Built-In Apps Stop Loading - *any* ideas? (seriously, ANY ideas? I'm Stuck!)

[sjk]

Hi,

So, I've had my Pocket PC for about 1 month. And I installed so much rubbish it was really slowing down. Plus, Windows Media Player randomly stopped loading up at all - which was very annoying. So I decided it was time for the first hard reset now that I'd figured out all the software I'd needed.

Anyway, I'm now 4 hard resets later and I've got a serious problem.

First time:

I collected all the software I wanted to install, all my registration codes, got them all ready in one directory. I did a hard-reset, and then went through installing them. I got to the the end - and Pocket Word, Excel, and Media Player had all stopped working.

They just would not load, and a soft reset did nothing. Nor did uninstalling various pieces of software that I thought might be causing th eproblem.


So I did a second hard reset, and did the same thing, except, I installed things gradually and didn't install anything too big or things that might cause conflict.

Then, same again. Word, Excel, all stop loading.

Now I'm about to have to hard-reset for the fifth time. The last time, I installed one app at a time, doing a full backup after every single one.

It was all going fine, Excel and Word loading okay. But then I eventully decided to do a soft-reset to check it was all still working okay.

After the soft reset, again - all the seemingly built-in apps stopped loading. Including Excel, Word, Media Player, even the Contacts and Calendar - they said the wasn't enough program memory - even though there was over 12 Mb of program memory still free.

So I fugured, "Okay, no prob, that's was I was donig the backups for, I'll just use the last backup and hope it works".

Except, *all* built-in apps stopped loading - including MS ActiveSync. I can't load it, I can't connect via USB, I can't connect via IR.

I can't load any built in app - despite being able to load and run all the 3rd party one's I've just installed.

Now I'm going to have to do another hard-reset because I can't load up ActiveSync.

Does anyone have *any* ideas at all what could be causing this?

I ran Excel and Word fine for 1 month, running Excel at least, probably once a day and never had this happen - having had all these same applications I'm trying to install working fine.

I'm absolutely stuck as to what to do. I have no idea why this is happenning, and absolutely no idea how to get more info or how to fix it.

Any suggestions, any ideas, or even (an absolutely God-send) the exact reason why this might be happenning? Anyone wiht a similar problem??

Thanks,

Simon kittle

ps: for ref: I'm working on an O2 XDA, 32 Meg RAm, 32 Mb ROM, with the ROM and Radio Stack upgrade available from the O2 website (Which I've had installed and running for about 3/4 weeks)

[Kaber]

return it

[Janak Parekh]

Are you running any "system-level" apps, ones that might run on startup? A soft reset causes the Pocket PC to run the items in the Startup folder, and there may be programs that install themselves there but don't run for the first time until the soft-reset.

A consideration would be to soft-reset after the installation of each program and a quick test.

Kaber: do you really think this is a hardware problem? It doesn't sound like one, unless sjk, you can replicate the problem with NO apps installed.

--janak

[ctmagnus]

As per what Janak said, what is in your \Windows\Startup folder? What are your today plugins?

[Steven Cedrone]

It doesn't sound like one, unless sjk, you can replicate the problem with NO apps installed.

I would run the Pocket PC for a day or two without any third party apps installed. This way you can rule out the device itself and start to focus on software...

Steve

[Johnny Blaze]

Also dont forget to check your memory settings. Even though you may not be using a lot of memory your program storage slider might need to be adjusted. On a 32 meg unit youd be surprised as i have had to move a lot of my stuff around on my 64 meg units. I have also encountered this problem when having too many docs on my pocket pc.

I had about 100 docs and Word, excel wouldnt even work any more until I deleted and consolidated a bunch of them.

SO take the previous advice and try the ppc without any additional apps for a few days then if time permits depending on your return time frame id do one app a day. It might just be one of your apps that doesnt want to play nice.

[sjk]

Thanks for all these replies.

I never thought it was a hardware issue. I alwats assumed it was software but the way it was happenning left me baffled as to which software.

When Media Player stopped working the very first itme I narrowed it down to Resco Audio Recorded. Apparently some other people have seen this happen too.

As for the reinstalls, one time it happenned when I hadn't reinstalled very much. One thing I had though, was Sbp Pocket Plus, or whatever its' called. This was also the app that would've integrated itself most into the OS - with Today Screen and an IE mod.

To be honest I put it down to this. All the other apps seemed so basic, like a file explorer. Sbp Pocket Plus also seemed a bit amaturish anyway - they're Close button mod really isn't very good and seems to go wrong quite often, and the today screen plugin never reappeared after a soft-reset.


I never tested this 100% by just installing this one app though.

I basically got so fed up and annoying, and then completely side-tracked, that I ended up installing a modified ROM from xda-developers.com. They've put a free app inside the ROM which does the same job as Sbp Pocket Plus's launcher, so I'm going with that.

I've now got (on this new ROM) all the original software I had installed installed afresh - even including Pocket Informant, and absolutely nothings gone wrong.

All software that is, except the Sbp Pocket Plus. I don't know for sure if it was their app that was messing with things. Or even if it was just an unfortuantely conflict between various apps I had installed - but I'm not touching any Sbp software again I think, just to be on the safe side.

Thanks again for all your replies.

Simon

[sjk]

Just for reference:

I wasn't running any apps in the StartUp folder except for Resco Task Manager and this small freeware app that puts the date just underneath the time in the main toolbar at the top.

Both these apps I'd run since forever, so I was pretty confident it wasn't either of these.

I was running IP Dashboard today plugin, as well as Sbp Pocket Plus today plugin.

Maybe that info will help someone else if they ever have similar problems.

[ctmagnus]

Do you have anything installed in a storage card? Storage cards take a while to initialize after a reset so it's recommended to not install anything that loads at startup or utilizes a today screen plugin/anything that overrides the close button onto one.

[Janak Parekh]

ctmagnus makes a good point. I can also add that I used Spb Pocket Plus on my Pocket PC Phone Edition (same OEM device, although slightly different firmware) without the slighest of trouble, and I've also used it on other devices, so I'd be rather surprised it's the source of your problems. Maybe Spb and Resco were conflicting...? You might want to avoid multiple task managers installed and active simultaneously.

--janak

[townsendtribe]

There was an article in Pocket PC Magazine about choosing No to All when it comes to installing apps that ask to overwrite existing files. Perhaps a file is being overwritten with one of your installs. Try re- installing after a hard reset and Saying no when being asked to overwrite a file that exists.

Good luck

[maximus]

Just a short suggestion. Why don't you do a hard reset, start the PPC clean, and see if everything works fine. Then install one application, and see if everything still work fine. Then install another, and again see if everything still work fine. Do this for all the applications that you need to install, and stop if you notice the problem coming back.

The joy of troubleshooting. Brings back the memory of the old hardware addict days. :D

[sjk]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all your help. I realise that there's a good chance it wasn't Sbp Pocket Plus. I'm really only reporting on what was happenning. I myself used Pocket Plus for a good few weeks without any problems.

And I made sure I never had two different task managers active at the same time.

The last time I tried I did one at a time (installing apps I mean), I did a soft-reset after each one, as well as a backup - to see if I might be able to see something in the registry which conflited or looked out of place.

The result was that after pocket plus things started going haywire.

Anyway, I upgraded my ROM to one made by the folks over at xda-devleopers.com and everythings worked fine - I haven't installed Pocket Plus again, thought better not risk it - the main thing is that everythings working fine and I've had no problems at all.

Whether it was pocket plus or not I guess I'll never know for sure - but to be honest I'm not bothered, but I daren't risk trying it just to find out.

Thanks again for all your help,

Simon