Freeze going to Airplane mode: A new Clue?

[icebike]

My nook has never frozen going to airplane mode before.

Today it did it twice.

What changed?

I drove from Washington State (strong 3G area) to Phoenix Arizona (another strong 3G area).  That is all.

(It worked well while driving, even bought a book from B&B while riding along at 65mpg in rural area and had it delivered by Edge within a couple miles, how cool is THAT).

When it froze it was on 3G, and had just completed a check of B&N new content.

I turned on airplane mode, and it froze.

I used the 20 second power button hold, then tap again to reboot. (No battery drama here).

When the nook rebooted it was in airplane mode.  So the switch to airplane mode worked, but the lockup occurred after that.

Then I noticed that WiFI was enabled, and might have been tried while I had airplane mode off.  so just for grins, I turned off airplane mode, so that I could switch off wifi.

It froze immediately after turning off WiFi.

Ok, reboot again.   It comes up with wifi off, but airplane mode still off.

Switch airplane mode on  - - - No Freeze.

Went in and out of airplane mode a couple times and No Freeze.

I'm in a hotel.  Their WiFi has one of those sign in pages that the nook can't handle.  (At home, of course my WiFi does not have this).  

So my observation is this

As long as I leave wifi off, no problem going into/outof airplane mode.  Wifi ON, with a sign-in router = Freeze upon entering wifi mode (or turniing wifi off).

Can any of you other folks getting Airplane mode freezes test this scenario and see if i'm all wet here?

[rfruth]

I've not tried all your steps but if my wifi is on (home or other) and I turn wifi off then try to enter airplane mode my nook hangs, but if wifi is on then i turn airplane mode on all okay (only difference is I don't need to turn wifi off, the nook will turn it off when i select airplane mode) this works for me.  

[dreamcatcherSM]

I have had my nook freeze twice when wifi on and airplane mode off

[Rav_Bunneh]

I've only gone in and out of Airplane Mode with wifi on in these locations.

Home

B&N Honolulu

B&N Kahala

Starbucks

Seattle's Best

However I've never once had it freeze for more than 10 seconds as it is turning on and connecting. It's more like a slight momentary little pause while connecting.

IDK since it isn't happening to me. :/ Sorry.

[icebike]

Ok, replying to my own post:

I'm Back Home in Washington state, and my nook no longer freezes when entering airplane mode or when turning WiFi on or off.

So there is definitely some location dependent problem with Airplane Mode Freezes, and it has something to do with combinations of WiFi being on and possibly being within range of a sign-on type of wifi router (hotels).

I post this for the record, and to feed the google spiders for others searching about this problem.

[QuiteTheCharac…]

Did you happen to note whether you actually had a connection when the problems occur? I'd say that most of my lockups are when going into and out of Airplane mode, and I've suspected that it might matter whether the nook is actually connected (you see the WiFi icon or cell phone bars icon at the top) when the problem occurs, but I've never paid enough attention to note a correlation..

Generally the nook connects / disconnects regulary (doesn't need always-on connection). So, I was wondering if you go into / out of Airplane mode while it's in the process of connecting or disconnecting for it's normal cycle, and whether that might cause the issue (ie. nook it about to turn on the radio, and at the same time you put it in Airplane mode, thereby causing a conflict).

Just a thought, but I haven't spent any real time testing it myself.

[icebike]

In all cases I was connected according to the icon at the top.

1) First, I never had a problem with this

2) Went to Arizona, stayed in hotel

3) Bam! Problem

4) Came home

5) All better.

Go figure!?

[Michael-V]

@icebike,

There is an upcoming nook update that will continue to improve nook performance to provide enhanced overall reading experience and in-store connectivity for nook customers to enjoy exclusive content and promotions in Barnes & Noble stores.

FYI...The upcoming update is looking more like mid April but it is not "set in stone" as of yet.  I will keep the boards posted.

Your Admin.,

Michael-V

[rfruth]

update in a few weeks, oh boy smileytongue:

[QuiteTheCharac…]

Michael-V wrote:

FYI...The upcoming update is looking more like mid April but it is not "set in stone" as of yet.  I will keep the boards posted.

Any hint as to the content of the update other than performance and instore features? I'm sure you'll probably say that you're not in a position to give out that information, but I had to ask..

[icebike]

I too would like to know what's being fixed.  

Have they found the cause of going-to-airplane freezes?

Are there steps we can take to avoid it till the fix comes out?

Why will the same nook freeze in one city and not another?

Have they found the cause of the Daily Crashing?

Having been a software engineer for 30 years I can understand why hard and fast statements of time frames are foolish, but I also understand "work arounds", and keeping customers informed about any steps they can take to avoid problems.  Those developers don't need to be so "ivory tower".  People who buy nooks are fairly literate and there is no reason they can't communicate with us, even if its just feeding the board admins a list of expected fixes or work-arounds.

[dElaphant]

I've posted this elsewhere, but it may be worth repeating - what's the name of the network you are on when you experience the freeze?

My theory is that the nook is confused by different networks that have the same name (like "linksys" which gets used over and over because people don't realize they should change it). It could explain the "location dependence" of the crash, since it would be triggered by the name of the network at that location. 

[icebike]

And as I mentioned on the other thread, mine locked up while shutting down wifi, and I was in range of about 15 routers all named "hhoners" in a hotel.  Upon returning to my uniquely named router, I can't replicate this problem.

FTR, those hotel routers provide an IP address, but then require a web based click-thru page which the nook can't support.  I was turning OFF wifi when the lockup occurred, and it was 100% repeatable. 

[Cleos_Mum]

I have posted this in another thread, but thought I should here also.

Mine locked yesterday for the first time. I was in a 3G area, but also in a wi-fi zone with multiple (uniquely named) access points that my nook could not access due to security. All access points were Cisco Aironet access points connected to my company's network. Neither 3G or wi-fi were deactivated on my nook.

Initially, I was blaming the lockup on a depleted battery (knee-jerk reaction)...but I now don't believe that is the case. I believe the depleted battery just compounded the problem, as the 20-second button hold did not unlock mine and I had to go through the battery-removal & plug-in process to recover.

Just prior to the lockup, I hit the Check for new B&N content to try to update The Daily.

Going forward, I think it might help for users to not only post what type of wi-fi network is available to them at the time, but also if they are in a 3G area.

[icebike]

Cleos_Mum wrote:

Going forward, I think it might help for users to not only post what type of wi-fi network is available to them at the time, but also if they are in a 3G area.

It is not necessary to be in a 3G area, and the nook has no way of telling your if you are or not.

To know this you either have to have a smart-phone that tells you, or you have to open up the AT&T coverage map.

But its not germane to the problem at hand.  The nook works just fine on EDGE, and the radio is also capable of GPRS, but I haven't tried that.   I've posted elsewhere that I bought a book from B&N while riding down the highway in very Rural Oregon on Edge.

More useful info is whether WIFI is on or not.  Going to/from Airplane mode  deals with both radios. (Both are in the same radio module on the nook).  Going to Airplane mode was actually failing on the shutdown of WiFi in my case.  Once that was turned off, no more problems.

If (and only if) Wifi was turned one:

Second, suspect item is if you were in the range of an OPEN WiFi router that requires a sign-in page.

In range of a group of routers that have the same name.

[IndolentCin]

Okay, let's add something I think is new to this, if I read the previous posts correctly.  (And if I didn't, I apologize.) 

I'm sitting at my desk at work.  I opened my nook, turned off the airplane mode, bought some stuff, let it load, went to turn the airplane mode back on -- it froze.  Powered it down, back on, airplane mode is on, nook is working.  Thought of something else I wanted, turned airplane mode off again, played with it, checked for new content one last time, went to turn airplane mode back on -- no problem at all. 

I didn't touch the WiFi settings at all while doing all of this (it was disconnected FWIW).  And it frequently freezes on me when I go to airplane mode, and I think it has occasionally when coming out of it, but mostly turning it on.

[Leeza14]

I just received my replacement nook (my first nook lost the top screen after three months of use), and while trying to set it up, it froze when I was trying to put it into airplane mode.  I had to power down and reboot as others have had to do. My WiFi is disconnected as I have not yet set that up.

My original nook never had this freezing issue once. 

I came to this board to find some help since I hadn't experienced this before.  I know with a first-generation product, bugs will be around, but I am sort of getting sick of these bugs at this point.  I hope when the new release comes out, this will be fixed.

Thanks for letting me vent.