It has been said that trying to keep Hopper focused on a single application is like trying to get cats to walk in a parade (very difficult). The problem is Hopper is designed from its foundation to stress the entire system and never stay in one place...

There is rarely a need to unwind a healthy stack manually since the debugger can do this for you, but if you suspect some stack corruption or are investigating stack fault issues, this information may lead you to your problem. It is important to...

Data Abort: Thread=9352cc9c Proc=90876ea0 'shell32.exe' AKY=00000005 PC= 03f74680( coredll.dll+0x00014680) RA=03257104(aygshell.dll+0x00037104) BVA=060000e0 FSR=00000007 AKY à "Access Key" Process slot bitmask corresponding to the processes...

The intent of this document is to introduce Hopper to the application developer who is targeting applications for the Windows Mobile platform. The purpose of running Hopper against your application is to find exceptions, hangs and deadlocks that may be...

I tried the various instruction on MSDN and other locations for running Application Verifier on drivers, particularly in cases where no KITL connection is used (such as when running Hopper) and I ran into problems. Documenation corrections have been requested...

Version 2.0 of HangRx.exe and MemoRx.exe are complete and have been posted to Jetstream. The biggest change is how the two tools are combined – Hang Doctor now detects if MemoRx.exe is available, and will log the memory snapshot automatically, each time...

The HangRx.exe debugging tool can help you resolve thread priority issues created by Hopper – but does little to empower you to quickly identify issues resulting from Virtual Memory (or the lack thereof). Most Windows Mobile users are already aware that...

You cannot ship a device connected to the debugger so eventually you will have to cut the cord and run your device standalone. Windows mobile ships a pocket version of Dr Watson that can help evaluate application exceptions that occur while in this unconnected...

If you run DevHealth on your devices you probably saw dup(d) on the page summary for a process or a dll. It looks something like this: === lap_pw.dll page summary: code=0[rom(C):0 ram(c):0] data r/o(R)=0 r/w=0[ro(r)=0 rw(W)=0 exe(E)=0 dll(D)=0 heap...

This FitNFinish document describes a number of best practices for creating Windows Mobile devices with QWERTY keyboards. Although there are a lot of suggestions for placement of keys, my main purpose for writing this was to describe the best way to handle...

I have been reflecting on the things Javier and I learned from our Hopper talk at MEDC and I wanted to thank everyone that attended our talk. I also wanted to give special kudos to those who took the time to fill out the evaluations – this post is your...

While debugging, I am often faced with trying to set breakpoints in module code that I do not control. Said modules rarely have current symbols and access to source files either not possible or practical. I usually face these issues armed only with a...

[Following provided by Javier Flores Assad, AKA MTTF Dude ] Hopper, as a random UI stress tool, can cause some real world problems like dialing emergency numbers … well as some OEMs have been asking for a solution of the hopper emergency calling...

jbroxson@microsoft.com Back in February, the Doctor talked about manually unwinding stacks . MAP files are a great tool to help when you are doing this, and they are your best tool for resolving the code addresses found on the stack. I was recently...

Understanding the nuances between test kits and what tests are appropriate for your device is very important. Since you are reading HoppeRx, I can assume Windows Mobile development, but the information given is valid for general WinCE development as well...

I was recently talking with a colleague about the RIL Proxy and it occurred to me that this component isn't well known and is pretty confusing. I've been digging into the RIL Proxy for a little while now so I've become pretty comfortable with it, so I...

The release of Windows Mobile 6 (WM6) gave us a few more tools for dealing with Virtual Memory (VM) issues. Compaction of slot 1 is new for WM6, in previous releases all slot 1 modules were aligned on 64k boundaries, causing VM address space to be wasted...

This entry is dedicated to my readers troubled by Logger.exe and its sometimes incomplete log files. I carefully review all comments made to HoppeRx and Logger.exe (and its issues) appear to be a recurring theme. For those unfamiliar with the tool...

Many OEM’s have already noticed that Memory Doctor doesn’t correctly represent VM overlap in some pre-release versions of Windows Mobile. There have been some changes in WM VM architecture that contradict an assumption made by MemoRx which results in...

Introduction Doing performance measurements on a regular basis is important while working on a Bluetooth transport driver. Poor performance can cause general slowness in certain applications (i.e. virtual serial connections) or cause other profiles (i...

After some wrangling with legal, I can finally announce that HangRx (see post below) has been released to Jetstream and eagerly awaiting its new home on your devices. You can pull it from the HangRx directory under Powertoys. I would like to remind everyone...

The focusapp described in a previous blog entry The Cat Parade is a great way for ISVs to get additional test coverage on their applications with hopper. I recently had the opportunity to work with an ISV that was developing a suite of apps and we made...

My apologies for the non-Hopper post, but since many HoppeRx readers will also need to know about ltkUnlock I decided this forum is as good as any. The ltkUnlock tool has generated a lot of confusion so let me start with the basics: The purpose...

The second installment of Watson will focus on the type of dump created during error reporting. Watson will chose one of the following depending on system settings and resources available – the significant difference between them is size required to process...

Hopper is a software test tool that simulates random user input on mobile devices providing a sometimes meaningful mean time to failure (MTTF) number. It is designed to find bugs and is not intended to run scenario tests or do "specific user things" ...