Dead ipaq 5550 after WebIS Mail install

[ChristopherTD]

My 5550 is completely dead, it won't even hard-reset. Any tips for getting it back to life or is it a service job?

(On a hard-reset it doesn't get past the splash screen that shows the ROM 1.10.10 version)


The background:

I downloaded and installed the 2.0 trial from Handango.

Configured a POP3 account and downloaded 2 messages.

All was well.

I moved a message from my POP3 Inbox to a folder in the ActiveSync tree.

This seemed to work.

I chose to move it back again. I got a message pop up about a CEMailTree fault. WebIS Mail closed and the iPaq froze. After a minute I pressed the soft-reset and the unit is now completely frozen.

It won't soft reset, I have changed batteries, put it on AC power. It is completely dead. The screen won't even light up.

I have a complete backup taken earlier today which I can restore (if I can get it back to life). My machine is a iPaq 5550, running the latest ROM (1.10.10) and the only other software running was Pocket Plus 2.0 from spb.

The machine has been completely stable since September last year, no mysterious faults or resets of any kind.

[PR.]

Take the battery out and leave it, the backup battery will run flat and then should be able to hard reset it...

[ChristopherTD]

I eventually managed to get it to Hard Reset on AC power, but I can't remember the exact sequence.

Sprite Backup restored me to where I had been without incident, but I haven't been brave enough to try WebIS Mail again!

[alex_kac]

I am about 99% sure its NOT WebIS Mail. Why? Simple - we've had WebIS Mail in public beta since November continuously. We've had builds that were almost exactly the same (except for context help and some connection fixes) for the last 6 weeks publicly downloadable and we've had several thousand downloads for each build. So with several thousand public testers of basically the same as 2.0 Release trial - we've not had that kind of issue.

The issue will most likely either hardware (bad memory that only shows up when its being stressed or used a lot) or some other strange interaction.

[Pony99CA]

I am about 99% sure its NOT WebIS Mail. Why? Simple - we've had WebIS Mail in public beta since November continuously. We've had builds that were almost exactly the same (except for context help and some connection fixes) for the last 6 weeks publicly downloadable and we've had several thousand downloads for each build. So with several thousand public testers of basically the same as 2.0 Release trial - we've not had that kind of issue.
I too doubt that a program could brick an iPAQ. One could certainly hard reset a Pocket PC, but actually bricking one would be a good feat.

However, just because a program has been extensively tested does not mean there won't be any bugs. I think Microsoft Service Packs and Security Updates prove that. :-D (And, yes, I know Windows is far more complex.)

The issue will most likely either hardware (bad memory that only shows up when its being stressed or used a lot) or some other strange interaction.
What about the CEMailTree failure? Is that a legitimate bug (can you reproduce it?) or do you think that's a result of bad hardware? If it's some interaction with another program, I'd think you'd want to find out about that.

Steve

[ChristopherTD]

The CEMailTree is repeatable. I have posted details of how to reproduce it in the WebIS forums.

The CEMailTree fault hasn't caused a complete lockup since, but then the machine was hard-reset and won't be exactly the same.