Hi -
https://confluence.dimagi.com/display/public/Sending+forms+from+an+SD+card
shows one way to deal with the problem of having fieldworkers in "no cell
phone coverage" areas. This is a very useful feature.
Unless I'm being more than normally stupid, I can't find the "Manage SD
card" button in the latest client (2.10). Has it been deliberately removed?
If so, what's the replacement functionality? WiFi direct is all very well
if you have a nice shiny new device, but what about existing users with
Android 2.x devices?
Thanks.
Mr Beard,
In 2.10 we made this feature unavailable for devices running anything older
than Android 4.0. We did this because emulated external storage only became
available in Android 4.X - this allowed ODK to be installed on the device's
own storage and for the SD card to be removable without crashing CommCare.
People were reporting crashes when they used this feature on 2.X devices
because they were removing storage that CommCare depended on.
Its possible some 2.X phones are not installing to the external SD card by
default and so this feature should be available to them - can you confirm
that on your device you can remove the external SD card and CommCare will
continue to function normally? If so, please send me your device type and
operating system version and I will take another look at this feature.
Best,
Will
···
On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 8:59 AM, james beard wrote:
Hi -
Log In - Dimagi Confluence one way to deal with the problem of having fieldworkers in "no cell
phone coverage" areas. This is a very useful feature.
Unless I'm being more than normally stupid, I can't find the "Manage SD
card" button in the latest client (2.10). Has it been deliberately removed?
If so, what's the replacement functionality? WiFi direct is all very well
if you have a nice shiny new device, but what about existing users with
Android 2.x devices?
Thanks.
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Will -
Thanks for the explanation.
I think CommCare will only crash if the SD card is removed without
dismounting it first, and/or CommCare is the foreground application when
the SD card is removed. The instructions I linked to yesterday don't say
anything about dismounting the SD card, so maybe people have been removing
the SD card without dismounting and thus inducing CommCare crashes?
I can remove the SD from a phone without CommCare crashing, but only as
described above. But sometimes I am prompted to log in to CommCare again
after re-inserting the SD card. This is with both a Samsung Galaxy Y
GT-S5360 (Android 2.3.6) and a Huawei U8655-1 (same version of Android).
Actually, our use-case is a bit different from that described on the
website. Our supervisors have laptops - they copy the instance files from
the filedump folder after connecting the phones as USB storage devices.
This, of course, implicitly dismounts the SD card from the Android device,
and I've never seen a CommCare crash resulting from this procedure. (We
then use ODK Briefcase to handle the instance files, after a bit of
massaging to make them acceptable to ODK Briefcase).
James
···
On Wednesday, December 18, 2013 3:31:46 PM UTC, William Pride wrote:
>
> Mr Beard,
>
> In 2.10 we made this feature unavailable for devices running anything
> older than Android 4.0. We did this because emulated external storage only
> became available in Android 4.X - this allowed ODK to be installed on the
> device's own storage and for the SD card to be removable without crashing
> CommCare. People were reporting crashes when they used this feature on 2.X
> devices because they were removing storage that CommCare depended on.
>
> Its possible some 2.X phones are not installing to the external SD card by
> default and so this feature should be available to them - can you confirm
> that on your device you can remove the external SD card and CommCare will
> continue to function normally? If so, please send me your device type and
> operating system version and I will take another look at this feature.
>
> Best,
> Will
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 8:59 AM, james beard <james.b...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Hi -
>>
>> https://confluence.dimagi.com/display/public/Sending+forms+from+an+SD+cardshows one way to deal with the problem of having fieldworkers in "no cell
>> phone coverage" areas. This is a very useful feature.
>>
>> Unless I'm being more than normally stupid, I can't find the "Manage SD
>> card" button in the latest client (2.10). Has it been deliberately removed?
>> If so, what's the replacement functionality? WiFi direct is all very well
>> if you have a nice shiny new device, but what about existing users with
>> Android 2.x devices?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "commcare-users" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>> email to commcare-user...@googlegroups.com .
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>>
>
>
Any further comments from Dimagi?
Today, we wanted to use this feature for a different reason (a phone with
80 recently collected forms on it refused to synchronise successfully). Is
there any chance that Dimagi would consider re-introducing the feature?
···
On Thursday, December 19, 2013 3:17:37 PM UTC, james beard wrote:
>
> Will -
>
> Thanks for the explanation.
>
> I think CommCare will only crash if the SD card is removed without
> dismounting it first, and/or CommCare is the foreground application when
> the SD card is removed. The instructions I linked to yesterday don't say
> anything about dismounting the SD card, so maybe people have been removing
> the SD card without dismounting and thus inducing CommCare crashes?
>
> I can remove the SD from a phone without CommCare crashing, but only as
> described above. But sometimes I am prompted to log in to CommCare again
> after re-inserting the SD card. This is with both a Samsung Galaxy Y
> GT-S5360 (Android 2.3.6) and a Huawei U8655-1 (same version of Android).
>
> Actually, our use-case is a bit different from that described on the
> website. Our supervisors have laptops - they copy the instance files from
> the filedump folder after connecting the phones as USB storage devices.
> This, of course, implicitly dismounts the SD card from the Android device,
> and I've never seen a CommCare crash resulting from this procedure. (We
> then use ODK Briefcase to handle the instance files, after a bit of
> massaging to make them acceptable to ODK Briefcase).
>
> James
>
> On Wednesday, December 18, 2013 3:31:46 PM UTC, William Pride wrote:
>>
>> Mr Beard,
>>
>> In 2.10 we made this feature unavailable for devices running anything
>> older than Android 4.0. We did this because emulated external storage only
>> became available in Android 4.X - this allowed ODK to be installed on the
>> device's own storage and for the SD card to be removable without crashing
>> CommCare. People were reporting crashes when they used this feature on 2.X
>> devices because they were removing storage that CommCare depended on.
>>
>> Its possible some 2.X phones are not installing to the external SD card
>> by default and so this feature should be available to them - can you
>> confirm that on your device you can remove the external SD card and
>> CommCare will continue to function normally? If so, please send me your
>> device type and operating system version and I will take another look at
>> this feature.
>>
>> Best,
>> Will
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 8:59 AM, james beard wrote:
>>
>>> Hi -
>>>
>>>
>>> https://confluence.dimagi.com/display/public/Sending+forms+from+an+SD+cardshows one way to deal with the problem of having fieldworkers in "no cell
>>> phone coverage" areas. This is a very useful feature.
>>>
>>> Unless I'm being more than normally stupid, I can't find the "Manage SD
>>> card" button in the latest client (2.10). Has it been deliberately removed?
>>> If so, what's the replacement functionality? WiFi direct is all very well
>>> if you have a nice shiny new device, but what about existing users with
>>> Android 2.x devices?
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>> --
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>> Groups "commcare-users" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>>> an email to commcare-user...@googlegroups.com.
>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>>>
>>
>>
James,
We've decided that we can safely allow this workflow for some devices
running pre-4.0 Android.
In 2.11 CommCareODK will be more granular in testing whether or not to
block this feature on the particular device and will allow SD card
downloads in most cases. We're planning to release 2.11 at the end of the
month. If that timeline won't work for you please email me directly.
Very sorry for the inconvenience.
Best,
Will