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]

to be thorough...

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]

wakealarm

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