[Palm OS] All installed apps gave gone from GVM desktop
 

After running several apps under that latest GVM for many days, every one suddenly disappeared. This is how it happened:

I had one app open (Bible with you) and minimised and had closed the GVM desktop. (I could switch to and from my open app without problems). Then I wanted to use another GVM app (WiFile Pro) and so started Garnet again. I saw my normal GVM desktop with all my icons (about 13 apps) and selected the 'WiFile Pro' icon and the 'Launch' button. The GVM screen flashed, closed my open app and reappeared with just the basic six apps on the GVM desktop. EVERY ONE OF MY INSTALLED APPS HAS DISSAPPEARED.

I tried to refresh the icons, closed GVM and restarted again. I've rebooted the N810. All I have left is the 6 basic icons, no data/notes or any of my installed applications.

I have not tried a hotsync because my PC settings were 'do-nothing' for 'everything' last time I synced and most of the apps I have installed were put in after the hotsync. (I did the hotsync just to acquire the device name to allow me to install paid for apps).

I have also not tried to reinstall any app in case there is some way to 'magically' get them to reappear. I can't believe that all my apps were actually deleted because it happened so quickly - though I could be wrong.

Any ideas please?

Re: All installed apps gave gone from GVM desktop
 

No ideas, unfortunately. Is my understanding of the sequence that led to this correct?
- Palm app A running
- GVM desktop not running
- Starting GVM desktop
- Launching app B from GVM desktop
?
I don't remember if I have tried that. I _think_ I did it back with the first version of GVM, but I'm not certain. I haven't with the latest beta for sure.
The 'safe' way to switch to another app (when the desktop is stopped) is presumably:
- Palm app A running
- GVM desktop not running
- Click Palm home icon in app A
- Select app B

I haven't tested the latest beta as much as the first one, but back then I think I also experimented with starting app A from the command line and then app B, and that worked as far as I can remember. So it may all be that one method isn't better than any other and that your unfortunate problem was caused by some instability of the current beta.

As for restoring the apps and data.. unless FileZ can find something then I have no idea. I looked deep down into the gvm.store file a while ago and couldn't figure out anything. I have resorted to making a backup of the gvm.store file itself, so that I can just copy it back from the SD card in case of problems (the problems I used to have was that when launching applications which used mathlib.prc everything would burn and die and disappear. That's at least fixed in the latest beta).

Re: All installed apps gave gone from GVM desktop
 

I've lost all my Palm Apps from GVM a few time now. I haven't found a consistent chain of events to induce this. I wasn't doing what you described above either. The only thing in common is that the app I was running crashed and when I went to launch GVM again - all was gone except the stock apps. Once this occurred when running an app without GVM running (ie: launched app from command line) and twice with GVM running.

It sure is a pain that if you get a little instability in one part of the GVM.store file it appears that it wipes the whole file. It's also quite a pain to reinstall everything. There is no magical way to make them retinstall themselves.

Re: All installed apps gave gone from GVM desktop
 

Yes exactly as I did it.

Yes I think that would do it.

In your case the GVM desktop is not being statred - perhaps that makes the difference?

I had FileZ on there and I could see all the installed apps and databases etc. Maybe I'll reinstall that one and take a look.

That sound like a good idea. Perhaps the backup command could be put into a simple shell script and then run after any new GVM install?

Thanks TA-t3 for your input.

Re: All installed apps gave gone from GVM desktop
 

So it does look like everything extra was deleted? This must mean that there is some 'partition' within (or perhaps seperate from?) the gvm.store that contains all user installed applications.

Re: All installed apps gave gone from GVM desktop
 

my gvm has crashed on me a lot too and i blame it on a faulty installation (can't read/can't connect to gvm errors, etc). it is really frustrating especially if each app has its own activation password/key and is composed of several pdb/prc files! but i think i have found a stable way of installing apps without using hotsync. here's how i did it.

format memory (64mb)
install one app
run any app (most crucial step! with an app running in the background there seems to be NO errors during install/uninstall)
go back to gvm WITHOUT closing the running app
install from file, select next prc/pdb file, install everything!
go back to emulator, hit home to refresh icons

just remember to open any app before you install something.

now my app list (17 apps) doesn't get erased anymore. dunno why but it seems to be more stable such that even if an app crashes the emulator, the list isn't corrupted and i can safely install/uninstall anything i want.

Re: All installed apps gave gone from GVM desktop
 

Sounds like you might be onto something. I'll try this method as I reinstall everything.

You are right about the pain when apps have keys and multiple db's. And then there is all the configuration settings that we do after install that are lost. Hours of work gone!

Perhaps your info would help Access address this issue. Have you thought of letting them know?

Re: All installed apps gave gone from GVM desktop
 

wrote a feedback on their site about this, i hope it gets fixed in the next release! i also discovered that sometimes the GVM desktop would say "can't connect to GVM" while refreshing the app list. i found out the refresh fails when metalayer-crawler (don't you just love it?!) is doing its thing.

what i do is just go to tools - clean icons until it refreshes successfully. :)

still, the backup script would be our safest fallback. hope someone makes it or at least teach us how to manually do it ourselves :p

Re: All installed apps gave gone from GVM desktop
 

I read the thread about what you describe and noticed that it seemed to fix problems for some people, but for what it's worth, I have never done that, I have always (with the previous and the current version of GVM) just launched the gvm desktop alone, and installed prc and pdb files. Only after that have I actually opened the (new or old) application. I haven't actually had a single problem yet with my second GVM installation. YMMV.

I'm on OS2007 btw.

Re: All installed apps gave gone from GVM desktop
 

maybe it's OS related. i'm on OS2008. actually i had no problems installing 2-3 apps but when the list goes up to 10 or more i start get errors.