FreeRange Feedback

Jarno · Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Netherlands

Last year after registering FreeNews I started getting java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsExceptions and other problems on my Siemens S65. In the end there was no more workaround as the exception started occuring when starting the application which meant I was stuck without a working FreeNews application.

It seemed that FreeNews was clobbering its internal message store in some way. To help remedy this, the never officially release 1.0.4 version was released to me that would detect an exception at startup, clear the message store completely and go on. Kudos to FreeRange support: this was all done in a timely manner and seemed to work fine.

However, between Christmas and New Year FreeNews started to hit some kind of infinite loop during application initialisation. It had been showing signs if internal inconsistencies in the week before, so I thought that any exceptions occuring because of that woudl get trapped when they would happen during startup and the inconsistencies would get corrected automatically.

But now, no matter what, the "Please wait" dialog that my S65 shows while a Java application is being started never vanishes. I tried how long this would take, but lost patience after 45 minutes. This seems like an infinite loop to me...

I mentioned this at the beginning of Januari, but no official reply from FreeRange technical support (except for "our engineer is out of town [...] Thanks for being so patient.") as reached me until now.

The since then released version 1.0.5 does not help. (Tried uninstalling, clearing my cache, downloading again.)
What am I to do now...? :(

I would suggest any potential new users of FreeNews to wait until this problem is resolved, especially if they plan to use it on Siemens S65 hardware.

Jarno · Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Netherlands

I'm very curious about the new features. Especially full screen support sounds really handy. Unfortunately I've tried the new 1.0.6 version and it does not solve my infinite loop problem so I have not been able to check out the new stuff at all.

With all the activity that's going on with the new features and server software I guess I'll have to wait until (way?) after January 30th to have this problem addressed.

I understand the situation, but do not like it at all... Sad

David Boyd · Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 7:34 pm Post subject:

Did you get my email I sent on the 23rd? If not, I can send again.

Jarno · Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Netherlands

I only received email from Daniel Tomlin on the 23rd, with apologies for not knowing anything new about my problem and asking if I tried the (then) new 1.0.5 build to see if that might solve my problem. I replied that it did not.

If you also emailed me on/since the 23rd then I did not receive that email as next the above mentioned email and the 1.0.6 announcement on the 27th I have not received anything else from freerangeinc.com.

So yes, could you please send it again?

David Boyd · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 7:33 am Post subject:

I just resent it to your email. Keep an eye out for it!

Jarno · Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Netherlands

Like I emailed earlier to day: no new email from FreeRange has reached me yet.

David Boyd · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 8:47 pm Post subject:

OK, email doesn't seem to work. I sent you now a private message through the forum.

Jarno · Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Netherlands

After several rounds of bouncing a debug version of FreeNews to me and the resulting messages back it seems that there is either an obscure bug in FreeNews or that the implementation of mobile Java data storage on my Siemens S65 is somehow obscurely faulty. We were note able to decide either way, but with a version of FreeNews 1.0.6 that deletes all local program storage on startup I was able to get the normal 1.0.6 version working again, so far without any problems.

David, thanks for the time you invested in this problem. I hope that the "delete everything version" remains downloadable to let me help myself if the problem should surface again. I will try to assist again as much as possible to make sure this is not a FreeNews problem (if I can).

Once again it shows: technical support for FreeNews is actually great, just as last time I had a problem with it. I just make sure in future I contact you directly instead of relying on the support email address. <grin>