Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

Talking about QA... one way to improve it is to "outsource" this to "free beta testers". (Some might say that we are all free beta testers... :rolleyes: ) Lately more and more IT specific software has been released for testing in beta status (RTComm, Videocenter, etc...) for people to test/try. I wish also the new Firmwares would be made available as beta. I hope this method has proven beneficial tool to Nokia to improve the software quality, and they would continue and expand its usage.

Re: Blah-blah, somnething about QA...
 

You're missing a critical point of zerojay's, which admittedly came after the post you quoted BUT has been stated previously. Zero pointed out the in 6 months of use he's never had the card problem. Even more important, I informally tested prerelease versions (rigorously) that actually had obvious bugs and never encountered a single card failure of any sort during that time. This is why I said in another thread that simply asking for those who HAVE had the problem misses an important point: the null hypothesis (if you're involved with QA then you know of what I speak).

The fact remains that while catching such bugs is indeed incumbent upon Nokia software QA, there ARE a multitude of factors involved (the formal explanations provided so far are simplified for brevity's sake) and testing for every possible combination can be problematic. For all the complaining done, the fact also remains that once solid, detailed reports started coming into Bugzilla, Nokia had the materials required to properly analyze the problem. Yes, communications could have been a bit better-- but overall I think the process worked as it should.

Speaking of which: are you filing your numerous issues on Bugzilla?

I'm with Mara on this one, but I wonder how many more complaints would arise due to bug-induced problems...

Re: Blah-blah, somnething about QA...
 

I didn't have that problem. It felt much better to me.

Agreed, but the tablet doesn't run a real-time OS anyways... and neither do you at home. The problem is in the linux scheduler. I remember around the time of the first or second firmware update for the N800, I was able to listen to music as the N800 scanned for access points without my music skipping, but ever since one of those firmware updates, I get skips while scanning. Someone probably forgot to enable the kernel preemption stuff.

I've seen this somewhat rarely. It does appear to be a regression.

Never seen it.

I've never had this problem, thankfully. It's what I use to wake me up in the morning!

I'd be happy with the built-in player if it could play a few more formats (WMV) and if some of the relatively simple bugs piling up on Bugzilla would be fixed.

It sure can. Library -> Video. Your clips are all right there.

It's not too bad for me, but sure, I would like to see it faster.

Never had this happen to me. The only time I ever really have instability is when attempting to use the camera application.

I don't think it's fair to say that Nokia's QA should have caught the bug. It's a rare set of circumstances without any obvious errors. I've used my tablet for 4-10 hours a day, 7 days a week for about 5 or 6 months. If someone that's as heavy a user of the tablet as me never even once had this problem, how can you expect QA to easily find it? Answer: you don't.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

I'd like that, but it's clear that a lot of customers don't seem to understand the concept of beta and instead do nothing but ***** and moan about the unfinished state of the software instead of being constructive and filing bugs.

What I think would be best is to have Mr. Gil gather up a few people who have been productive on Bugzilla and seeing if they wouldn't mind being private beta testers. Would also be good for the next generation of tablets as well.

It's a win-win situation. Those people who are active on Bugzilla are the types that would be most interested in continuing to file bugs and in playing with the beta software. A reward for their efforts, so to speak. In turn, Nokia gets some free beta testing with real-world users (and real-world use cases) and it keeps them from looking bad when the less educated/less understanding users complain about beta software publically.

Of course, public beta testers are good, but can never be a replacement for a solid QA team, but a nice supplement to it.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

^ fully agreed with that zero.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

Agreed as well, it's a natural tendency for those who don't know what they're doing to try and install beta software. This is a good thing: bugs aren't just found by power users. Unfortunately, it requires a level of sophistication to raise good bug reports that not everyone has.

However, I'd strongly discourage Nokia from starting any new closed system, with a clique of power users beta testing; potentially waving their knowledge and access under the noses of "lesser" users.

Ubuntu manages a well produced system with open betas, and we've already established numerous times that multi-platform end-user desktop OSes are "harder" than IT OS releases for two (well, one supported) hardware configurations. If Canonical can organise this in an open fashion, and deal with the end-user complaints about it "not being ready", why couldn't Nokia?

I suspect one of the key differentiators is managing expectations. Ubuntu has a clear roadmap with predictable releases every six months. There's a nebulous roadmap for Maemo, nothing for IT OS and no predictable IT OS releases.

The glib answer from Nokia (or the fanboys and girls - indeed, it's not just Apple (shock))) is "competitive advantage" or, depending on the phase of the moon, "we're trying harder and you can't expect a big organisation to change overnight" ;-)

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

End users of Ubuntu are generally more knowledgable about Linux than the average (intended) end user of the tablets. Just that alone changes a lot of things. I'm not against having fully open betas though - it would be ideal.... but Nokia wouldn't go for that for firmware images. Individual apps, sure.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

As the 2nd of October is only a few hours away, perhaps already here for some folks, are we likely to see the firmware update tomorrow, Tuesday October 2nd?
.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

No glib answer here... but lest we forget, unique proprietary hardware is involved and that complicates things. As we see with the SD cards, damage from bugs can be very real. A power user will be irritated but at the same time understand the complexity and participate in solutions; "lesser" users will rant and little more (not saying it isn't their right, but...). So I can understand why Nokia would open betas for browsers and other separable apps and keep firmware testing limited. Like zero noted.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

An interesting thread! I would like to add one corrective point. For those who say something like 'I've been using the N800 for 8 months with no problems, so how can you expect QA to find this?` The critic of QA said that they should have bought a big variety of cards and they would easily find the problem. Now, if those of you who made this comment bought a big variety of cards and played with them constantly for eight months, you have a good point there. But if you just have used a few cards that worked fine for eight months, it is not surprising that you didn't encounter the problem. If QAers are relying on experiences with only a few cards, they aren't doing things right.

But I think that a card that can be destroyed beyond reformattability just because someone does something suboptimal with it, is an unreliable, dangerous card. A lot of the SD cards seem to be in that category.

And on the subject of Bugzilla:

I ran a tech support group for about eight years. We learned a lot from user reports in the form of email messages. We had bug-tracking software, but that was mainly used only by the QA professionals. When I filed a bug report, I often just posted it in email and if there was some information I left out, someone would ask me.

I don't see why it is essential that such information from users can be responded to only if it is put into something called Bugzilla. The same information in any form should be usable.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

Ok so the update is supposed to be there. But where is it?

If I go to tableteer on my N800 it informs me that there's a new version. It goes on to list it as '4.2007.38-2', but when I try to get it from the usual place then I only see the three old ones: 2.2006.51-6, 3.2007.10-7, 4.2007.26-8 (the latter one is the 'Skype' release). No 4.2007-38.2!

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

I see it too and the description only points out they fixed the very same bug people are discussing on this thread.. and nothing else ?
We'll see as soon as the update will be available on their site for download:

Starting from here:

http://maemo.org/community/wiki/HOWT...yFlashing%2529

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

http://europe.nokia.com/link?cid=PLAIN_TEXT_80293
Until now, no download for linux available ;(

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

It's available now!!!
http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/nokia_N800.php

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

So it's a boring update. I had hoped the new FCC device and a new firmware with cool new features would come today, but I guess that's later.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

You were probably the only one then.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

Ok it's there now. Did anyone look at it yet? If it is _only_ the kernel that's changed then I would prefer to just flash the kernel, instead of going through yet another image update.

EDIT: Ah, just read the 'news' item.. looks like just the kernel. So I'll try to go that road then, to avoid having to reinstall everything.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

"just" the kernel ?
It's circa 87Mb !!

and I think I'll have to do it as I just got a 4Gb SDHC memory card and I won't risk losing my data.

Doing it now.

EDIT: oh I see what you mean.. trying to get only the kernel out of it and flashing just that. Waiting for it then :)

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

Done flashing the kernel only, that was pretty painless. The only problem seems to be that when flashing just the kernel the version number in the control panel etc. isn't getting updated, so when I click tableteer it still informs me that I should upgrade. I don't want to do the image update, so I'll hunt around in the system to see if I can update that version number manually.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

You've extracted the kernel from the .bin file ? or you found it somewhere else ready to be flashed.

It's a shame that we have to re-install everything just because of bug fix :(

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

I think it's possible to just flash the kernel component of the fiasco image, but instead I extracted it first and flashed it specifically. Here's how I did it (on Linux):

./flasher-3.0 -F RX-34_2007SE_4.2007.38-2_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin --unpack

The above unpacks the content, including 'zImage' which is the kernel.

o Then, turn off the N800 (with the button or 'halt' as root command line).
o Connect USB cable to N800.
o Become root on the PC. Then execute:

./flasher-3.0 -k zImage -f -R

(it's common to forget to be root first.. you must be, to get full control over the USB port on the PC)
PC will display 'Suitable USB device not found, waiting'

o Now plug in the power cable in the N800.

PC continues with something similar to the following:
USB device found found at bus 002, device address 002
Found device RX-34, hardware revision 1301
NOLO version 1.1.6
Version of 'sw-release': RX-34_2007SE_4.2007.26-8_PR_MR0
Sending kernel image (1286 kB)...
100% (1286 of 1286 kB, avg. 998 kB/s)
Flashing kernel... done.

and that's it.

(EDIT: The 'problem' with the above is in the 'sw-release', which, if I've understood it correctly, is taken from what's actually on board on the N800 now. As the root image isn't updated in the above procedure the control panel etc. will think it's the previous version. But an 'uname -a' in osso-xterm will confirm that it's a new kernel running.)

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

The problem here is that you don't know if the problem was fixed ONLY in the kernel. It's possible that there were changes made to other portions of the firmware image to fix the problem. I wouldn't be surprised if you only have half a fix and run into further problems.

Also be sure to mention what you did if you file bug reports.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

I'm not so sure that this new firmware did "only" include the fix for the memory card corruption issue... Somebody might compare the binary images to each others... I suspect there are changes somewhere else too... ;)

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

I'm pretty sure the fix only applies to the kernel. The problem as was described in the bug report relates to how the power levels are modified during the writing process. Thus, there is no need to update anything else besides the kernel.

my 2 cents.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

Mara, I hate when people do this :)
The image is out, no need to be like this. If you know, just tell people.
I spent days setting my toy up...a full upgrade would me to start almost everything from scratch

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

oh.. a new browser. MicroB is then out of beta?
I can change the engine (the default one) (MicroB and Opera can be selected, while WebCore ;) is not..)
In the same "advanced menu" there is now "Tab view, Box view, Win view"...
Moreover there is a policy meny "Limited Java script, Full Java script" global or google related.

Great.. so there's a lot more!

EDIT: MicroB is version 1.0.1 and you've to manually install it from the apps. But theres is the new Advanced where you can find new options (some are randomly listed above).
Opera is still "8.5 Internal", build 2.0.43 (dunno which build was before).

UPDATE: Weird thing is, the Advanced menu is not there anymore.. after I've installed the MicroB browser from the apps menu it disappeared. Removing it doesn't bring it back.

Oh man.. I'm lost...

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

There was a second bug that was also fixed with large downloads/uploads that also caused corruption.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

I don't think I'm in a position to tell in detail what packages has changed... but what I see I do recommend to flash the whole firmware image. It is not only the "kernel-source-xxxxx" that has been changed.

I don't have my N800 with me right now... once I get home I'll check few things I suspect have changed. If they are, I'll let you know.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

Where are you seeing that?

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

OK. So I wasn't dreaming... I saw that too but once I restored backup my browser settings did go back to "pre-flash" settings: no-tabs, etc. Maybe I need to take a look at the .browser file if I can get these back.

UPDATE: This problem appear to occur if you install MicroB-browser. After the MicroB install these new features disappear. Restoring backup may not have anything to do with this. :confused:

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

It was the last option in the main menu of the browser app.
It was there with cool options, but even if it was referring to the MicroB engine, I did notice the engine itself was not installed. So I went on and installed it... and now I don't have it anymore! Even if I remove the MicroB engine.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

I'm reflashing and not restoring so I can see what it is you're talking about.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

Yup, I think it was something they're still working on as the tab thing was not really cool (but useful indeed) and the "box view" was kind of weird and it wasn't working. It was trying to show me more pages at once in different "boxes" but you could not resize the boxes and the top one was way too thin.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

Ok... now you remind me... this is how it actually happened to me too... :(

I guess we just discovered the first bug of new firmware... :eek:

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

Actually I did the restore during the first boot following the re-flashing.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

/etc/osso_software_version
But we should wait for answer here https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1204
or someone who upgraded whole firmware could post output of so we could compare what packages really changed (except the one providing version of course)

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

Ah.. I think it's because the very first thing I did was reinstall RTCOMM and MicroB.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

I don't see Advanced anywhere... can you be far more precise? I don't see anything different.

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

I am redoing the flash again trying to re-do it the same way I did the first time.
Let's see.

(sigh, I've to re-configure everything :( )

Re: Update: SD/SDHC Card Trashing - Nokia Admit There's a Problem
 

So you convinced me to re-install and loose all my setting just because of ... a bug! !?!?! grrrrrr ;)

Anyway, I have it back. I'll post the .browser file soon.