Happy Holidays: Heads-Up on Alarms and Battery Drain

Interesting ... so DB6 does seem to handle this differently. Can you also try using standard Calendar just to be sure ? I will try as well on my 680.

 

I could be totally off base here, but as I understood this issue, the problem wasn't with advance reminders malfunctioning prior to the new year rolling over. The issue, AFAIK, is that just after the new year rolls over, i.e. just after midnight on Jan 1, the Palm will continue to turn itself on for the reminder alarm until the actual event is past. Can somebody clarify this?

Just wondering...

Joe

 

I setup a second test appointment for Jan 2, with a reminder alarm 2 days in advance, which should go off in about 8 minutes. I did this from this standard Palm OS 5 Calendar app (took me a while to realize it wasn't called "Datebook" ). I also turned off "DateBk6 handles alarms" in DB6 this time.

So even though Calendar and DB6 share the same underlying pdb, that alone does not seem to cause any distress with Calendar. I'll leave things this way until the new year to see if anything breaks once we're actually in 2007.

Update: My TX just auto shut-off, as expected. It should wake up again in about 5 minutes with the reminder.

 

Yes, I believe you are right. The initial problem description was ambiguous on this part, so I figured there would have to be at least four interval cases:

1. between the creation of the appointment, and the triggering of the reminder
2. between the triggering of the reminder, and 23:59:59 on December 31 2006 (or any year 'N')
3. between 00:00:00 on January 1 2007 (or any year 'N+1'), and the appointment
4. after the appointment

So far, I've only been able to test intervals 1 and 2. I suppose I should just fast forward my clock to 23:59:00, rather than wait for it to happen naturally. Otherwise I'd have to wait a year between test cases.

When I read some of the related threads on the topic, I did notice that although some of the threads were started in December, the actual reports of Insomniac Palms did not come in until January. There is at least one post where the person noted that his or her Palm turned on right at 00:00:00 01/01, so this would support interval cases #3 and #4 above.

 

Thanks for doing all this footwork on the issue. Your work will come in handy for many of us.

 

Well, I set my TX to 23:55, let it auto shutoff, and waited. And waited and waited. It did not power up on its own at "midnight", and when I did turn it on ten minutes later, I was able to turn it right back off (and it stayed off). So-o-o-o-o... I dunno.

Doctor, run more tests!

 

Hrm, still no conclusive results. This is what I did on my TX:

1. deleted any past test appointments
2. removed DateBk6 completely
3. did a soft reset to ensure Calendar app is now the default
4. set clock ahead to 23:50
5. created appointment for 23:55 on January 4 2007, with a 4-day advance reminder
6. turned off TX
7. alarm triggers at 23:55 on December 31 2006
8. I dismiss the alarm
9. TX shuts off automatically 1 minute later
10. 00:00:00 January 1 2007 comes and goes
11. I turn TX back on, turn it off, etc.... no problem evident
12. I reset the clock back to the correct time (yay for wireless NTP sync in PalmaryClock!)

*shrug* Ah well, time to party.

 

Thanks DT, I was trying to figure out why my battery had been draining over the past two days.

 

That explains why my TC was completely dead- I always have a charged battery. Thanks for the info, Tracy, happy to know that my battery is still good.