TP needs daily re-boot

[va20171]

Originally Posted by bowportes

This leads me to ask, "Why not simply edit the com.palm.db.purge.json file, changing 24h to 72h (or something else), and then reboot the system?" Should that take care of it, or does one still have to run the commands that you specified above?

I edit the json file in vi, setting the inteval to '3d', then rebooted TP. I checked Impostah and confirmed the changes were in place. On the first night, purge DB was triggered (state in Impostah was showing "running") and as expected CPU usage went up to 90%, so I rebooted TP to clear the issue. On the second night though, DB purge has not kicked in or at least CPU usage was normal and state for mojodbpurge activity was still showing "waiting".

I will wait a few more days to see and see how it goes.

[mhamle01]

Originally Posted by tstraetker

Haven't needed a restart for eight days now!?

-------

After restarting my tp every morning for six months, I monitored the time I could use the tp before needing a restart. For three days, it was 10 minutes to 2 hours.

On Monday of last week, I decide my 'user data free' tp didn't really need a backup. When I turned it off, I got nasty messages that all data would be deleted, and then the 'whirling death screen' started. I dumped the screen, and thought I reenabled backup.

After not needing a restart for three days, I noticed that backup was disabled. I turned backup back on, and expected to have to do restarts again. Nope - backup is on and running, and I still haven't needed a restart either!

I'll see how long it lasts!?

@tstraetker / all,

How is the TP now? Did the disable / enable of the Backup appear to fix the problem? Has anyone else tried this and had success?

Sorry for the ignorance, but what is the "whirling death screen" and is it something I should worry about? And, when you say you "dumped the screeen" do you mean that you swiped it off the page?

[tstraetker]

My tp still hasn't needed a restart due to this issue since 1/7.

fyi: Before starting my 'experiment' on 1/4, I did a 'manual backup' by transferring all photos to my pc and cleaned out all of the USB user data. So there was little risk to me in temporarily disabling backup.

When backup was switched off on 1/7, the backup card was warning not to disable backup, etc. Then the screen greyed and the whirling disk appeared. (WebOS is trying to reload the page(?), but I find it is faster just to swipe away all open cards. i.e. the whirling disk eventually effects all open cards anyway?)

[tstraetker]

So, my tp went 19 days without needing a restart. Today, after an hour of use, this problem returned.

The only non-normal usage was that yesterday I did my monthly drain the battery down to self power off, then a full recharge?

I'll monitor this issue again for a few days, and then retry disabling backup again, etc. I was surprised when it seemed to fix the problem last time.

In the past, I was just in the habit of doing the restart first thing just to avoid doing it later. Perhaps, I'm just the more typical user where this issue is actually infrequent.

[GMMan]

Draining the battery completely is not healthy for it. It's a Li-Ion battery that's maintained best by keeping it around 70-80% full (IIRC), and in storage around 40%. It's not Ni-MH or Ni-Cd, so it doesn't need to be drained for recalibration. In fact, having the battery charge from empty is detrimental because of the heat generated during charging (more heat from empty as opposed to less heat when partways).

Anyway, any feedback for changing the auto-compact period for longer? Does it help?

[mhamle01]

Originally Posted by tstraetker

My tp still hasn't needed a restart due to this issue since 1/7.

fyi: Before starting my 'experiment' on 1/4, I did a 'manual backup' by transferring all photos to my pc and cleaned out all of the USB user data. So there was little risk to me in temporarily disabling backup.

When backup was switched off on 1/7, the backup card was warning not to disable backup, etc. Then the screen greyed and the whirling disk appeared. (WebOS is trying to reload the page(?), but I find it is faster just to swipe away all open cards. i.e. the whirling disk eventually effects all open cards anyway?)

I've tried disabling/enabling the backup multiple times and it had no effect. I have a 32GB TP without Preware/Patches. The same symptoms discussed here are occuring (lost accounts, no default search engine in Just Type, ...)

I've not tried to make any other changes like the auto-compact period adjustment.

[va20171]

Originally Posted by GMMan

Draining the battery completely is not healthy for it. It's a Li-Ion battery that's maintained best by keeping it around 70-80% full (IIRC), and in storage around 40%. It's not Ni-MH or Ni-Cd, so it doesn't need to be drained for recalibration. In fact, having the battery charge from empty is detrimental because of the heat generated during charging (more heat from empty as opposed to less heat when partways).

Anyway, any feedback for changing the auto-compact period for longer? Does it help?

GMMan,

Yes it does help a lot. Thank you so much for suggesting this. I set mine to compact every 7 days so, I only need to reboot once a week. It is not the best solution, but works for the time being. One of these days, I am thinking to Doctor the TP and see if the problem goes away for good.

[mhamle01]

Originally Posted by GMMan

Draining the battery completely is not healthy for it. It's a Li-Ion battery that's maintained best by keeping it around 70-80% full (IIRC), and in storage around 40%. It's not Ni-MH or Ni-Cd, so it doesn't need to be drained for recalibration. In fact, having the battery charge from empty is detrimental because of the heat generated during charging (more heat from empty as opposed to less heat when partways).

Anyway, any feedback for changing the auto-compact period for longer? Does it help?

GMMan,

As far as I can tell, changing the frequency of the auto-compact does not fix the problem, but only changes the time between required reboots. You did a great job with your diagnostics as changing the frequency affected the timing of the problem. Do you have any ideas on how to fix the problem?

[GMMan]

I'm guessing it's something internal to the way MojoDB handles things. It'll be hard to debug, and because the open source code is not the same as the ones currently on TouchPads, just looking at the source may not reveal anything. I could try remote debugging via GDB, but I've never really used GDB and I'm not familiar with how things are done there. (My regular debugger is OllyDbg, but of course it doesn't do ARM nor remote debugging.)

[petyy]

Hi guys!

I have the same problem as others. Didn't tried to change compacting interval, but I suppose it'll work, seems logical to me. Since this is only temporary workaround, I want to say, that I'm ready to help with any testing. wTerm is installed, some additional commands from Optware too. Hope that this problem will be solved well soon... :-)

[voltageROCK]

OK, same problem with me and the daily reboots. And for whoever mentioned the app catalog possibility, I commend you but if you look at the first post on this thread you'll see that this problem started for some people back in 2nd quarter of 2012. For me, it started in November 2012. I haven't seen if everyone who experiences this problem has the touchstone? I know for me, there was a period where I did not use my TP back in October 2012, I had the TP on the TS for days and days. Could the TS possibly have caused this issue? Can something have burnt out inside our TP's? I hope to earth that that hasn't happened....

[GMMan]

There have been reports of the Touchstone failing to charge, then draining the battery completely and damaging the flash. If your TouchPad still works, and it never ran to completely empty, there shouldn't been storage problems.

[voltageROCK]

Originally Posted by GMMan

There have been reports of the Touchstone failing to charge, then draining the battery completely and damaging the flash. If your TouchPad still works, and it never ran to completely empty, there shouldn't been storage problems.

thanks G. I just thought I would throw that out there. My TS works perfectly with the TP so I guess my post is bunk. Dang this problem is driving me and all of us here crazy!

[mhamle01]

The problem has seemed to have disappeared.


I had disabled backups = no effect.

Shutdown TP and removed from touchstone overnight for 3 nights = normal use after boot in the A.M. with no reboot needed.

Turned off radios (Airplane Mode) for the next two nights = no reboot required.

Forgot to turn on Airplane Mode on 3rd night = everything was working normally in the A.M. This has been the case now for 3 mornings.

Next step is to enable backups again. It is so nice to not have to reboot every day.

[GMMan]

Could you try pinging the auto-compact command? I want to know if that's still breaking things.

[shanpalm61]

Originally Posted by mhamle01

The problem has seemed to have disappeared.


I had disabled backups = no effect.

Shutdown TP and removed from touchstone overnight for 3 nights = normal use after boot in the A.M. with no reboot needed.

Turned off radios (Airplane Mode) for the next two nights = no reboot required.

Forgot to turn on Airplane Mode on 3rd night = everything was working normally in the A.M. This has been the case now for 3 mornings.

Next step is to enable backups again. It is so nice to not have to reboot every day.

I sure hope this works..

[voltageROCK]

Originally Posted by mhamle01

The problem has seemed to have disappeared.


I had disabled backups = no effect.

Shutdown TP and removed from touchstone overnight for 3 nights = normal use after boot in the A.M. with no reboot needed.

Turned off radios (Airplane Mode) for the next two nights = no reboot required.

Forgot to turn on Airplane Mode on 3rd night = everything was working normally in the A.M. This has been the case now for 3 mornings.

Next step is to enable backups again. It is so nice to not have to reboot every day.

Can you keep us updated if you have the problem again because if what you did works and you solve the problem, you will get many many thank you's. I'm currently in the process of trying your method and I hope it works.

[shanpalm61]

Myself I have not tried the disabling back up yet but this morning I had an "HP UPDATE FAILURE" , something in short... HP update failure: root\\system\\update failed ...
I checked everything and I did not have to restart, everything works fine so far. I hope it stays this way.

[mhamle01]

Originally Posted by mhamle01

The problem has seemed to have disappeared.


I had disabled backups = no effect.

Shutdown TP and removed from touchstone overnight for 3 nights = normal use after boot in the A.M. with no reboot needed.

Turned off radios (Airplane Mode) for the next two nights = no reboot required.

Forgot to turn on Airplane Mode on 3rd night = everything was working normally in the A.M. This has been the case now for 3 mornings.

Next step is to enable backups again. It is so nice to not have to reboot every day.

Well, the TP required a reboot the last two days. I had not enabled backups again, so there were no apparent changes made that could be pointed to as a cause.

I plan to reverse the actions from before, 1) turn on Airplane mode for a few days and then 2) turn off the TP overnight and will let everyone know the results of these tests.

[tstraetker]

After doing a daily restart for six months, I joined this thread to offer my system to try any available fixes. I copied all my photos to my PC, and deleted everything off the USB user area. I wanted the cleanest possible system, and was even considering to do maybe the first two erase options under Device Info - if needed? It is basically a stock TP, with no software embellishments.

After 3 days of daily restarts, suddenly it didn't need any restarts for 19 days to January 27. The problem then reoccured the next day too - January 28th. Since then, no restarts have been needed!?

Since January, I have been accumulating some photos and misc stuff back into the USB user area - but ...?

Maybe the trick might still be related to backups. Having essentially nothing to backup may be the key why this problem seems to be gone away on my TP?