Spb Mobile Shell (Review)

..and now I've had a problem with SpB Backup as well

In the interests of investigating another application, I needed to to a hard reset. After the testing, I then restored this afternoon's Backup.

On restarting, all seemed to be present and correct, except my Today screen was blank. None of the Today items which had been part of SpB Shell (nor the Shell Items themselves) were listed or available.

So, I'd lost Shell, iLauncher and SpB Weather, which all needed reinstalling from their cab files (at least the config files were still present)

I realise I was using a version of Backup one release older than the current, but the VI of the new version doesn't mention any SpB Shell issues. [Edit- no, I am using the current release- 1.5.5 !)

I've also gone back to an earlier Backup (nothing to lose now!) with the same effect.

I'm not impressed, to say the least.

Mmm, so SPB shell appears to do something to the file system that SPB Backup can't cope with.

That's a bit of a b!tch!

Not that it's of any use to you, but I wonder whether it is possible for the backup software companies to write "Image" backup software ala Ghost or TrueImage rather than the File level backup software we seem to have now. That would eliminate problems caused by changes to the default file system.

Still, you would have thought if any backup software was going to cope with SPB Shell, it might be SPB Backup!

.. yes. I've now posted a query in SPBDN (or SpB Club as it's now called) to see if there's any other reports.

BTW- I was wrong about my version of Backup- it is current release!

Oh - I thought you guys were aware of the Backup issue - appears since installing SPB Mobile Shell that there have been probs with SPB Backup - so a new release for SPB Backup was made.

If you have the facility (such as SPB Pocket Plus) try going into SAFE MODE and restoring your backups that way.

Before downloading the new version of SPB Backup, I was having to go into safe mode to perform a backup each time, otherwise I would get error warnings from the backups.

See what Alex and Nicholas @ SPB say - I hope they get you sorted

What's the new version Chris- I searched SPBClub for any reference to a problem, but nothing. I'm on 1.5.5

I am a Beta Tester for SpB Backup, but again there's nothing in the forums about a problem with Shell

Due to continuing issues with Connection Manager, and the Notification Queue, resulting from the partially corrupt restore, I've decided for a full hard reset and ground-up rebuild.

But before I did that, I tried 'Safemode' before restoring, and it seemed to work! So it seems as if the backup set itself is complete, even though I didn't backup in safe mode.

Thanks Chris- stored for future reference! I hope SpB get this sorted- it rather defeats the object of having a backup program.

Fowljr, in a different thread asked a question about Mobile Shell Task Management.

Within the SpB Menu/Tools page is a link to Task Manager. Once this has been run, its icon appears in the main Mobile Shell tab, from where you can Tap/Hold and pin it to the menu, so it is always there.

Pressing this Icon (2nd left in screenshot) opens the Task Manager, which has a large font list of running apps; pressing any of these opens the Activate/Close/Close All options.

I now find this sufficent for most of my application management need

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Thanks for that Neil, I'll give it a go... Although it doesn't control the close functionality of apps does it? So something like Magic Button is needed to get a true app close scenario?

No- no auto close, but I really find that it's not necessary very much now. The bigger apps tend to have a Close/Exit entry on their menus and smaller ones can sit in memory till they need closing.

My Trinity now has 30MB free Program memory after a reset, which leaves lots of space for runnign apps!

Thanks for the clarification Neil...