Sync/crash issue: debug info (both free and premium versions)

[lesliebee]

NNW v1 was a pleasure to use. When NNW released v2, I experienced
repeated instability issues with syncing. The App would install
without problems, sync once or twice OK, and then crash
intermittently. Upgrading to the Premium version from the Free made no
difference. Uninstall/reinstall did not fix. Reset of iPhone (3.0GS)
did not fix. Reinstallation of v1 fixed the problem, but re-upgrade
recreated the problem.

I've done the following testing for you:
1. The App syncs OK for the first couple of syncs. The problem then
develops.
2. The crash does *not* occur instantly. I can see the bottom of the
screen giving update messages. It syncs, cleans up old items, gets
subs list, read/unread count, star list, updates read items, does
housekeeping, but the crash occurs the moment it reaches the 1st feed.
The crashes are being logged into my Mac's crash reporter during
iTunes iPhone syncs, so are presumably being reported back to Apple.
They are filed in crashreporter/mobiledevice/devicename/basebane/NNW
2. Deleting feeds one by one on Google Reader does not fix it UNTIL
there are no feeds left. If there are no feeds, the App is very
stable :-) But once feeds are added back, the instability returns.
3. ** It never crashes when syncing via WiFi ** This may be a key
finding of assistance to you
4. It crashes intermittently (i.e. about 95% of time but not100% as it
occasionally [=rarely] works) when synching via 3G (HSDPA)

So the problem seems to be crashing when downloading the actual feeds
via 3G.
And crashing does not occur when syncing via WiFi, only via 3G
And the problem never occurs if there are no feeds to sync and if it
just has to "go through the motions without doing anything"

I hope this is of assistance in debugging. The App is too unstable to
use via 3G at the moment.

PS - unrelated matter. The springboard badge count initially worked
(1st sync only) on NNW Free but was then "stuck" at that value. The
badge count has never worked on NNW Premium. Just mentioning it in
case the two issues are related. The badge count is a "nice to have
but not essential", while the crashing on 3G sync is "core
functionality".

[Brent Simmons]

I hope you're using 2.0.1, which fixed the most common crashing bug.
We've had 2.0.2 in review for a week -- it fixes more crashing bugs.
In fact, it fixes all but the most rare of crashing bugs. It should be
available any day now -- perhaps even later today.

-Brent

PS There's still more to do, of course, and I'm working on 2.0.3.

[lesliebee]

Yes, definitely using 2.0.1

On Nov 7, 10:24 am, Brent Simmons <bre...@newsgator.com> wrote:
> I hope you're using 2.0.1, which fixed the most common crashing bug.
 
> We've had 2.0.2 in review for a week -- it fixes more crashing bugs.  
> In fact, it fixes all but the most rare of crashing bugs. It should be  
> available any day now -- perhaps even later today.
>

I'll let you know how it goes when it is available.
Many thanks

[lesliebee]

>
> On Nov 7, 10:24 am, Brent Simmons <bre...@newsgator.com> wrote:> I hope you're using 2.0.1, which fixed the most common crashing bug.
>  
> > We've had 2.0.2 in review for a week -- it fixes more crashing bugs.  
> > In fact, it fixes all but the most rare of crashing bugs. It should be  
> > available any day now -- perhaps even later today.
>
>

Dear Brent - good news and bad news I'm afraid.

2.0.2 is now available and I have upgraded and installed it.
Good news: The crashing has been fixed. Now stable with both WiFi and
3GHSDPA

Bad news: While the App works as intended under WiFi, there is still
something seriously wrong under 3G, but the behaviour of the bug has
changed.

When I try to sync under 3G, it no longer crashes. I can see the
status bar flashing through all my feeds, but at the end, there are NO
new items to display in the App. However, if I log onto GoogleReader,
there are lots. So syncing under 3G fails to download anything and
also fails to update the read/unread status.
However, if I sync with WiFi, everything works just fine. All syncs.

I've tried uninstall/reinstall, and I've also rebooted my iPhone. Same
behaviour as outlined above.

I hope this testing is of help to you in pinpointing where the bug may
be. I'm happy to do some testing for you if you need more info.

Leslie

[Brent Simmons]

On Nov 10, 2009, at 12:27 AM, lesliebee wrote:

>
>>
>> On Nov 7, 10:24 am, Brent Simmons <bre...@newsgator.com> wrote:> I hope you're using 2.0.1, which fixed the most common crashing bug.
>>
>>> We've had 2.0.2 in review for a week -- it fixes more crashing bugs.
>>> In fact, it fixes all but the most rare of crashing bugs. It should be
>>> available any day now -- perhaps even later today.
>>
>>
> Dear Brent - good news and bad news I'm afraid.
>
> 2.0.2 is now available and I have upgraded and installed it.
> Good news: The crashing has been fixed. Now stable with both WiFi and
> 3GHSDPA

Great!

>
> Bad news: While the App works as intended under WiFi, there is still
> something seriously wrong under 3G, but the behaviour of the bug has
> changed.
>
> When I try to sync under 3G, it no longer crashes. I can see the
> status bar flashing through all my feeds, but at the end, there are NO
> new items to display in the App. However, if I log onto GoogleReader,
> there are lots. So syncing under 3G fails to download anything and
> also fails to update the read/unread status.
> However, if I sync with WiFi, everything works just fine. All syncs.
>
> I've tried uninstall/reinstall, and I've also rebooted my iPhone. Same
> behaviour as outlined above.
>
> I hope this testing is of help to you in pinpointing where the bug may
> be. I'm happy to do some testing for you if you need more info.

I use it myself with 3G, and I haven't been getting a bunch of bug reports like this, so it's not a general bug. My guess is that it's timing out.

Have you tried it from a different location, where you're likely to be connected by a different connection? If so, does it always not work, or does it work from different locations?

-Brent

[lesliebee]

>
> I use it myself with 3G, and I haven't been getting a bunch of bug reports like this, so it's not a general bug. My guess is that it's timing out.
>

It does seem to behave like a timeout or other sync issue

> Have you tried it from a different location, where you're likely to be connected by a different connection? If so, does it always not work, or does it work from different locations?
>

Yes, definitely tested from LOTS of different locations, even in
different cities. My connection is HSDPA via Telstra (the fastest of
the local Telcos). SpeedTest App reports at the moment for 3G:
Ping 302ms, Download 1200kpbs, Upload 283 kpbs

I have no problem in syncing a half-dozen other RSS readers I have
tested during debug attempts of NNW.

A clue may be the following:
I have just tried syncing via 3G. In the status line at the bottom of
NNW:
1. Run #1 I can see it starting, updating read item counts, changing
status, downloading... etc. but at the end nothing has changed - no
new updates. But I definitely saw the status line showing NUMBERS of
read items being updated.
2. Run #2. I reran it. This time I could see the status line flashing
by, but NO NUMBERS to be updated. TJust the names of the feeds.
3. So I turned on WiFi
4. And Run #3, only 30 seconds after run #2, had the status line
flashing past, and now I have 77 new items in my latest news.

So I think you have fixed the crashing issue (which may have been a
sync/timeout problem) but there is definitely a real bug in the
changing of the update flags. Using 3G, the status changed between run
#1 and run #2 (so 3G is communicating and changing status on the
iPhone) but not downloading unread items from Google.
But with WiFi, it all works normally.

Sorry I can't be more help. It's hard to reverse engineer from the end
user end without access to code :-)

Leslie

[Brent Simmons]

I found via Google an issue with Telstra and Google Reader. Since NetNewsWire is also talking to Google Reader, it would be affected by the same thing.

http://getsatisfaction.com/google_reader/topics/_oops_an_error_occurred_on_iphone

If you open Safari in your iPhone, and go to Google Reader, do things work normally -- or do you have a similar problem as the above?

http://www.google.com/reader/view/

(It appears to be a weird proxy with Telstra.)

-Brent

PS Found another report, this time talking about other apps that sync with Google Reader on the iPhone and have similar problems:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1251110.html

It's possible that the solution is to have NetNewsWire always use SSL. (Make it a pref, for people like you that need it.)

[lesliebee]

Dear Brent
I think you are right!!
I can't access Google Reader from my iPhone in Safari while using
Telstra 3G (I get "Oops an error occurred..." message), but if I
switch to WiFi, the problem instantly disappears and I get both normal
access to Reader *and* NNW starts working.
So it does fit with the problem being how Telstra handles the proxy
server connection to Google Reader feeds.
This would also explain why the old NNW version 1 (using Newsgator
feeds rather than Google Reader feeds) works.

Good detective work. Congrats and well done.

But poor me (and other Australian Telstra users)... As you hint, can
we live in hope that NNW v 2.0.3 or beyond will have a preference to
allow use of SSL? Please?

In hope and anticipation...

Leslie

PS - and thank you for your investigation of this problem, even if the
solution turned out not to be so simple

On Nov 10, 10:12 pm, Brent Simmons <bre...@newsgator.com> wrote:
>
> I found via Google an issue with Telstra and Google Reader. Since NetNewsWire is also talking to Google Reader, it would be affected by the same thing.
>

> http://getsatisfaction.com/google_reader/topics/_oops_an_error_occurr...

[lesliebee]

This problem has suddenly resolved itself. During the last week of
November 2009, the problem with Telstra blocking access to Google
Reader (and thus to NNW) suddenly resolved. One day it wasn't working,
next day it was working just fine. Has consistently performed since
then. One can only presume that Telstra has fixed the issue from their
end.
I've tried to post a note on the iTunes store as feedback to the App,
but my review was not accepted, so I'm letting you know via Newsgroup.
Australia/Telstra is now online it seems.

[Brent Simmons]

Awesome -- great news. Thanks, Leslie, for letting me know.

-Brent

On Wed, Dec 09, 2009 at 11:53:00PM -0700, lesliebee wrote:
> This problem has suddenly resolved itself. During the last week of
> November 2009, the problem with Telstra blocking access to Google
> Reader (and thus to NNW) suddenly resolved. One day it wasn't working,
> next day it was working just fine. Has consistently performed since
> then. One can only presume that Telstra has fixed the issue from their
> end.
> I've tried to post a note on the iTunes store as feedback to the App,
> but my review was not accepted, so I'm letting you know via Newsgroup.
> Australia/Telstra is now online it seems.
>
>
> On Nov 11, 9:22?pm, lesliebee <temp.leslie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear Brent
> > I think you are right!!
> > I can't access Google Reader from my iPhone in Safari while using
> > Telstra 3G (I get "Oops an error occurred..." message), but if I
> > switch to WiFi, the problem instantly disappears and I get both normal
> > access to Reader *and* NNW starts working.
> > So it does fit with the problem being how Telstra handles the proxy
> > server connection to Google Reader feeds.
> > This would also explain why the old NNW version 1 (using Newsgator
> > feeds rather than Google Reader feeds) works.
> >
> > Good detective work. Congrats and well done.
> >
> > But poor me (and other Australian Telstra users)... As you hint, can
> > we live in hope that NNW v 2.0.3 or beyond will have a preference to

> > allow use of SSL? ?Please?