DockRunner problem

[roxito]

I just installed the DockRunner from the market yesterday. And I now i have a problem that is a bit different than the one reported by so far.

Now the desktop screen is always in fixed to Vertical mode, no matter how i hold the Droid. All the apps change orientation automatically when i turn the phone.. only the main desktop wont change. Only if I pull out the keyboard it changes orientation.

I tried the foll things:
- I quit the app by running it again,
- Uninstalled DockRunner,
- rebooted the phone,
- Even pulled out the battery
- and also toggled the option to auto rotate the screen in the phone settings.

-RN

 

[droppedd]

Unfortunately that's nothing to do with DockRunner... it's a known and
widely reported bug with the Droid / Android 2.0. Been happening to my
phone since a few days after I got it. Whatever's going on with the
home screen orientation behavior change, Motorola/Google managed to
break things somehow on their own.

here's an example thread on it:
https://supportforums.motorola.com/...2D4CE539FC9ADB8277943.node0?start=15&tstart=0

Motorola's not really being too open about the issue, and there are
some reports that landscape home with keyboard closed was never
supposed to work at all... but then, autorotate *does* work in the car dock (try it with a magnet). Ugh!

 

[roxito]

Thanks. So it is possible that this problem is not a DockRunner bug.. but that of the Android OS and was just waiting to happen. DockRunner just tripped over it. I didnt find anyone trying out a factory reset for this. I am hesitant to do this as i might lose all the contacts on the Droid.

 

[droppedd]

The magic of the Google contact synching is that you won't lose any contact info at all on a hard reset (just double-check that they're all in there in your gmail from a computer). In fact, I think Android 2.0 even does bookmark synching, and you should also still have all your paid app licenses, too.

 

[droppedd]

Oh one other thing: if you're not particularly attached to the built-in Home app, third-party home replacement apps do auto-rotate (or at least, all the ones with normal app options) - no wipe required.

 

[roxito]

Oh nice. I didn't realize that my contacts on the cell phone were automatically transferred to my gmail account.
Does a hard reset require the phone to be reactivated for my phone # ? Thanks again.

 

[droppedd]

Does a hard reset require the phone to be reactivated for my phone # ?

I don't believe so - you'll just have to re-enter your Google login info to kick off the synchronization.

 

[denlem]

Does a hard reset require the phone to be reactivated for my phone # ?

I don't believe so - you'll just have to re-enter your Google login info to kick off the synchronization.

I've done a couple of resets and the phone WILL need to be re-activated. The phone will prompt you for it after the reset.

 

[droppedd]

I've done a couple of resets and the phone WILL need to be re-activated. The phone will prompt you for it after the reset.

Hm good to know. I've only ever hard-reset my old G1, which just asks for the Google login info. But I guess that's the advantage of SIM-locking GSM.

 

[Fawkes]

Dockrunner and home page orientation

I think I disagree about the reason for the home page orientation problem.

I installed the Dockrunner after a magnetic closure in my carrying case caused me to discover the docking mode.

HOWEVER, if you look at the application information by examining it in the "app store" after it has been installed, you will see that it uses a security feature called a sticky broadcast.

I am guessing that in order to force the multimedia screen into a landscape orientation, this broadcast is used. When you turn Dockrunner off, it likely sends another event to force the home screen to portrait.

If I read the documentation correctly (and I have only read some of the coding documentation), it seems that these sticky broadcasts hang around forever - probably written to an internal xml file.

I think that if this sticky broadcast could be cleared, you would find that the phone would revert to the previous behavior.

Do we have any experienced coders here that know the answer?

 

[droppedd]

Fawkes,

Good sleuthing - but you're wrong about what exactly it's sending as a stick broadcast. I'm the author of DockRunner - I can tell you definitively, here's the only stickies it sends.
ACTION_DOCK_EVENT with EXTRA_DOCK_STATE: EXTRA_DOCK_STATE_DESK;
and then
ACTION_DOCK_EVENT with EXTRA_DOCK_STATE: EXTRA_DOCK_STATE_UNDOCKED.

As you can see, nothing about forcing landscape or portrait (in fact, no such sticky broadcasts exist).

The final proof it's not DockRunner and that the broken landscape home is the intended system behavior?
I used a Google employee friend's Nexus One last week (which can't even use DockRunner) and there was no autorotating home on it.

Sorry! I think it's silly too -- but it's not DockRunner's fault.

 

[Sam]

i was confused by this too after installing dockrunner, but as i understand it, the original OS was never intended to go into landscape (on the home screen) unless you open the slider. it as just something i had missed before, or never thought was odd.

your droid will still do landscape at all the times it is/was supposed to before you installed dockrunner, you have now just noticed that it only does portrait on the native home screen, which is normal.

 

[Fawkes]

Then the OS has a bug...

Thanks, droppedd. It would seem that the code you post shouldn't lead to the behavior so many of us have seen.

It is curious that there is similarity for many of us.

If the OS isn't supposed to allow landscape orientation of the home screen, it would seem that a good many (if not all droids) are being shipped that exhibit behavior that "isn't intended". A bit like Microsoft saying that you should be able to use CTL-ALT-DEL to lock and unlock your session in Windows and then suddenly only being able to unlock it after some nebulous event.

It sure seem like something is changing state in the OS. I guess we could pour over the OS source.

/boggle...

 

[roxito]

droppedd,
You should clearly state that installing your DockRunner app could permanently disable the auto rotate functionality on the Droid. Even if Google/Motorola never officially intended this auto rotate to work.. it worked on my phone and i liked it that way. It may not be a fault in your code, that the auto rotate stops working... but that does not absolve you from clearly stating it to users. You are responsible for the many Droids that don't autorotate anymore!

I even tried hard resetting my Droid and the problem does not go away. I hate the day I tried the damn DockRunner.

 

[droppedd]

Roxito,

You're misunderstanding. It really was never supposed to autorotate -- and for most people, it never did. I'd also bet they "fixed" the autorotate in 2.0.1 to never happen at all.

Certainly there's no possibility at all that *any* userspace (non-root) application could set anything that a hard-reset wouldn't fix! Android has a pretty serious permissions system and like I said, the only system setting it changes it sets back after exiting - and is functionally identical to what happens when you use the real hardware dock.

People are mistaking correlation (noticing autorotate doesn't behave as expected around the time they installed dockrunner) with causation.

Again: see Motorola's official page about the issue https://supportforums.motorola.com/...74C2BDB82ACE7A8D8BF30A6BB46269.node0?tstart=0
before laying any blame anywhere but on Motorola and Google.