Registered: May 2000
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Posts: 34

I read another poster's note about his prism reseting and losing all data while adjusting the brightness.

It's happened twice in the five months I've owned mine. Has anyone else seen this and know why it does it?

Cheers

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Mesa, AZ USA
Posts: 50

Well... Two times in the past week. One just happened about 20 minutes ago.

Unit was fully charged, I picked it up, took it to another room, turned it on, decided the brightness could be reduced since the room is darker, held down the power button, the brightness slide showed, I touched the button about 1/3 from the lowest setting, it started reducing and...

Fatal Error.

Next you get the white screen with the startup screen just like a brand new machine.

Luckily I have invested in Backup Buddy so that I didn't actually lose anything but this is getting to be a bit much.

I've got a Minstrel modem (Omnisky) but I haven't used it anytime today and it was off.

__________________
Kevin Reed
TNET Services
<IMG src=http://www.tnet.com/images/flag_az.gif>

Registered: Jan 2001
Location:
Posts: 28

Yes, I posted that last month. Glad to see I wasn't crazy, but sorry for you. Handspring was very accomadating in sending me a new Prism immediately, no questions asked. I have not had this problem with the new Prism yet, even with the same collection of software on it.

Registered: May 2000
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Posts: 34

They sent you a new one based on that?!?!?

Wow...

How often have you had fatal exceptions before you broke down and called Handspring?

For me, the fatal exception has only happened twice since October.

I've had absolutely no problems with paint peeling or cracked cases and would be worried of getting into that whole cycle if I traded....

Cheers

Registered: Jan 2001
Location:
Posts: 28

It happened to me 3 times in the first month I owned my Prism.
I know what you mean by being in a cycle though, I fear I may be in one now.

Registered: May 2000
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Posts: 34

I've wondered but never tried if it made a difference between using the stylus and slider bar vs. using the up and down buttons to change contrast.

When I get back to my cradle, I'll try that and report back on what happens.

Registered: May 2000
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Posts: 34

Nothing happened but I did discover a new bad pixel so I guess it goes back anyway...

Registered: Jan 2001
Location:
Posts: 28

Yup, I got that too. Dealing with it on another thread.

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Mesa, AZ USA
Posts: 50

More hard resets and a call to support

So much for the call to support.... sometimes I think they are a different company (I actual believe they really are)...

Tell them that my Prism has now hard reset itself 5 times. each time while in the process of changing the brightness of the unit with the slide bar.

After asking a bunch of non relevent questions and reasking questions already asked, he said that it was most likely a game that was causing the problem... Game?? did I have any games on the system, yes... well that must be what is causing the problem.

Well the game is the one I downloaded from the Handspring web site. If there is a problem with it, they should say so on the web site... He didn't have an answer for that...
I think this is really a load of crap just to point the blame elswhere while they try to figure out the problem.

....this sounds just like the grafiti problems when the Prisms came out.. Support said there was nothing wrong, but
then there was a *Fix* for this non-existent problem. They
would have you go through all these instructions when the
real problem is they had a bug in the code.

When I asked for a supervisor... first a long wait on hold
and and then told... they are all in a meeting... got the
same reply when I reported my Grafiti problems... They must be discussing the problem and when the fix will be out...

Oh.. they are sending another replacement unit... but I doubt it is going to fix the problem. Its the fix all problems cure... send out a replacement...

He also said that you should do a hard reset and only restore via the hotsync (Don't use backup buddy or the Backup Module) as they will bring back the problem with the restore... I guess you should stop buying the Backup modules then ...

Might be nice to have support on the phone that you can actually understand too... I had a real hard time understanding this guy...

BTW... hackmaster on unit, but no hacks turned on. Omnisky
modem removed for more than a day, attempt to change brightness and bamm... all gone.. bye bye... Right before a meeting too... figures..

Its not happening every time.. as I use the device a lot...

__________________
Kevin Reed
TNET Services
<IMG src=http://www.tnet.com/images/flag_az.gif>

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Nashville, TN
Posts: 11

I think I am the King of "fatal exceptions", Cold resets and Hard ones too. Have had atleast a 100+ fatals, and as many cold ones, and 2 hard ones in 1 week. Frustrating. Started when I loaded Xmaster (old version).I am kinda used to this cold / hard scene by now. Question is when am I justified in asking Handspring for a new one?? Any suggestions guys??

Registered: May 2000
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Posts: 34

I removed Hackmaster now and so far so good. Before I had hacmaster and teal echo but turned off.

For the king of fatal exceptions, what else are you running on it?

Registered: Mar 2000
Location:
Posts: 98

There was a problem with the BETA release of Synergy Solutions Launch Em causing FE and hard resets. Are you using Launch Em?

__________________
Visor Enthusiast and Innogear/Geodiscovery basher.

Registered: May 2000
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Posts: 34

Hrm.

Yes I am. It's version 3.0b10.

Is that covered?

Registered: Nov 2000
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 201

Hard resets? Nah...

Not that I want to tempt fate or anything, but I've had my (current) Prism for 2 months now, and I haven't had any problems that have required a hard reset - and I've gone through with the SG contrast fix and I've adjusted my brightness several times.

(As a side note - no hacks installed, a few games, AvantGo and 3rd party apps installed, installed driver for Stowaway. Perhaps most importantly, I DON'T own a Minstral S.)

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Nashville, TN
Posts: 11

I have too many programs running to list. That may be the problem too. But once I deleted Xmaster and later Hackmaster things are rolling on fine.Just the odd Fatal exception which I can live with. I really miss Graspeedy which is a great graffiti program but you need Hackmaster to run it. Any ideas fellas about how to run Graspeedy?

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 242

I learned the hard way too that some of my old hacks that ran fine on VDX caused problems with various programs on Prism. Upgrade, upgrade.

For a graffiti substitute, try the new release JOT for the Prism OS.

__________________
Visit the E-Zine on WINE AND ITS Bulletin Board at http://marksquires.com
Available on <a href="http://avantgo.com/channels/_add_channel.pl?cha_id=2733" target="_blank">AvantGo</a>

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Mesa, AZ USA
Posts: 50

quote:

---

Originally posted by Deb_onair
I have too many programs running to list. That may be the problem too. But once I deleted Xmaster and later Hackmaster things are rolling on fine.Just the odd Fatal exception which I can live with. I really miss Graspeedy which is a great graffiti program but you need Hackmaster to run it. Any ideas fellas about how to run Graspeedy?

---

__________________
Kevin Reed
TNET Services
<IMG src=http://www.tnet.com/images/flag_az.gif>

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Maryland
Posts: 29

It's happening to me again

I at one time was having this problem. Then it went away without a clear reason. I have an elaborate assortment of hacks installed, not all of them running at once, and until recently, I was doing just fine. Then I started having hard resets again. I've been using X-Master just fine, so I think maybe I may have recently tweaked my hack setup and brought the problem back. I'm going to try to figure out if it's one of my hacks that's causing the problem. Are there any other Prism users having this problem, or even better, who may have found and fixed this problem?

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Maryland
Posts: 29

My testing with the latest versions of TealEcho and Energy Dimmer hacks reveals they are incompatible. The hard crash consistently occurs immediately upon writing a grafitti "A" when the screen has been dimmed on the auto timer. Until this is fixed by one or the other developer, I'm going to stick with Energy Dimmer hack.

I thought these handhelds were supposed to make me more efficient!

(Long live PiBackup!)

Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Alabama, USA
Posts: 92

I was having this same problem with the Brightness too!

I just stumbled across this thread. I thought I was the only one who had witnessed this problem, I see I'm not

Although, I haven't seen the problem since I reamoved TealMaster. I had only one or two hacks at the time, but several times I would move the slider on the Brightness control on my VisorPrism and the device would Hard Reset.

I haven't had the problem since I went hackless. I don't know if that was the problem 100%, but things did get much better.

Along those same lines, I ran into a similar issue with Palm ICQ. After having it running on my device for a short time, I had a few hard resets. After removing it, no more hard resets.

My Prism has been pretty stable for about 8 months or more. Some occasional Fatal Alerts/Resets, but mostly related to buggy software not related to the Prism.

I hope some of the above is useful for someone...

__________________
My little girl is 3. She can already navigate my VisorPrism and knows where to tap! She has mastered TealPaint (including changing colors, tools, etc.), not to mention several games. In the Avatar, she is playing some tunes on the SoundsGood MP3 player. It's amazing how fast kids can learn if you give them a chance. Now if I could just keep her from making those long distance calls on my VisorPhone...