CC iOS Alpha 3

[Steve_Haley]

I've just sent out v0.9.1. Two changes:
- App disconnecting when transferring large number of books in the background: this might be slightly more reliable now, but it's still going to cut out. As mentioned above, iOS only gives us a few minutes to finish up once the app goes in the background. The app should now better report when it's still running in the background, but I haven't figured out if there's a way to get around iOS's limit. (There probably isn't...)

- Logging: there's a bit more useful information in the log now, and a bit less noise. Hopefully this will help with future debug logs.

Please let me know how it goes! Thanks.

[kaufman]

Steve, maybe add an option to keep the screen on while connected. At least that way you could have some way to reliably transfer a large number of files.

[pwalker8]

You actually can set it up not to turn off, download the files then turn the screen timer back on when you are finished. That's what I did. I was able to download almost 3000 ebooks in blocks of 1000 on an older iPad mini without issue.

[pwalker8]

I removed the old app. rebooted, installed the new app. Downloaded all my ebooks, disconnected, tried to reconnect and it crashed as expected. I emailed the log. Hopefully you get a bit more information this time.

[kaufman]

I know, I just figured it would be nicer to have the program do that automatically.

[Steve_Haley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

Steve, maybe add an option to keep the screen on while connected. At least that way you could have some way to reliably transfer a large number of files.

Are you saying the screen does switch off automatically for you during a transfer? I assumed you were manually switching it off or moving to another app. It seems to keep itself on for me already, but I've never done a truly massive transfer (e.g. mine take 5 minutes).

Edit: Definitely confirmed that my screen doesn't switch off while a transfer is in progress. The screen can time out when it's connected and inactive, but once a book transfer is started, the screen stays on until the transfer completes.

However, maybe it's too aggressive with its concept of "inactive". Right now it only considers the connection to be active when a book transfer is in progress, whereas maybe it should consider the connection existing in any state as being active. For example, I think it probably doesn't count the initial sync process as being active, when it obviously should. I'll work on that...

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I removed the old app. rebooted, installed the new app. Downloaded all my ebooks, disconnected, tried to reconnect and it crashed as expected. I emailed the log. Hopefully you get a bit more information this time.

Could you double check that the email actually got sent? It's not in my inbox or spam folder.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Steve_Haley

...
Could you double check that the email actually got sent? It's not in my inbox or spam folder.

Just regenerated and sent the log again from two different emails, so you should get two copies, but hopefully at least one will make it.

[Steve_Haley]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Just regenerated and sent the log again from two different emails, so you should get two copies, but hopefully at least one will make it.

I got it this time, but only one copy. I'll send a PM saying which email address worked.

As for the problem itself, the logs show where it's occurring and a few crash reports have come through, so I have a place to start now. Thanks.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Steve_Haley

I got it this time, but only one copy. I'll send a PM saying which email address worked.

As for the problem itself, the logs show where it's occurring and a few crash reports have come through, so I have a place to start now. Thanks.

I have a talent for crashing software.

[Steve_Haley]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I have a talent for crashing software.

I think I know what's causing the problem now, and I'm now trying to verify the theory. During a connection process, CC sends the metadata of each book in its library to Calibre, so that Calibre can then determine whether anything needs updating. To do this, the metadata is put into a queue to be sent to Calibre. My theory is that your iPad Mini is putting information into the queue much faster than it can send it to Calibre, and that's resulting in it running out of memory. In this situation, the iPad Pro would be fine because it has significantly more memory, allowing it to build up a longer queue without issue.

Anyway, once I've proven that's the bug, I'll find a way of ensuring the queue is kept to a reasonable limit.

[Mike4672]

Originally Posted by Mike4672

I installed CC on an iPad Air 2 and an ipad iPad Mini 4 both running iOS 10.0.1. I only had one issue upon installation. Once CC was installed it only showed one reading app... Amazon's Kindle. I have other reading apps on my iPads, such as Bookari, Marvin, MapleRead, Hyphen, yet it wouldn't show any of those. Through trial and error I found that backing out of CC, then locking my iPad, unlocking the iPad and reentering CC fixed the problem. All of the reading apps showed up and CC has worked perfectly.

I have no idea why the initial installation required what I had to do, but once you get past that issue, CC is working great. I've had no other issues with it.

I've since updated to iOS 10.0.2 and CC is still working great.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling CC and the issue appeared again. It only seems to occur on the initial installation.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Steve_Haley

I think I know what's causing the problem now, and I'm now trying to verify the theory. During a connection process, CC sends the metadata of each book in its library to Calibre, so that Calibre can then determine whether anything needs updating. To do this, the metadata is put into a queue to be sent to Calibre. My theory is that your iPad Mini is putting information into the queue much faster than it can send it to Calibre, and that's resulting in it running out of memory. In this situation, the iPad Pro would be fine because it has significantly more memory, allowing it to build up a longer queue without issue.

Anyway, once I've proven that's the bug, I'll find a way of ensuring the queue is kept to a reasonable limit.

They actually both have the same amount of memory, 128 GB. The iPad Pro has 13.6 GB free and the iPad mini has 41 GB free. However the iPad mini has been using the slower wifi. I can try it with the faster wifi though. Nope, the faster wifi doesn't help. It never gets to the point where it shows the percentages scanned.

[Steve_Haley]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

They actually both have the same amount of memory, 128 GB. ... Nope, the faster wifi doesn't help.

Sorry, when I wrote 'memory' I was referring to RAM, which is a more temporary and is used when apps are actually running. You're referring to how much long-term storage your devices have. An iPad Mini 2 has 1GB of RAM whereas an iPad Pro has 4GB. So that means the Pro can keep about 4x more books in the transfer queue. With the specifics of your books and WiFi speed, that seems to be enough to make sure that the queue never gets long enough to crash the app.

[Steve_Haley]

Originally Posted by Mike4672

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling CC and the issue appeared again. It only seems to occur on the initial installation.

Rats. So clearly there's a problem there; thanks for confirming.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Steve_Haley

Sorry, when I wrote 'memory' I was referring to RAM, which is a more temporary and is used when apps are actually running. You're referring to how much long-term storage your devices have. An iPad Mini 2 has 1GB of RAM whereas an iPad Pro has 4GB. So that means the Pro can keep about 4x more books in the transfer queue. With the specifics of your books and WiFi speed, that seems to be enough to make sure that the queue never gets long enough to crash the app.

Ah, gotcha. Well good luck bug stomping. Let me know if you want me to try anything. Since we are in different time zones, email to my .info account is likely to get a quicker response.