keypox | # 1 | 2008-09-22, 01:33 | Report

I upgraded to the diablo, and now the alarm does not sound. Anyone else experience this? Or have a fix?

So to clarify I set the alarm and it pops up, asking to turn off or snooze, but not sound

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Last edited by keypox; 2008-09-22 at 05:15.

nhanquy | # 2 | 2008-09-22, 23:21 | Report

Re-flash?

I recently had the same problem, no sound, suddenly. I just re-cloned it without investigation of the problem.

That's why you should (clone,) update, install apps and then save a snapshot; you can go back to it if something goes wrong.

Backup/restore also help.

qole | # 3 | 2008-09-22, 23:30 | Report

I've had a similar thing happen too. No sound on my alarms. Even on a freshly flashed N800. It was a bit of a disaster, because I was supposed to meet sjgadsby for breakfast on the first day of OSiMworld, and the N800's alarm just didn't work. This is the first time I'd tried the alarm since Diablo. I tried it on my other N800, with a new flash of Diablo, same thing.

I don't even get a popup asking for snooze.

The only thing I could think of was the advanced backlight applet installed on both tablets, but rm_you insisted that it wasn't a problem with his app.

qole | # 4 | 2008-09-30, 17:11 | Report

It turns out that my problem was with Powerlaunch. No more alarms, no more LEDs. Removal of powerlaunch solved my alarm problem.

Eladon | # 5 | 2008-10-16, 09:52 | Report

This sucks, I just started having the same problem, for no apparent reason at all. I have no idea what could have triggered it. The alarm is crashing the whole sound system, I have to shut down and start back up again to get the sound working again. And I can reliably crash the sound system again by either having an alarm go off, or go into the alarm setup and change which sound it is playing once or twice and then it will keel.

This is one of at least a half dozen unexplained issues I am having with my N810 right now. I've only owned it for a few weeks. Over that time I've had it crash and lost all my data, had to reflash it (for another reason), had to reformat the internal memory (for another reason), half the software I wanted wouldn't even install, among many other things. And all I've been doing is just installing software from maemo.org. I haven't even been hacking around with Linux. I started off praising this machine as the best thing ever in the first week. Now I'm ready to toss it in the trash as a useless disfunctional hacker's toy and invest in a umpc instead.

ajabma | # 6 | 2008-10-28, 04:35 | Report

I understand your frustration. I've been fighting this problem for a some time. But while the N800 and N810 can be "a hacker toy", they can also be a reasonably stable device if you stay with Nokia approved apps. On the iPhone, what apps you can install are restricted just for this reason.
I think / hope / seem to have fixed this problem on my N800 by removing some of the more questionable apps that I had on it. If I had been less annoyed by the problem I could have figured out exactly what app it was.

Eladon | # 7 | 2008-10-28, 10:39 | Report

In that context my problem is the bang-for-your-buck issue. Flat out, this device is plain well not worth it (price wise), in exchange for only the built in apps it comes with. But the whole point of an open source device is that so much more can be made available, and that's why I bought it.

The problem is, the Nokia repositories don't even contain basic fundamental things that PDA's have been able to do for a long time, like open Word docs or spreadsheets. Not even the "extras" repo has them. I have no choice but to start dipping in to non-standard repo's just to get the functionality of a cheap palm-pilot. And half the time even repo's aren't good enough, and you have to start getting into beta project installers or command line hacking from forums.

The second problem is, the quality of the open source apps on maemo overall sucks compared to the rest of the linux world. Most of the non-Nokia maemo apps are barely past alpha, and almost none are past beta. I run Ubuntu on all my computers at home, and only rarely do I need to hack my way through an issue. For the most part my software is solid and reliable. I actually spend my time USING my computer, not hacking it. But with maemo, it seems like everyone is beta testers, be prepared to read 54 page forum posts, and if you aren't familiar with Linux good luck understanding half the stuff people are saying.

I realize it sounds like I'm complaining about software that is free, that's not my point. The point is, for the price, why didn't Nokia make the basic software available themselves? It's not like they actually have to write the software, all they have to do is port it. You could argue, because they aren't selling these devices in volume. Duh, ever wonder why? It's 14 years after IBM made the "OS/2 Warp" mistake of providing an OS without basic software, trying to compete against Microsoft who was intelligent enough to sell basic software alongside their OS, and look how that ended. Don't these people ever learn from past mistakes?

I can think of at least a dozen people I know who would buy this device without a second thought if it only provided basic software. What's the point of mobile Internet if you can't even open up simple every day attachments that people e-mail you?

It's like trying to make money selling custom guitars but only one string is included. Out of the box, it's lame. Those of us silly enough to buy one, do so only because we think we'll be able to get our own strings, only to find out the only thing available that fits is some free shoe laces that you have to tie together. Unless of course you happen to be a custom string designer (i.e. hacker). Burn.

I mean seriously, doesn't Nokia WANT to make money? Would it have actually bankrupted the company to try the novel concept of selling their guitars with all the strings included?

qole | # 8 | 2008-10-28, 16:56 | Report

For what price exactly? The tablets are cheap in comparison to devices with similar HW specs. And they had to write quite a bit of software.

I won't argue this point. I got an e-mail from a Nokia guy with an .eml attachment. (It turns out the attachment was a forwarded e-mail from someone else inside Nokia). Modest, the e-mail client on my tablet, couldn't open it; I had to open it on my PC. Funny, that.

Eladon | # 9 | 2008-10-29, 01:58 | Report

You and my wife would get along well. She loves to go out and buy impractical stuff just because it's on sale or cheap. Walmart may be able to get away with that sales model, but seriously, how many people are going out and impulse-buying N810s? Nokia isn't going to make money with that approach!

Looking at hardware specs and ignoring software is the exact issue I'm talking about. Average people don't care about the hardware when they buy an iPhone. All they see, and all they care about, is what the software does. It's the guitar again, it's the OS/2 thing again. Think of what you COULD do with the guitar... But you can't... Because it only has one string. I can still remember some of my geek hacker friends going out and buying OS/2 because it was so cool. Who cares? If it can't run your basic practical real-life software that you're actually going to use, what's the point? The day IBM released OS/2 Warp, without a competing Office productivity suite along side it, is the day I new it would die. The secret of "practical usability" which seems to elude almost all "hackers" is the reason why Apple has been so successful with their products. Yet companies like Nokia just never seem to catch on.

The iPhone is practically useful out of the box. An N810 isn't. Who ever buys an N810 intending to use only the software it came with? It would end up a hunk of junk sit on the shelf never getting used, and all you'll ever do is think about what you could have done with those impressive hardware specs, if you only had the software... If they already had to write a bunch of software, good for them. But the customer is the only one that matters in sales, so the real question is did they write enough software to make people buy it. If not, they need to get back to work!

That's why Ubuntu is relatively successful, because the basic stuff "just works". It's not like Nokia wrote the included browser, they just ported it. And if they were smart they would have done the same thing for a document editor, spreadsheet, encrypted notepad, etc. The whole point is to make the device practically usable by the average person, so that it sells more, which in turn pays for the R&D. As long as companies like Nokia can't get this into their skulls, they will never be competition to Apple.

As for the price issue, it's hard to compare to other devices because all of it's competition has the basic software out of the box. They aren't competing as an advanced PDA, because the Nokia device doesn't even come with much of the fundamental software that PDA's have. They aren't competing with other pocket computers or iPhones, because those devices offer a lot more, but what do you expect at 2 to 3 times the price (which is to say, if they meant to compete with these, they have a lot of room to increase the price and thereby offer a spectacular software suite along with it that would put those other much more expensive devices to shame). And I find it silly when people compare them to eee PC's, the whole point of an N810 is you can fit it in your pocket.

It seems to me that either the people at Nokia in charge of MID's are either a bunch of hacker geeks with no business sense, or they never did intend to make any money off it, and this whole Maemo thing is itself just a beta project so that they can dabble in MID's until they are ready to ditch Maemo and make a serious, properly supported device with Symbian.

qole | # 10 | 2008-10-29, 02:03 | Report

I suspect Maemo started out as an experiment, like you said, but it has gotten very serious, lately. Just wait a few months.