Category Archives: Troubleshooting

Setting up a Wireless Network on Linux: Ralink 3062 and Network Manager

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Kelson

Ah, memories! These days, setting up hardware on Linux is often easier than it is in Windows. Lots of drivers are built-in and auto-detected, and many are provided through a distribution channel that makes it almost as easy.

Wireless networking, however, is a bit of a throwback to the old days. Half the hardware doesn’t have Linux drivers, and half of the devices that do require you to hunt for the driver — based on the chipset, of course, not on the name or model number on the box — and compile it yourself. (At least these days, you can sometimes run a tool to adapt the Windows drivers if there’s no native Linux option.)

The steps I actually needed to take to set up wifi on my Fedora 13 desktop probably only amounted to about 10 minutes. Unfortunately it took a lot of false starts to get there. I had installed a Zonet ZEW1642 PCI card, which my initial research suggested would be supported by the built-in rt2860 drivers. As it turned out, it wasn’t that simple. Continue reading →

Posted in Linux, Troubleshooting | Tagged , , , , | 18 Comments

Android Stops Syncing When Low on Space

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Kelson

A few months ago, my phone stopped syncing contacts and messages (including missed-call and voice mail notices!) after I installed a new app. Email and text messages flooded in the moment I uninstalled it. At the time, I figured it could be the app, or it could simply be that the phone doesn’t sync if it’s low on space.

Now I know: It’s the lack of space.

Last night I updated Gesture Search, which pushed the phone into low-space territory. I figured I’d deal with it later. This morning, I noticed that it wasn’t reporting new messages on Gmail. Reluctant to uninstall any more apps, I followed Katie’s suggestion of clearing out old text messages…and freed up 1.5 MB. (I figure it’s the pictures. They’d better be worth 1,000 words, because they take up a lot more disk space.) A few seconds later, the @ popped into the notification bar.

You’d think that 7+ MB would be plenty of room to download email and text messages, or tell the notification system to pop up a new icon. As near as I can tell, though, if the “Low on Space” icon is visible, Android won’t sync anything.

Next time, I’ll make a point of cleaning things up quickly.

With luck, this won’t be a problem with my next phone. (Yeah, I’m still on the G1.) Whether I go for a Samsung Vibrant, a G2, or something else, it should have more storage on the phone and the ability to install apps to the SD card.

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Quick Fix: WordPress Social Homes and LinkedIn Icon

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Kelson

The Social Homes plugin for WordPress displays a list of icons linking to your various social networking profiles* as a sidebar widget. When you update your list of sites, it calls out and automatically detects the location of each icon.

Unfortunately, the detection doesn’t work on LinkedIn, leaving your blog with a broken image, empty square or text label, depending on the visitor’s web browser. The plugin developer is aware of the issue, but several months have gone by with no fix.

So I’ve fixed it. Here’s how you can fix it on your blog.

Technical Details

First, some background. The problem is that Social Homes is expecting to see this pattern:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/path-to-icon">

But LinkedIn is using this equally valid pattern:

<link href="/path-to-icon" rel="shortcut icon">

This would be okay if it simply failed to find the icon, because it would fall back to /favicon.ico … which happens to be correct for LinkedIn. Instead it’s skipping past the end of the tag and picking up the next reference, which is currently a stylesheet.

The Fix

The simplest fix** is to just make sure it stops at the end of the tag, and let it fall back to favicon.ico.

Here’s what to do. Open up social-homes.php and look for the section titled, “Social Homes service parser.” The function you want is called widget_socialhomes_parse_service

Look for the section labeled, “grab the favicon” and find these two lines:

$tmpIcon1 = split('"shortcut icon"', $contents);
$tmpIcon2 = split('href="', $tmpIcon1[0]);

Add the middle line below, and change tmpIcon1[1] to tmpIcon1a[1] in what’s now the third line:

$tmpIcon1 = split('"shortcut icon"', $contents);
$tmpIcon1a = split('>', $tmpIcon1[1]);
$tmpIcon2 = split('href="', $tmpIcon1a[0]);

That’s it! All you have to do now is go back into your Widgets config, open up the Social Homes widget, and re-save it!

*Technically, you can link to any website, whether it’s a social networking profile or not, but that’s the original intent.

**A more proper fix would be to change the way Social Homes looks for the icon so that it doesn’t depend on the link attributes being in the same order, but this is a simpler change.

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Mac OS X Finder Deleting Files on a Linux Share (Solved)

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Kelson

Last week I connected to my Linux desktop from my Mac laptop, and Finder wouldn’t let me copy files over to the Linux box. Even stranger, it would delete the original file on the share after stating that it didn’t have permission to access it!

The error message it kept popping up was:

The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items.

So it didn’t have permission to access or save the items, but it had permission to delete them? Clearly the error message wasn’t telling the whole story!

Even stranger: if I opened a file with an application like TextWrangler or NeoOffice, they had no problem saving it! It was only Finder that had the problem!

Now, I’ve successfully transferred files back and forth between these computers many times before, but I had changed two things recently:

  • Upgraded the Linux box to Fedora 13.
  • Installed the Mac OS X 10.6.4 update to Snow Leopard.

I didn’t have much luck searching online, maybe because I was looking for the wrong terms. The closest I came up with were discussions like this one, but they all involved a server using netatalk or other AFP file sharing implementations. I’ve been using samba (Windows-Style SMB shares) on the Linux box ever since I had some problems with Netatalk and decided that since the Mac would connect via Samba, I wouldn’t worry about it.

I idly posted the problem on Twitter. My brother replied that he’d run into the same problem (on Ubuntu, IIRC), and suggested turning off Unix extensions in Samba. That meant opening up /etc/samba/smb.conf on the Linux box and adding the following line to the “Filesystem Options” section:

unix extensions = no

I restarted Samba on the Linux box, and that was it. The Mac was able to copy files over without any errors!

I hope this post helps someone else solve the same problem.

Posted in Apple, Linux, Troubleshooting | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

G1 Sync & Texts Blocked? Check Your Apps!

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Kelson

Sometime last week I noticed that I hadn’t received some alerts sent by text message to my phone. I figured it was probably a transient problem with the email-to-SMS gateway and didn’t think much more of it. Then on Sunday I added a contact to my address book in Gmail, and it still hadn’t synced to my phone a half-hour later. Again, I figured it was just a hiccup.

Yesterday, some more email-to-SMS texts vanished into the ether. I figured something must be up with the gateway, so I changed the alerts so that they would also send to my Gmail account, figuring that if the text messages failed, I’d still get a notice.

They didn’t show up either.

That’s when I realized that nothing on the phone was actually syncing: Not Gmail, not the contacts, not the calendar…and it just wasn’t receiving text messages at all.

I tried turning sync off and back on, manually syncing, restarting the phone (both a hard reset cycling the power and a soft reset, sort of the Ctrl-Alt-Delete equivalent using the green, red and menu buttons together), even clearing all the local data for Gmail, Gmail storage, and Calendar storage.

Well, none of that worked. It marked all the apps for syncing, but wouldn’t actually start.

So it was time to backtrack: What had I changed recently?

Well, I’d updated several apps. Off the top of my head I could think of Twidroid Pro and the Weather Channel, but I couldn’t remember what else.

I’d also installed a new app, Layar, an augmented reality app which I’d seen in an ad for some other phone last week, but hadn’t actually gotten around to trying out. Adding it triggered a low space warning, but the phone still had 6.8 MB free, which ought to have been plenty.

Curiously enough, the last successful sync was right around the time that I installed Layar. Hmm…

Okay, what the heck. I uninstalled it. Within seconds, the phone bleeped and picked up the test messages I’d sent to Gmail. Within a minute, several text messages arrived, including my test from this morning and two alerts from last night.

Well, that was certainly suspicious.

So I installed it again, and this time actually opened the app to try it out (making it display the location of pizza places as seen from my desk), and sent myself a test message at Gmail. I can’t say I was surprised when the test message showed up on my desktop, but not on my phone, even when I manually refreshed my inbox in Gmail. Within a minute of uninstalling the app again, the message showed up.

So, no Layar for me. I don’t know if it doesn’t work with the G1, with Android 1.6, or with something else I have on the phone…or if it’s not Layar at all, and the phone just needs more space to sync.

The message is clear, though: If your phone stops syncing, or stops receiving text messages, look at what’s changed. There’s a good chance that the problem is related.

Update: It’s been about half an hour, and the voice mail notice just popped up…for a couple of messages I received on Sunday! It looks like the problem was blocking everything that used the standard sync/notify system on the phone. Twidroid was working, so I guess it must use its own system.

Update 2: I’ve confirmed that it’s just the low space, not the particular app, that causes the problem.

Posted in Computers/Internet, Troubleshooting | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

How to Get Rid of Windows Live Messenger

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Kelson

You know how it goes. You install something that you think might be useful or interesting, and it installs something else that just. won’t. go. away. I ran into the problem while setting up a new Windows 7 system at work. I installed Windows Live Essentials mainly so that I’d have them available if I ever had to talk someone through tech support, and it included Windows Live Messenger.

I don’t use Windows Live Messenger. I don’t even have an account on Windows Live Messenger. But every time I logged in to my system, WLM would pop up a window and ask me to log in. Every single time.

There was no obvious way to disable it, and most of the suggestions I found online only applied to earlier versions of Windows.

It doesn’t provide an option to stop it from launching on startup. Or rather, it does, but only if you’ve logged into WLM. Since I didn’t have an account, I couldn’t do that, and I wasn’t about to create one just to turn it off!

It wasn’t in the Start-Up folder.

I didn’t see it in Services, so I couldn’t disable it there.

I tried running System Configuration and disabling it in the Startup tab, but that didn’t work.

I couldn’t even find it in the list of programs to uninstall.

But you know what?

I finally got rid of it! And it was easier than I expected.

It turns out that if you uninstall Windows Live Essentials, you don’t have to remove the whole thing. You can choose which pieces to remove! Just tell it to uninstall, and it’ll bring up a checklist of the pieces that are on the system. Check off Windows Live Messenger, leave the pieces you want to keep, and hit Continue.

Done!

Posted in Annoyances, Computers/Internet, Troubleshooting | Tagged , , , , | 21 Comments

Nepomuk

Posted on March 18, 2010 by Kelson

I think I finally fixed it.

This stupid “OMG Nepomuk is not running!” error has been dogging me every time I launch KMail, ever since Fedora upgraded KDE. I followed all the directions on fixing Akonadi, and nothing worked. Finally, it turned out that there was a config file telling it to load the old-style “redland” database — which doesn’t exist in current versions of Nepomuk — instead of the new “virtuoso” database.

The file was in ~.kde/share/config/nepomukserverrc and the item in question is “Used Soprano Backend.” I changed it from “redland” to “virtuosobackend” as described here and now it actually starts Nepomuk, and KMail doesn’t complain when I start it!

Someone at KDE decided to massively overcomplicate things!

*grumble*

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Why Google Buzz Won’t Run on Your Android Phone (Yet)

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Kelson

I’ve been hoping to try out Google Buzz, but it hasn’t hit my Gmail account yet and it won’t run on my phone*…even though it’s a web app. Comments at Android and Me and at Mashable show that I’m not alone.

It turns out that Buzz uses HTML5 features (specifically appcache, database and location) to store local data and to detect your physical location…and those capabilities were added in Android 2.0.

The support thread mentions that they are “working on another version that will make Buzz for mobile accessible on older Android OS versions (and some other smartphones as well).” The browser in Android 1.6 and below supports similar capabilities through Gears, so they may be planning a Gears-based workaround.

This would be a lot less of an issue if it weren’t for the fact that most of the Android phones out there still run 1.6 or even Android 1.5. IIRC only the Droid and Nexus One have officially been updated to 2.0 so far**, so unless you have one of those two models, you’re more likely to get Buzz to run on an iPhone than Android.

Funny, that.

*I’ve got a G1. It can only access Buzz through the updated Maps app, which brought up a bunch of people in nearby office parks posting things like “Testing Buzz” and “WTF is Google Buzz?”

**A few other phones have had updates announced, but I don’t think any have actually shipped yet. I could be wrong.

Posted in Computers/Internet, Troubleshooting | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Android Browser Using Extra Space? Check Gears!

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Kelson

I finally found out what’s been taking up so much space on the Android web browser on my G1: Gears!

Whenever the low-on-space warning* icon shows up on the phone, I open up the list of applications. Then I sort it by size, look for the largest apps that I don’t use anymore, and start uninstalling.

“Browser” is always high on the list, but it’s all data. While I could free up the space by telling it to clear everything, I want to hang onto things like bookmarks. Each time the icon popped up, I’d go back to the app, open up More and then Settings, and clear the cache, or the history, or cookies**, one category at a time.

Then I’d go back to the App list and it would still be using up several megabytes of space.

Yesterday, it occurred to me to check the Gears settings. Months ago, I’d set up two WordPress blogs with Turbo mode, which uses Gears as a permanent cache for the admin area. It’s great on a desktop or laptop with lots of local space and a slow or flaky Internet connection. But it wasn’t helping me much, because…

  • WordPress Turbo Mode is only really useful if you use the rich-text editor, which I don’t.
  • On the phone, I rarely manage either blog through the browser anyway. I usually use WordPress for Android (formerly wpToGo).
  • The files it stores take up a whole megabyte — per blog! (possibly more, depending on how the file system stores them.)

So I removed both sites from Gears, along with a couple of other sites that I’d added, but didn’t need anymore, and freed up about 3 MB.

It should be a while before I see that low-space icon again, and I shouldn’t have to ration my installed apps quite so closely!

*This wouldn’t be a problem if they’d given the G1 enough memory for apps in the first place, or if they’d let us install apps to the SD card (where I still have gigabytes of free space), or if I were willing to root my phone, or if I’d just bite the bullet and buy a Nexus One.

**I’d really like to be able to selectively delete cookies — or rather, to selectively keep a few cookies and delete the rest — but that’s another issue.

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Case of Mondays: Usability, 2012, and Chkdsk

Posted on December 21, 2009 by Kelson
  • Usability question: Is it better for a form to auto-detect the credit card type from its number, or have the user select it as an error check? # (Consensus on Twitter & Facebook was to have the user select it.)
  • In case you were worried, the world will NOT end on this date (or any other) in 2012. #
  • Yay, the PC isn’t totally crashed! Grabbed a current backup & now running chkdsk. Work last week, home this week. Pattern? #
  • Chkdsk is FINALLY running. If you get a “cannot open volume for direct access” error trying to run it on Windows XP, try running msconfig and selecting a Diagnostic startup. #

Posted in Computers/Internet, Strange World, Troubleshooting, Web Design | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment