Notices

Can anyone please HELP!

I am running OS 2006 (Scirocco, not Gregale) and Maemo Mapper v1.35 on my n770. I have a Holux 240 GPS. Everything has been working splendidly until today when I was riding down I-95 in Florida following a route I had downloaded using my bluetooth cellphone. MaemoMapper suddenly shut itself down. When I tried to re-open it, it would start to load, then the "loading" dialog box disappeared without loading MM. When I tried to load it again, it loaded, then shut down suddenly again while trying to download the route again. This occured two or three times. Ultimately, I was unable to ever get MM to load again. What is worse, other apps fail to load now too. The n770 locks up and then either reboots itself or I have to put the cover on it to get it to shut down as the hard button won't cause it to shut down. Application manager won't load, and causes a reboot. Also, File Manager and Web browsing won't load and cause a reboot. I am really unhappy as my tablet is now pretty much useless! What to do??

thanks,
Neil

More info as regards my earlier post:

I just tried to uninstall Maemo Mapper using the Application Manager. The App. Manager loads but immediately begins to "update". The update dialog box then freezes, and I get a reboot. When I tried clicked the installed apps box, it said that no apps are installed, which is of course incorrect.

Is a reflash my only option now?

I can offer no suggestion as to how exactly Maemo Mapper could have caused this.

Maemo Mapper runs in the (protected) user account (as opposed to the privileged administrator account), just like any other program, so theoretically it is impossible for it (or other normal, non-OS programs) to destroy the rest of the operating system. At worst, programs can corrupt user data (i.e. in "Documents", "Videos", etc.), but application code (including the OS itself) should be protected from corruption by a rogue application. That is the Unix way, and it's why Windows has recently tried to follow suit with the introduction of Vista's security features.

So, either Maemo screwed up and allowed Maemo Mapper to do something it shouldn't have been able to do (and I'm not sure what that would be, unless you manually invoked the "Reset Bluetooth" feature), or Maemo screwed up and took Maemo Mapper down with it as collateral damage. The latter, more systemic option would also explain why none of your other applications work, including the OS programs like the Application Manager.

Unfortunately, neither of those explanations provides for a solution. The first thing I would try is properly switching off your device. It sounds like you haven't been able to do that (because "the hard button won't cause it to shut down"), so try either letting the battery run out or removing the battery entirely.

If you still have problems, I can think of no other solution for you than, as you suggested, re-flashing your device. If you continue to have problems after you re-flash, then it is a hardware problem for which (unfortunately) you must send the device to Nokia for repair.