Pleco Causing My Device to Crash, Restart

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LinZheFu

进士
Pleco has started to crash my Android device (Samsing Galaxy Tab 3 10.1) quite a lot. I notice this first when switching to night mode and back - was causing a dramatic crash of Pleco. First Pleco only, then it caused the whole device to crash and restart. Now I have that happen when I attempt to use the handwriting tool to enter a character. Very unstable. Guess I need to delete and reinstall? Or something else to fix?

There was a Samsung operating system update recently. Was there also a Pleco update? The crashing problems starting occurring about the same time I noticed that the scrolling slider did not work within flashcards under Organize Flashcards.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Have you submitted your crash logs to Google Play? If not, could you? Deleting and reinstalling Pleco definitely might help.
 
L

LinZheFu

进士
I am trying - but Play Store is blocked in China unless I use VPN, which is very slow. After 10 minutes, I can only get the header of the Pleco info to load. Not seeing any way to submit a crash report.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Ah, didn't realize - that makes crash logs difficult to extract... you don't have the Android developer tools installed on your computer by any chance, do you?

The next beta of our 3.2 update should include a Google-independent crash log collection tool, so if you wait a few days and install that that should give us a way to look into these crashes.
 
L

LinZheFu

进士
Thought the problem had gone away when I accidentally hit the handwriting button and noticed there was not a crash. Was able to use handwriting for about a day, then the complete crash and restart of the device occurred again. So I uninstalled and reinstalled Pleco. Did not help. As soon as I touched the handwriting button, Pleco when mostly black for about 10 seconds, and then the whole device crashed and restarted.

Any hope? It's one of the most valuable features for me, and now I can't use it. Can still find characters using radicals, but it would be so nice to draw them again.

I see no option under Play Store to submit crash logs. How do I do that?
 
L

LinZheFu

进士
After reinstalling and seeing that handwriting was failing, I saw a notice in Adds-Ons that there was an enhanced handwriting system for $4.99. I thought that was what I already had, but hoping that this was an improvement that might fix the device crash problem, I bought it and gave it a try. Same problem. Still brings down the whole tablet if I touch the handwriting button.

Is the enhanced handwriting system a new offering that I hadn't already paid for? (I've actually paid for some components twice as it is, once for iPad and once for Android, before I knew they could be ported).
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Once we release that next 3.2 beta, install it and it should give you an easy way to submit crash logs - we should be able to sort out the problem by looking through those.

If you don't want to wait for that beta, do an internet search for instructions on how to install "adb"- the Android debugger tool - on your computer; you can use that to generate crash logs too (with the command "adb logcat").

Regarding enhanced handwriting, that actually helps narrow it down a bit since it suggests the issue is happening on the UI rather than the recognizer level (totally different recognition library with 'enhanced'). Can you go into Settings / Input Methods / Handwriting and set "use full screen" to the opposite of whatever it is now? Does that help?

If you bought handwriting on the iPad then you would indeed have already paid for enhanced handwriting, in which case contact support and we can help you get a refund for the new purchase / transfer over the iPad one. We can also give you a refund for it regardless if you no longer want it. (it is a new offering on Android, though)
 
L

LinZheFu

进士
I switched to full screen and it didn't crash. But I don't know if that really is a work around because usually when it does crash, it crashes as soon as I touch the brush icon, before asking me if I want to use fullscreen or not. But the last time I touched it, a dialog popped up asking me if I wanted to switch to fullscreen, and I said yes, and it didn't crash. I went into settings and changed it back to partial screen, and it didn't crash when I tried handwriting - not yet. So I'm not sure if fullscreen vs my normal partial screen makes a difference, but I'll definitely try this as a potential workaround if the crashing returns.

Really appreciate your kind and helpful answers! Wish other software providers came anywhere close to the helpful, prompt customer service you provide. Wish other products had the kind of intense commitment behind them that we see and enjoy as Pleco users. Awesome product with terrific service! Sorry my device is problematic.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Thanks!

3.2 Beta 3 is out now with that crash reporting feature, so if you install that APK and try this again, the next time you run Pleco after that crash we'll automatically get a crash report that should (hopefully) shed some light on your problem.
 
L

LinZheFu

进士
Version 3.2 appears to have resolved this problem. Thanks! Before the update, using full screen did stop the crash. Now I can use the small screen as I prefer to do.
 
L

LinZheFu

进士
Spoke too soon, I'm afraid. The problem came back quickly and now I get crashes using both full screen and partial screen settings for the handwriting tool. Very frustrating. Version 3.2 allows me to submit a report when there is a minor crash, the kind where Pleco suddenly stops working, and I've submitted several of those. But when I touch the handwriting tool, there is a major crash that brings the whole device down, forcing a restart (sometimes it locks up during the restart and I have to manually restart it again). and never giving the option to submit a report. Anyway to send helpful information about all these crashes?
 
L

LinZheFu

进士
When I touch the handwriting icon, the screen goes nearly black, though often still showing a faded keypad or other portions of the screen (or sometimes just going completely black). It hangs there for about 5 seconds and then the whole device begins a restart.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Where are you seeing this crash submission prompt? It doesn't seem like it's coming from our system - we don't have any recent crash log entries from a Galaxy Tab 3.

I assume that deleting and reinstalling doesn't help, right? Have you purchased our 'enhanced handwriting recognizer' add-on yet? If not, try going into Add-ons and downloading + trying the demo version of it - does that demo work without crashing?
 
L

LinZheFu

进士
That prompt occurred when Pleco suddenly stopped working a few times. Said it was reporting via Google Play I think. But the crashes I get all the time now - both from using handwriting and sometimes just adjusting settings - are catastrophic ones that crash the whole phone and then take a couple tries sometimes to get it to restart. Ouch.

I did have the enhanced writer. Removed it, problem still there. Reinstalled it, no help.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Honestly, that sort of problem ought to be beyond what Pleco or for that matter any app can cause - suggests either that there's something wrong with your hardware or that the system is failing to protect its memory properly. Have these hard crashes happened while you're doing anything else with your tablet?

Reinstalling the whole app doesn't help either, right? And this is definitely stock / official Samsung firmware? How long have you owned this tablet?
 
L

LinZheFu

进士
Stock Samsung tablet bought 11 months ago at BestBuy. I just found that another app also causes the dramatic crash as well, sometimes. I think it is Samsung's recent firmware update that might be the problem. Sigh. I'll contact Samsung.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
OK - sorry about that.

If they can't help you, one other shot-in-the-dark thing we can try is to send you an experimental build of Pleco with all hardware acceleration disabled - it'll be a bit choppy / slow compared to the official version, so I think you'll be much happier with the result if you can get this working with the official app, but the most likely culprit I can think of for what you're describing is a graphics driver problem and shifting to software-only rendering will take away a lot of the potential bugs in that. If the experimental build works then we can probably add a checkbox to make the same change in official releases.
 
L

LinZheFu

进士
Tried uninstall and reinstall, but that did not solve the problem. Massive crash. Next step I guess is to reset the whole tablet to factory conditions, but since the firmware update will still be in place, I suspect it will continue to clash with Pleco. Tech support at Samsung said if that is the problem, the only hope is to send the device to them to downgrade to an earlier version of Android and the earlier version of the firmware. But that might cause trouble with software needing the new system. Looks like a problem. Was a mistake to move from iPad to Android, but my iPad 1 is too old. Guess I need to by the new iPad. Are other Android brands working better for users? Samsung has been a disappointment in many ways.
 
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L

LinZheFu

进士
Yes, I would like to try the build with hardware acceleration disabled. If it works, that would be great. How do I get that?
 
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