Alarm troubles (WMo2003)

[WillyG]

Trying a problem analyzis regarding the "Freezing alarm"/"Alarm does not wake the device up" misery.

Just as many of you with brand new devices running Windows Mobile 2003 im having troubles with alarms. (Buildt in PIM and Clock alarms)

Lets try to get an overview of the situation. If you got a device running Windows Mobile, please repond to this poll.

And feel free to post the brand and model of your Pocket Pc.
Also installed applications could be usefull.

We all know the history of the repeating alarm blunder Microsoft admit they did in PPC2002 (credit to MS for beeing honest, and SPB for making it forgiveable). We also know that alarms not waking up devices was a discussed topic here at PPCT on *some* devices running PPC2002. I can forgive an error if its done once, admitted and somthing honest is done to try to fix it. But now im starting to loose my temper. The PIM and beeing reminded, is the core functionality of a PDA. I simply expect it to be reliable. Microsoft was well aware of the alarm oversight/bug in PPC2002 and if they "on purpose", with much hoppla, launch a new version of the operating system with with the same latent defect, pretending it does not exist, then its completely unacceptable! Same to the device manufacturers it they are to blame. Fact is i dont care whos fault it is. Microsoft, hardware manufacturer(s), 3rd party application developer(s) (or myself for that sake). All i want is my PDA to be reliable. A usefull device i can trust, making me and my day more effective and fun, reminding me when i need to be reminded :!:
Lets stick our heads together, pinpoint the the problemsource, turn the huge consumer-gun in the right direction and lay our fingers on that trigger. Lets get this fixed ASAP.

[WillyG]

Ok let me start

Device: HP iPAQ 2215

Applications:
Just did a hard reset after backing up, none yet.

[Scott R]

Sorry to sidetrack this thread already, but can you give me your understanding of what was broken in PPC 2002? It was my understanding that recurring alarms worked fine in PPC 2000. Basically, if you had an appointment set for 12pm with a 15 minute reminder, it would remind you at 11:45am. If you didn't acknowledge it, the screen would turn off after a certain amount of time and would then wake up again, say 5 minutes later, and remind you again. It should continue to do this until you acknowledge it or the appointment time passes.

Here's the thing...After ranting about this issue recently, I went back to my iPaq 3630 which still runs PPC 2000 and tested it out (in case you were wondering, I use my iPaq mainly for PocketBible and use my Treo 300 for most other things). Well, recurring alarms didn't work on my old PPC 2000 iPaq either. I could have sworn that they once did. Am I completely crazy and perhaps recurring alarms never worked? The other possibility is that one of those ROM updates that Compaq provided broke the recurring alarms even for the PPC 2000 OS.

Scott

[WillyG]

You are right, the recurring alarms in PPC2000 used to work, at least they did on my iPAQ 3660. Heck, as far as i remember there was working recurring alarms on my old Casio E10 (i recall correctly that one was running Windows CE 2.11). PPC2002 was a different story. If you set up a reminder, it would wake up the device make one "ding-dong" sound and then go back to sleep again (just like me in the morning). As im sure you are aware of SPB software house, released Pocket Plus to fill in the recurring alarm hole in PPC2002. Personally i had no alarmtroubles on my FSC LOOX, and i could really count on it reminding me of events. However some users reported the reminder/clock-alarm did not wake up their PPC2002 devices.

Now i bought a shiny new iPAQ 2215, and i was facing the fact that alarms did not wake up the device/the iPAQ screen came on and unit appears to be frozen. Wich of course is a real showstopper, as reminders are both basic and essential on a PDA.

Im following other threads regarding this closely, and someone sugested uninstalling SPB Pocket Plus, witch i did....and....well now it works. I cant say for 100% sure its SPB Pocket Plus thats causing all this hairpulling, but right now it really seems like uninstallig did help. Ironically Pocket Plus that saved the day on PPC2002 seems to be "ruining" it on WM2003. Again more testing is to be done. Would be nice if others could post their experiences.

[Scott R]

You are right, the recurring alarms in PPC2000 used to work, at least they did on my iPAQ 3660.Thanks for verifying that for me. Well then it looks like Compaq snuck in breaking this feature even in PPC 2000 devices with one of their ROM updates. Lame.

Scott

[Scott R]

Im following other threads regarding this closely, and someone sugested uninstalling SPB Pocket Plus, witch i did....and....well now it works. I cant say for 100% sure its SPB Pocket Plus thats causing all this hairpulling, but right now it really seems like uninstallig did help. Ironically Pocket Plus that saved the day on PPC2002 seems to be "ruining" it on WM2003. Again more testing is to be done. Would be nice if others could post their experiences.Just to clarify...Uninstalling Pocket Plus fixed your lockup problem. Recurring alarms are still MIA in PPC 2003, correct?

Scott

[WillyG]

Just to clarify...Uninstalling Pocket Plus fixed your lockup problem.
Thats what it looks like right now, but its a bit early to tell. The results from my, not so, scientific tests indicates that the alarms now seems to work correctly. [/quote]

Recurring alarms are still MIA in PPC 2003, correct?
Negative. The OS now supports recurring alarms (again). If I go to Start | Settings | (Tab:Personal) | Sounds and notifications | Tab: Notifications | Combobox "Select event" and select Reminders, this magic checkbox shows up.

And it works :)
http://www.krivivev.no/eximages/recalm.jpg

[Scott R]

Negative. The OS now supports recurring alarms (again). If I go to Start | Settings | (Tab:Personal) | Sounds and notifications | Tab: Notifications | Combobox "Select event" and select Reminders, this magic checkbox shows up.

And it works :)Sorry to be a pain...Can you confirm that it works in the manner that I described previously in terms of how I believe recurring alarms should work? Specifically, if I have an appointment set for 12pm with a 15 minute reminder, the alarm will go off at 11:45am. If I ignore it, the device will turn itself off after a short time and then wake up again about 5 minutes later to remind me again. It should continue to do this until I either acknowledge it or the appointment time passes (in this case > 12pm).

Again, sorry to belabor the point, but according to a couple of other people who tried this, it still doesn't work. Thanks,

Scott