WM Alarm Bug - Notification/Alarm issues

Ebag333 · 12/31/2008, 03:08 PM

Now, I don't have that many notifications, so I'd never experienced this bug. But I have seen several threads on it, so when I stumbled across the fix on AGEye.de, I figured I'd post it here.

Note that this is a Windows Mobile bug, and not an 800w specific one, so this should work on just about any device.

Quote:

Windows alarm bug

Windows Mobile has on some devices a strange behaviour: Although an alarm is successfully added to the WM notification queue (it's like a scheduler) it doesn't go off.

Searching the web gave me following information:
At midnight WM rebuilds the notification queue, therefore it wakes up for about 15 seconds. If the notification queue is too big or the device too slow WM goes to sleep again before it could finish building the queue for the next day.

If you force WM too stay awake for a longer time, it should successfully build the queue on at least more devices.

If you start G-Alarm and it complains about the Windows alarm bug, you've got the default WM settings (15 seconds WakeUpTime). If you press "Yes" G-Alarm changes it to 120 seconds which should be enough.

Here are the registry values G-Alarm changes:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\Timeouts\ACResumingSuspendTimeout
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\Timeouts\BattResumingSuspendTimeout

To fix you can change the registry values manually, or I've provided a .CAB file at the bottom of this post.

Note that you will need to wait for the notifications queue to be rebuilt before you will see this fix take effect. (Meaning that the fix may not take effect for up to 24 hours.)

Ebag333 · 12/31/2008, 03:12 PM

I've added this to the bug list (under WM bugs) and the FAQ. Hopefully someone finds it useful.

prubin · 12/31/2008, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ebag333

Now, I don't have that many notifications, so I'd never experienced this bug. But I have seen several threads on it, so when I stumbled across the fix on AGEye.de, I figured I'd post it here.

Note that this is a Windows Mobile bug, and not an 800w specific one, so this should work on just about any device.

To fix you can change the registry values manually, or I've provided a .CAB file at the bottom of this post.

Note that you will need to wait for the notifications queue to be rebuilt before you will see this fix take effect.

Downloaded, cab. it would not install: "Installation unsuccessful"

Ebag333 · 12/31/2008, 09:54 PM

Try installing after a soft reset. This installed just fine for me....

bclinger · 01/01/2009, 12:21 AM

My timeout values were all ready set to 120 with pTravelAlarm.

mbw163 · 01/01/2009, 04:47 PM

Thanks for the tip!

I can't say that I have been having too many problems with the notifications/ alarms not working, but might as well do this to prevent anything from occurring in the future.

JwY · 01/04/2009, 02:27 PM

Good tip. I've used this a while ago. Notifications go a bit crazy if something lowers it below the default. For example, for some reason, my email was inconsistent in receiving and it turns out the value was set to 5. Increasing it back should fix it.

So this is a good hack to do and a good place to check if you're having notification or alarm issues.

rc46 · 01/04/2009, 04:41 PM

Thanks Ebag333! This just might be the cure to my over night freeze-ups that I always thought were caused by TreoAlerts.

Time will tell!

Ebag333 · 01/04/2009, 04:46 PM

Yup! Poor Hannip getting blamed for WM bugs!

(At least I hope it fixes it, otherwise it really might be a problem with TA!)

rc46 · 01/05/2009, 11:03 AM

For the first time in over a week my phone made it through the night with out freezing and my alarm actually went off this morning.

Need more testing to be sure but this could end up being a very important tip those that get lots of notifications.

bclinger · 01/07/2009, 01:52 PM

Turns out that pTravelAlarm also has issues. Set a new alarm to go off, disabled a daily alarm and gosh, both went off. Thing is, I am not getting alarms out of nowhere in the middle of the day.

rc46 · 01/07/2009, 02:06 PM

This bug is for real. (Ebagg333 to the rescue) Increasing the wake up time to 120 seconds will help keep your notification queue bug free and prevent the overnight freezes and morning instability that a lot of us have been experiencing.

After reading this thread and making the changes I remembered that MemMaid had some options regarding the notification queue. Which are
-Delete Duplicate Notifications
-Delete Dangling Notifications
-Delete Invalid Notifications
and finally Rebuild Notification Queue.

When I scanned my device with Memmaid I had over 500 duplicate notifications, 100+ dangling notifications and 100+ Invalid Notifications. I had MemMaid clean them all and Rebuild the Notification Queue. So far my Treo had been rock solid stable.

The only problem is I ran MemMaid before I had a chance to see if the Registry change alone would have fixed the problem? My guess is that if you queue is not too bad already then the 120 second nightly rebuild might be all you need. But if your queue was as bad as mine you might need a tool like MemMaid in concert with the registry change.

Ebag333 · 01/07/2009, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rc46

My guess is that if you queue is not too bad already then the 120 second nightly rebuild might be all you need. But if your queue was as bad as mine you might need a tool like MemMaid in concert with the registry change.

Words of wisdom.

This won't fix your notification problem if you have serious issues with it (like rc46

). But for those of us who have just a few notifications too many, it should resolve a lot of issues.

rc46 · 01/10/2009, 03:39 PM

I just wanted to add that this thread has changed my 800w. It has been rock solid stable for over a week now since I cleaned up my notification queue. If you are having any problems with freezing or instability I highly recommend making these registry changes.

gbp · 01/12/2009, 03:03 PM

ebagg333
I did install it
it says unsuccessful.
I am going to do a soft reset and try it again.

gbp · 01/12/2009, 03:06 PM

nope
tried again.

MY issue is that the alarms are not working ( no sound comes out).
Last time I had this issue I did a hard reset then went on installing all the other programs.
This time I am sick of doing the hard reset.

Ebag333 · 01/12/2009, 03:33 PM

If you can't get the installer to work, just go in and change it manually through the registry (reg key is in the first post).

gbp · 01/24/2009, 01:09 AM

Ebag333,
I didn't install the Galarm.
I am using the windows alarm. Which goes of at the right time , but no alarm sound. All it does is vibrate.
Is there a way around for this.
Last time it happened, SPRINT told me to hard reset. Which worked for me.
But the issue resurfaced after a month.
Annoying this thing.

Ebag333 · 01/24/2009, 01:14 AM

Could be some software you're using.

If you get the vibrate/notification, then it's working properly. Are you sure you have the volume up, and that there is a sound assigned to your notification?

gbp · 01/24/2009, 10:33 AM

yes, I played with all the volume settings, even installed your fix using the QPST to increase volume. Alarm is different from the reminders (which are from outlook) . The reminders work just fine. Alarm does go off but only vibration.
The extra software I installed on my phone are OPERA, Google Maps, TCPMP player,SkyFire, Weatherbug and mMoice. I am not sure how these software affect the volume. The only possible suspicion is mVoice.

SPRINT is horrible in answering the technical issues. Their stock answer is , hard reset the phone and it shoud be fine. I have done that at least five to six times.

The alarm worked fine after installing the software. Everything was smooth, life was good, suddenly the thing stops. I remember installing no software at least 10 days before and 10 days after my noticing of the alarm failure.

For now I am going to try GAlarm.

But I love the phone though, its a tank. Its my first PALM phone !!!!!!!!.