[DB-3] Haven't received a reply for: Long Alarm Sounds (GeekSounds) Don't Repeat

Hello,

on 4 Oct. I sent the e-mail quoted below to [email protected], which includes the e-mail I sent on 24 Aug.
I don't know what went wrong, but I didn't get any reaction whatsoever from Pimlico Software on my two (working) e-mail adresses.
Now, in the hope, that the hours spent on locating the problem and writing the bug report are not totally wasted, I'm posting this here. [Some personal information has been edited out.]

Bernd

## Original E-Mail Sent To Pimlico SW ###

Hello,

on August, 24th I sent you the following e-mail, and I am still waiting
for a reply. If you already sent a reply (or my e-mail didn't reach you
in the first place) I'd kindly ask you to send it again, this time to
both of my e-mail adresses:
[email protected] 
[email protected]

Thank you.

Greetings,
[Real Name]


ORIGINAL E-MAIL:

== START OF INFO ==
_____________________________________________
BUG DETAILS
Program Name:		DateBk6
Program Version:	V-6.1b, s2 ; V-6.1a, s5
Reproducible:		Y
Previously reported:	N
______________________________________________
USER INFORMATION
Name:			[Real Name]
Email: 			[email protected] 
Computer Expertise:	Advanced
Datebk3/4 Experience:	seasoned user
Registered User:	Y
______________________________________________
HARDWARE INFORMATION
Palm Model: 		Palm Tungsten T3
Memory:  		64MB
Special Hardware: 	N
______________________________________________
SOFTWARE INFORMATION
Palm OS Version:  	v. 5.2.1 with "Update for Tungsten T3",
			DIA Compatability and "PIM Support Update for
			Palm OS"
Other 3rd party S/W: 	GeekSounds 2.4
		http://www.freewarepalm.com/utilities/geeksounds.shtml
Hacks Loaded: 		N
Using Saved Views:	N
Desktop: 		PC, Debian GNU/Linux Lenny
Desktop Software: 	J-Pilot 1.6.0
Conduit Software: 	pilot-link 0.12.3

====

Hello,

I use DateBk6 as an alarm clock and noticed in the morning, that I heard
the alarm only once or twice, although the Alarm Preferences were set to
"Remind Me: 100 Times" and the Alarm Dialog was still visible. At first
I couldn't reproduce that, but after some "research" I think I could
isolate the problem and say the cause is in DateBk6, and that it happens
under some special circumstances. I also hope that I didn't overlook
something in the documentation, I searched the FAQ and the forum and
couldn't find anything regarding this issue.

The problem occurs at least when an alarm goes off, the sound is not
silenced by a tap or button press, and is still playing while the next
alarm sound from the same appointment is scheduled. Further below is a
detailed protocol of how I could reproduce the problem, but first I'd
like to give an example to explain what I mean:

== START OF EXAMPLE ==
in the "Preference Panel — Alarms Tab" I have set

Remind Me: 100 Times
Play Every: Minute
Play # times: 10 Times

and chosen alarm sounds that play for at least some seconds from
GeekSounds ( http://www.freewarepalm.com/utilities/geeksounds.shtml ).
E.g. I set all four alarm sounds to "90210", which is 13.21 seconds
long, according to RHMidi ( http://rchsystems.com ,
http://www.freewarepalm.com/music/rhmidi.shtml ).

Now I enter an appointment that starts at 18:00. At 18:00 the alarm
starts and should play 10 times 13.21 seconds, so until 18:03. But as it
is set to play every minute, the next alarm sound is scheduled to play
at 18:01.
If the alarm is silenced by tapping on the screen or pressing a hard
button (so that the alarm dialog stays open and only the sound stops)
/before/ the next alarm sound is scheduled - in this case 18:01 -
everything works fine.
If the alarm is silenced /after/ 18:00, e.g. at 18:01, the sound stops
but does not repeat a minute later or at any other time, while the Alarm
Dialog is still open. The Palm goes off after the set Auto-Off time (2
minutes on my devices).
== END OF EXAMPLE ==

I wonder whether I'm the first to note that problem, but it is unlikely
to occur with the System MIDI Sounds the T3 (and probably other models)
ships with, as the longest of them is less than four seconds.
The device on which I discovered the problem, my "main" Tungsten T3 is
laden with hacks and I played a lot with the DateBk6 settings and Saved
Views and so on. Fortunately I own a second T3 which I only use for
testing software, so I happily took that for making the issue as
reproducible as possible. Here is a protocol of what I did, most of it
is redundant but I'm not sure which parts could be omitted, so here are
all the details:

== START OF PROTOCOL ==
did a Hard Reset
selected English as language
selected Germany as country
changed the city from "San Francisco" to "Berlin"...
omitted the Quick Tour and tapped on Done

in Preferences -> Sounds & Alerts I changed the three sound settings to
"low", left Alarm LED "On", Alarm Vibrate "Off"

installed AppSlipRotate.prc,  PIMSupportUpdate.prc,  StatusBarLib.prc
did the required soft reset

installed System_MIDI_Sounds.pdb (the above mentioned GeekSounds)
checked in Calendar -> Options -> Preferences that the GeekSounds work

did a soft reset

installed DateBk6.prc and DateBk6-Resources.prc

tapped on DateBk6 in the Launcher

tapped on "Yes" in the "Set Default Datebook" Dialog,

tapped OK in the "Welcome to DateBk6" dialog and the "Hardware Buttons"
dialog

went to Options -> Preferences -> Alarms
and set the following:

Alarm preset: [x] 0 Minutes
[x] DateBk6 Handles Alarms
[_] Vibrate	[x] Flash LED
Sounds & Buttons
	set all four sounds to "Back To The Future L"
	(which plays 80 seconds)
	[_] Enable Buttons in Alarm Dialog
	[_] Display Private Alarms
Remind Me: 100 Times
Play Every: Minute
Play # times: 10 Times
Untimed Alarm: 14:00
Def. Snooze: 2 min	[_] Add 24h

tapped OK

at 16:58 o'clock entered "test"  and set the start time of the new entry
to 17:00

at 17:00 the alarm sound starts, at 17:01 the Alarm Dialog opens
displaying in the text area
"17:01
test
17:00 - 18:00
Tuesday 24.8.10",
I tap on the screen (somewhere in the text area) to silence the alarm,
the Alarm Dialog stays open.

So far everything works as expected. Now the problem:

After the preset Auto-off time (2 minutes) the palm switches off.
At 17:06 I switch it on, the Alarm Dialog is still open, but no alarm
sound was heard since 17:01. I tap OK.

checked in Prefs -> Power that "Auto-off after" is set to "2 minutes"
== END OF PROTOCOL ==

I did this procedure with DateBk V-6.1a,s5 and, after I found the new
version on the Pimlico Website today, also with V-6.1b,s2.

I also did it with my Handspring Treo 90 with DateBk V-6.1a,s5, after a
Hard Reset and only installing System_MIDI_Sounds.pdb (GeekSounds),
DateBk6.prc and DateBk6-Resources.prc. In all three cases the result was
the same and the issue occured.

If you need any further information, databases, screenshots etc. please
let me know.

Btw, I noticed that dbscan can't be found anymore in the
AdvancedStuff.zip in datebk6-v61b-s2.zip, and wonder if it was
intentionally left out. dbscan saved me at least once, when the TasksDB
(or TodoDB?) had an error and DateBk6 crashed every time when trying to
access it.

Thank you very much in advance for your support!

Greeting,
[Real Name]

-- 
[sig]



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