Logbook Pro for iPhone crashing, and other comments...

[PilotFlying]

Hi Neal,

Yes, those steps are correct.

From step 1 to 2 (apmode ON and back into Logbook Pro) will cause a sync to trigger because you are resuming the app. When going from Device Settings and then into Logbook Pro triggers the resume, i.e. Sync on Start, and a timeout situation.

I do not get a crash here.

apmode to OFF and then resume "could" depending on whether the device has found a connection yet or not. It will go into "searching for service" and then connect.

This is where I get the crash; however, I always ensure the phone has found a signal and '3G' is displayed up top before resuming Logbook Pro.

Just to make sure I'm absolutely fixing the right thing, turn OFF sync on start and see if you can get a crash with the airplane mode switches.

I'll play around with this and let you know.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[Andy Adams]

Chris,

my conversion to local 24 hour time is always done to my home time zone for purposes of my logbook so i don't run into the 2 hour vs. 5 hour issue you mentioned. i currently have to keep track of this in my head when entering my times because as you said the company schedule is put in 24 hour time (per time zone) but the aircraft still does OOOI in zulu. so sometimes it looks like the flight is 15 minutes on the schedule when it's really 1:15.

Neal,

yeah the airport database is a good thing, but we could also have a selection in the program for "home time zone" to convert all times to. there is still the issue of the DST setting, but retrieving that info from the device or the computer should be doable, right? if nothing else, just a selection of "Use DST: yes or no". It's totally acceptable in my opinion for all of this to happen on the PC side of things. In that case I would simply do the "Use GMT" feature in the app and that would be the end of it.

the ability to do such a conversion remains my vote. for what it's worth...

 

[PilotFlying]

Hi Neal,

Just to make sure I'm absolutely fixing the right thing, turn OFF sync on start and see if you can get a crash with the airplane mode switches. I think turning Sync on Start to OFF will fix you for now. You'll sync on exit and manually by tapping Sync if desired.

I played around with this today and again tonight on another quick flight and I can't seem to reproduce the crash with 'sync on start' disabled, so it must be the time out problem you were referring to. Before disabling 'sync on start', I was also able to reproduce the crash you were getting with airplane mode set to ON.

I think what may be happening to cause my crashing after turning airplane mode OFF and re-enabling a data connection after a 5 hour flight is that for the first few minutes of re-connectivity there is so much data traffic as all the emails, push notifications, SMS messages, etc. from the last 5 hours start pouring in that Logbook Pro can't get the sync in before timing out. Does that sound at all plausible?

In any event, it sounds like you're onto something with your fix, and I'll have to wait and see to try it out. In the meantime, disabling 'sync on start' seems to be a reasonable workaround.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[Andy Adams]

I've started having multiple crashes in the app today and yesterday evening. I have been sitting in a hotel the whole time so have not turned on airplane mode at all during any of that time. It seems to follow a relatively repeatable pattern. The program has been suspended and not closed fully. Upon resume, it loads the most recent area I had been using and freezes there for approx 20 seconds maybe and then crashes. After that I immediately reopen the app and it goes to the splash screen and freezes there and then crashes. This will continue for a few tries afterward and if I close the app it seems to solve the problem. I also tried removing other apps from the recently used apps list and that also seemed to solve the problem although I did not have a lot of apps suspended. Only 6 or 8 (I have had MUCH more). I don't know if any of this is related to what chris has been experiencing since I'm not changing time zones nor going from airplane mode and back. I don't know anything about the crash reports he was mentioning. Is this something I should be able to send as well?

 

[Neal Culiner]

Andy,

Try turning off Sync on Start in the Settings/Sync and see if that resolves your problem until 1.0.5 comes out. It's probably a time out trying to reach the Internet.

 

[Neal Culiner]

Hello Chris, Andy, and other readers:

1.0.5 is now feature complete and will be in testing most of the day tomorrow and then if all checks good I'll publish the updates for both iPhone and iPad to Apple. A few of the new goodies are:

-Andy's suggestion for a Purge with option of ALL or Synced
-Fixes an issue with timezones where selecting a date outside the current daylight savings time window could result in the time being an hour off (i.e. January 2010 dates). This also causes the item date (History, Flight) etc. to be a day off in some situations as the data is stored as midnight so with the one hour error it rolls the date back
-Improved My Sync system with better return messages such as for invalid account credentials
-Legs is moved under Route in the top (required) section, although Legs is not a required item, it is strongly recommended to log it as a Leg is a Flight and Logbook Pro uses it for flight count
-If viewing a report and the app is suspended, the Sync on Start will pull the latest data but the report will show again with the old data. This is fixed the report will display the updated sync data on app resume
-You can now hide custom columns (by section, not individual column) - i.e. hide custom text (all), custom counter (all), etc.
-Fixed the error in SaveRecent you all reported
-Added the sync timeouts back in to fix the issue you reported with the app shutting down with no Internet connection
-Added the sync feedback spinner when app is resuming on iOS 4
-Added a few more high res images for iPhone 4
-AutoFill now occurs on the device
-Custom Text columns now recall last record data just like the PC edition and can be turned off in the options
-Other various enhancements...

Two items to review for possible adding to this release from the task tracker, but for the most part it's done and ready for extensive testing.

Thanks again for your outstanding feedback to help this app get better with every release.

 

[PilotFlying]

Wow!

Outstanding, Neal! I can't believe how much you were able to pack in there over the last couple of days. You even managed to include custom text recall and AutoFill - very, very cool!!!

Hopefully the testing goes well, and you're able to submit tomorrow. I'm looking forward to this one more than ever!

Thanks for your dedication to improving this app.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[Neal Culiner]

Version 1.0.5 has been published to Apple for both Logbook Pro iPhone & iPad. Will let you know when I get word on the review.

Thx again for the feedback to help improve this app for all.

 

[Andy Adams]

As chris said in the other thread, 1.0.5 brought lots of welcomed additions and the new layout is great. I specifically like the ability to hide custom fields since it makes my pre entries as well as entries nearly fit on one page and definitely requires much less scrolling.

However there are a few things I have to comment on. It's been a while since I had an opportunity to post so I've accumulated a few things here.

First I'll say the most easy fix. I've noticed that during the start up sync it seems to pause the rest of the app in the background while the spinner loads and displays. It definitely takes longer than a second for all that to happen and I find myself tapping the first pending flight entry (the one I just completed and want to update) multiple times and waiting until it will allow me to access it. The same goes for scrolling down if my task is pre entry of a trip. Don't know if this is something that can be addressed or if it's by design or possibly a result of my phone going slow due to apps suspended. But I think I can turn off sync on start as I have no real need for that and can always tap manual sync and I could get rid of that symptom.

The one thing that is annoying me the most is the auto calculate "calculator" icon. It seems that since 1.0.5 it has gotten harder to tap. I don't know if the Icon is smaller, the tappable area is smaller, or the autofill within the app is just slowing it down but I find myself tapping 3 and 4 times just to get it to work. Sometimes it puts a cursor into the text entry area instead which made me think the tappable area is smaller.

These next two kindof go hand in hand. I know this won't affect the people that don't use OOOI but what exactly is the difference between the date at the top of the entry screen and the date in the OOOI area? It seems that the OOOI Date doesn't mean anything because I've found myself pre entering flights and change the date under the OOOI area but forget to change it at the top of the entry screen on the "main date" area and when I go back to the flight list screen it shows that flight on the "main date" rather than the date entered in the OOOI area. It seems to me that the two should be linked somehow, like If I change the OOOI date, the main date should change to match it.

Along with that, kindof, if I pre enter flights out of order or have a schedule change during a trip and change some stuff around, the flight list page does not reorder the flights in chronological order. I'm guessing that has something to do with the OOOI time thing I mentioned above.

And finally we come to the picker wheel…again. Something about me and the picker wheel just don't mesh I guess or something. I have come across several times where I'm entering times and the time it ends up saving is one minute off of what I selected. I finally determined that sometimes the picker wheel will stop without completely rolling to the next number. In that case it remains on the last number it successfully scrolled past. Thus giving me the one minute error. I've found it happening quite a few times and I have to be careful to check for it. sometimes it's quite obvious and stops mid way between two numbers but other times it is really close to one or the other and looks like it's correctly selected the number i want but a close look does show that it's a tiny bit off. To be fair, this is not your fault because I have had it happen in other areas of the phone outside of the logbook pro app. However, it does bring me back to yet again another reason (I think a good reason) for the numpad entry style for OOOI times rather than the picker wheel. I haven't been able to determine exactly what causes this whether it be related to suspended app saturation or something else, but I can recreate it fairly easily. It does not happen if you tap the number you want but if you slide your finger and "spin" the wheel at a medium to slow speed it seems to be most common. * The dead giveaway is that it does not click to indicate a change in the selection (if you notice that or aren't on silent mode). I have several screenshots of this but still don't think I can attach them to the forum from the iPhone itself so the attachments will have to wait until next time I get on a computer. Possibly later today/tonight. You should be able to duplicate it relatively easily with a few minutes trial and error.*

Overall great update especially the new layout options. Hope you can address the calculator icon issue I mentioned though as it is a huge annoyance to me that didn't seem to exist prior to this update.*

 

[Neal Culiner]

Hello Andy,

First I'll say the most easy fix. I've noticed that during the start up sync it seems to pause the rest of the app in the background while the spinner loads and displays. It definitely takes longer than a second for all that to happen and I find myself tapping the first pending flight entry (the one I just completed and want to update) multiple times and waiting until it will allow me to access it.

I think this is simply the device bringing the app out of suspended state. I don't know if Apple is doing this but in the past what devs have done is take a "picture" of the last screen and that is shown at next startup to make it look like it's starting faster. Apple may be doing this so you're seeing the app in the last "state" while it's actually reloading in device memory. I do have a task to try and make that spinner show up immediately, I tried fiddling with it in 1.0.5 and was never able to get it but I'm not giving up. Just know that if you have Sync on Start to wait for the spinner to appear which means you can start using the app as it is resumed.

The one thing that is annoying me the most is the auto calculate "calculator" icon. It seems that since 1.0.5 it has gotten harder to tap.

It sure has for iPhone 4 users. I changed the image for Retina display compatibility and it reduced the tappable area because I did a trick for version 3.x to make the tappable area larger. I *will* have it fixed in 1.0.6 as I just need to do the same trick for the retina 4 (iPhone 4) system. It was never an issue in testing but you're the second person to mention it and I had a hunch it may be an issue. However, there is one thing to know about "tapping" when it comes to iPhone apps. In most apps it's not where you press "down" but instead where you release. Apple has a neat system for gestures (swipes) and also with this is it allows you to avoid inadvertent taps by sliding your finger off the tappable area if you touch something by accident. With that said, when tapping the calculator image it's important where you release your finger. So if you tap, slide left and then release, you'll miss the target. I suggest trying to release "up" on the left edge of the calc button for now, iPhone 3G/3GS and iPod users do not have this issue as much due to the trick in place.

These next two kindof go hand in hand. I know this won't affect the people that don't use OOOI but what exactly is the difference between the date at the top of the entry screen and the date in the OOOI area?

I see your point and you'll notice the OUT date/time initializes based off of your Flight Date. I'll have to think about this and see what others have for feedback. I could also add in a warning prompt that OUT is not the same as Flight Date and allow you to leave it, i.e. not be an error. There is probably a situation where you could have a flight date different from OUT. I remember in the Air Force something along this line when we night flew. The Flight Date was the calendar day such as Thursday yet we took of on Friday at 1 AM. Strange, but situations like this arise so I have to be careful about thinking OUT is going to be the same as Flight Date.

And finally we come to the picker wheel…again

This is the device, not the app, i.e. the native picker on the iPhone. It could happen to any use of this spinning UI that the iPhone has. You may have mentioned this but the trick is to tap the target date or time and the spinning wheel will change to align with that. For example, you may flick to spin the wheel and then when you see the exact time, don't try to touch/drag to align it with the result, instead just tap the result and the wheel will change to the tapped target date or time.

Hope some of this will help you overcome the items you raised. Thanks for the compliments. It will continue to get better, sales continue to amaze me and the bug reports are mostly educational problems, i.e. how to do something vs. problems now, which is great. Hopefully Apple can fix this suspended app situation, it's even affecting iPhone 4's now which I didn't think it would, I think they need to do like Android does which is kill older apps in suspended state as newer ones are used. Windows Mobile did the same thing.