Frequently Asked Questions - Other
Yes, follow these steps:
- Backup your DoggCatcher configuration by doing a Backup in the DoggCatcher menu
- If you are changing phones, move the DoggCatcher directory from the old phone's sd card (in /sdcard) to the same location on the new phone.
- Re-download DoggCatcher from the Google Market app (in the downloads section)
- Restore your DoggCatcher configuration to the new phone by doing a Restore in the DoggCatcher menu
The ability to download the application from the Google Market is dependent on moving your google account from the old phone to the new phone.
Android sometimes tells applications running in the background to stop, when applications in the foreground require more resources. The intensity with which DoggCatcher will try to remain in memory can be configured with the keep-alive preference.
Some Podcast feeds include characters that are not supported by the XML parser built into Android. We replace those characters with "?".
DoggCatcher uses the external storage to store images and episodes. When your phone is mounted as a USB drive, DoggCatcher can't see the external storage.
Install the log collector application called 'aLogCat' from the Google Market and email the log file to support at doggcatcher.com.
Users have reported that rebooting the phone or re-installing the application fixes this.
If you have the Lite version, it is identical to the Paid version both during the trial period and after the Premium upgrade has been purchased. After the trial period has expired (and no premium upgrade has been purchased), the following features will be disabled:
-Automatic scheduled feed updates
-Updating all feeds at once
-Adding more than 10 feeds
Both versions are nearly always released with the same functionality at the same. The exception would be if there were some bugs in the trial related functionality that we were working on.
You can ignore these emails. The module that integrates our website with paypal sends out these bogus messages.
Android applications should not have the authority to cause the types of problems required to crash a device. At worst, the application can crash, but there shouldn't be any collateral damage to the operating system.
Operating system crashes can be by faulty network drivers (crash during download), audio drivers (crash during playback, or other hardware problems.
Yes, DoggCatcher is available in the Amazon AppStore
Out of memory errors usually are caused by one of the following:
1 - There are more feeds/items than can be stored in memory. The number of feeds you have and the number of items per feed in large part determines the amount of memory used by DoggCatcher. Try lowering the max items, especially if you have a large number set for the global preference for max items.
2 - A feed with a large feed thumbnail. Occasionally feed publishers will include a feed thumbnail that is larger than the amount of available memory for the application. DoggCatcher tries to protect against this, but it's not always possible.
This also varies a bit by device. The earlier Android devices made 16 MB available to each application. Newer devices made 24 MB available. I believe the Honeycomb tablets support even more.
Since DoggCatcher was first created over two years ago, it has always been compatible with every available version of Android. After some experimenting with Honeycomb (Android 3.0), I've learned that it won't be possible to enhance DoggCatcher to support tablet specific extensions while at the same time maintaining support for older versions of Android.
I'm sorry to say that I have had to drop support for Android 1.5/1.6/2.0.
I apologize for any inconvenience this causes existing DoggCatcher users on earlier OS versions.
Users with devices on the discontinued android versions can still purchase the app on the site here and download the most recent version supported for their device.
1.5 - Version 1.2.2122
1.6/2.0 - Version 1.2.2681
In terms of the Google Market, what will happen (as I understand it) is that affected users that have the current version of DC installed just won't see any future updates in the market.
I've read that that once you purchase an app, it will always be available to you. I interpret this to mean that should you need to re-install the app, you would still have access in the google market to the most recent version that is supported by your device. If this turns out to not be the case, I'll figure out some way to get it to you if needed.
Once again, apologies for the inconvenience.
This is useful when you switch from a device that has no internal storage to a device with external storage (or a device with a different location configured as its external storage location.
When DoggCatcher does a backup, it place a directory called Export in the DoggCatcher directory on your SD card. The Export directory has all of the backup files except for media files.
1 - Use a file manager (like Astro free) to copy the Export directory from the old location to the new location. It should be placed into an existing directory called "DoggCatcher" that DoggCatcher created when it was installed.
2 - Start DoggCatcher and do a restore (in the menu)
3 - If that did not work then your device may have a different path to its SD card. If that is the case, configure the storage directory in the DoggCatcher preferences with the path to your SD card.
Devices 4.0 and later support this by enabling a preference (in the UI section).
For devices prior to Android 4.0, WidgetLocker does make this possible for DoggCatcher. Here's a related discussion in the forums - http://www.doggcatcher.com/node/1480
On some devices (like the Galaxy S3), the lock screen controls disappear and require disabling/enabling the lock screen PIN in order to get them to re-appear.
DoggCatcher currently works fine on Honeycomb.
I do have plans to take advantage of some of the new UI capabilities in Honeycomb. My initial thoughts are to display both the feeds (on the left) and the items for the selected feed (on the right) on the screen at the same time. This same idea could also apply to other screens as well.
Some of the permissions below are required only for optional features within the application. The Android framework does allow for conditionally requiring these permissions based on usage of features.
- BLUETOOTH - to detect when a bluetooth device is connected to start playing audio
- INTERNET - to update feeds and download media files from the internet
- WAKE_LOCK - to keep device awake when updating feeds or downloading media files
- ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE - to check if wifi is connected to enable download conditions
- READ_LOGS - to send debug logs to developer when user requests
- RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED - to start the application upon boot (if configured)
- VIBRATE - to vibrate the phone when the next button is pressed
- WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE - to save media files to the SD card
- GET_ACCOUNTS - to get a list of google accounts to select from when importing feeds
- GET_TASKS - some devices require this to launch DoggCatcher in response to headset connect events
- USE_CREDENTIALS - to authenticate to google reader to import feeds (you will be required to authorize the use of accounts the first time you try to import from them).
- CHECK_LICENSE - validates the license with the google market app
- READ_PHONE_STATE - detect when calls are being made so audio can be paused
No, Google outlines a list of features that are not compatible with installing applications to the SD card. DoggCatcher uses numerous features on this list (services/alarms/widgets/broadcast receivers).
Installing an app to the SD card moves only the application itself to the SD card, not the data and configuration. At the time of this post, that would save very little as DoggCatcher is about 1.5MB.
http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/install-location.html#ShouldNot
By default, Archos devices don't seem to respond to the command that DC sends to tell them to stay awake.
A user recommended the following article which offers a solution.
http://www.archos.com/products/ta/archos_5it/internet.html?country=us&la...
To backup the database, please follow these steps.
1 - In the DC menu, choose backup, then press the backup button
2 - Grab these files from the SD card and email them to me at support at doggcatcher.com
\DoggCatcher\Export\databases\rss
\DoggCatcher\Export\shared_prefs\DOGG_CATCHER_PREFERENCES.XML
\DoggCatcher\Export\shared_prefs\_preferences.xml
DoggCatcher is not able to download media files with the JIT enabled.
Android 2.2 does seem to work fine with a JIT, so it's likely that when your custom ROM becomes based on 2.2, downloads should work fine.
There are a few related posts on this topic here - http://www.snoggdoggler.com/node/732
On some devices, when an application is updated, the widget does not update it's graphics to match the new version of the application.
You can resolve this either by removing and re-adding the widget or by rebooting the phone.