#47 Crash while trying to edit a row on N900

[Anonymous]

If i try to edit the 4th line in a small 5-line-db on my Nokia N900 the screen changes into black and after a few seconds PortaBase closes.
This error appears only in that single line and only on the N900. When I use PortaBase for Mac OS X everything seems to be fine.
The cause should relate to the note-row, because - if i delete its content on the Mac and send the db back to the phone, then i can edit the line there.

[Jeremy Bowman]

Hmm...I haven't encountered this problem on my N900, and I've been using it pretty regularly. I do have a few files with note fields, and I seem to be able to edit rows with and without notes without difficulty. Is it a file you can email to me for testing? If not, can you create a new file that reproduces the problem? I don't know how long it'll take me to track this down without a test case.

[Tim Knapp]

Hi, I'm experiencing the same problem with my portabase db and it occurs on-and-off but is always related to editing 'Notes' fields. Any further progress with this at all? I could send you a copy of my Portabase DB if you like (does contain a little personal info but should be ok).

[Tim Knapp]

Just a bit of further detail - I was experiencing this issue every time I edited a particular 'Notes' field in a Portabase db row so I turned off/on the N900 and now I can successfully edit the row again.

[Tim Knapp]

I've since discovered that if the comment in the 'Note' field exceeds the display width in the 'edit' view it crashes PortaBase. The moment it exceeds the width by 1 character it crashes. Any way to fix this at hall? Thanks.

[Jeremy Bowman]

I've never been able to reproduce this; is it still happening for anybody? If so, please retest with PortaBase 2.1. I need a sample file or steps to reproduce to fix it.

[Anonymous]

Hi,
N900 crashed because of low battery while a portabase file was open. The file (Beobachtungen.pob) can't be opened. Is there a repaire mode for a corrupt database file?

[Jeremy Bowman]

I never did receive a test case for this or manage to reproduce it, so closing until/unless it comes up again. And with respect to the other question I apparently missed about recovering a corrupted file: it's somewhat surprising that you can't reopen the file just because of the crash, data is normally only written to a separate part of the file from the last saved data precisely in order to prevent that. You could try opening it with KitViewer (http://equi4.com/metakit/kitviewer.html) or mk4py (http://equi4.com/metakit/python.html), but might have to resort to examining the data with a hex editor if it's truly damaged. Let me know if you still want help recovering the data in this file, and next time please open a separate ticket. I'm in the process of switching development over to GitHub also, so that should make it easier to make sure that things like this don't fall through the cracks again.