Possibly Facebook Widget caused high CPU load and power drain
 

After Palm-OS and Windows-Mobile (trying several extension for full flash support) the N900 satisfied my web-browsing demands most of all devices I ever had. A really genious device. That was before the latest os-update so far. Since then it got completely unusable. Locking itself, slowing down, nearly not bootable and eating a full loaded battery within 1 - 2 hours.

I had installed facebook-widget, newsreader-widget, sms/mail-widget, foreca-weather-widghet, last-fm app, calendar widget, wify-switcher, 3g-switcher.

After the latest os update (about one week or so ago) the device gets unstable on every day. no chance to get calls from anyone in that state.

sometimes wifi-switcher does not show switching messages when i use ist. once i got for a second a message like messaging applikation hat to close (sms?).

I cant figure out how to debug that device and when i read throug other discussions i get shocked by a huge amount of similar, but not really the same problems - to be honest, if i had read throug these discussion before i bought the device, i would not have bought it.

hey, i need something for using, not for developing and debugging.

yours, really frustrated, christian from switzerland.:(

Re: N900 - from love to hate in 1 week
 

How did you update, and could you be a bit more specific about the instability you're suffering? Does your N900 reboot? Do applications crash? If so, which ones? What applications, widgets, themes, etc. do you have installed? What applications, widgets, etc. do you keep running all, or most of, the time? Do you have a MicroSD card in your N900? If so, what's stored on it?

Re: N900 - from love to hate in 1 week
 

This has been addressed in several other threads, but lets go over it again.

If your device is unstable the first course of action is always to remove all extras-devel apps and slowly add them back in one by one until you find the one causing the issue.

Yes it's a pain, Yes it takes time, but thats the price you pay for using devel level software.

Re: N900 - from love to hate in 1 week
 

Eating a full battery within 1-2 hours... that's highly unusual.

May I ask what usage your device is put through during that time?

Also, widgets usually eat away at battery life and combined with constant web browsing, can shorten it drastically.

I'm not an expert within this area, so I'll leave that for the more experienced that may (hopefully) pass by later today, but I'm sure it's not a problem that can't be fixed.

I'm currently on a N900 as well, and my battery life, even with 3G running is generally a little less than a day with moderate web browsing and calling/texting. With no or little internet connection but moderate calling/texting, I get up to two days.

Best of luck to you though Christian, and make sure you keep checking back!

Re: N900 - from love to hate in 1 week
 

something to consider is all the success people have had that they do not post. more people are successful with the device than have major issues.

that aside try completely reflashing the device. eMMC included. then i recommend adding your programs back a few at a time to see if your issue returns. this way you may be able to isolate the problem if it comes back.

Re: N900 - from love to hate in 1 week
 

Speaking of widgets that eat battery life. FMtransmitter and personal countdown can be major hogs. FMtransmitter seems to poll the state of the device to see if fm is on and update the icon. It does this often and I have gotten much better life after removing it.
Personal countdown - its important to change the update period so something realistic.

I can also agree with the emmc flashing option. Originally for 1.2 I didnt flash everything - just the fiasco - had major issues. Since flashing emmc as well as fiasco - much improved.

Re: N900 - from love to hate in 1 week
 

Ok, thank you. I got really impressed by the number and speed of answers within this short time. - Getting new hope. I always was impressed by the quality of maemo.org.

More Details concerning the problem:

* Updated over Wifi directly on the Device. Update description did say that existing widgets (like facebook) are updated too. Maybe there was a problem (reboot) during update can't remember.
* no devlevel apps installed at all (and do not plan to do so)
* when device get's unstable, there are no running apps execept for facebook-widget, rss-news-widget (update set to manually), foreca-weather-widget (update set to manually), wifi-switcher and g3-switcher
* when device get's unstable, mobile-phone is on, wlan is off, mobile-data-connections are off. no applications except the above listed widgets are running.
* symtoms: screen-unlock-switch on the right side of the device does not react. switch on top of the device does not react. maybe does react some minues later (like heavy cpu-usage). not visible if device is on or off. sometimes device does respond but every operation is extremely slow (even swiping from one destkop to another or pressing trying to anything. not visible what process is running (is there an application to show that? is there an event or error log?). sometimes shutdown does work, sometimes it acts like it was off and starts up. sometimes the screen gets iluminated but shows black. after reboot system reacts normal. When in use reacts normal. when left in standby after half an our or so gets the more and more unstable until not beeing usable anymore. hight battery drain, no application running. all wireless (except mobile phone) off.
*8GB SD Card installed, contains windows-mobile applications and n900 digital images, ebooks (fbreader)
*Applications: Forgot to mention, fbreader, fmtransmitter and fmbooster (both set to off), also irremote (camera-remote-control)

@Bratag: no devlevel installed, but will try to do (uninstall all and reinstall one by one) so with all my regular apps. This was a well running system before the os-update? Do i have to plan to do this on regular base?

@itsandrew: like stated above, no usage at all, no apps except widgets running. no wlan and no mobile-data-connection.

@kd-alex: yes, this is true. i got new hope with all the reply's. more bad that good things are posted. but reflashing every week or so when using only regular apps, is new for me. Did never hat do to that with my previous devices.

@sjgadsby: completed the description above.

Re: N900 - from love to hate in 1 week
 

When it starts to be jerky/slow start x terminal and run command top and monitor processes that are on top. Is something taking over 10% cpu constantly?

.edit
And about apps. Please bear in mind following:
Maemo.org repository apps are not QA by Nokia (even thought it seems that Nokia is actually providing even worse QA on some of their ovi store apps) But ANYTHING you install to it is after all on your responsibility. YES community says that extra is safe and extra-testing/devel are for people who like to flash and report about problems, but still this is open. e.g. if you install app to windows and update win with sp3 and app brakes and affects windows performance it´s a bit 3rd part responsibility and on the other hand windows maintainers responsibility. So try to understand that freedom here means that actually quality(bugs regarding memory issues and performance issues) of apps might be weaker than on e.g. apple store where they probably test software quite troughtfully and have closed environment for apps to run.

Re: N900 - from love to hate in 1 week
 

I will do so. Up to now, system running normal. Is this normal: mem used 237xxx k free 8xxx k?

Re: N900 - from love to hate in 1 week
 

Applications installed:
3G/2G/Dual Mode Selection Applet
Amazon Installer (unsed)
AP News Installer (unused)
Documents To Go Installer
Documents To Go Viewer Edition (Licenced) - hey it works together with facebook docs :)
Facebook Destop Widget
Facebook Installer
Facebook Sharing Plugin
Facebook Widget and Photo Uploader
fbreader
feedservice-pluginfb-common (do i have to uninstall librarys myself or is there an uninstall routine for facebook?)
feedservice2
fm-boost
Foreca Installer
ForecaWeather widget
Maemo 5 (latest version)
shutter
Simple FMTX destkop widget
tutorial-home-applet
Vagalume
Wife Switcher
Yellow Notes applet