Donut ready

Google today released the SDK for Android 1.6 Donut.

Fortunately this time nothing in NewsRob had to be changed to make it compatible with the new release. So don't let NewsRob hold up your migration (as if) to Donut: I tested NewsRob 3.0.0 and it works fine.

I will wait some time for the vast majority of users to catch the new Android version before I release Donut specific functionality. Likely candidates for NewsRob are gestures as well as the participation in the system wide search.

Broken Permissions Due To Rooting Your Phone

Hi,

instead of visiting this web page you would usually see a mail like the following popping up on your phone:

Sorry!

NewsRob hit a wall. Please send this mail, so that the developer can analyze/fix the issue.
If it is not too much to ask, please add to this mail what you just did:

-- Time: Fri Sep 04 18:35:37 GMT+01:00 2009
-- Android Version: sdk=3, release=1.5, inc=150275
-- Memory free: 0,51MB total: 3,07MB max: 16,00MB
-- NewsRob Version: 2.8.0/280
-- Stacktrace:(1516)
java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start receiver com.newsrob.WakeupAndSynchronizeReceiver: java.lang.SecurityException: Neither user 10085 nor current process has android.permission.WAKE_LOCK.
at android.app.ActivityThread.handleReceiver(ActivityThread.java:2429)
at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2700(ActivityThread.java:112)
at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1753)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:3960)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:782)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:540)
at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
Caused by: java.lang.SecurityException: Neither user 10085 nor current process has android.permission.WAKE_LOCK.
at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1234)
at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1222)
at android.os.IPowerManager$Stub$Proxy.acquireWakeLock(IPowerManager.java:178)
at android.os.PowerManager$WakeLock.acquire(PowerManager.java:228)
at com.newsrob.SynchronizationService.acquireWakeLock(SynchronizationService.java:452)
at com.newsrob.WakeupAndSynchronizeReceiver.onReceive(WakeupAndSynchronizeReceiver.java:23)
at android.app.ActivityThread.handleReceiver(ActivityThread.java:2420)
... 10 more

But as this now happens more than 30 times a week I have trouble keeping up with answering those "bug reports" in a timely fashion. Hence I created this explanation and you are now directed from within NewsRob to this page.

So here it goes. You have rooted your phone, probably moved your apps to the SD card. In the process the permissions that you initially granted to your apps have been broken.

You can now either wipe the phone, re-install the apps or run some magic script from your ROM provider to correct the permissions issue.

If you have further insights, share them in the comments.

Matt Zimmerman added:

"I had this problem, and fix_permissions did not fix it. The trouble was not with UNIX filesystem permissions (which is what fix_permissions tries to fix), but with Android security permissions.

I fixed it by re-installing the affected applications, including NewsRob: http://mdzlog.alcor.net/2010/01/31/fix-broken-android-permissions-by-re-installing-apps/"

Chris Haworth added:

"Current cyanogen rom, just go to terminal
emulator and hit enter then type fix_permissions and let that finish.
Then keep typing exit and enter til it exits you out."

I hope that helps!

Update: Please keep the comments on this particular article on topic. I will remove other comments as this page will stay the landing page for this single issue for some time and discussions of other NewsRob issues wouldn't be all that helpful.

You can go off-topic on any other article ;-)

Back on the 7th of September

Hi,

I am out-of-country on a business trip with limited, if any, network connectivity and time. I will resume answering comments after the 7th of September.

You may want to post your question to the forums: http://groups.google.com/group/newsrob There's a lot of experienced NewsRob users there who can answer most questions.

Cheers, Mariano

NewsRob 2.8

- Autoskip empty dashboard

- Titles can have varying lengths

- Bug fixes (e.g. embedded URLs ending in a dot)

- Small improvements (e.g. extra padding at the bottom of articles in feed view, so that the zoom controls don't overlay the bottom of an article)

- Small cosmetic changes (e.g. read indicator)

- and more small stuff

Please upgrade to NewsRob 2.7.7

Sorry, major screw up on my part.

NewsRob 2.7.5 included a minor bug (please ignore all NewsRob app icons but the one called "NewsRob", that was just an experiment), which I removed again in NewsRob 2.7.6.

Unfortunately I was mishandling my tools and as the consequence some other work-in-progress code was released in 2.7.6. This time it's more than a minor annoyance. 2.7.7 will stop refreshing after the first refresh.

So please upgrade to NewsRob 2.7.7 and accept my sincere apologies!

NewsRob 2.7.7 is available from the Android Market and AndAppStore.

Android Network Awards - Vote for NewsRob

NewsRob has been nominated in the category "Best News App" of the Android Network Awards. This is great news.

I embedded the voting widget to the right of this post.

So, if you like NewsRob, please vote for it - this will make a small app very happy ;-)

Notifications in NewsRob 2.5

There wasn't much of a response to my question if the release notes are needed. So now I keep those to a minimum and post them directly to the Android Market. I'll use the freed time to work on NewsRob instead then ;-)

This morning I released NewsRob 2.5 and I already have a couple of support requests, so maybe here is a bit of a release note helpful:

The idea behind notifications in NewsRob is to stay closely in touch with a very few selected feeds, e.g. feeds of personal friends. Those feeds get special attention now.

In NewsRob you can configure which feeds should be monitored for new articles. You do

this via the Manage Feed dialog, accessible from a feed's context menu.

When there are new articles in those feeds a notification is displayed. This notification displays

the number of new articles since you last used NewsRob. The notification goes away when you open the notification or open any activity of NewsRob.

You can configure in the settings menu if you want the notification to be accompanied by flashing your phone's LED or a vibration signal.

When opening the notification a NewsRob activity will be launched that shows all new articles in your specified folders that have been fetched since you last had started a NewsRob activity.

Posted via email from newsrob's posterous