Dashboard disables itself - Pocket PC 2002

[talon95]

I just received my HP 567 and installed the Pocket PC 2002 version of Dashboard.

I've had a major problem happen twice. I have the mini-launcher active and I did a tap and hold in that area. It came up with some kind of tree structure. I was unable to close it, so I had to do a soft reset. When I did so, the Today page came up with the bars on the top and the bottom, and the actual page was completely blank.

The first time it happened, I tried all kinds of things... unchecking Dashboard on the Today page setup, resetting, rechecking it, etc. But anything I tried made no difference. Finally, I had to uninstall and re-install Dashboard, and that fixed it.

At least until I showed the unit to a friend at work. She tried the same tap and hold, and the same thing happened. I don't have the cradle, so I have to leave Dashboard disabled.

I think Dashboard is still running under that blank screen... I've tapped around and the tap and hold menu for the Agenda screen came up.

Seems like I've stumbled across a pretty major bug. Help!!!

[Chris Scott [SnoopSoft]]

Hi Talon95,

Cool - I didn't think Dashboard could disable itself, but apparently anything can happen in software! :)

That's a fairly significant issue, once you get it running, you may want to disable the mini launcher or refrain from tapping and holding there. It almost sounds like the Dashboard.DLL file on your device that is running in the Today page is not the correct version. If you email me directly (use the email address from the update note) we can try to debug this. I just tested it out and can't reproduce it on my iPaq (Pocket PC 2002) device.

Thanks!

[richreid]

I am having the same problem. Do you know how to fix it yet?

[talon95]

If the problem is exactly the same, this is what I found out. This only applies to Pocket PC 2K2... the same actions cause no problems for my first gen iPAQ.

Anyway, I determined what the tree structure (or file selector or whatever) is for. It’s apparently to create an icon on the MiniLauncher on the fly. Here’s what I did to recreate the problem:

- Tap and hold on one of the MiniLauncher icons

- Select “New”

- From file selector screen, with “\” highlighted, tap on “ok” (force of habit from using WISbar with my old iPAQ… I just wanted to close the window.)

At that point, the unit becomes non-responsive. I have to do a soft reset. That’s when Dashboard decides to become “The Invisible Utility” (Fridays at 8 on the Sci-Fi Channel… <g>)

I did a little more investigating, and found that in my MiniLauncher folder, there was a file named just .lnk, evidently created by the file explorer dialog when I tapped on "ok". I tried to delete the file using both Resco File Explorer and the built-in File Explorer, but it gave me an error message. Finally, I created a new folder, copied everything but the .lnk file into it, and deleted the MiniLauncher folder. I then renamed the new folder to MiniLauncher, getting rid of the .lnk file.

Lo and behold, when I turned Dashboard back on in the Today Page settings, it came back and functioned normally. So obviously that little errant file was giving Dashboard fits.

So for the short term, I have a backup folder for the MiniLauncher icons… if I fumble my way into screwing things up again, I can simply replace the MiniLauncher folder with the backup and be back in business.

I sent the above message to Chris a couple of days ago... I haven't heard if he can figure out a way to prevent it from happening at all. But at least if it does happen again, I can fix it without re-installing Dashboard. And now that I know what causes it, I can try to make sure that I don't make the same mistake again.