Service Outage at irlp.net
It looks like the status.irlp.net site is not working properly. If you enter a zip code, there are no nodes returned.
As you may know, the IRLP Finder app uses this portal to obtain its real-time node information. So you may experience problems finding nodes while the irlp.net site is out of service.
Please note that we are not affiliated with irlp.net. Our goal is help make IRLP even more popular by making it easier to find IRLP information on the go.
Version 1.1 for IRLP Finder Posted
Thanks to Carson I was able to find and fix the force close issue in IRLP Finder and post a new version. Having the stack trace available was an invaluable tool.For certain nodes the IRLP server sent slightly different HTML for which the code wasn’t prepared. I made the code more robust to handle these situation. In the future, if there is a problem with the HTML the app will just show a brief Toast message with the node number and continue.
I didn’t make any other changes or enhancements, just the bug fix for this issue. So hopefully the new version should work better and not introduce any new issues.
IRLP Finder crashing on Android 2.1?
I have seen several comments on the market and here on the blog about IRLP Finder crashing on some Droid, Nexus and Eris phones.
First of all, I am really sorry that the app is crashing and I want to get to the bottom of this. Overall the app is working for the majority of people, but I really want the app to work on those cool phones.
Yesterday I went into the Verizon Wireless store and tried the app on a Droid and an Incredible, both running 2.1_update1. Just as Murphy’s law would have predicted, the app ran perfectly fine. I could search, click on nodes, zoom in and out and see the result list. I was really hoping to see the crash, but I couldn’t.
So at this point I know the app is crashing, but personally I can’t reproduce it (yet). So I am wondering if anyone out there who can reproduce the crash might be able to help me by sending me stack traces of the crash to info@hamdroid.com?
All you need would be to install the free SDK on your machine, connect the phone with USB and run the “adb shell” command. Instructions can be found here:
Inside the adb shell, you can use the “logcat” command to look at the system log. Once the app crashes you will find a stack trace there. It will look similar to this:
E/gmail-ls( 129): java.lang.RuntimeException: Received operationId of 0 as last-examined-server-op. Wiping. E/gmail-ls( 129): at com.google.android.providers.gmail.MailEngine.wipeAndResync(MailEngine.java:273) E/gmail-ls( 129): at com.google.android.providers.gmail.MailEngine.access$200(MailEngine.java:92)
In the meantime, I will try and add even more error checking to the app. Before the release I tried a number of corner cases and error conditions and added checks for them in the code, but apparently I missed something.
My first app
It is official, my first Android app is now available: IRLP Finder
The app is free and has no adds.
As you probably already know, IRLP is a global network of ham radio repeaters connected to the internet. It is a great way to talk to anybody in the world without having to invest in expensive HF equipment, installing large antennas and waiting for the right atmospheric conditions.
The app will either take your GPS location, or you can enter an address manually. After that it will locate the closest IRLP nodes to that location and display them on a map. Click on any node on the map to get connection details. The details include the node’s frequency and tone, and whether the node is idle or not.
I think there are 2 great uses for this app: to find an idle IRLP node near you, and to look up the node ID in the city you are trying to reach. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
