Testing and Deployment

[vitalyx]

Hi guys,

Can anyone suggest why blackberry-deploy can be slow? Yes, it's deployed wirelessly, but my .bar file is only 500Kb.

And browsing on the device is a breeze. I do have a 100Mbs internet connection and 802.11n router.

Yet, after I issue the blackberry-deploy command, it can take a while until I see that the app started installing, can take up to a few minutes. It never took me less that a minute to deploy a 500Kb app. And this is becoming increasingly annoying. Does anybody know why this can be? I'd very much appreciate a solution.

Thanks,

Vitaly

[eblade]

My experience so far, is that it usually takes about a minute for my scripts to build a complete package, and then blackberry-deploy it to a wired playbook.

In comparison, I can send the same app via WiFi to a webOS device and have it -running- within 10 seconds, and the same via WiFi to an Android device and have it loaded in about 30 seconds. I haven't bothered to try WiFi on the PlayBook, the device's performance on WiFi is terrible as is.

[vitalyx]

Come on guys,

You can't just ignore the issue. Deployment via Wi-Fi is slow, as well as file tranfer (a little over 1MB/s on a 150Mb/s wireless network). USB deployment and transfter speeds are much faster. But there are 2 major things:

1) you can't use internet while connected via USB, as you have to turn the Wi-Fi off, which requires you to perform these steps: 

    a) turn off Wi-Fi

    b) connect USB cable

    c) deploy

    d) remove the cable

    e) turn on Wi-Fi

    f) you are ready to test your app (my app is a stock market app and requres internet to work)

2) if you forget to turn the Wi-Fi off before connecting the Playbook via USB, the Wi-Fi switch becomes unresponsive, the internet access on a tablet disappears, browser won't launch and will get stuck on the splash screen, it won't close after this either, restarting or turning off the Playbook won't work and you'll have to perform a hard reset to get it functioning normally again.

DO YOU REALLY EXPECT US TO DEVELOP FOR THE PLAYBOOK LIKE THAT?

[eblade]

No, no, I wouldn't say that that's true at all. I keep mine connected via USB all the time, and the WiFi works just fine.

[vitalyx]

@eblade

Could you explain how? Playbook connected via USB is recognized as a network drive, that is, if you have the Wi-Fi switched off, as suggested by others here and on crackberry.com. There's even a dedicated thread for this (unresolved) issue: http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/BlackBerry-PlayBook/PC-does-not-find-Playbook-when-Playbook-W...

So it IS true for me and many other people.

[eblade]

I've not had this problem with either of the PlayBooks that I've had (the first one's USB connection stopped responding completely after 6 days, though).

*waits for playbook to reboot, after sitting idle for 3 days, it completely stopped responding to all input except bottom bezel swipes*

Possibly relevant settings:

Developer Mode: On
USb Connections: Automatically Detect
File Sharing: On
Wi-Fi Sharing; On

That and connecting to WiFi are the only settings on the device that I have touched at all.

The PlayBook does routinely drop wireless-N connections, but so does my iPad 2, and my Mac Mini will only stay connected via N for a moment or two. (my TouchPad however has rock solid wireless N when it's in webOS .. Android wifi is super unreliable though, and my laptop and USb N adapters have perfect connections)
 

I've never tried to use the file sharing functions before, but it doesn't look like they work at all.  This doesn't surprise me in the slightest -- aside from the extremely surprisingly good web browser, very few of the PlayBook's functions work.  After playing with the Desktop Software for a little while,  I see that it only works via USB.  Looks like the device does show up in Windows network manager via WiFi, though, so that's good.

[vitalyx]

Thanks. I have the same settings. Haven't touched much else also, except screen brightness maybe

Didn't know about the wireless-n issue, my router is friends with all the devices I have, including an Anroid phone.

Anyways, I tried switching the router to b/g mode, but wireless deployment is still as slow as it was. OS version is 2.0.0.7971. Do you have Blackberry Desktop installed? I installed just drivers (device manager).

[eblade]

I do have the Desktop stuff installed, but I've never used it for anything, other than just now when I was poking at it to see what it did, and if it responded to a WiFi connected PlayBook.

Definitely connecting USB on the two PlayBooks that I have has never caused the WiFi to drop.

I think that my N problems may just be a combination of junky or not-quite-proper-spec Netgear router and junky or not-quite-proper-spec client devices -- with my Toshiba laptop and HP TouchPads all connecting to N perfectly fine at crazy ranges, but my PlayBook, iPad 2 and Mac Mini all failing outside of a few feet of range, and being unreliable within a few feet, it seems quite strange. I set all those devices to prefer the G side of the router.

I did just try transferring my entire "My Pictures" folder to my PlayBook via WiFi, and that worked fantastically, except that I only got about 1.4MB/sec on it.  I get about 4MB/sec doing the same to my TouchPad and 10 to my WiFi connected PC.

[vitalyx]

Thank you for your help. I just tried connecting the Playbook as always, with Wi-Fi disabled (otherwise it becomes unresponsive), but turned the Wi-Fi on after the tablet was recognized as a network drive and it worked. The device now has 2 IP addresses. So this problem is solved.
The thing is, deployment is still slow with Wi-Fi enabled, even if I use the fast IP address (169.254.x.x) that corresponds to USB connection. When I disable Wi-Fi, so that device loses second IP address, deployment via the same 169.254.x.x port now takes only a second. It's like the existence of the second IP confuses the blackberry-deploy.