I've found a near-fatal problem in the entire PortableApps solution, at least when running flash drives.
Sometimes, when my flash drive is plugged in, when I plug in my phone (to charge it mostly, other times to transfer a new picture or ringtone made in XnView or Audacity over), the "What do you want Windows to do?" box pops up for the phone... then for the flash drive. It's like plugging the phone in disconnects, then reconnects the flash drive. Is this normal?
When this happens, the PortableApps.com platform closes, but other apps don't. Firefox can survive it and sometimes it can even keep running. Last time it happened, I was able to post on Facebook, but when I went to look someone up on IMDb, only my active search engine (Wikipedia) was available. Clicking on the dropbox showed none installed (I did not try to search Wikipedia; just the icon was there). So it was a mess, so I restarted the platform and Firefox.
At home, I run portable apps off an external hard drive plugged directly into the mobo, and plugging my digital camera, phone, or flash drives into the front of the computer has never affected the portable apps. I almost never use the platform at home, instead relying on desktop shortcuts. I don't think that matters, I think it's more about the USB controller -- the portable apps are on a different one than the stuff being plugged in in the front.
This isn't a fatal problem, as such, but should be looked at just the same, especially if it's the equivalent of yanking the flash drive out and sticking it right back in. Which I suspect it is.
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on BlueSky
That's a PC hardware issue... most likely a short in your ports. The PortableApps.com Platform gets the Windows message when it detects a disconnect, so it closes (thinking the drive was unsafely yanked... which, technically, it was). The drive then reconnects so Windows shows the drive insertion. It's nothing to do with our stuff, it's your hardware and Windows detecting the issue and passing on the appropriate messages.
In short, get your PC fixed, quick. Or stop using the affected ports.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
No, it's not the PortableApps.com Platform or the software in the least. I know that, did not mean to imply that it was, and apologize if it came across that way.
So this is an issue that is not common? I wasn't sure.
That should absolutely *NOT* happen. It's either a hardware issue with the PC or something seriously screwed up driver-wise (like you have a 3rd party USB card from an iffy provider, for instance). Either way, you should fix that because it can cause you to lose data or lose a drive, depending on the way it's shorting or messing up.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks John.
It's not my computer though, it's a standard office Dell at work. And you know Dell, HP, et al use cheap parts. The only thing they spend any money on is the CPU because all most consumers know is Intel. "Intel inside", so they want an Intel computer, they don't know about MSI or Gigabyte or AMD or ASUS or anybody else, so all they want is that latest Intel chip they saw on TV. That's why I'll never buy a computer again; I can build a decent (not good) gaming tower for the cost of a complete Dell system that should outperform it at every turn (well, anybody can).
Even so, I lost my precious Flash Voyager I've been bragging about, so I'm back to the 4GB Readout. A good drive, just not as big as I'd like. So I'm practicing better backup protocols so no actual data gets lost. Local backups (at home), email (cloud storage, sort of). Might even have to bring in TrueCrypt if the device can get taken (working on a novel, it's a possibility).
When you find a good affordable laptop case, ring me up and I'll try to snatch it.
TWISI, Dell's Corporate PCs are slightly better than the consumer versions (mainly because companies don't throw out computers when they pop up an error message).
Oh, and yes, backup.
Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.