LB 3.4.1 Crashes on my Tungsten E2 with "PIMsDataMgr.c, Line 135" in To do list view on Update

Posted June 17th, 2008 by chimaera
in

Hi, new here.

Anyone else see this sort of crash? It happens randomly, typically once-a-day, only from within Life Balance in the to-do list after clicking update:

PIMsDataMgr.c, Line:135,
checkRecordChunk means
chunk is null...

The crash is a hard lock-up that requires me to hit the recessed reset button my Palm Tungsten E2 PDA. After this, the LB databases are corrupted and I have to restore the databases from backup. Regularly running the verify data function does not help, and reveals no database errors.

Thanks.

-Dan

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Comments

That's a Palm OS message

cewhite's picture
On June 17th, 2008 cewhite said:

Hi there Dan,

Thanks for getting in touch with us about the problem you are seeing.

The actual error is being reported by Palm OS code, ("function.c" vs. "function.cpp" for Life Balance) and probably indicates that there is a corrupt record in either the Datebook or To Do built in apps that Life Balance is then tripping over during the "update" function. That also would be consistent with Verify Data not finding any source of trouble in the Life Balance databases.

To confirm that theory, you could turn off import/export in the prefs for Life Balance and see if the problem goes away.

Also, if that turns out to be the case, you could then use a utility for cleaning up and repairing the built in apps. Pimlico recently started selling theirs, and I believe that they would have a good product that would be careful and thorough.

Chances are if you clean up the Datebook, the problem will go away and never come back.

If it DOES come back, then you have to slow down and see where the corruption is coming from. In our experience, it could be a conduit, could be a misbehaving Palm app, or, it could be from the Palm OS itself if you are in a low memory situation. So... there are multiple ways that can happen. The more complicated your set up... the more likely you are to run into that type of stuff.

We'll be optimistic and say that once you have cleaned up the built in databases... all will be well again. That's the more common case.

I hope that is helpful and sets you back on track again...

Best wishes,

--Catherine--*
www.llamagraphics.com

Hi Catherine, I have

On June 17th, 2008 chimaera said:

Hi Catherine,

I have Dbfixit, and I regularly clean up the PIM databases. If there's a corrupt record it's one that Dbfixt won't fix. I'm using DateBk6, by the way.

This problem first appear when I tried using Natara DayNotez to log Life Balance updates. I'm no longer using DayNotez at all, and have in fact deleted it. The

I'll try turning off the export. I do have one to-do list that I export.

By the way... your advice is very different from what customer support just told me (I opened a ticket last night, too). They're claiming it's probably a hack (I'm not running any), and they're telling me to try the latest beta, too.

Thanks.

-Dan

Customer Support is my mom...

cewhite's picture
On June 17th, 2008 cewhite said:

Hi there Dan,

"They.... "

Um, there is no "They...," only us.

Customer support is my mom, Jean. She escalates to me and Stuart as needed. There is nobody here but us llamas.

And she is quite correct that the original corruption in a record like that could have been caused by a hack, (even one you had installed previously) or any misbehaving Palm app, or conduit that used the built in databases, including the Palm OS itself. So, not a bad place to start by turning off obvious system extensions if you do have any installed.

As I said, the error is being reported by Palm OS... it is not complaining about Life Balance databases, and is not actually crashing in Life Balance code. That often does indicate the presence of some kind of system extension.

The advice I'm giving you is based on the particular function mentioned in the error message itself and a deeper knowledge of the Life Balance source code and Palm OS itself.

Trying the latest beta... could help, since there is at least one bug fix that MIGHT be relevent to your case.... It would be interesting if it IS... so again, not a bad bit of advice. Just different perspective.

Best wishes,

--Catherine--*

Still Crashing...

On June 18th, 2008 chimaera said:

Okay, here's the scoop:

√ Ran Dbfixit again (though I'd just run it on Sunday). There are no calendar blobs, and no deleted records. No errors.
√ Disabled the to-do export in Life Balance.
√ I have no extensions/hacks installed.

Boom. The same crash while updating (my typical last update of the day).

Now what? Try the Life Balance beta? Since that will update the format of the databases, I'm a little apprehensive about taking this action.

Thanks.

-Dan

Next steps..

cewhite's picture
On June 18th, 2008 cewhite said:

Good morning Dan,

Thanks for the extra information, though I'm sorry to hear that it means that the situation is more confusing rather than less. Always troubling.

Hmm. Well, if you don't want to try the beta yet, then we are still not out of things to do, and ways to learn what's happening for you.

Another place to look to is the conduits. Is there any correlation to the crash and when you last did a sync. You said it happened at the end of the day... was that after a sync?

And is the crash intermittent, but coming back, or is it consistent and happening every time you update?

I think that the next step may be for us to examine the data under the debugger and the simulator to see what's actually tripping the Palm OS. But we'll obviously need all the data, Calendar and To Dos, as well as Life Balance, or we won't see the behavior that you are seeing. Do you need instructions on how to make us an archive of that stuff?

You can send that along with your open ticket, and reference this conversation, so that my mom understands that I asked for the data. Stuart and I will look at it together, and see if we can reproduce the problem.

We also have a different utility that we use that may find different stuff than Pimilico's utility. We can also try that here once we have the data to see if it makes a difference. But I'm not really expecting that to be necessary if you have used the other utility.

Once we have a reproducible case, we can also try the beta here, rather than on your device, and see if that makes a difference.

Best wishes,

--Catherine--*

Update, Rbackup looks like it might be the cause

On June 24th, 2008 chimaera said:

Hi again. Sorry to be out-of-touch for a bit... got busy with work stuff.

I believe I've found the cause of the crash I was experiencing. It's been about 5 days now since a crash. I followed a hunch, and so far so good.

The culprit appears to have been the scheduler for a program called Rbackup. Rbackup does manual or scheduled backups to a Palm PDA memory card. When I reflected upon how a scheduler would likely need to be implemented on a Palm device, I realized that it was likely that the scheduler was behaving like a "hack" or an extension, though it was not explicitly identified as such. Once I disabled the scheduler I no longer experienced crashes while updating the Life Balance to-do list.

Anyway, thanks very much for the help. I'll update this issue if anything changes. Sorry I didn't think of Rbackup sooner.

-Dan

Thank you for following up with us...

cewhite's picture
On June 24th, 2008 cewhite said:

Hi there Dan,

I appreciate you taking the time to follow up on this. A mystery like that one is always troubling to us. On a report like that, we can tell that there must be something interfering... but what?

It is very helpful not only to us, but to the whole community here to have that information posted.

Thanks for following your hunch!

Best wishes,

--Catherine--*

Phooie...

On June 25th, 2008 chimaera said:

Well, no sooner did I report my good luck... the crash returned, the first in several days. I suspect that each little corrective action we've tried has decreased the frequency of the crashes. I'll monitor for a few days to see if the daily crashes are back. I hope not.

-Dan

The same kind of crash

On September 16th, 2008 parkey said:

Hi,

I have had the same kind of crashes, in about the same time frame . . . starting in the spring, I think. I finally got so frustrated that after one re-set I tried to re-install life balance on my E2. Unfortunately, I lost my key during the process, so I can't use it anyway.

It has been very frustrating.

Dave

Your license is easy to get resent to you..

cewhite's picture
On September 16th, 2008 cewhite said:

Open a ticket and we can resend your license to you.. that part is easy at least!

--Catherine--*

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