Any Problems with latest Skydemon Release for IPad?

[yogesh]

Since downloading the latest release of SD I've been finding that it crashes fairly regularly. I've had this this happen fairly regularly both in the air and on a 'ground trip'. I'm using IPad One with IOS 5.x. No problems with this brilliant software till now. Anyone else experiencing anything similar?
Yogesh

[Dave Phillips]

Yes, same issue with me.

[Big Dex]

I've had the program shut itself down a few times without reason.

[Pete S]

Can you post exactly which version?

I've updated but it was a while ago and haven't flown with SD for months. Best to be forewarned it's likely to be unreliable and employ the triple redundancy.

Seems like in view of problems in the past couple of updates, updating to a new version immediately it's released is a bad idea.

Peter

[stevelup]

Yes, same issue with me.

Are you on an iPad 1 as well?

iPad 1 is extremely resource constrained - it only has 256MB of RAM and the OS uses about 150 of that leaving little over 100MB free for apps.

It might be worth bringing up the multitasking bar at the bottom (double tap on home) and closing all apps except SD and see if that helps

[Tim Dawson]

We're not aware of any widespread problems or bugs with the latest version of SkyDemon for iPad (2.5). I personally think it's our best release ever, with significant speed increases as well as great new features.

If you've got an iPad 1, also try rebooting it. It shouldn't help, but it does. Also make sure you don't have more charts loaded than necessary in SkyDemon, as this will keep the memory consumption down.

[Mick Sturridge]

I've not had this version of Skydemon crash once on an iPad3, but it frequently happens on my iPad1. It seems to be a general problem and there are plenty of discussion forum touting'remedies' on the web. There is certainly folklore out there that says you should close down all the apps, though this didn't help me much. This morning, I tried the hard reset. This is an option at the bottom of the 'general' menu. The 'reset all settings' submenu item will reset everything, but leave your apps and data unmolested. You will have to relogin to your network etc. I've given it a go and so far, no crashes for me. Use with caution, but if you are desperate!

[montyyorks]

It's crashing for me regularly on an iPad 3. On a one hour flight last week it crashed twice. I had rebooted twice before the flight after reading advice that a reboot should fix the crashes, but that didn't work for me.

[yogesh]

It is version 2.5 that I am running.
I have tried having only SD running and have also rebooted, but this has not cured the problem.
In terms of IPad 1 being resource constrained - yes it is - BUT - the point is that prior to the latest version (2.5), SD did not crash. The only thing that has changed in my configuration is the new version of SD. So has SD somehow become more resource hungry?

I'd hate to have to buy a new IPad to resolve this... I'm waiting for the retina display IPad mini to be released before I do so.

[Tim Dawson]

We get detailed reports of most crashes that anybody experiences using SkyDemon on any platform. So, if you find a way to make it crash, do so, note the time and contact our support with that information and we can help.

[greggj]

New SD release's memory usage is exceptionally low in comparison to previous versions. Theoretically should be sufficient to run it on iPad1. Like Tim said and in my case random crashes were solved by reboot. Looks like the system behaves bit strange after an uptime of few weeks/months (like some of my test dev devices were).

[Dave Phillips]

iPad 2 with latest software upgrades and normally happens when planning a European flight I get a text box (one I have never seen before) indicating the software is having difficulty decoding some elements of Belgian METARS/TAFS. If I click our of or this box the software either gets going again or shuts down.

There are other times when this happens and I think it is always linked to a point where the software is retrieving data (weather, notam etc) from the internet.

[Monocock]

On a one hour flight last week it crashed twice. I had rebooted twice before the flight after reading advice that a reboot should fix the crashes, but that didn't work for me.

I've had the program shut itself down a few times without reason.

Yes, same issue with me.

I know I'm going to get pounced on, but please allow me to have my say...

Threads like this, with quotes like the ones above seem to almost be commonplace here now?

Is it that the sheer number of features it offers has made it more susceptible to crashing like this? Flyer represents a tiny fraction of the UK flying fraternity. Maybe 0.5%? If that's the case, there must be literally hundreds of people with these kinds of issues. I'm not being my usual 'pro-ANP' when I write this, I'm genuinely concerned that if people are bailing out of their Garmins on eBay and AFORS now that they have an ipad and SD, it's not very safe to be flying around with a system so prone to crashing, is it??

Go on then, shout at me.

[Tim Dawson]

SkyDemon is by far the most popular VFR software in Europe. Like all software, it's not immune to crashes. All nav software for iPad will crash from time to time, but no nav software is anywhere near as talked about in these forums as SkyDemon.

Perhaps you use your VFR nav software in an unusual way. Please explain how it is "not very safe" to be flying around using a VFR nav system that can crash. VFR. Remember the VFR part, and what it means. Also remember that as with most iPad software, restarting it is as simple as touching the icon and waiting a couple of seconds.

I don't think you're "genuinely concerned" about this for one second.

[Lefty]

No issues here. Used SD this afternoon without problem.
There was a problem with release 2.4.3 (IIRC) - but that was fixed and is the only issue I've experienced. (iPad 2).

I do find some people that don't realise that just hitting the home key still leaves apps satill open and using machine resources. I've seen people with 40 + apps left open, and they didn't understand the impact that had on the system's performance.