hi everybody.
everything was working just great until i had to go in the settings and change the map data directory to /dev/null. the app instantly crashed and now will not start, even after uninstalling (even with the --purge switch) and reinstalling. i can't seem to track down what is wrong...
possibly a configuration file created after installation that still contains the bad assignment?

running maemo-mapper from the terminal as root gives:
osso_initialize failed to load

and as 'user' it gives:
libosso warning: yet another assisgnment for
com.gnuite.(etcetc)

can't seem to copy/paste from the terminal successfully but i'd be happy to provide any more information if someone has any bright ideas. i downloaded strace and ran it hoping that would give me a clue but i can't decipher what is going wrong.

please help! im on the road traveling and it's pretty essential now that maps.i40.com is down.

thanks in advance!

edit:
wait, here's the terminal output as user:

$ maemo-mapper

Libosso WARNING: yet another handler registered for:
service: com.gnuite.maemo_mapper
obj. path: /com/gnuite/maemo_mapper
interface: com.gnuite.maemo_mapper
maemo-mapper[3669]: GLIB DEBUG ConIc -
con_ic_connection_send_event(0x6c968, linksys, WLAN_INFRA, 0)
gdbm fatal: lseek error
~ $

and as root:

/home/user # maemo-mapper
osso_initialize failed.
/home/user #

ive installed the 2.3-os2006-os2007-armel.deb.
have mercy on me o wise ones.

Try removing /home/user/.maemo-mapper?

Only thought I have on the matter....

It is beta software, and it seems you've found another bug for gnuite to fix. If you're using beta software for essential tasks, you're going to have problems eventually.

Why the hell would you set it to /dev/null? I don't think that's a bug, I think that's a feature.

Try wv9k's suggestion.

yes i tried removing the 'paths' file in the maemo-mapper directory. no such luck.
if you really want to know my flawed logic - i wanted to have the satellite images as a switchable option in the list without the data being cached. part of me knew it was a bad idea but i tried anyway. i assumed at worst i'd be deleting a dotfile and/or reinstalling.

can anyone verify whether or not maemo-mapper creates another config file after installation? i've deleted everything listed by dpkg/apt to no avail.
l.

The database file needs to be a seekable file, so /dev/null will not work. I guess I can add a check in Maemo Mapper to make sure the file is seekable. I don't know how the GDBM initialization would have worked on /dev/null, though, and that would have produced an error before causing Maemo Mapper to crash. In any case, it's a bug that I should fix.

By the way, if you're trying to go without a map cache entirely, just leave the field empty. Maemo Mapper works perfectly fine in that configuration. It just has to download maps every time it redraws the screen.

Maemo Mapper uses gconf for most of the settings (including the list of repositories), so run the following gconf command to clear Maemo Mapper's settings:

!!!
thank you gnuite, you answered two questions in one: the gconf command let me start it as for the first time, as well as now knowing the proper way to disable map caching.

thank you so much!