N900 widgets vanish bug
I have a strange bug with my N900 : sometimes when I add a desktop-cmd-excec widget, all my widgets vanish. A reboot does not help. Then when the calendar alarms occur, it takes between 30s to 1 minute after clicking on them to make them go away. Restoring the widgets from the gconf values + the ~/ filesystem helps, until I try to add them back- then they disappear again.
So today I took some time to investigate the issue : apparently, this is due to a bug : when a 3rd party widgets has a memory leak or stops while waiting for some data (ex: lack of connectivity), it results in high CPU usage (unresponsiveness) then takes hildon-home along with it - which then removes all widgets to prevent a reboot loop. The bug is a WONTFIX since it requires a major feedservice change.
See http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=56340 and https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8723
Apparently, banning python widgets is the standard solution - since they tend to be leaky (so now I know why I hate python :-)
apt-get remove —purge hildon-desktop-python-loader
But on my device, it looks like a desktop-cmd-exec bug, since it happens when I add a custom script!
The only workaround so far is to run as the standard user:
dsmetool -k /usr/bin/hildon-homedsmetool -t /usr/bin/hildon-home
Here are some scripts I use to save my widgets status before restarting the widget framework, to avoid adding them manually:
~ $ cat widgets-store.shset now=`/usr/local/bin/date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S`gconftool-2 —dump /schemas/apps/osso/hildon-desktop/applets > widgets.xmltar zcvf .widgets-$now.tgz widgets.xml .config/hildon-desktop/home.pluginsrm widgets.xml~ $ cat widgets-restore.shgconftool-2 —dump /schemas/apps/osso/hildon-desktop/applets > /tmp/w.curgconftool-2 —unload /tmp/w.curtar zxvf widgets.tgz widgets.xml .config/hildon-desktop/home.pluginsgconftool-2 —load widgets.xmlrm widgets.xml /tmp/w.cur
I will also add timeout to my custom scripts which depend on network connectivity, which obviously could trigger this bug.
