Gpxsonar Losing Notes

[+bigdog999]

Occasionally I've had GPXSonar lose all my stored notes including my travel bug serial numbers, which I haven't logged yet. Does anyone know 1) what causes this, 2) anyway to get that info back.

Thanks

Edited July 3, 2005 by bigdog999

[+caderoux]

No, I posted something about this on the GPX Sonar board, but it's not a very active board.

 

It's a shame it's just flaky enough to be really annoying but not flaky enough to abandon (I like using the timestamps).

[+Team Cotati]

No, I posted something about this on the GPX Sonar board, but it's not a very active board.

 

It's a shame it's just flaky enough to be really annoying but not flaky enough to abandon (I like using the timestamps).

If you were to abandon Sonar, what would you replace it with?

[+caderoux]

I used to just use GPXView (I prefer that it doesn't launch Pocket IE) and then write my cache notes in the builtin Post-It Notes - they synced to Outlook and then you can paste into GSAK.

 

But GPXSonar exports to GSAK and I bring those in automatically.

 

Of course, there are also firmware upgrades to my iPaq 5555, but who knows if they have anything to do with the problem.

 

What's really annoying is that the program simply exits with absolutely no error message or anything.

 

It is actually pretty easy to get it to crash when exporting GSAK, so I normally exit the program (only to the file selector screen) - kill the leftover file-selector screen with End Task (been using Pocket PC ever since it changed its name, and still don't understand why when you X a program, it's really just like a minimize), and then go in fresh and export records to GSAK - this usually ensures that all the notes are written to whatever file stores them. I do this periodically through the day, too, even if I'm not exporting to GSAK yet.

[+blindleader]

I don't know what causes it except that Windows for PPC is prone to catastrophic crashes. For this reason it's wise to do system backups (iPAQ Backup) periodically to an SD card.

 

I have lost field notes a couple of times. In each case it was associated with MS S&T crashing and requiring a soft reset of the machine. I made it my business to find out where field notes were stored, and back them up when they get extensive enough that I don't like to risk losing them. The file you need to protect is GPXSonar.dat and it's in GPXSonar\Config\

[+Indotguy]

Occasionally I've had GPXSonar lose all my stored notes including my travel bug serial numbers, which I haven't logged yet. Does anyone know 1) what causes this, 2) anyway to get that info back.

Thanks

Had the same thing happen to me a few times on my Dell Axim. Very annoying. It quit after I reinstalled the software.

[+bigdog999]

I do do daily system backups to a SD card, but the problem is I put GPXSonar on the IPAQ file store area which doesn't get backed up.

[+blindleader]

...GPXSonar on the IPAQ file store area which doesn't get backed up.

Why not? The option is available.

 

You can back up any part of, of all of the system using iPAQ Backup. You can manually save the GpxSonar data. You can also install GPXSonar on the SD card.

 

If you can't find a solution among those, then I'm out of ideas.

[+Gaddiel]

I use GPXSonar on a Dell Axim, too. Every time I do a hard reset, I lose my Field Notes. Hope someone out there can tell us how to restore Field Notes from an exported .txt file...

[+blindleader]

Hope someone out there can tell us how to restore Field Notes from an exported .txt file...

I don't know why you would want to. Exporting the notes to the computer was their reason for being in the first place. After I've found a cache, I don't need the notes or even the cache on my PPC any more, so I delete them.

 

If you have notes on a cache you haven't found yet, then when you export the gpx file from GSAK make sure to check the box marked "Include user notes in export". The notes will appear above the most recent logs.

[+caderoux]

Lost all my notes a couple hours into a day of caching on Saturday.

 

What's the prospect on a fixed version or a version with error logging or something?

 

Any other product to keep the notes?

 

Back to GPXView and the builtin "Notes" application?

[ertyu]

I'm speculately that I loose notes when I "power off" the ipaq quickly after entering a new note.

[+-=(GEO)=-]

I'm speculately that I loose notes when I "power off" the ipaq quickly after entering a new note.

 

No way. This scenario has been tested and has never crashed.

 

As for what causes the loss of field notes: I have yet in 2 years to get repro steps for this problem from anyone. If I can reproduce it, I can fix it.

 

caderoux mentioned that exporting to GSAK makes it easy to crash GpxSonar. Please explain how you do this and what's running on your system.

 

As far as hard resets: they usually cause all data to be lost on the PPC, not just GpxSonar field notes.

 

Rather than throwing the baby away with the bath-water and complaining, why can't this group make a concerted effort to gather their exact system configurations (including installed drivers, applications running and their version #, available memory, size of the GPX file loaded in GpxSonar, size of the .dat file, available storage capacity, etc...) so that we can maybe notice a pattern here?

[ertyu]

I haven't had time to debug a method of reproducing the problem.

 

I was thinking soft power off, not hard reset.

 

Since I usually don't discover lost notes immediately, its hard to say what was running at the time and the available memory.

 

The best I can do right now is report that I have experienced the problem, if I notice any pattern in my data loss I'll report it.

[+northernpenguin]

I've noticed GPXSonar freezing in the field on me and then the soft-reset has to be used to get the app back with yes, complete loss of field notes. Seems to occur more often for me with big GPX files (like 200 caches).

 

I've gone back to using the "notes" application on my Axim for now, but still use GPXSonar for the actual page info.

[ertyu]

My latest guess is that after another app crashes while GPXsonar is running and I do a soft-reset, the dat file is corrupted and GPXsonar won't open. Typically I've reinstalled at this point and it probably overwrites the dat file and toasts all the notes.