Dear Community,

I'm since Feburary a owner of the N900 and really did a lot of things with it already. After 2 weeks of using I had to flash it the first time because I wasn't able to start it anymore without any reason. It worked just fine the day before. Well I flashed it and everything was working again (More or less on 1.1).

Then I installed for example this "Joiku" hotspot application, it killed the WLAN drivers so I wasn't able anymore to connect to any encrypted network *g*. The support of Joiku didn't helped me so I was standing alone there with my problems. Right I used for a while the 3G mode and made again a full flash and it worked "Ok". Then I decided to get the fresh released 1.2 version. It took two days to get it on 1.2, in the end I had to use a Linux live CD because it didn't worked even on totally different Windows machines -> 3rd Flashing.

So far everything was working impressive good now on the 1.2 firmware, just the battery life was a bit short but still acceptable. In the last days I noticed that MSN made several issues (You may saw my post's in the related threads). In the end it always crashed my contact list once I started it and the same issue happened sooner or later also with other MSN plugins. I deleted all contacts, all related cache files (Like avatars, logs...) and so on... without any success. Today also Skype started crashing the contact list so I used the first time the "cleanup" function in the settings menu. That worked actually quite fine and even all applications are still working, but now the contact list doesn't works at all anymore. When I scroll down and up again it crashes now even without any started IM function.


So the question is, what would you do now? Give it the 4th try? Get a different phone (Android / iPhone)? Drive with the car over it and dance afterwards?

just give the cell phone a break.... I am sure you have installed tones of applications from extras-devel and extras-testing. I own this cell phone for about a year and i had to reflash it only once when it stucked on a reboot loop... Have a nice flash -i guess- and you really are an expert now so no need to worry....

I didn't had that much applications installed this time and pretty all of them came from the default repository. I didn't used any devel applications and only 2 testing ones like where I was sure that they can't cause any trouble (WifiEye and lFocus).

Its just a bit disappointing to install the applications over and over again, and If I really do it again now then it will be the last time.

It doesn't matter how many applications you have installed from extras-devel.

Even one may brick your phone if you are unlucky.

extras-testing can also do the same though less potentially.

I have had the phone since december and I never had to flash it. I have installed things from devel and testing but I always research a lot about potential problems with the apps I install before I do so.

Do a more complex thing: read this and this. These warnings are exactly about your situation.
I have the device from January and never had to flash it.

I'll just say this:

I've used my N900 heavily for 6 months now. Done all the updates OTA. Done some mods like overclocking, changing the boot-up video, etc. Installed a bunch of stuff and have testing always enabled. But I've been pretty careful what I install from the devel repo and leave it disabled by default.

After all that, I've never reflashed and the phone runs perfectly. My uptime is measured in weeks. I don't expect to ever reflash the phone as long as I own it, unless I do something that requires it like installing a non-upgradable version of the OS (MeeGo sometime in the far future?) or I just get suddenly stupid and manage to trash it.

Maemo is linux and I expected it to be as solid as a rock. In over 10 years running desktop linux I've run the same installs for years. Honestly, I've never reinstalled any linux OS because I trashed it beyond repair. I've gotten fairly stupid a few times but found a fix every time.

BTW every application on every platform has at least one bug. Maybe one of your favorite applications from "stable" repository has one that appears only in rare cases and it was not found by testers. Try to find that application and file a bug report.

I have never had to reflash my N900 since the first official firmware release in October. This is a lot less than I had to factory-reset other (HTC) smartphones before.
I don't have the extras-devel repository enabled, by the way. Sometimes I needed to uninstall stuff for OTA update, but it always went smooth.
I install a lot of apps from extras-testing, though.

there are not a lot of apps in estras-testing

Well, Crogge, I do as you told to look at your past posts, and found that what you do is not what you claim to be. For one you try extra-devel/testing and then overclocked your N900, and you're definitely one of the adventurous type. ^^

I understand your frustration when problems arise, but you know you enjoy the way N900 is. Of course I wouldn't recommend you to switch, here is a couple suggestions that might help.

1) You didn't say what MSN are you using. If you're using pidgin, there I can confirm you that its problem isn't related to N900 in any way. I encountered lots of problems with it I don't wanna whine at, I switch back to telepathy-pecan which is stable and great.

2) Regarding contacts problem with telepathy-pecan, first you must check whether you've flashed your eMMC when you flashed your ROM. You know, when they said there's new eMMC format with new ROM they definitely MEAN it.

3) You must know Joikuspot has some minor issue with your overclocked kernel, and even I'm not surprised to see it has other problems with stock kernel as well. Try mobilehotspot if you wanna build a wifi hotspot. I wrote my own script to make my N900 a wifi hotspot for greater flexibility and power-saving. If you'd like to try I can share with you.