The problem I'm talking about today is trying to upgrade your Windows 7 installation to SP1 by applying Microsoft's update KB976932, called "Windows 7 Service Pack 1 for x64-based Systems" and getting nothing but a failure every time. The same problem may affect 32-bit systems as well, and I'm not sure what the update number for that would be, but the solution should work for either one.

The update starts just fine, chugs along for 10 minutes or so, then reboots the system and starts performing more operations, when suddenly one of them fails about 10% down the road, reboots, and reverts the whole process. You end up with this message (code 80070490) and a failure for which there are a lot of useless "solutions" on the web that just don't work.

Except for one. I can't take credit for it – all I did was spend a month weeding through the crap, retrying, and getting nowhere, until a genius by the name Ben-IS came up with exactly the right diagnosis and provided exactly the right solution. This solution, in my own interpretation, is below.

Step 1

We are going to use a utility called SFC (System File Checker or Windows Resource Checker), which is part of the Windows installation. It will help diagnose the problem.

Open up a command prompt (cmd) as administrator and run

sfc /scannow

This will run for a while and produce a file called CBS.log which you can find in %WINDIR%\Logs\CBS (usually C:\Windows\Logs\CBS). See this KB929833 for more info on SFC and CBS (Component Based Servicing).

sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

Even though there are no integrity violations, we should have enough info in the log to diagnose the problem.

Step 2

Unfortunately, Windows overwrote my CBS.log, so I'll go by the one Ben-IS provided.

Open up CBS.log and look for something like Failed uninstalling driver updates or 0×80070490 – ERROR_NOT_FOUND.

If you have this line, which you should if you're reading this post, you should also see lines similar to these a few lines above:

2011-04-14 12:02:33, Info CBS Doqe: q-uninstall: Inf: usbvideo.inf, Ranking: 2, Device-Install: 0, Key: 598, Identity: usbvideo.inf, Culture=neutral, Type=driverUpdate, Version=6.1.7600.16543, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, ProcessorArchitecture=amd64, versionScope=NonSxS

2011-04-14 12:02:33, Info CBS Doqe: q-uninstall: Inf: sffdisk.inf, Ranking: 2, Device-Install: 0, Key: 599, Identity: sffdisk.inf, Culture=neutral, Type=driverUpdate, Version=6.1.7600.16438, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, ProcessorArchitecture=amd64, versionScope=NonSxS

2011-04-14 12:02:33, Info CBS Doqe: q-uninstall: Inf: sdbus.inf, Ranking: 2, Device-Install: 0, Key: 600, Identity: sdbus.inf, Culture=neutral, Type=driverUpdate, Version=6.1.7600.16438, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, ProcessorArchitecture=amd64, versionScope=NonSxS

One of these .inf files is the culprit, and we're going to find out which one in the next step.

Step 3

Now open up a different log file located at %WINDIR%\inf\setupapi.dev.log (normally c:\Windows\inf\setupapi.dev.log).

Look for a line that contains Failed to find driver update or FAILURE(0×00000490).

Note the exact path to the .inf file that failed. In my case, it was:

sto: Failed to find driver update 'C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_usbvideo.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16543_none_8a1a2513d42628c3\usbvideo.inf' in Driver Store. Error = 0×00000490

Step 4

This is the key to the whole operation. Open up the command prompt again (cmd) as administrator and run

pnputil – a INSERT_FILE_NAME_FROM_STEP_3

For example, I ran

pnputil -a C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_usbvideo.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16543_none_8a1a2513d42628c3\usbvideo.inf

You should see the following dialog:

Choose Install this driver software anyway.

The end result should be something like this:

pnputil -a C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_usbvideo.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16543_none_8a1a2513d42628c3\usbvideo.inf
Microsoft PnP Utility

Processing inf :            usbvideo.inf
Driver package added successfully.
Published name :            oem69.inf

Total attempted:              1
Number successfully imported: 1

Repeat this step for any failures found in step 3.

Step 5

Apply the SP1 Windows Update again – it should now install successfully.

And voila – enjoy your SP1!

Microsoft has failed to fix this incredibly cryptic problem, leaving it up to the users to figure out why their SP1 updates are not installing. Thanks to people like Ben-IS, solutions no longer involve head-banging, postal rage, and f7u12.

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SimplifyMedia is an extremely useful program, which allows super easy song and playlist sharing via streaming between multiple computers. It also works as a Winamp plugin, so the shared songs simply show up inside Winamp's own media library – each computer sharing music appears under the special "Shared" tab. And the beauty is – there is no need to muck around with network settings, open ports, or even touch your router.

Here's a screenshot of how it's supposed to work:

The Problem

Since I recently installed Windows 7 64bit on my laptop, I wanted to set up SimplifyMedia on it and listen to some tracks in my favorite music player Winamp. However, after I downloaded and installed it and restarted Winamp, the Shared tab did not show up. The SimplifyMedia installer did tell me that a 64 bit version of Windows isn't explicitly supported but mentioned it should still work fine.

The Solution

After reinstalling, analyzing, and comparing with my other computers, I found that the SimplifyMedia installer didn't copy the needed Winamp plugin files, namely ml_simplify.dll and ml_simplifyexp.dll. After I copied them over into the Winamp/Plugins directory and restarted Winamp, the Shared tab showed up like a charm.

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HTC, first of all, what. the. fuck. The idea of a more attractive UI was great, by all means, but did it really have to come at the expense of lagging down the whole phone? And by that I mean LAGGING. I would much rather have no added pwetty fluff than to literally be amazed when using my Garmin GPS because its UI is so responsive (until I got the Hero, this thought would have never crossed my mind).

Why is it that I have to miss phone calls because the Hero only gives me one or two rings before they go to voicemail? And half the time, right as I pull down the message on the screen that tells me that's what I have to do to answer the call, it doesn't pick up. Instead, I'm staring at a missed call.

Before I go on, I'd like to clarify that I'm still enjoying the Hero, mostly for making me feel a lot more connected on the go. However, the experience could have been a lot more enjoyable had HTC done a better job on the polish of the Hero core.

Some of these issues might be caused by Android, some might be caused by the fact that even though Android 2.0 has been available for a few weeks and 1.6 for a few months, the Hero is still running 1.5 – all thanks to the Sense UI.

But let me organize my thoughts in a nice numbered list. Everyone likes those, right? Be prepared – when a device affects me so much, I've got a lot to say.

My List Of Problems

1. Lag

This phone lags. At least the Sprint version of it, running Sense UI. And by lags, I mean most of the time it's worse than the Pre. Yeah, I went there. If you love lag, you will adore the Hero.

I'm not going to argue about rooting it or not using Sense. No. This is what HTC is making thousands of consumers use – and most of them won't ever consider touching the underlying OS. If you have an underpowered processor, HTC, don't you think the best thing you could have done is to try to compensate for it by making things faster instead of bloating it with garbage? Sprint, you didn't help either with your force-fed Nascar and NFL Mobile Live that we can't remove.

The browser lag is just beyond bearable. 16 seconds on average to load my plain Google.com homepage (not even iGoogle – just google.com). That's 10 seconds of staring at a blank screen, 4 more of staring at "getting sign-in details" and 4 more of loading the webpage. This is compared to 4 seconds on the Motorola Droid, side by side.

The keyboard lags. Often. Both typing and flipping.

Flash (the Adobe one) is cool but its performance on the Hero is pretty much unusable most of the time.

The lag is everywhere but this one takes the cake – the lag operating the dialer and the phone in general. Because each button press is unpredictable and can take between 0.5 and 5 seconds, there is no way to tell if the screen just didn't register the click or if it's just lagging behind. Thanks to this, I've dialed wrong numbers, hung up, and performed wrong functions multiple times.

My favorite is that it takes about 2-3 seconds for the last dialed number to show up in the recent numbers list after I finish the call, which means it then pushes all of the recent numbers down by one. So if I click a number I want to dial during that period of time, after the lag settles I will find that I actually just pressed a number above the one I wanted.

This list goes on.

2. Bad Battery Life

I thought the 1500mAh battery would give me plenty of juice. How foolish of me.

Between such battery draining bugs as letting your phone go to sleep when first turning it on, simply sending an SMS message, and using the Hero for email a few times a day, I'm left with 0-15% battery life by 10pm (even after applying known fixes).

In the morning, between the time I wake up and the time I get in the car, my battery would sometimes run down to 85%. Sometimes, however, it would still be at 98%, without doing anything differently. Does that make sense to you?

3. Long Bootup Time

There's nothing better than staring at the bootup screen for good 3-4 minutes before the phone becomes usable. If you think the Pre load time is bad, check out the Hero for some added fun.

Fine – it loads a pretty complex Linux based OS, I get it. But damn – it sure takes its time doing so.

Well, at least it doesn't say "Droid" in a robotic voice.

4. Application Chaos

Some applications' names change to their Java versions (such as com.p1.chompsms). Without me touching or updating them – it just happens over time. Some examples include Unit Converter (FCs upon start), Astro File Manager, Estos, ChompSMS, and Voice Caller ID.

Some applications' icons are randomly changed and mutilated (for example, Remember The Milk and Flixster).

Some applications stop working and start force closing (for example, Flixster, WP To Go, Unit Converter).

Some applications say "shortcut is no longer available" when clicked from the home screen or the All Programs list (for example, Twidroid). This seems to sometimes go away after a restart but surely comes back upon the next program update.

Not sure who to blame for all these but it seems like non-Hero owners don't seem to be experiencing such issues.

And the solution? "Without rooting, the only workaround for the issue is to uninstall the app and reinstall it. Still, after rebooting, you may have the same issues. Again, a reinstall is the only fix," suggests a post on AndroidForums.

Someone on the XDA-Developers forums provides more details – this is, apparently, due to a mismanaged boot cache.

5. Voicemail/SMS Problems

Problem – "after Internal Memory reaches a certain low level of free space (one user heard around around 40MB free from HTC Support), you may stop receiving SMS messages and voicemail. No amount of clearing space will allow messages to resume" – description credit AndroidForums.

Solution? "The best method of prevention currently is to ensure adequate memory is available on the device to prevent the flag from being set" – SprintUsers forum.

On a related note, the following bug has also been reported: "Over time, Internal Memory free space dwindles and no amount of clearing apps frees the space. This will also cause the above issue of SMS & Voicemail messages not being received once a critical amount of free space is reached".

I stopped getting my voicemail notifications a long time ago. Texts are still getting through somehow but they should definitely be afraid of stepping on these landmines any day now.

There are 3 ways to get your voicemail – are you kidding me? You can use the visual voicemail app (mine doesn't work anymore), you can dial your phone number (which is the same as pressing on the envelope or holding the 1 key), or you can dial some 408-970-0000 number (which seems to be for voice SMS but yet handles my voicemail). Did you just hack voice SMS to do visual voicemail, HTC and Sprint? This is a job not so well done.

6. The Keyboard

Let me say this – the keyboard on the Hero kind of sucks. It is very inaccurate, even after calibration, and doesn't guess letters nearly as well as the iPhone does.

To be fair, the Hero shines at the spelling correction. I can type 5 letters wrong in a single word, and the Hero will still suggest the right correction most of the time. My complaint here is that it doesn't detect missed spaces at all, so 2 words run on each other would not be recognized and corrected.

Now, the keyboard flip – it is uncomfortably laggy (see point #1 again). 2-5 seconds per flip is not good enough.

7. Calendar Notifications Are Broken

Sometimes I'm alerted about a calendar event a day early.

Sometimes an hour early (that's what happened after the daylight savings time shift).

Some users reported that their Hero shifted to daylight savings a week early.

How in the world does this even get through QA, HTC?

No remind me on time option? A 5 minute reminder is as close as I can get. Bleh.

8. GPS Randomly Thinks I'm All Over California

At times, my Google Maps app can no longer lock onto the GPS signal and starts jumping all over the state. Last time it first told me I was in Sacramento (one of the turn directions next to it had a misspelling "Socramento", wtf?), then Santa Rosa, then as I kept driving and pressing My Location, it switched to a random street about a mile away, then dumped me in the ocean.

During this time, the GPS icon kept blinking and didn't stay solid. Also, once it picked up a location, it didn't continue to update it as it should do.

Only a phone restart solves the problem but not for long.

Sometimes, the Sprint GPS can no longer get a lock on my location at all and any route calculations get stuck.

Sometimes, the blinking GPS icon stays on all the time, thus, I'm assuming, draining the crap out of my battery.

9. Usability: No Easy Way To Switch Between Running Apps

Alright, here's where the Pre has everyone beat – the card switching is superior to any app management I've seen. Here I was thinking Android would have a decent way of switching between apps – at least as good as Palm's.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that switching between running apps is completely impractical on Android. You simply can't do it. Ever use Alt-TAB in Windows? Feel like you feel powerless without it? That's how I feel on the Hero.

The closest things I figured out so far are:

• hold the Home button, which brings up a list of 6 most recently used apps. Not only is this longer than I am comfortable with, but it also fails to actually accomplish what I want – and that is switch between running apps
• get a task manager app, such as Advanced Task Manager. This works but this is even slower than the previous method and requires even more clicks
• go back to the home screen/app list and run the program I want again. Chances are, this would summon the sleeping program from the background. Not the best approach either.

Of course, this is not HTC's fault – Android really let me down here (take note from Palm on this one).

10. The 5MP Camera – It Sucks

The Hero has a notoriously bad camera, which doesn't even have a flash (a big drawback). It does a pretty bad job at autofocusing. Both the camera, the camcorder, and the albums take uncomfortably long to load (see point #1 again).

11. Plastic Chrome Trim Cracking And Falling Apart

Out of nowhere a pretty large chunk (1/2 to 3/4 inch) of the plastic chrome trim broke off around the USB plug. I do not seem to be the only one.

I do not expect the case to last much longer either. The "teflon" does feel nice to the touch but it's still plastic.

12. The Phone Unlocks In My Pocket

Did you know the double press on the Menu button unlocks the phone? It's a great feature, isn't it (until it unlocks the phone in your pocket)?

And no, it's not possible to disable it.

13. Out Of Space? No More Apps For You

I ran out of the built-in [measly] space recently. Why? Because it's not possible on the Android (even as of 2.0) to install apps to the SD card, unless you root the phone. This is not an HTC issue and more of an Android limitation but it is definitely part of my Hero experience.

14. Dust Under The Glass?

Many users are reporting that dust is getting under the Hero's screen. Thankfully, I'm not one of those users. For now.

15. Can't Remove Words Added To The Dictionary

The keyboard suggest mechanism in the Hero is great – I can't argue about that. In fact, without it, the Hero would be doomed.

However, sometimes a mistyped word gets added to the internal dictionary and there is no way to get it out of there, without clearing the whole thing. Annoying.

16. No Way To Turn Screen Off During Call

The Hero doesn't have a proximity sensor, which results in a few problems:

• sometimes I press buttons with my face
• sometimes I want to turn off the screen to at least try to prevent my face from doing the above, except there is no way to do so. The reflex to press the Power button which usually turns the screen off results in an immediate end of the current call. I am embarrassed to say how many times I've done this. Oh, and to end the current call when the screen is on, a single press of the Power button is sufficient but two are needed when the screen is off – took me a while to get this right.

17. No Application Access To Bluetooth

I know this is purely an Android 1.5 issue as Android 2.0 has the new bluetooth API but we still can't utilize it because we're stuck at 1.5. Thus, I can't have bluetooth turned on and off on a schedule (via Timeriffic, for example) and, of course, the biggest issue – no bluetooth tethering.

18. High Latency Wireless Network

From what I can tell, there's a much higher latency (the time between a request is sent and a response is on its way) on the Hero than on the Droid. I'm willing to actually accept that it's probably 90% due to Sprint's 3G network vs Verizon's. I never imagined the difference was this vast, however. When I was playing with the Droid, it seemed like I had a device from the future in my hands.

WiFi performance is not great either – in fact, the Market application downloads often hang in the "starting…" mode until I turn WiFi off.

19. Trackball Almost Useless In Text Editing

I like having the trackball, in theory. However, when editing text, it is almost unusable, unless I want to move only a few characters over. If I want to go to the beginning of the line from the middle, it will take ages, as each swipe only moves one character at a time (there is no built-in acceleration).

I'm not alone in this conclusion.

20. Unneeded Junk Keeps Running

I don't need some of the apps that come stock but they insist on running every time I start the phone. Some insist on running all the time, even if I set up Taskiller or Advanced Task Manager to hunt them down. A few good examples are: Peep, IM, Footprints, Gmail (I use the Mail app for gmail), Messages, and Stocks.

Conclusion

The Hero changed the way I do things on the go. The email, calendar, all kinds of syncs, apps – they've all changed my life and I love the Hero for that. I will not be able to go back to a regular phone. I feel too… connected.

There are lots of bugs. Lots. Perhaps Android 2.0 will fix some of them and the rest will be fixed over time. However, I am not sure HTC will be ever able to fix the lag without revamping the Hero's hardware. Although, I also heard that the HTC Droid Eris, which runs the same hardware, is not nearly as laggy. I will have to check it out to confirm.

I apologize in advance for any omissions, inaccuracies, or grammatical errors but it is 3am now as I'm finishing this article. Also, if you find the language harsh – well, that's just me.

Are you happy with your Hero? Are you experiencing any of these problems? Share with me.

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The plugin install page provides initial instructions and the location of the plugin to give Eclipse (https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/). This is very standard stuff and I've installed many plugins exactly the same way. However, here's when problems started.

Problem #1: Error while loading manipulator

Eclipse just shows a cryptic Install failed box. Here are the highlights:

• !MESSAGE Error while loading manipulator
• java.lang.IllegalStateException: !fwConfigLocation.equals(fwPersistentDataLocation)

It looks like for whatever reason, Eclipse's fwConfigLocation variable does not match fwPersistentDataLocation. I have no idea where those come from and searching for a solution (such as this crazy Japanese sourceforge and this Eclipse bug), restarting Eclipse, and beating my head against the wall took the majority of my the 2 hours I spent on this.

Here's the full log, which will help people with the same problem find it in search engines:

!ENTRY org.eclipse.equinox.p2.touchpoint.eclipse 4 0 2009-10-15 13:21:11.224
!MESSAGE Error while loading manipulator.
!STACK 0
java.lang.IllegalStateException: !fwConfigLocation.equals(fwPersistentDataLocation)
	!fwConfigLocation=C:\eclipse\configuration
	,fwPersistentDataLocation=C:\eclipse\plugins\configuration
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.frameworkadmin.equinox.EquinoxManipulatorImpl.checkConsistencyOfFwConfigLocAndFwPersistentDataLoc(EquinoxManipulatorImpl.java:65)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.frameworkadmin.equinox.EquinoxManipulatorImpl.loadWithoutFwPersistentData(EquinoxManipulatorImpl.java:360)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.frameworkadmin.equinox.EquinoxManipulatorImpl.load(EquinoxManipulatorImpl.java:331)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.touchpoint.eclipse.LazyManipulator.loadDelegate(LazyManipulator.java:50)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.touchpoint.eclipse.LazyManipulator.getConfigData(LazyManipulator.java:108)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.touchpoint.eclipse.actions.UninstallBundleAction.uninstallBundle(UninstallBundleAction.java:74)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.touchpoint.eclipse.actions.UninstallBundleAction.execute(UninstallBundleAction.java:29)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.engine.ParameterizedProvisioningAction.execute(ParameterizedProvisioningAction.java:35)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.engine.Phase.mainPerform(Phase.java:129)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.engine.Phase.perform(Phase.java:72)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.engine.PhaseSet.perform(PhaseSet.java:44)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.engine.Engine.perform(Engine.java:54)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.ui.operations.ProvisioningUtil.performProvisioningPlan(ProvisioningUtil.java:389)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.ui.operations.ProfileModificationOperation.doExecute(ProfileModificationOperation.java:61)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.ui.operations.ProvisioningOperation.execute(ProvisioningOperation.java:37)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.ui.ProvisioningOperationRunner$1.run(ProvisioningOperationRunner.java:94)
	at org.eclipse.core.internal.jobs.Worker.run(Worker.java:55)
 
!ENTRY org.eclipse.equinox.p2.engine 4 4 2009-10-15 13:21:11.240
!MESSAGE An error occurred while uninstalling
!SUBENTRY 1 org.eclipse.equinox.p2.engine 4 0 2009-10-15 13:21:11.240
!MESSAGE session context was:(profile=epp.package.php, phase=org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.engine.phases.Uninstall, operand=[R]javax.activation 1.1.0.v200905021805 --> [R]javax.activation 1.1.0.v200906290531, action=org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.touchpoint.eclipse.actions.UninstallBundleAction).
!SUBENTRY 1 org.eclipse.equinox.p2.engine 4 0 2009-10-15 13:21:11.240
!MESSAGE Error while loading manipulator.
!STACK 0
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Error while loading manipulator.
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.touchpoint.eclipse.LazyManipulator.loadDelegate(LazyManipulator.java:54)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.touchpoint.eclipse.LazyManipulator.getConfigData(LazyManipulator.java:108)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.touchpoint.eclipse.actions.UninstallBundleAction.uninstallBundle(UninstallBundleAction.java:74)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.touchpoint.eclipse.actions.UninstallBundleAction.execute(UninstallBundleAction.java:29)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.engine.ParameterizedProvisioningAction.execute(ParameterizedProvisioningAction.java:35)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.engine.Phase.mainPerform(Phase.java:129)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.engine.Phase.perform(Phase.java:72)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.engine.PhaseSet.perform(PhaseSet.java:44)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.engine.Engine.perform(Engine.java:54)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.ui.operations.ProvisioningUtil.performProvisioningPlan(ProvisioningUtil.java:389)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.ui.operations.ProfileModificationOperation.doExecute(ProfileModificationOperation.java:61)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.ui.operations.ProvisioningOperation.execute(ProvisioningOperation.java:37)
	at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.ui.ProvisioningOperationRunner$1.run(ProvisioningOperationRunner.java:94)
	at org.eclipse.core.internal.jobs.Worker.run(Worker.java:55)
!SESSION 2009-10-15 13:31:40.853 -----------------------------------------------
eclipse.buildId=I20090611-1540
java.version=1.6.0_16
java.vendor=Sun Microsystems Inc.
BootLoader constants: OS=win32, ARCH=x86, WS=win32, NL=en_US
Command-line arguments:  -os win32 -ws win32 -arch x86

Finally, I found a solution that worked – modify eclipse.ini (the one that sits in elipse's install directory) and add the following:

1
2
3
4

-startup
file:/C:/eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.200.v20090520.jar
--launcher.library
file:/C:/eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.0.200.v20090519

Note that the exact locations may differ for you, so figure out what is installed on your machine and replace accordingly.

Also, it seems that the location of the file HAS to be on a new line – otherwise it is not recognized. What kind of shit is that, Eclipse? Some values in eclipse.ini are specified on the same line separated by space, some separated by '=', and some have to be on a new line? This fun trivia fact wasted about 45 minutes of my time.

And yes, startup has 1 dash and launcher.library has 2. /sigh

Edit: it looks like by default Eclipse does come with these options. I somehow managed to lose them, so this is probably my fault. The error couldn't be more cryptic though.

Problem #2: java.io.IOException: The file "C:\eclipse\features\com.android.ide.eclipse.adt_0.9.3.v200909031112-12945" does not exist

Great. Now what…

After examining the features directory, I indeed found that directory com.android.ide.eclipse.adt_0.9.3.v200909031112-12945 does not exist. What I did find though is com.android.ide.eclipse.adt_0.9.3.v200909031112-12945.jar, which is simply an archive. Why didn't you unpack this archive, Eclipse? Or Android plugin devs? Whoever is responsible for this – argh!

After quickly creating the directories and unpacking the .jar contents into them, Eclipse was finally able to install the Android plugin.

If installing a plugin is this friendly, I can only imagine what awaits me in Android app development. Am I the only one with these problems? You let me know.

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My fiancée Emilie has had her Palm Pre for about 2 weeks now, and one specific problem that started showing up last week has been incredibly annoying, causing us all kinds of trouble.

After Emilie got the phone, she added 3 email accounts – Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo. One day, after sending an email through the Pre, a popup showed up that said "Error sending" followed by the subject of that specific email. Swiping the error away didn't help – it just came back 5 minutes later. In fact, it has been coming back every 5 minutes of every day since, lighting up the screen each time. Thus, not only it was annoying, but it was running down the battery like crazy – a full charge lasted between 1/2 and 3/4 of the day with very mild usage.

I deleted the problematic message from the Outbox a long time ago. The error didn't disappear and kept popping up. Additionally, whichever Outbox clicking on the annoying popup led to was having trouble refreshing, even though it wouldn't display what the error actually was – just a yellow exclamation sign would show up. Refreshing the folder didn't help and would take an unusually long time.

Well, finally, I got sick of waiting for Palm to update its OS with possible fixes and set out to find one myself.

Turns out a ton of people are having the same issue, as evident in all Palm Pre forums. For example, Palm.com forum or Precentral.net forum. I really didn't like the common suggestion to delete and re-add the problematic account because

• that just most likely temporarily pushes the problem back as I'm sure it would come back again to haunt me
• this could potentially erase or disconnect all contacts associated with that account
• my engineering mind would be left puzzled
• I wasn't sure which account was having the problem (later it turned out the culprit was Yahoo)

Surprisingly, I found the clue that led me to the solution on Yahoo Answers – yeah, that place where nothing intelligent is allowed to exist (with certain exceptions).

The Solution

To make a long story short, Pre messed up Yahoo's outgoing mail settings. My particular problem was the SMTP (that's the outgoing mail server) port was set to 995, which is in fact an incoming POP3 mail server port. I don't know how it happened or if it even worked in the first place but the fact is: the right outgoing port for secure (SSL) SMTP connections is 465. Also, for some reason the SMTP username was blank but the password was filled in. WTF, Pre?

When I changed SMTP port to 465 and entered the username, as specified in that Yahoo Answers post (without the @yahoo.com part), the error message went away and the Outbox refreshed just fine. BTW, my Pre has the incoming mail server set to POP3, while the Yahoo Answers post was set to IMAP – again, why the differences? I'd frankly prefer IMAP anyway.

To get to your mail account settings, open up your email application, go to the Email menu in Pre's top left corner, tap Preferences & Accounts, then tap the offending account, scroll down, and tap Change Login Settings. When you are done, just swipe back (half swipe from right to left in the gesture area). Here's a handy screenshot I took of the relevant area:

->

If you are experiencing the same symptoms, check ALL your mail settings, not just the ones I mentioned. Who knows what else your Pre may have messed up?

Update: if you are having trouble sending your mail only while on WiFi, it is possible that your home broadband router is blocking the needed ports. Try to edit the router configuration and open the ports used by your Pre's mail configuration – hopefully the problem will be solved.

Conclusion

Palm, are you hearing us? We are not happy with the bugs and the unhelpful error messages (or lack thereof altogether)! 3 measly updates in the last 2 months is quite pathetic. I hope you are working on a much bigger update behind the scenes.

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• How To Fix Redrawing Problems In Your VNC

If you use VNC to remotely connect to your machines and are having problems with certain applications not showing changes (redrawing), this will, hopefully, solve the problem for you.

The symptoms are simple: you load a program but only the program outline and maybe the first frame would show up. After that, nothing would update, even though the user in front of the remote computer can see everything updating fine. For me, it is happening with all Java based programs (SmartSVN, Charles – amazing program btw!, etc). Here's what's happening to my Charles application – it never even sent the first frame, simply showing the desktop and not updating:

The problem may be confined to RealVNC only, or at least any VNC program that uses a special mirror driver. You can tell whether your VNC server uses a mirror driver by looking at your Settings->Desktop options under "Optimise screen capture (mirror driver)":

The Solution

I'm not sure if it's Java's fault or the mirror driver's but, as it turns out, the mirror driver does not properly work with Java based programs, at least at the moment. Disabling it, or switching to application hooking fixes the problem. There is most likely a benefit in using a mirror driver as it is probably optimized better than other methods, but it's not worth keeping if you are having problems with it.

The easiest way to disable the setting is to uncheck the checkbox above. You can also alternatively go to Expert options, find the UpdateMethod variable, and switch it to 0 or 1. I am fairly confident the setting of 1 is less resource intensive than 0, so I went with it.

My Java programs are fixed and redrawing fine now.

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If you, like me, are building or thinking of implementing a MySQL-powered application that has any need for prioritizing selecting certain data over other data, this article is for you.

Example

As a real world example, consider a queue-like video processing system. Your application receives new videos and processes them. The volume of incoming videos can at times be higher than the processing rate because the process is CPU bound, so occasionally a pretty long queue may form. You will try to process them as fast as you can but…

…suddenly, you need to process a video somewhere in the middle of the queue or an important video enters and needs immediate attention. What do you do?

An obvious solution is implementing a simple priority system where each item has a numeric priority field. Now you can sort first by priority from highest to lowest and then by id within the highest priority. Important and urgent items get a their priority changed to something higher and get processed first. There is only one problem.

Problem

The problem is pretty serious – let’s take a look at the SELECT statement. Before selecting, I’ve added 19 random rows to have some data to work on.

SELECT * FROM queue ORDER BY priority DESC, id LIMIT 1;

What kind of index would you put on this table to speed up this query? You do want to add a proper index, don’t you? DO YOU? Ok, good.

Here’s what happens without any indexes:

mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM queue ORDER BY priority DESC, id LIMIT 1;
+----+-------------+-------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+----------------+
| id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key  | key_len | ref  | rows | Extra          |
+----+-------------+-------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+----------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | queue | ALL  | NULL          | NULL | NULL    | NULL |   19 | Using filesort |
+----+-------------+-------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Using filesort, ugh, of course, due to sorting without an index.

Let’s see, how about a combined index on (priority, id)?

mysql> ALTER TABLE `queue` ADD INDEX `priority_id`(`priority`, `id`);
Query OK, 19 rows affected (0.05 sec)
Records: 19  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0
 
mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM queue ORDER BY priority DESC, id LIMIT 1;
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+------+-----------------------------+
| id | select_type | table | type  | possible_keys | key         | key_len | ref  | rows | Extra                       |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+------+-----------------------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | queue | index | NULL          | priority_id | 5       | NULL |   19 | Using index; Using filesort |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+------+-----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Better because an index is being used but not very good because filesort is still present. “Of course!”, you slap yourself on the forehead. The first ORDER BY uses a DESCENDING order, and our key is in ASCENDING order.

So, let’s add the proper key with the right ordering instead.

mysql> ALTER TABLE `queue` DROP INDEX `priority_id`;
Query OK, 19 rows affected (0.05 sec)
Records: 19  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0
 
mysql> ALTER TABLE `queue` ADD INDEX `priority_id`(`priority` DESC, `id`);
Query OK, 19 rows affected (0.06 sec)
Records: 19  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM queue ORDER BY priority DESC, id LIMIT 1;
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+------+-----------------------------+
| id | select_type | table | type  | possible_keys | key         | key_len | ref  | rows | Extra                       |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+------+-----------------------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | queue | index | NULL          | priority_id | 5       | NULL |   19 | Using index; Using filesort |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+------+-----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

What the deuce? This is the same result as with the previous index. Time to dig up the documentation.

Here is what the MySQL manual has to say under the ORDER BY optimization section:

MySQL cannot use indexes to resolve the ORDER BY, although it still uses indexes to find the rows that match the WHERE clause … if you mix ASC and DESC:

SELECT * FROM t1 ORDER BY key_part1 DESC, key_part2 ASC;

Moreover, to confuse the user even more, the index creation command accepts the DESC instruction, without actually honoring it, as specified in the CREATE INDEX section:

An index_col_name specification can end with ASC or DESC. These keywords are allowed for future extensions for specifying ascending or descending index value storage. Currently, they are parsed but ignored; index values are always stored in ascending order.

So, after so many years MySQL still doesn’t support such basic functionality – you are either stuck with a query that uses filesort or have to look for a workaround.

Solution

Since it’s not possible to mix order directions, the solution is then to change the meaning of the priority column to match your needs. Thus, in the new approach priority 1 is higher than priority 10, and the application logic needs to accommodate to that. If you caught this while the application is still young, the code may be easy to change, but otherwise it could be a major pain in the butt.

Conclusion

The moral here is: plan your queries ahead and don’t mix and match DESC and ASC ordering as MySQL will not be able to use an index to resolve it. Do it even sooner if you’re putting lots and lots of data into your tables.

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• MySQL Conference Liveblogging: Optimizing MySQL For High Volume Data Logging Applications (Thursday 2:50PM)

Debugging on the client side with -v didn't help much:

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artem@DeathStar:~/svn/b2/Fetch/LinkChecker> ssh -v monkey@192.168.1.30
OpenSSH_4.6p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8e 23 Feb 2007
...
lots of boring shit
...
debug1: Found key in /home/artem/.ssh/known_hosts:1
debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct
...
more boring shit
...
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Offering public key:
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Offering public key:
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Offering public key: /home/artem/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Trying private key: /home/artem/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Next authentication method: keyboard-interactive
Password:

After breaking my head over possible reasons why the pile of junk that thinks it's smarter than me next to my feet doesn't work, kicking it a few times, and observing the same result, I turned to debugging the ssh daemon itself – sshd.

• The -d option disables the daemon mode and enables debug mode, in which only 1 connection is accepted for the lifetime of the server, after which it simply quits.
• -dd simply enables a more detailed output.
• -e switches this debug output from a log file to STDOUT.

However, to free up port 22, I had to stop the daemon that was already running, or else a "Bind to port 22 on 0.0.0.0 failed: Address already in use." error appeared (duh). An interesting question though, especially for people doing this to remote boxes, what happens when one stops sshd? Ever thought of doing that but instead ran over to your mommy crying like a little girl? Well, fear no more, because I'll tell you exactly what happens:

1. New users will have their connection refused.
2. Your own connection will not be interrrupted. sshd works by spawning a new instance of itself for every incoming connection, so your own sshd process will stay in memory.

So where was I?

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/usr/sbin/sshd -dd -e

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...
Authentication refused: bad ownership or modes for directory /home/monkey
...
Failed publickey for monkey from 192.168.1.30 port 56287 ssh2

AhA!! (emphasis on the last 'a'). What have we here?

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artem@DeathStar:~> cd /home/
artem@DeathStar:/home/> l
drwxrwx--- 29 monkey  users 4096 2008-08-06 23:14 monkey/
 
DeathStar:/home/ # chmod 755 monkey
drwxr-xr-x 29 monkey  users 4096 2008-08-06 23:14 monkey/
 
artem@DeathStar:~/svn/b2/Fetch/LinkChecker> ssh -v monkey@192.168.1.30
OpenSSH_4.6p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8e 23 Feb 2007
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to 192.168.1.30 [192.168.1.30] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /home/artem/.ssh/id_rsa type 1
debug1: identity file /home/artem/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_4.6
debug1: match: OpenSSH_4.6 pat OpenSSH*
...

Connection established, all systems are go, the key has been accepted.

Inspired by http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Fedora/2005-08/1105.html

P.S. Don't forget to /etc/init.d/sshd start.

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• Youtube Custom RSS Search Results

Check this out.

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cpan[1]> install SOAP::Lite
CPAN: Storable loaded ok (v2.18)
Going to read /root/.cpan/Metadata
  Database was generated on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:29:45 GMT
CPAN: YAML loaded ok (v0.66)
Going to read /root/.cpan/build/
............................................................................DONE
Found 149 old builds, restored the state of 109
Warning: Cannot install SOAP::Lite, don't know what it is.
Try the command
 
    i /SOAP::Lite/
 
to find objects with matching identifiers.
CPAN: Time::HiRes loaded ok (v1.9713)

Huh? Okay…

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cpan[2]> i /SOAP::Lite/
Module    ResourcePool::Command::SOAP::Lite::Call (MWS/ResourcePool-Resource-SOAP-Lite-1.0101.tar.gz)
Module    ResourcePool::Factory::SOAP::Lite (MWS/ResourcePool-Resource-SOAP-Lite-1.0101.tar.gz)
Module    ResourcePool::Resource::SOAP::Lite (MWS/ResourcePool-Resource-SOAP-Lite-1.0101.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Deserializer::XMLSchema1999 (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Deserializer::XMLSchema2001 (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Deserializer::XMLSchemaSOAP1_1 (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Deserializer::XMLSchemaSOAP1_2 (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::InstanceExporter (SMEISNER/SOAP-Lite-InstanceExporter-0.02.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Packager   (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Simple     (LLAP/SOAP-Lite-Simple-1.9.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Simple::DotNet (LLAP/SOAP-Lite-Simple-1.4.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Simple::Real (LLAP/SOAP-Lite-Simple-1.4.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Utility    (BRYCE/SOAP-Lite-Utility-0.01.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Utils      (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
14 items found

Wtf? Let's try something else.

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cpan[8]> i /SOAP.*Lite/
Distribution    BRYCE/SOAP-Lite-Utility-0.01.tar.gz
Distribution    BYRNE/SOAP/SOAP-Lite-0.60a.tar.gz
Distribution    DYACOB/SOAP-Lite-ActiveWorks-0.10.tar.gz
Distribution    DYACOB/SOAP-Lite-SmartProxy-0.11.tar.gz
Distribution    LLAP/SOAP-Lite-Simple-1.4.tar.gz
Distribution    LLAP/SOAP-Lite-Simple-1.9.tar.gz
Distribution    MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz
Distribution    MWS/ResourcePool-Resource-SOAP-Lite-1.0101.tar.gz
Distribution    SMEISNER/SOAP-Lite-InstanceExporter-0.02.tar.gz
Module    Catalyst::Action::SOAP::DocumentLiteral (DRUOSO/Catalyst-Controller-SOAP-0.8.tar.gz)
Module    Catalyst::Action::SOAP::DocumentLiteralWrapped (DRUOSO/Catalyst-Controller-SOAP-0.8.tar.gz)
Module    Catalyst::Action::SOAP::RPCLiteral (DRUOSO/Catalyst-Controller-SOAP-0.8.tar.gz)
Module    Catalyst::Controller::SOAP::DocumentLiteralWrapped (DRUOSO/Catalyst-Controller-SOAP-0.8.tar.gz)
Module    Net::DRI::Transport::HTTP::SOAPLite (PMEVZEK/Net-DRI-0.85.tar.gz)
Module    ResourcePool::Command::SOAP::Lite::Call (MWS/ResourcePool-Resource-SOAP-Lite-1.0101.tar.gz)
Module    ResourcePool::Factory::SOAP::Lite (MWS/ResourcePool-Resource-SOAP-Lite-1.0101.tar.gz)
Module    ResourcePool::Resource::SOAP::Lite (MWS/ResourcePool-Resource-SOAP-Lite-1.0101.tar.gz)
Module  = SOAP::Lite::Deserializer::XMLSchema1999 (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
Module  = SOAP::Lite::Deserializer::XMLSchema2001 (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
Module  = SOAP::Lite::Deserializer::XMLSchemaSOAP1_1 (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
Module  = SOAP::Lite::Deserializer::XMLSchemaSOAP1_2 (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::InstanceExporter (SMEISNER/SOAP-Lite-InstanceExporter-0.02.tar.gz)
Module  = SOAP::Lite::Packager   (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Simple     (LLAP/SOAP-Lite-Simple-1.9.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Simple::DotNet (LLAP/SOAP-Lite-Simple-1.4.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Simple::Real (LLAP/SOAP-Lite-Simple-1.4.tar.gz)
Module    SOAP::Lite::Utility    (BRYCE/SOAP-Lite-Utility-0.01.tar.gz)
Module  = SOAP::Lite::Utils      (MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz)
28 items found

Aha! It's hiding under a Distribution. Tricky, tricky.

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cpan
install MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz

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  CPAN.pm: Going to build M/MK/MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz
 
We are about to install SOAP::Lite and for your convenience will provide
you with list of modules and prerequisites, so you'll be able to choose
only modules you need for your configuration.
 
XMLRPC::Lite, UDDI::Lite, and XML::Parser::Lite are included by default.
Installed transports can be used for both SOAP::Lite and XMLRPC::Lite.
 
Press  to see the detailed list.
 
Feature                       Prerequisites                Install?
----------------------------- ---------------------------- --------
Core Package                  [*] Scalar::Util             always
                              [*] Test::More
                              [*] URI
                              [*] MIME::Base64
                              [*] version
                              [*] XML::Parser (v2.23)
Client HTTP support           [*] LWP::UserAgent           always
Client HTTPS support          [*] Crypt::SSLeay            [ yes ]
Client SMTP/sendmail support  [ ] MIME::Lite               [ no ]
Client FTP support            [*] IO::File                 [ yes ]
                              [*] Net::FTP
Standalone HTTP server        [*] HTTP::Daemon             [ yes ]
Apache/mod_perl server        [ ] Apache                   [ no ]
FastCGI server                [ ] FCGI                     [ no ]
POP3 server                   [*] MIME::Parser             [ yes ]
                              [*] Net::POP3
IO server                     [*] IO::File                 [ yes ]
MQ transport support          [ ] MQSeries                 [ no ]
JABBER transport support      [ ] Net::Jabber              [ no ]
MIME messages                 [*] MIME::Parser             [ yes ]
DIME messages                 [*] IO::Scalar (v2.105)      [ no ]
                              [ ] DIME::Tools (v0.03)
                              [ ] Data::UUID (v0.11)
SSL Support for TCP Transport [ ] IO::Socket::SSL          [ no ]
Compression support for HTTP  [*] Compress::Zlib           [ yes ]
MIME interoperability w/ Axis [ ] MIME::Parser (v6.106)    [ no ]
--- An asterix '[*]' indicates if the module is currently installed.
 
Do you want to proceed with this configuration? [yes]
Checking if your kit is complete...
Looks good
Writing Makefile for SOAP::Lite
cp lib/SOAP/Packager.pm blib/lib/SOAP/Packager.pm
cp lib/XML/Parser/Lite.pm blib/lib/XML/Parser/Lite.pm
...
Writing /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/auto/SOAP/Lite/.packlist
Appending installation info to /usr/lib/perl5/5.10.0/i686-linux/perllocal.pod
  MKUTTER/SOAP-Lite-0.71.04.tar.gz
  /usr/bin/make install  -- OK

The latest version of SOAP::Lite is installed, time to pat yourself on the back and write some code to actually use it.

• cpan – The Perl Module Manager
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The best solution I could find to this problem to date was posted at http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=19119 and involved opening a piped filehandle. It worked quite well but always felt like a hack (which it was). Having used the new Perl 5.10 for a few months, I was shocked today to find this new variable that I've been dreaming about for years:

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${^CHILD_ERROR_NATIVE}

This variable gives the native status returned by the last pipe close, backtick command, successful call to wait() or waitpid(), or from the system() operator. See perlrun for details. (Contributed by Gisle Aas.)

http://search.cpan.org/dist/perl-5.10.0/pod/perl5100delta.pod#New_internal_variables

I've just tested it and it works as described. Finally!.. what else can I say?

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