6. Troubleshooting client problems

6.1. I’ve lost the password for my CamCOPS client app

Whoops! Any data that had not been uploaded to your server is lost, unless you can remember the password. The databases are encrypted and the password to unlock them is not stored anywhere by CamCOPS.

Make a copy of the databases anyway, just in case you remember the password. See Where does the client store my data?

Then you can delete them, and when you start CamCOPS it will make fresh databases, but you’ll have to reconfigure CamCOPS from scratch and you won’t get your data back.

Any data that was uploaded to the server should be fine.

6.2. Windows client fails to start under Windows Server

Windows Server is not a supported operating system for the CamCOPS client. It’s not the same as normal Windows, which is supported! Windows Server is intended for large-scale server use and doesn’t have multimedia components that are a standard part of normal Windows. See CamCOPS client won’t run under Windows Server.

6.3. Tablet upload fails with error “Read timed out”

Likely problem: slow network, large BLOB (binary large object – e.g. a big photo). For example, in one of our tests a BLOB took more than 17 s to upload, so the tablet needs to wait at least that long after starting to send it. Increase the tablet’s network timeout (e.g. to 60000 ms or more) in Settings → Server settings.

6.4. A photo-based task says “No camera”

CamCOPS asks Qt for available cameras. This message indicates that none were found. This is usually a hardware configuration problem.

  • Under Linux, run cheese; does this find a camera?

  • If you’re using a laptop, does it have a special function key combination to enable/disable the camera?

6.5. What if it crashes?

This shouldn’t happen; please note down any error details and let us know! To forcibly stop and restart the app:

Android 4.3

  • Settings → More → Application Manager → CamCOPS → Force stop

  • Then start the app again as usual.

iOS 7

  • Double-click the Home button

  • Swipe left/right until you find the CamCOPS app’s preview

  • Swipe the app preview up to close it

  • Then start the app again as usual

Windows

  • Close it as usual; if it refuses to close, kill it via the Task Manager.

6.6. Rescuing data from very old CamCOPS clients

If you have an old Titanium version (version 1.x), then before you attempt an upload to a modern CamCOPS server, follow these steps.

  • Ensure you have a computer with the Android SDK installed, and an appropriate USB cable.

  • Ensure the tablet device has USB debugging enabled.

  • In CamCOPS, choose Settings ‣ Dump local database to SQL file (Android only).

  • It should say that it’s saved to appdata:///camcops_db.txt; this means /sdcard/org.camcops.camcops/camcops_db.txt on the filesystem.

  • On the big computer, try adb devices to list devices, and adb shell to run an SSH-type shell into the tablet.

  • On the big computer, fetch the file via

    adb pull /sdcard/org.camcops.camcops/camcops_db.txt rescued_camcops_db.txt
    
  • If you want to create a binary SQLite database, then do

    sqlite3 rescued_camcops_db.sqlite < rescued_camcops_db.txt