General Release Notes
Welcome to the OLPC community!
This wiki page was created to provide information about known problems and possible work arounds with the stable, shipping release. If you are looking for help on getting started, please see the Getting Started pages.
Network Connectivity
WPA does not work in this version
You cannot connect to a WPA access point through the User Interface in the current software version, 650. We are working on a patch right now.
- There is a script for the WPA workaround script and the detailed instructions to get around this bug. This is for advanced linux users.
Some encrypted Access Points require Hex key
If you try to connect to an encrypted (WEP or WPA) wireless access point (AP) with a password or passphrase, the connection may be not be successful.
- Every AP manufacturer uses a different algorithm for converting a passphrase to a key. The most reliable method for connecting to your own access point is to use a hex key when configuring the AP, then use the same hex key when you try to access it from the XO. Here are a couple of links for converting passwords and phrases to hex keys for WEP and WPA environments: WEP Hex converter, WPA Hex Converter
Other Wireless and Network Manager bugs and enhancements.
Collaboration and Sharing Activities
Sharing is an activity specific feature
There are a number of ways that activities might share or communicate with each other. For instance Chat will allow many laptops to connect and text typed on any laptop will be seen on all the laptops that are currently sharing.
When you share the Record Activity, the pictures taken after joining the activity will automatically be shared. Pictures taken before other have joined the activity are not shared.
To find out how sharing works (or if sharing has been implemented) in any particular activity, please see the notes on that Activity.
Open Collaboration or Sharing bugs or enhancements.
Browse
Rich text field (#5340)
If you use a web-based mail program, such as google gmail, in rich text mode you may not see the cursor and you may not be able to type in the text field.
- To work around this, set your email to use 'Plain Text' mode. In gmail there is a link just above the body field to switch between plain and rich text.
Can't attach file in gmail (#5323)
The browser may crash if you try to attach a file to your email from within google gmail. When you click on attach it takes a long time to try to open the journal.
- With this build you cannot attach a file to email. You can copy the file from the journal to a USB stick to get it off the XO.
Browse can't play back Record audio or video (#4783)
Audio and Video that is created in the Record activity cannot be played back in the browser.
- To play back your audio or video, find the Record activity in the journal and resume it. The original video and audio is saved there and can be played back while in Record.
Other open Browse bugs and enhancements.
Sugar UI
Fly-overs sometimes don't go away (#4514)
After hovering over an icon on the Sugar UI, a fly-over may show up providing information or actions. Sometimes the fly-over remains on the screen after the action has started.
- To get rid of an old fly-over message, move the mouse and hover over another icon. Then move the mouse until it is not hovering over any icon.
The Sugar frame doesn't always go away with the frame key
Sometimes the Sugar frame remains up front after an activity has started.
- Usually the sugar frame will disappear after a few seconds. It may be help to click inside the activity or press the frame key (upper right-most key)
The cursor jumps or doesn't behave properly (#2804)
Sometimes when you are using the touchpad, the mouse jumps to the edge or corner of the screen making it very difficult to use it.
- It might help to re-calibrate the trackpad by pressing the four corner keys of the laptop, ensuring that the last one pressed is the 'fn' key. If this doesn't work, it might respond to restarting sugar by pressing these three keys at one time: Alt, Ctl, Erase. Finally, if that doesn't work, the problems might go away by reinstalling the software or when you upgrade to the next version.
Upgrading activities is a manual process (#4906)
If you have an activity installed on your laptop and you try clicking on the newer version to install it, it will continue to run the older version.
- For now you need to remove the older version manually and then install the new one, as described in the Activity Upgrade procedure.
Other Sugar bugs and enhancements.
Journal & Datastore
Journal may crash when indexing USB (#5127)
If you insert a USB stick into the XO and launch an activity before it is finished indexing the USB, the journal may crash.
- The work around is to wait until the USB shows up in the journal before launching another activity.
Journal may stop updating or become unresponsive (#3376)
If the datastore has crashed and restarted, the journal may become unresponsive.
- To recover you can reboot the laptop from the Sugar Home screen (hover over the XO); or restart just Sugar by pressing Ctl, Alt, and Erase.
Journal can't read a read-only USB stick (#4407)
The journal writes to a USB stick as part of its indexing; so if the stick is read-only, it will not show the contents in the journal.
- You can unprotect the USB stick or make it read/write.
Other open Journal and Datastore bugs and enhancements.
Battery Life
Suspend/Resume is not enabled (#5243)
The hardware fixes for allowing software suspend and resume are available on mass production units.
- Battery life will increase as the software features are turned on for suspend and resume. This will be apparent after the next release.
Other Suspend and Resume bugs.
Activities
Draw
The tablet mode, where you can use a stylus on the touchpad is not working in build 650.
Users can only draw horizontal arrows. (#4170) In the future, the Ctrl key will be used to rotate shapes.