Re: gnome-pilot and pilot-xfer restore don't work

[Matt Davey <mcdavey mrao cam ac uk>]

Hi Adam,

On Wed, 2007-05-02 at 08:28 -0400, Adam C Powell IV wrote:
> Hello again,
> 
> [gnome-pilot specific so I'm not copying pilot-link-devel]
> 
> On Mon, 2007-04-30 at 07:28 -0400, Adam C Powell IV wrote:
> > Greetings,
> > 
> > I'm having trouble restoring a Treo 600 (PalmOS V5.2H) using gnome-pilot
> > and pilot link in Debian etch (2.0.15-2 and 0.12.1-5 respectively).
> > 
> > First, the Restore... menu item in the gnome-pilot applet menu seems
> > completely useless.  The ellipsis suggests a follow-on dialog, but there
> > is none, nor any menu item check, nor any other indication that it has
> > been selected.  Furthermore, whether I use it or not, it tries to sync
> > the pilot, unless it has just been blanked, in which case it tries to
> > restore it, so Restore... has no discernible effect whatsoever.

It's embarrassing to admit (as I'm the gnome-pilot maintainer...), but I
don't think I've ever tried the 'Restore...' applet option.  I'm not
sure what it's supposed to do: possibly it's supposed to allow you to
choose which backed-up state to restore onto the next device to connect
-- i.e. click 'Restore', then you're invited to sync a device and it'll
get overwritten with the previously backed-up data.  But don't quote me
on that.

> > 
> > Second, gnome-pilot always hangs while restoring the device, going up to
> > 100% CPU and sitting there until the Treo times out.  If I move aside
> > the file which seemed to cause this, it hangs on another file, and so
> > on.  This behavior is identical to that reported by Krzysztof Porowski
> > four years ago, and nobody followed up to his questions, nor has this
> > problem been addressed since.  This is also Debian bug #146346 reported
> > five years ago next week, and forwarded to this list, but with no
> > helpful or corrective replies.  gnome-pilot restore is very broken.

... in your case, certainly.  I have used the restore feature several
times recently without problems.  I wasn't aware of this bug, and would
be a bit surprised if it was entered into gnome-pilot bugzilla.  I don't
know what's at the root of the problem, but will try to reproduce it
myself for starters.  As I said, I've definitely had recent success with
restore to a palmv over serial a connection.

> My Treo hard crashed again yesterday (replacement on the way), so I got
> a chance to try this out with strace.  It is hanging on "Installing
> Blazer Cache..." and strace leading up to that shows:
> 
> open("/home/hazelsct/MyNewPilot/Blazer Cache.pdb", O_RDONLY) = 41
> fstat64(41, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2821647, ...}) = 0
> mmap2(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0xb6c8e000
> fstat64(41, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2821647, ...}) = 0

[...]

> select(40, [39], NULL, NULL, {30, 0})   = 1 (in [39], left {30, 0})
> read(39, "\1\253\0\0\0\n", 6)           = 6
> select(40, [39], NULL, NULL, {30, 0})   = 1 (in [39], left {30, 0})
> read(39, "\241\1\0\0 \4\0`\240\0", 10)  = 10
> writev(38, [{"GIOP\1\2\1\0\200\0\0\0", 12}, {"\220\220\324\277\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\34\0\0\0\0\0\0\0c\274"..., 128}], 2) = 140
> _llseek(41, 36864, [36864], SEEK_SET)   = 0
> _llseek(41, 36864, [36864], SEEK_SET)   = 0
> _llseek(41, 36864, [36864], SEEK_SET)   = 0
> _llseek(41, 36864, [36864], SEEK_SET)   = 0
> _llseek(41, 36864, [36864], SEEK_SET)   = 0
> _llseek(41, 36864, [36864], SEEK_SET)   = 0
> 
> then the llseek() repeats indefinitely.  If I move Blazer Cache out of
> the way, it hangs on another file.
> 
> Any ideas?

Have you tried using a different connection type?  Try a network sync,
if you can configure that with your Treo.  Failing that, have you tried
both a libusb sync and a usbserial sync?

Matt

Matt Davey		What do you call a fish with three eyes? 
mcdavey mrao cam ac uk 			A fiiish.