palm m505 fatal exception or fatal alert

[rahulsen]

My m505 suddenly for no reason started locking up with a fatal alert box shown a "fatal exception". The only way to recover from that was soft reset. Even then it only lasts for a minute or two before it locks up again. I do hear a distinct hissing noise after i "soft reset" but it goes away the next time it is turned off and on using the power button. But then i have to soft-reset again because it locks up again in a few minutes.
I hard-reset it also and removed all programs but no improvement.

I bought it more than one year back so i guess the warranty is over.
Has anyone seen this before and resolved it ?

Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.

[DrMud]

Some people who have experienced this problem have benefited from draining the battery until the unit is flat lined. Let it set over night and then recharge. Later after it proves stable, start reloading apps.
To drain the battery, try the "Stay on in the Cradle" (Preferences/General/Stay on in Cradle) setting and disconnect the charger and place your Palm in the cradle.
Good luck.
Doc

[OldBlue]

Another way to drain the battery more quickly than normal would be to use the "No Auto-Off" sequence. To do that, open a Memo and write the shortcut symbol, followed by a period, followed by the number "3". The line should change and read "[No Auto-Off]". Now just set your Palm down and let the battery drain.

OldBlue

[thejell]

Yes, that certainly sounds familiar!! My M515 does the same exact thing. Have drained the battery completely and recharged, no change. Bought this thing used from someone on E-Bay, so no warranty, I'm sure. Has anyone done anything with these symptoms that worked? I'm going to try Palm Tech support to see if they've seen this. If it has happened to more than one person, it may be something they are willing to take care of.:rolleyes:

[DrMud]

COnsider doing a different reset. This time do what some refer to as a warm reset or non-notify. Press the reset pin in the reset hole while holding down the up-scroll button until the boot logo appears. If your Palm appears to work after this, do a soft-reset, and things should be back to normal. You can also use this mode to perform maintenance on your Palm to correct a fault that's preventing your Palm from starting up (like deleting an errant hack).
Doc

[thejell]

Thanks, doc. I had tried that, along with the soft reset and the hard reset. In it's current state, it doesn't respond to the reset at all. If I can find some way to drain the unit completely, then recharge it, I think I can get it back to a state where I can reset it. Palm just mailed me to try the soft and hard reset. I don't think they read the e-mails too closely as I indicated in my message to them that I had already tried that. Anyway, a dialog has been opened with them.
I have absolutely no compuncture with opening this thing (I'm an electronics tech) I'm guessing either hardware related (loose chip, overheating component, bad crystal) or... maybe the flash memory has become corrupted... anyone know how to reload it in less than one minute? (that's how long it stayed running after completely draining power and recharging) I never used a flash memory utility (Jack Flash, I think) so I'm wondering what could have corrupted it if this is the case. Or does the hard reset restore the OS from ROM? I'm clueless at this point.

Ken

[cliemea]

thats a normal thing to happen if you doing alot of stuff whichis very demanding on the palm ex. games, video player just ry to backup fairly often if you alot of this stuff

[DrMud]

The 505 does seem more inclinded to Fatal Exceptions than the 515. If that is the result of the OS or hardware I cannot say.
Doc

[Chris Mitchell]

COnsider doing a different reset. This time do what some refer to as a warm reset or non-notify. Press the reset pin in the reset hole while holding down the up-scroll button until the boot logo appears. If your Palm appears to work after this, do a soft-reset, and things should be back to normal. You can also use this mode to perform maintenance on your Palm to correct a fault that's preventing your Palm from starting up (like deleting an errant hack).
Doc

Well, this really shows the power of forums! Even though this post was made four years ago, I had exactly the same problem and did a Google search and came across this post and joined up today. I didn't know about the warm reset, and it worked. Thank you very much indeed, Dr Mud, if you're still posting here! :)

[DrMud]

Glad to be of assistance even 4 years later!
I have not been posting for some time. Too many other things on my plate such as my 92 year old mother and work. Family first.

Doc

[MacFan]

Wow, that warm reset just fixed the fatal exception on my son's m505. However, the soft reset after just recreates the problem...so it's warm reset only for this particular m505.

Thanks Dr. Mud for that post!

Note this is 2009 so the m505s are getting pretty old. But this one seems hardly used and we hope he'll get some good use out of it.