ResetEmu for PalmOS

The PalmOS primarily notifies applications of important global events by sending so called launch codes. The most common launch code is sysAppLaunchCmdNormalLaunch which tells an application that it should start running. This is often the only launch code an application understands - and worse, sometimes the only one it handles properly.

Other launch codes are sent when you do a reset, hotsync, change the time or country. Applications which do not ignore or handle this launch code properly will most likely crash. In case of the reset launch code, this will result in an endless loop of resets (escape by pressing the up scroll button!). Usually you will not see which application is the culprit.

This is the moment where ResetEmu will come in. It sends every installed application a certain launch code to test whether it crashes. If it does, running ResetEmu again will tell you the name of the application that behaved incorrectly.

Reset problems

In case of the reset launch code, you need to do a warm reset before you can issue the launch code. A warm reset is accomplished by keeping the page-up button pressed while performing a reset (on some devices it will be enough to press the up-button during the reset loop, on others you will actually need to perform the reset yourself - even if you are in a reset loop!).

Run ResetEmu afterwards.

If you do not have a recent backup of your Palm, this is the time to backup it. I strongly advise to do so!

Copyright and Disclaimer

ResetEmu is (c) Daniel Seifert, 2001-2002 and (c) 79bmedia GmbH, 2003.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO BACKUP YOUR PALM BEFORE TRYING RESETEMU !!!

Usage

When you launch ResetEmu, you will see a screen with three buttons and two text fields, as well as a popup list at the top of the screen where you can select the kind of launch code to sent.

At the bottom you will see what the last tested program was, below that you will find the name of the next program.

The three buttons have the following function:

• Skip this app -> Do not send the launchcode to the next app
• Launch next app -> sends launchcode to next application
• Launch next 10 apps -> sends launchcode to next ten applications (one after each other)

This way you will have full power which programs to send the launchcode to and which not, and furthermore you will hopefully be able to see which program causes the trouble. If not (e.g. it crashed too fast), just make a reset (in case of reset problems do a warm reset) and run ResetEmu again - it will tell you the name of the application.

After you have found the program (which will probably cause a crash), you should try to fix the problem. Sometimes the problem is a corrupted database, so a re-installation might be helpful. In other cases the application is just poorly written, complain by the applications author(s).

(Please note that it might happen that ResetEmu will not be helpful to find the problem, as it is not possible to simulate i.e. the real boot process exactly. This way a bug in a program might not show using ResetEmu but when doing a soft reset only.)

How to see whether a program causes trouble

Well, if your Palm crashes or just hangs when ResetEmu sents the launchcode to the application, it is obvious that this app has a problem.

Other indications might be that a program prints something to the screen or opens a window. This is an improper behaviour and will most likely hang the Palm as well. (Please note that some programs, like HackMaster etc, might display a dialog in case of the reset launch code. This is in general okay.)