In case you have OpenFeint Freeze

[GilesGoat]

Hello all.

I have the same problem, freeze on the openfaint screen. I'm running an ipod touch, 3rd gen, 32gb, 3.1.3

Gutted as I saw a preview version of this at the Blackpool show and chatted to Jeff about it ( my mates even had a curry with him )

Please can this be fixed with an update

Cheers

A yak Fan.

I know this is maybe not exactly what you'd like to hear but "have you considered updating the OS ?".

The thing is .. so far .. "if I cannot someway see/reproduce the problem here I don't know what I could possibly fix".

I'd love to have here a machine where it actually crash and try to see if going via "debug" it would be possible to see anything, at least where it crashes .. I'll try to see if I can collect some info from OpenFeint itself ..

[edit] - I just sent an email to someone that knows someone that should know someone that could know something about, fingers crossed

See why I always hate to use 3rd party SW/LIBS ? But this or it would have took probably 2 more months to write our own using "the fantastic Apple stuff" and the all the people would have complained why we do not support OF

[PVB]

Yup, as Giles says, the best option to check/do first is ensure you're running the latest firmware.

Similar to PC gaming, where each game that comes out always bleats* about people ensuring they have the latest drivers for gfx cards, sound, etc.


*See what I did there?

[yakfan]

Hmmmmmm..................some points to note on this one.

1. I dont want to upgrade my firmware, as 4.0+ has no new stuff that I need and I've heard that it drains the battery life more. The appstore states that this works with ios 3.0 or later.

2. More than one person seems to have reported this.

3. All my other openfaint games work fine.

4. Espagaluda2 had the same problem when I bought it. Didnt work on my touch, the developer posted a note on the app store and fixed with an update.

5. Is it possible to release another version without openfaint, as people seem to be moving to gamecentre anyway now.

[GilesGoat]

I'll try to reply in list as well

1. If it's for battery life only I'd consider it again, it is true that 4. Uses stuff a but that issue seems was on the beta only not in the release, there is really no significant change in battery life.

2. True but the big problem is I do not have any device where it happens so I could debug it, I am still trying to collect information around but responses are a bit vague and do not allow me to understand what is the problem or the cause.
If I cannot see it happening to a machine I have here I cannot try anything to fix it.
My "best bet" was to try to indirectly get in touch with some of the people that actually made OpenFeint and I partially succeeded in that but the answer I got been not helpful at all to understand what could be going here.

3. Maybe they are older than us and they use a previous version of OF ?

4. The same ... Bugs are never the same, they just may look like the same thing,again who knows what version of of he was using and how ? The thing maybe is the same but there can be different ways it could be used. We did all our best to be on "use the thing like OpenFeint teaches you to use it".

5. I think we would have LOT more people complaining about why we do not support OpenFeint than Gamecenter and anyway they would all want to have both, Gamecenter APIs are "so naive" and " so basic " that it would have took us probably another month just to try to implement and debug a working Gamecenter thing, there are reasons while people uses OF, sad to say but for the moment is MUCH better than what Apple gives you.

I am still trying to find out what to do here, for me would be "gold" to have a device here that crashes, I could run the "debug version" of the thing and see where/why it freezes, hopefully, then if it would freeze inside OF code I would not know what to do ..

[nyarla]

Hey Giles, you probably already read all this stuff and it won't be any use, but I've been thinking about this OF "white screen" bug, and googling it up a bit cos I was curious, and it's weird... found a few things saying that it could be something to do with OF receiving wrong screen orientation, so it tries to show the resources for that orientation, which aren't there. Apparently they changed how orientation code works between iOS 3 and 4 SDKs...

Not much help since you can't easily test it though

Dunno if this applies at all to how you're initing OF, but on this thread: http://openfeint.com/developers/forum/s ... -on-4-0-os a guy says:

I found that it ONLY occurred when I initialize with UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight. If I did LandscapeLeft, or Portrait, it worked fine. In the end I just removed the orientation from the init call, and call setDashboardOrientation with LandscapeRight immediately after the Init call. This solved all my problems. Very odd.

Although his problem might be a different one to yours anyway because he says it only happened the first time running it on a device..

Anyway...just "brainstorming" slightly because I like a good puzzle... =) good luck!

[GilesGoat]

I too read/heard of that thing in a few places.

But if that would be the problem it should always and sistematically happen any time you start "in the wrong orientation" and/or I would expect that starting in a different orientation would "bypass" it.

As I said "the main problem" is I don't have any machine or any way I did manage to have it crashing *HERE* so I could see what is really happening, I would need a machine that freeze - repeatedly - in this very room connected to the SDK with the "debug window" out there and all the "printf()" to see what's really going on and trying to find out where is the problem.

I can't touch otherwise code "at blank" that maybe then could fix the problem of one and distrupt what works for many without even really knowing if that is really the problem, if I am doing the right thing and why.

I am reading that thread you linked and sounds like "nobody even really knows yet what the problem really is" and it does not even seem to happen to all the devices but only on 'some'.

It's quite a puzzle so far.

[GilesGoat]

It's just been one of those "MA DIO (*&$@#&$(*@#&$ " moments ( which people on YY are quite used of .. ) ..

It's nothing to do with the bug itself, it's not going to affect anything .. however you should not be seeing any of those messages ..

Unofrunately I see XCODE is not like Visual Studio that greyes/ungreyes piece of code between #ifdef #endif when a symbol is defined or not ..

Sounds like WE_WANT_DEBUG been left defined ..

Which probably means that if there would be any error or strange stuff of ours you'd see some <Italian-vernacular-expression>+<error message>

That last message fundamentally says that all our stuff been properly initialised,loaded and ready with no errors.

Now I don't know "if it the same thing for all" but you are so far THE SECOND person that reports a problem with a jailbroken device .. I wonder if there's something in that ( jailbroken device ) which could someway cause it.

Ah if you see "passing by" at initialization something complaining about a missing VB that's correct, it would be an error but it's not in that stage so it's correct as it is ..

In general the program would really halt or stop or exit if it would be some sort of 'unrecoverable error' from ours.

Stupid question .. would not have been easier just to register as an Apple developer, get the SDK and do all you want with your device ?

Ah right you say "without getting a Mac" .. ok that makes "sense" .. yeah I can well bet it's been a hell of a nightmare ..

[rcat]

I've got the same problem- freezes on the OpenFeint screen. Running on an iPod Touch, 3GS, 32 GB, 3.1.3 as well. Not jailbroken. Can't update to the latest firmware as my Mac is running on Tiger and can't update to the newest version of iTunes that would let me update the iPod. Tried deleting and reinstalling, tried rebooting the iPod, no luck with either, still just hangs on the OpenFeint screen.

[elvis75k]

minotron 2112 as the same problem.. oh no!