app running in Mobile 5 sometimes crashes in Mobile 6

[Patino]

We wrote an application that runs with no problems in Windows Mobile 5
platforms. The application uses a modified version of the ShowDialog()
method to display forms, as explained in a MSDN article. Has to do
with the fact of listing just 1 instance (the last displayed form) of
the application in the Running Programs List. Anyway, we've had users
running the application for over a year now, all in Windows Mobile 5
devices, with no problems.

We started testing our app. in Windows Mobile 6 devices, specifically
the HTC Smartphone with a hard keyboard that runs Windows Mobile 6
Professional. Today I encountered this problem testing our
application. I was using the application as usual, going back and
forth through the forms when I get back to the Main "entrance" form of
my app. There is an "Exit" link in that form that completely exits and
closes the application. It simply did not work. I tried closing the
form by pressing the X on the right top corner; it did not work. I
tried any of the other links in that form; none worked. The form
simply will not close. I looked then at the Running Program List and
could not find any instance of my application running. I close the
Running Program List form and I am back to my Main application form
that does not close. The only way I was able to terminate it is by
doing a soft reset.

Another user has seen something similar with our application running
also in Windows Mobile 6, and he believes has to do with the fact that
he left his smartphone running and it got idel after not using it for
a long time. I have left my smartphine idel for hours and come back
and continue running my app. with no problems. The experience I had
today in the morning was the first one for me, and I was using the
device; it was not idle at all.

Any ideas on this? I even tried removing the fix with the ShowDialog()
form just to test in WIndows 6, but without the fix I see many
instances of my app. in the Running Programs List, one for each form
currently in active in memory.

Please your respond , comment on this issue will be very appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Jesse Houwing]

Hello Patino,

We wrote an application that runs with no problems in Windows Mobile 5
platforms. The application uses a modified version of the ShowDialog()
method to display forms, as explained in a MSDN article. Has to do
with the fact of listing just 1 instance (the last displayed form) of
the application in the Running Programs List. Anyway, we've had users
running the application for over a year now, all in Windows Mobile 5
devices, with no problems.

We started testing our app. in Windows Mobile 6 devices, specifically
the HTC Smartphone with a hard keyboard that runs Windows Mobile 6
Professional. Today I encountered this problem testing our
application. I was using the application as usual, going back and
forth through the forms when I get back to the Main "entrance" form of
my app. There is an "Exit" link in that form that completely exits and
closes the application. It simply did not work. I tried closing the
form by pressing the X on the right top corner; it did not work. I
tried any of the other links in that form; none worked. The form
simply will not close. I looked then at the Running Program List and
could not find any instance of my application running. I close the
Running Program List form and I am back to my Main application form
that does not close. The only way I was able to terminate it is by
doing a soft reset.

Another user has seen something similar with our application running
also in Windows Mobile 6, and he believes has to do with the fact that
he left his smartphone running and it got idel after not using it for
a long time. I have left my smartphine idel for hours and come back
and continue running my app. with no problems. The experience I had
today in the morning was the first one for me, and I was using the
device; it was not idle at all.

Any ideas on this? I even tried removing the fix with the ShowDialog()
form just to test in WIndows 6, but without the fix I see many
instances of my app. in the Running Programs List, one for each form
currently in active in memory.

Please your respond , comment on this issue will be very appreciated.

Do you correctly dispose the dialog you opened? It sounds like WM still thinks
the other form is open.

I recently attended a talk at the MEDC in Berlin which had a topic dedicated
exactly to the issue of having 2 open forms in the task list. If you want
I can try to look if the sheets contain th eexplanation on how to fix this
issue.

 

[im.djmatty]

One other thing would be to check to see if your process has actually
exited using remote process viewer, your app could still be running
but with no main window visible (for whatever reason) and it will not
show up in the running programs list.

Matt

 

[Patino]

Hello Patino,










Do you correctly dispose the dialog you opened? It sounds like WM still thinks
the other form is open.

I recently attended a talk at the MEDC in Berlin which had a topic dedicated
exactly to the issue of having 2 open forms in the task list. If you want
I can try to look if the sheets contain th eexplanation on how to fix this
issue.

--
Jesse Houwing
jesse.houwing at sogeti.nl- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Jesse,

I am using a solution like the one explained in
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/04/12/netcompactframework/default.aspx#bottom,
under the section "Bad, Wicked Dialogs". That solution works fine with
both WM5 and WM6. If I do not use that trick and just a plain
ShowDialog() then I get each form in my application listed in the
Running Programs List, on both platforms. I cannot understand the
behavior I explained above. Somehow the child form was closed or
removed and the parent form was not informed of it. The parent still
thought the child was opened that's why it was not responding. But I
could not see any of them (parent & child) listed as running, so it is
as if they both were closed (when I tried closing my app, I clicked
many times the Exit link to my app) but for some reason the Parent
form stayed in display unresponsive.

We had a user who was testing our application in WM6, the Sprint HTC
smartphone. He encountered this problem after his telephone locked
itself (his company uses some locking mechanism in the telephones that
is related to Pocket Outlook). After he unlocked the phone (it got
locked when he had an instance of our app. running and he was not
using the phone for more than 15 minutes) our application screen was
frozen and he could not even try to restart a new instance of the
same. This is a non-technical user who has no idea on how/where to
check for all the current processes running, he did not even know how
to soft/hard reset his device.

Another user, a programmer in my company claims that he got the frozen
form after leaving his device idle and running our app over the night
on his desk. When he came back the following day to work, the phone
was off, he turn it on and the problem was there.

I posted this message yesterday and before I left home I left my
smartphone running my app. Today in the morning I found my phone off,
I turned it on, my app was there running BUT not frozen. So you
figured.

Is this because of WM6? or is this because of using a smartphone? All
our users running on WM5 use handhelds, not telephones. For WM6. we
have only tested on smartphones, never on handhelds running WM6. Also
the smartphone has a detachable keyboard. Although yesterday when I
encountered the problem I was not using the keyboard at all.

If you can find any notes or comments about this, I'll apprecite to
get them all.

Thanks!

 

[Patino]

One other thing would be to check to see if your process has actually
exited using remote process viewer, your app could still be running
but with no main window visible (for whatever reason) and it will not
show up in the running programs list.

Matt

Actually, there was a visible window but it was not listed in the
running program list. I canno tell if the visible window had a caption
or not. Part of the fix removes the caption from the parent form so
that it is not displayed in the running program list. Is it that the
child form was probably still running but somehow got removed (or got
hidden in the stack of forms)?