ArcPad freezes occasionally with related tables

MarkAndersen1 · ‎03-27-2013

I have a personal geodatabase with a point feature class and a related table. There is a one-to-many relationship between points and records in the related table (i.e., for each point feature collected, there are multiple features recorded in the table). For the most part, this is working fine, but twice now, when one of our techs finished entering records in the related table, and hit the OK button to finish, ArcPad has frozen. Even after sitting for 30 minutes, it did not become responsive again. I can kill ArcPad using the task manager, but then we lose the data from that particular point feature (in that case, a 10 minute point count for birds). Because of sampling protocol and other issues, it's not as simple as just re-doing the point and recollecting all of the data.

Has anyone experienced something similar, or found a solution to the problem of ArcPad freezing? I'm using a Trimble Juno 3B w/ ArcPad 10.0 R2 (Build30). I have a few additional base data layers added (just some simplified, major roads, and a shapefile with maybe 1000 points for navigation).

ChrisCzerwinski1 · ‎03-28-2013

I get the same thing with related tables once and a while. Thankfully, I don't loose my data, just slows down the data collection process rebooting the system. Have you figured out a solution?

MarkAndersen1 · ‎03-28-2013

No solution yet. I have tried reducing the amount of data loaded onto the unit, and that may have helped speed things up, to some degree, but it's hard to say without more testing. I just removed the domains from attribute fields for the related table, simplified point labels, and removed several ancillary data layers, so we'll see if that helps. Partway through editing a record in a related table, the dropdowns would just go blank, and ArcPad would freeze up. Right now, there are so many other bugs (e.g., query forms that don't work, glitchy hardware), that it's hard to even try to troubleshoot.

I was told that there are significant issues with ArcPad 10 & Windows Mobile, and that some of of these issues might be resolved with ArcPad 10.2 due to the adoption of SQL Lite. Apparently there is an Android version of ArcPad in development -- it really couldn't be any worse than ArcPad 10 on Windows Mobile, and it would provide more options for devices.

If the fixes I just tried don't resolve our problems, the next solution will be to go back to paper data forms & Garmin GPS units, which never seem to have the kinds of issues that ArcPad always seems to have.