[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] How to keep app running indefinitely

[From: Steven Hill]

On Thu, 2006-09-03 at 12:01 +0200, Kalle Valo wrote: 
> "Steven Hill" <steveh at shscientific.com> writes:
> 
> > I tried this method, and it did not work.  If the internet connection is
> > dropped due to inactivity, the app also stops.
> 
> Like Kimmo said, there shouldn't be anything killing you application.
> This smells like a bug. Let's try find it, but to do that you have to
> provide some more information. Can you get any output from your
> application. Does it crash or what? Are there any errors and if yes,
> what? Do you use libosso-ic-preload.so library with LD_PRELOAD,
> osso_socket() or IC API?

I use the osso-iap-connect method to open a connection (the IC API) 
> 
> Please note that with the first two methods (libosso-ic-preload.so and
> osso_socket() all sockets are closed with shutdown(2) if the Internet
> connection is dropped. Does your application handle this gracefully?
> This is the first thing I would check.
> 
> (With IC API this doesn't happen, with that method it's the
> applications responsibility to close the sockets.)
> 
> > I came up with a workaround that pings a socket every 30
> > seconds - that keeps the app running with screen dimming and blanking
> > still functional.  But what do I do if my socket crashes or I lose my
> > internet connection due to a wireless router malfunction or
> > whatever??
> 
> I agree, that's just a hack and nowhere near a proper solution.
> Applications shouldn't die when connections drop. With mobile devices
> connections drop all the time and we need to handle it properly.
> 
> BTW, are you aware of that you disable connection idle timer from the
> Connectivity Control Panel applet?

OK, I think you just solved my problem - I had the WLAN idle time set to 60 minutes,
 and I did an experiment to see how long my connection lasted, and it was exactly 60 minutes.
I will set my WLAN idle time to unlimited, and I bet I will not lose my connection.


> 
> > There must be a method that will intercept the system call to shut the
> > app off and ignore it, but I have not found such a thing discussed in
> > the maemo docs.
> 
> You assume that this is a desired functionality, but it's not. There's
> a bug somewhere, that just needs to be found. We don't kill
> applications just for fun :)

Thanks for replying - see my replies to your comments above - I will verify that 
setting WLAN idle time to unlimited solves my problem.