Slow dynamic input area -- slow startup with SD card. Any ideas?

[Rudd-O]

I've owned the T|X for several months now and I have to ask: is there a solution to any of these problems?

1. The annoying delay when toggling the DIA. Whether it's because I change to an app that uses the DIA (say, toggling between favorites and applications), or because I manually enable/disable the DIA, it has this annoying slide-in animation that gets old really fast and blocks all user input while it's playing. Any hacks to disable that?

2. The annoying several-second delay when turning the device on. It seems that the device is generating "card removed" and "card inserted" events every time the device is turned on -- a long shot from the olden days when I had a Visor and it turned on instantly. I wanted to use it as a "better iPod" but this thing is causing me grief. Why do I have to wait several seconds between the time I turn the device on, and the time I can actually hit the Play button on Pocket Tunes? Any hacks to help that? I have PalmPuke and Launch This! set to not launch anything (it certainly helps because it allows me to remove the sound and that cuts about a second from the startup time), but this is not enough.

Any ideas, guys?

[cyberdude]

Uncache will cut down your startup time.
NoMountSwitch or InsertSD will stop anything from starting when you insert a card

[Church Punk]

it takes longer when the czard size is bigger and the writing/reading speed. i have no problems with my SanDisk Extreme III ...

[Rudd-O]

My card is a slow 4GB generic card (700 KB/s tested on my Palm T|X). I certainly refuse to believe that the Palm's reading 2 MB of data from the card when I turn it on.

It is a CERTAIN thing that when I turn my Palm off then on again, at the time it turns on the Palm emulates card removal and reinsertion in rapid succession. Is there a hack that will detect this condition and short-circuit the removal/reinsertion process?

[Gregte]

Your startup time should be nearly instant and should not require any apps or hacks to be that way.

I don't know anything about the apps you mentioned having but some apps will cause a slower launch and startup such as WaveAlarms or to a much lesser extent BlackBorder.

Both of the above apps make the TX go through its entire list of apps every time that any app is launched, just to see if they are supposed to affect the launch in question.

I wuld suggest backing up your TX with NVBackup then do a hard reset then do a selective restore with NVBackup but only restore the apps that you are quite certain would not be causing any problem. Then try it. If it behaves better then you can selective restore another of the apps etc. until you find the culprit(s).

[Rudd-O]

Hi Greg, I've read your posts with much interest.

On the slow startup: when the SD card is not inserted, the Palm turns on *instantly*. It's only when the SD card is inserted that happens.

[Rudd-O]

Oh, and when I insert the card, the palm's interface hangs for a couple of seconds. Fairly consistent with my personal hypothesis.

[FerdFerd]

The insertion routine each time you turn on your device isn't normal. Mine at least is instant on with a 2GB card inserted. Unfortunately, I have no idea why your behavior is different from normal.

[Rudd-O]

I'm going to perform a hard reset on my Palm to test this theory. Maybe there's something in my device after all. Backing up as I type...

[Rudd-O]

It didn't make **** of a difference. I just hard reset my device for nothing, goddamnit. When I turn the device on, and the card is in, it still plays the two insertion/removal mother***ing sounds and it still hangs in there for like 6 to 10 seconds before I can feed it any kind of input!!!!!!!!!!

I'm fed up with it, the constant resets and crashes, the sync problems, the maddening hiss on my headphones. I can't even stream music from my own local network Icecast/MPD server reliably. I can't use the browser to navigate the MPD Web interface because it hangs reliably (for some reason, Blazer doesn't like pages more than half a meg in size). Opening any app takes seconds instead of blinks of an eye, especially when the DIA appears/disappears.

I'm so selling this piece of crap and getting a Linux-based PDA or an iPod. I'd rather have my Handspring Visor back, plus an iPod video (yes, if I'd have spent that money on it, I'd be better off). The TX is a jack-of-all-trades and it sucks at everything it does.

[PinCushionQueen]

Yeah... I agree with FerdFerd - the insertion routine is abnormal. Either there's something wrong with your card or your card reader. Have you tried another SD card to see if it does the same thing? Or have you tried your card but completely empty - perhaps there is some app on your card that is triggering the routine. If you're sure it's not your card that is the problem - I'd contact Palm and see if your TX is still under warranty. I've got a cheap off brand 4 GB card and my TX starts instantly.

I've also never had your problems with my DIA area being slow. It does change from 320x480 to 320 x320 as needed depending on the application run (or by what I have Display Manager set to) but it is all very quick - <1 second.

I suppose you could have a separate 3rd party application that is causing both of these slow down to your TX. If you follow Gregte instructions you could probably track down the culprit(s).

[Dick Tracy]

No need to have an outburst. Some of our members are younger than you think.

The resets and crashes have primarily two causes:

1. Improper upgrade from prior device and installation of incompatible third-party software. Hard reset, rename Backup folder, sync, review list at palmfocus.com and upgrade apps or drop the abandonware. Non-compliant apps will exhibit behavior described in the third green box of the Read This First flyer that came with your TX.

2. Cache full. This spontaneous reset will not loop. Soft reset before launching Blazer or look at hacks. Be very careful with these and understand what you are doing when you install them.

[Rudd-O]

Guys, I appreciate the time you've put into your advice, but your tips aren't helping.

PinCushionQueen: my card is *fine*. I use it all the time on Linux. I just wiped my Palm hard, the problem didn't go away, I couldn't restore everything back, and now I'm stuck with the dreaded "Please Load MIDataLib.lib" message. Again, I WIPED MY PALM AND THE PROBLEM IS STILL THERE -- so there's NO CHANCE it is caused by an application. I certainly won't remove the 600 songs I transcoded in three days from my SD card, just to test the wrong hypothesis that "because the card has some data, it loads slowly" -- besides, I remember that the card, even empty, caused the slowdown on powerup.

And the DIA slowness... how can you not notice that, when the DIA appears/disappears, it does so with an animation, and while the animation plays, you can't do anything except wait? I wish there was a way to disable the animation. That's all I asked in the thread.

Dick Tracy: I know how to diagnose crashes -- I've had palms since Handspring made the Visor. My point is that I shouldn't have to reset my Palm before using Blazer -- my Linux desktop starts faster than my Palm!

[Rudd-O]

And no, my TX is not under warranty. Besides, it'd do little help to exchange my device -- the problems will still be there because, it seems, they are not problems but design issues.

I'm pretty sure the Palm is generating "disconnect"/"connect" events when it turns itself on, very much like a laptop generates such events when suspending/waking up. I just don't know why the user needs to suffer the consequences -- why does the launcher need to change to the SD_CARD category when I turn my device on -- as a consequence for this braindead implementation? Why do I need a third-party app to turn that behavior off? Why do I need another third-party app to remove the "inserted"/"removed" notification sounds (which add an extra couple of seconds to the powerup sequence)?

Sucks.

[BrentDC]

I never remove my sd card, but I have also never have a delay when turning on my device. I have a 2GB SanDisk and have not experienced any delays doing anything, I also don't experience delay when my DIA goes up/down. Are you sure it isn't some kind of third party application(s) causing such problems?

[Rudd-O]

Brent: did you even read the thread? I WIPED MY PALM HARD and the problem still continues.

[Rudd-O]

Did I mention that my SD card is FAT32 formatted (obviously, I ain't wasting 2 gigs of my card by using FAT16)? It may help to know that.

[Rudd-O]

To prove I'm not delusional:

http://forums.palm.com/palm/board/message?board.id=hardware&message.id=14935

[Rudd-O]

So it's a Palm TX problem.

No surprises there. Why am I not surprised? (cue long list of complaints).

Jeez.

[Greek]

I have a TX with a 2GB SanDisk too. It´s a normal speed card, not the fast ones. My TX turns on instantly, and when accessing the card, I only have to see the "Please Wait" message two seconds and then I´m on the card launcher.

You must be having some conflict. If a hard reset still doesn´t cure your problem, you can try a zero out reset. If the problem persists, you may need to send it to Palm so they change it or repair it.

What you are experiencing is not normal on TXs.

Regards,

[BrentDC]

IT CAN NOT BE A TX PROBLEM!!! First of all my TX is fine, second of all we'd be hearing a lot more complaints if it were a device wide epidemic. It must be one of these things: A defective Card, Defective Palm, The Way the Card was Formatted, Software Issue, User Mistake (Always a possibility).

[Rudd-O]

Guys: please note none of you have my 4GB card. And please note other people have been having the same issues (I discovered threads relating EXACTLY the same problem both in Palm and in BrightHand).

Sending it to repair is not an option. There are no Palm offices in Ecuador. I won't send it to the U.S. then wait two months -- I'd much rather sell it for $50 and get myself an iPod. The $200 I'd lose would actually bring me much joy -- I'd deem them my "**** you" money.

Let's discuss BrentDC's options:

- A defective card: no, it's not. It's good, works on Linux, did a full dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null without errors.
- Defective Palm: what, mine's from a batch with defective system software? Highly unlikely. If the card reader was damaged, it wouldn't work, would it?
- The Way the Card was Formatted: mkdosfs with the FAT32 option. The card works everywhere. Had I any desire to be malicious, I'd have formatted it using ReiserFS.
- Software Issue: after a hard reset?
- User Mistake: I think you can safely vouch for me not being an idiot and knowing what I'm talking about here. I've owned several Palms through my life, and I know my way around them. Perhaps the mkdosfs part tips you off regarding my computer expertise?

At any rate, the Palm has no business reading files in the card when I turn the device on. Please note the Palm is "unplugging"/"plugging" the card every time I turn it on (you can clearly hear the "unplug"/"plug" system sounds), and that's what takes time.

Won't a software update or hack that traps card insertion/removal fix the issue? Is there one out there? IS someone willing to at least charge me money to develop it?

[BrentDC]

Have you thought of a bad connection in the slot? Does this just happen when you power up? If it's a bad connection in the slot it would think the card is being unplugged/plugged in even when it's not. But if it only happens when you power up then a bad connection is unlikely.

[Rudd-O]

Only when powering up. Otherwise the card runs fine (I can copy files from/to the Palm). Sometimes it hangs when using the Photos and Videos copy to card feature, but if I use WiFlle or Filez, it succeeds.

[Gregte]

I had a TopRam 4GB card and it worked in the TX however, it would crash the TX any time I used FileZ to delete a large (320MB) file. It was also slow to fast forward or fast reverse through a video file using TCPMP. It worked in all other regards, and it worked in a card reader plugged into my Mac.

Next I got a 4GB Transcend card and it did not have any problems what-so-ever in the TX. It was very fast in TCPMP and has never caused any slowness in any way. It also works fine in a card reader with the Mac.

The point is, that some cards will work in a desktop or laptop computer just as you would expect them to but do not work right in the TX. Other cards work perfectly in the TX as well as other devices.

[Rudd-O]

My point exactly: the TX sucks.

[Church Punk]

is ur opiion, not a fact...

[Rudd-O]

Does that point really need to be explicitly stated, Church Punk? It's OBVIOUSLY my opinion. The fact that it's an opinion does not mean it's untrue. It sucks for the aforementioned reasons, period. In case you missed it, "the sky is blue" can both be my opinion and a statement of fact at the same time.

I hate when people say "it's your opinion" like it's going to diminish the contundence of the arguments I advanced, or somehow "heal" their hearts because someone said something "mean".

If you want to stay in La-la-land ignoring the issues, fine by me, but please contribute something valuable to the discussion. Saying "it's only your opinion" is a valueless, schoolyard kinda thing to say.

[Greek]

Rudd: chill down, what Church Punk meant, and I tried too also, is to say that what is happening in your TX does not happen in ours. Even the guys with 4GB SD cards, are not experiencing that.

We tried to guide you by trying a hard reset, a zero out reset, someone suggested you to format it in FAT16.

If you did all those things, and you still have the problem with the TX empty (no third party apps), then you have a defective machine, as I said before, it is not normal and it does not happen to everyone.

Many complained about screen whine, earphone hiss, digitizer drift. Well, fortunately mine has none of those problems. So the people who experienced that, some fixed it via software and some sent it to Palm for exchange. It doesn´t mean that the TX is a bad product, in every line of production, a defective device appears.

I work at a store where some refrigerators have problems, or some TV sets, or some DVD players, or some computers or whatever. I can assure that Palms have a lower percentage of defectiveness.

Again, try all the suggestions above or call Palm for a replacement. If it´s under warranty, it will cost you $0, if the warranty is over, they will charge you less than buying a TE2 and you´ll get a new TX unit.

Regards,

[juggernaut#2]

Won't a software update or hack that traps card insertion/removal fix the issue? Is there one out there?
See, your actual questions tend to go under all that rambling about ...
Since you´re really not the first with the problem of not wanting the palm to do anything whenever a card is inserted or removed, since the days of the m500 I know tools that prevent the palm doing anything at card removal/insertion. Nowadays there´ at least four of those:
- nomountswitch (free),
- insertsd (free),
- handyaid (shareware, but does lots of other things also),
- and, last but not least, I think event_launcher from our dear 1src member ´I love my mom´ includes something to get rid of this. he is very responsive and active, you might also try to ask him if he could tailor that part of his app to your needs.

EDIT: concerning your problem I got two other ideas.
One, it could be a card reader problem - that happenend to me when I got my new 4GB card, I had to find out that the internal card reader of my 2+ year old acer notebook can only handle cards up to 1GB in size. Funny thing, it won´t tell it to the user, so I formatted, I formatted, and I formatted and I always wondered why the hell my TX would only read gibberish. I went to a store and had them try it out and ended up buying a cheap usb-card reader, no problems since then. So you might just try formatting it in the TX.
Two, there is the slight possibility that your card is indeed incompatible with the TX. In the german forum at nexave we have a list of cards known to work and known not to. there´s only a few of them, but: there is a few.

[Church Punk]

Does that point really need to be explicitly stated, Church Punk? It's OBVIOUSLY my opinion. The fact that it's an opinion does not mean it's untrue.

ok ok, calm down.

It sucks for the aforementioned reasons, period.

This has a whole different meaning. You said the TX sucks, period. Think about it.

In case you missed it, "the sky is blue" can both be my opinion and a statement of fact at the same time.

I hate when people say "it's your opinion" like it's going to diminish the contundence of the arguments I advanced, or somehow "heal" their hearts because someone said something "mean".

What i want to diminish is your hate against something that shouldnt be taken that serious. It is not worth arguing with people. It will later become a hatred against a comunity just for not controling your feelings the right way. If you see someone as a fool, then just dont argue with him if you dont want to be seen as one.


If you want to stay in La-la-land ignoring the issues, fine by me, but please contribute something valuable to the discussion. Saying "it's only your opinion" is a valueless, schoolyard kinda thing to say.

I apologize since my post was NOT really helping and contributing at all.