Java Development

[VipulPathak]

Hi,

I am trying to detect a situation, when a message send operation is failed from the device, (e.g. Marked as a Red colored cross icon, aka The Red X). In order to do so, I will have to first replicate the situation, and then second, will have to detect the occurance of such event on the device.

To detect the situation, I am thinking on the following lines-

Every message is moved to outbox when under the process of sending. For all those messages, that fails to leave the device (due to any problem), they are left in the outbox. Should we put a folder listener and check these messages for there status (Failed, Sent, Processing etc) as soon as they are moved to Outbox.

Any thought on the above lines or any direct and simple way to achieve this ?

TIA,

[VipulPathak]

I am trying to replicate the situation of Red X. I have tried the following to replicate this-

    1. Turned Redirection OFF from BES, so that Handheld will not be able to send/receive. Result: Message can still be sent.
    2. Turn Data Services OFF from Handheld itself, so that no data can be sent/received. Result: The Messaging application detects it correctly and any attempt to send message, cause a clock icon to be displayed in front of the message until we start the data services (can last for hours and hours), after which it successfully send the message.
    3. Set IT Policy at server side to disallow sending messages, but not effective. Result: The device still sends the message flawlessly.
    4. Use the simulator to send an email when no MDS simulator is running. Result: Same as the result in attempt number 2, the clock icon.
    5. Wipe handheld and de-register it from the BES, so that there is no corporate email account associated with the device and hence the send attempt should fail. Result: No send option is displayed in the messaging application  :-(
    6. Try to forward an email using Handheld, and delete that email from the mailbox using desktop client, so that when the handheld will try to forward a non-existant email, it will fail. Result: The email was forwarded successfully.

Any suggestion from any one of you regarding, what else can be done to see this long awaited "Red X" icon  :-(

[VipulPathak]

The 7th thing that I tried is to restrict the attachment size to 500 KB when sending an email from device. I applied this restriction using the ITPolicy. When I tried to attach a few attachments whose collective size becomes greater then 500 KB, then the messaging application displayed error that you can't attach more then 500 KB of files, since the limit is reached. Thus, the validation has avoided the error condition.

Its really getting tricky to replicate this Red X error condition.

[VipulPathak]

Since "Red X" means message failed, it seems that it will only appear when the message will failed to transmit, possibly due to transmission error or may be a general failure. I need to do some thing that will cause a general transmission failure or some thing similar.

Apart from going 100 miles out of the town and creating an out of coverage scenario, what else can be done to achieve this ?

[richard_puckett]

You can make a Hoffman box for this (or find a good elevator or metal drawer).  Some of the better testers have their own favorite Hoffman box that belongs to them and that they use on the job.  Having a good one is important because testing loss-of-signal is a big part of functional testing, especially if your app is headed to a professional testing house like NSTL.

[kzettel]

Have you tried removing the SIM card?

[VipulPathak]

Removal of SIM Card cause the same behavior as explained in point number 2 above, (The clock icon for indefinate time).

[VipulPathak]

I appreciate the help, but can you outline how to build such a facility of Huffman box. I googled and it says its a modified form of Faraday's cage (which doesn't seems to be very easy to develop at least not so quick to build).

Any suggestion ?

[richard_puckett]

I *believe* it can be made by just wrapping a few layers of aluminum foil around a box.  I remember seeing different boxes that the testers use for this - they're surprisingly proud of their creations when they make/find one that works well.  But of course, they love making life difficult for developers. 

You're just looking for a way to kill the radio signals.  It might take some experimentation, but I'm pretty sure I've seen aluminum foil boxes being used, and I know I've seen metal drawers being used and I've seen testers take elevator rides when they want to test loss of signal.

Or you could just use T-Mobile USA since it's practically impossible to get a signal from them *anywhere*. 

[VipulPathak]

I will surely try to use the Aluminium foil stuff to build one such test box     :-)

Thanks Richard.