new phone, please return your
faulty phone in it`s original packaging using the returns label
provided. If you do not have the original packaging please reply to this email
and I will arrange for a jiffy bag to be sent out to you. Returning
your order is free as the postage is prepaid, however can I ask you
obtain proof of postage as this will assist us greatly in the unlikely event
that your order does not reach our warehouse.

Any money you have paid for your order will be refunded once we have
received your order, however this process may take upto 21 working days.

After this you can order a new phone. There are two ways to order a
product from O2 Online:

You can order directly from our website by clicking on the link below:

http://shop.o2.co.uk/shop/

Alternatively, you can contact our sales team on 0870 225 7879. Who are
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Isn't it time to see what you can do with O2.

However, you can also visit your nearest O2 store to get your phone
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dont seems to have the problems you have stated additional i have very good signals over the macdonalds.... (a free wifi service for now) in Singapore and tried with hotels wifi do not seem to have any problems... even installed WiFiForum a Wifi sniffer compitable with IIs and seriously speaking... after installing the WiFiForum i seem to have better phone signals... the best sniffer ever.... For VPN never tried... note: i have pocket skype and it works flawless.... dont get the "locked to network" problem

problems?

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sounds like a bad unit. I'm new at this and am really wanting the blue angel early next year but reading a lot of bad press. I still have my sharp gx 1 and am looking for a good upgrade, the blue angel seems to have just the features I want...but so many bugs I'm seeing. from yellow tinged screens to connection and software problems. Thing is...is it a new product issue, or a design issue in general, and does anyone know when these bugs will be fixed? I really don't want to jump and buy one on contract and then have problems...don't know what to do. suggestions?

wifi signal

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If you will take down the wifi speed of the access point from mixed a + b to just a, it will improve the signal for the XDA and the coverge will be stronger.