T3 'fatal alert'

[debraC]

What is with the fatal alerts with this unit?! First PDA I've ever owned, for about a week now, and I'm plagued by fatal alerts. Sigh.

Anyway, my current one is 'MemoryMgr.c, Line:2903, MemSet to NULL'. Anyone know what that means? It happens when I try to open Docs to Go. I also noticed it only happens when I have my memory card in (there's not much on the memory card, yet). It happened a lot this morning, I finally got it to go away, but it moved all my files from where they were to 'unfiled'. What a pill...

Does anyone know why this is happening?

Thanks for any help.

debraC

[spvwolfy]

I get fatal alerts on my TT when I am running out of memory. Along the same lines, I have my 256 SD card loaded up, and there isn't enough memory on the PDA intself.And this is because certain programs, such as AvantGo, needs to have the room in memory too run, even if it IS being run from an SD card. I run my AvantGo from my 256 SD card. I hope this helps you.

[debraC]

Well, the expansion card I'm using is 243MB card, with -- so far -- about 10MB stored on it. I think maybe I know what the problem is, though I'm not sure I want to test it because it's a *lot* of trouble. But I *think* maybe the problem is occuring because I'm putting documents into files I've named. You know it comes with three: 'business', 'personal' and 'unfiled'? Well I made others more suited to my purpose and started loading 'em up. It seems to happen with I get about 8MB into a file. Is there a limit to how much one can put in a file (there apparently isn't a limit for how much one can put into the files that come standard on the PDA!)? I didn't note that info anywhere, but it would almost appear to be the problem. I wish I knew for sure and knew how to tell if I was approaching the limit so I could use another file, maybe named "xfilex2", 'xfilex3', etc.

Thanks for your input. I guess I'll stop using the file feature and just leave everything in the 'unfiled' file. Bummer. :-(

debraC

[bzogleman]

What type card do you have? There have been several problems with t3's and certain cards of 256MB or more. Sandisk is a primary culprit. I have had much trouble with errors with my 256 sandisk card as well, even after loading palm's patch to fix the problem and reformatting the card. I am the furthest thing from an expert, but the problem may be with the card. Just a thought.

[debraC]

I'm supposed to format it? <cough, oops> Maybe it was already formatted since it is holding the info okay, just not in files. Anyway...it's the only card I could find at our local Staples and it's...a...hmmm... It doesn't say on the little card. It's purple and has 'PNY' at the bottom over the graphic of a sun rising over the curve of the earth. The top of the card has 'SD' and then the size 256MB. (Sorry, I thought it was 243 because that's the info that it gives on the 'card info' icon on the PDA.) So...maybe that particular card is the problem. Yikes at $70 it should work!

Thanks!

debraC

[bzogleman]

well, you dont have to format the card, but when the T3's came out, they had a problem with certain 256+ cards and on palmone.com they have since offered a patch that you can download to fix the problem. Some cards got messed up if you tried to run them without the patch, so after installing the patch, you should try to reformat the card using the T3's card info icon and see if it will work then. Some PNY cards did have problems, so if you havent got the patch yet, go to palmone.com and look for a T3 update that fixes SD card problems. BE SURE to hotsync before you run the update as directed because the update process will erase all your data and then after the installation, it will be replaced at the next hotsync....... Good luck PS if the card is defective or was permenatly damaged before the patch, you can just return it under warranty, many people have been getting 256+ cards that have been defective lately as well

[debraC]

Thanks! This info is great to have. I bet the patch is just what I need.

Other than the frequent fatal alert messages, I'm really enjoying the PDA. It's fun!

Thanks again!

debraC

[debraC]

Thanks! This info is great to have. I bet the patch is just what I need.

Other than the frequent fatal alert messages, I'm really enjoying the PDA. It's fun!

Thanks again!

debraC

[debraC]

Hi. I hope I can get a bit more help, please! Okay, I downloaded the software and reformated the expansion card. However, now *every* time I put the card in, it brings up the 'fatal alert' message (same one as before). I don't know how to tell if something is specifically wrong with that card because nothing tells me that it's bad, but since that's definiately what's causing the message to appear, I'll assume the card is trashed. So, I'm going to take it back, but now I can't tell if there's anything left on the card. There's private stuff on the card and I want it off before I take it to the store (when I formatted it, it didn't give me any messages or anything). Everytime I hit the 'card info' icon on the PDA, it says a different about of memory is used, even though I haven't done anything new. Is there a way to make sure it's empty?

Thanks again for any help!

debraC

[n2ifp]

Did you reflash the ROM with the T3 15MB update? The T3 out of the box had trashed a few cards with the SDIO card slot issue. The 256MB PNY cards are made by Toshiba and are fine, they just have slow writing speeds, but have a lifetime warranty. I have tow of them and once I did the T3 update, all is well. Fatal errors on my T3 are non-existent! Fatal errors are usually the result of a corrupted, missing, files, or folders. It's a memory error and is almost always software related. The trick is finding the culprit. Sometimes the only resolve is to nuke everything and start anew! I keep multiple rolling backups of both the RAM and of the SD card.

[debraC]

Hi, thanks for the reply. Yes I did the update. The card still gave the fatal alert so I just returned it to the store today and got two 64MB cards instead. But after doing the update, I couldn't download any docs to the handheld -- it kept wanted to rename every file. So I finally deleted all the software from my PC and started from scratch. That seemed to work as far as allowing me to download the docs. I've just started to download the same quantity of docs that gave me trouble before, so I'll see how it goes. Seems there's already an upgrade for 'docs to go' so I'm doing that first. Don't know if it's needed or not, but...what the heck. Thanks again!

debraC

[n2ifp]

I wanted to be clear on the update, you know what happens when one assumes... Since the PNY cards have a lifetime warranty, you be able to go to a store that sells them and get a replacement. I read the fine print inside the package and that's what PNY says to do.

Docs to Go came out with an update almost immediately after it was introduced, so there must be some reasons why. I am using ver 6005 with no apparent issues. It would have been nice if PalmOne would have included the newer version in the T3 ROM update.