Official IUGO Forum

by **Tech Support** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 3:52 pm

FAQ for IUGO iPhone Product Issues
Dear IUGO customers, gamers, fans and friends,
this FAQ is a compilation of all the problems and SOLUTIONS that we'd collected in order to help you have a better experience with IUGO's iPhone products. Since this FAQ is posted on a forum, we'd broken them down into different categories. Click the following links to jump to them. Or if you prefer, you could usually press the CONTROL and letter F keys together to trigger a seach. On Apple machine, it would be the COMMAND and letter F keys.

Crashes & Memory Related Issues

Performance Related Issues

Firmware, Interrupt & Battery Issues

Installation & Updating Issues

How to Retrieve Crash Logs

Installation, Update and Purchase Issues

If you still cannot find the cause or solution to your problem, please email us at support@iugome.com. We will try to help you out as much as we can!

by **Tech Support** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:03 pm

I can reproduce a crash in the game/app consistently. What should i do? wrote:
ANSWER: Send us the crash logs immediately! If this is a startup crash, please refer to the next question below.
SOLUTION: Refer to this on how to get the crash log and where to send it to.

I installed the game/app but it crashes at startup! Help! wrote:
ANSWER: All IUGO products goes through stringent QA testing before they are release. If our product does crash on startup, we wouldn't release it in the first place. Startup crashes had been a big problems with many iPhone games/apps since the inception of the AppStore. The following are some of the remedies and solutions that our customers and others had reported that worked for them.

SOLUTION-1: The installation process sometime reduces usable system memory to the point that games/apps could not even allocate the minimum needed to bootup. To free up as much memory as possible, the best way is to reboot the device. Reboot the device by powering it down and then powering it up again. To power down your device, press and hold the POWER button for a few seconds and follow the on-screen instruction to shutdown the device. To power up, press and hold the POWER button for a few seconds after it had completely shutdown.

SOLUTION-2: If you'd rebooted the device and still the game/app crashes at startup. Try deleting it from the device and reinstalling it via iTunes. Of course, you should reboot the device after installation.

SOLUTION-3: Some iPod Touch (1st Gen) users had reported that changing the Sound Effects setting to BOTH prevented apps from crashing. To do that, goto Settings, then General, then Sounds. Change Sound Effects to BOTH.

SOLUTION-4: Some users had reported that the International settings could cause games/applications to crash. Go to Settings, then General, then International. You will see 3 values to set. These include Language, Keyboards and Region Format. For each of these 3 values, set them to something different from you previous values, then set them back to their original values. Try to launch the game/application now.

SOLUTION-5: Some users had reported that settings could cause games/applications to crash. You might want to try resetting your device's settings. On firmware 2.2.1, you can go to Settings, then General, then Reset and select Reset All Settings. Your data and media will not be deleted.

SOLUTION-6: If none of the above solution works, you still have IUGO to fall back on! Help us help you by sending us the crash logs from your devices. Click here if you want to find out how to retrieve the crash logs from your device.

SOLUTION-7: Some user had reported that they actually had to RESTORE the device via iTunes in order to fix startup crashes. Restoring the device should be considered a last resort as it will clear out all the data on your device. Fortunately, iTunes will prompt you to do a full backup before restoring. This will ensure that you do not lose data but you will still have to manually reinstall the 3rd party applications.

Why do games/apps get random crashes? wrote:
ANSWER: If the crash cannot be repeated reliably everytime, it is usually (but not always) due to lack of system memory. The iPhone/iPod devices has a very limited amount of memory. The 1st and 2nd gen devices only has a maximum of 32MB available for application. The actual usable amount is even less as the OS and native applications consumes some memory too. System memory must not be confused with disk storage which could run in Gigabytes.

SOLUTION: Always reboot your device after initial installation. The device loses usable system memory due to leaks and native apps as time goes by. A reboot will clear out these problems.

I heard that native applications such as Safari eats up memory even when they are not active? If YES, how do i kill it to free up memory? wrote:
ANSWER: Yes, native applications such as Safari continues to reserve memory even after they are "closed". In fact, some native apps do not fully exit at all. You can see this for yourself by rebooting your device and run Safari. You will notice a significant delay when Safari launch for the first time. Close Safari and relaunch it again. The 2nd time, it will come up much faster and immediately shows you the last webpage you are on. This shows that that page is cache and the only way to do it is to reserve some memory.

SOLUTION: The usually quick tap on Home button do not fully kill the native apps. The only way to fully kill native apps and be sure they do not take up memory is to PRESS & HOLD the Home button UNTIL THE APP EXITS.

My device is Jailbroken. Is that a problem? wrote:
ANSWER: Yes. Jailbroken devices have much less usable system memory than normal devices. This is due to the inclusion of always-running applications and plugins such as mobile substrate, winterboard etc. Wallpapers and other fancy attachments made possible by jailbreaking also eat up system memory. All these translate to less usable system memory and higher probability of games/apps crashing due to low memory situation.

SOLUTION: The best solution is not to jailbreak your device. There is a reason why Apple do not support jailbreaking. Jailbreaking adds a lot of nice-to-have bells and whistles at the expenses of system stability. In some cases, even basic functionality such as SMS and Phone calls can be adversely affected. If you have to jailbreak your device, make sure to run as little plugins and wallpapers in order to minimize the amount of usable system memory consumed.

Is there anything else that i can do to free up as much memory as possible? wrote:
ANSWER: Yes, there are a few things you could do.

SOLUTION-1: Cut down on the number of applications installed. That will reduce the number of pages of applications on your homescreen.

SOLUTION-2: Don't jailbreak your device. Jailbreaking your device is the worst thing you can do to your device's system stability. We have actual usage data that points to games/apps crashing on jailbroken devices much more often than non-jailbroken devices.

If i reduce the amount of songs or movies sync'd to my device, would it improve stability? wrote:
ANSWER: No it wouldn't. Songs, ringtones, podcasts, movies and other media are stored in your device's disk storage. Disk storage is NOT system memory. Although applications are installed onto disk storage, it does not affect their stability. When an application is executed, it is loaded from disk storage onto system memory which usually has much faster memory access specifications. If you do not have enough system memory, no amounts of disk storage is going to fix that. Currently, a 1st and 2nd gen iPhone has only about 128MB of system memory and less than 30MB of that is available to games/apps.

by **Tech Support** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:05 pm

Why do games/apps on my iPhone/iPod sometimes has random slow down or lag? wrote:
ANSWER: Apple's native applications are running all the time. The most common causes of sporadic lag is attributed to the device downloading emails in the background. Another cause could be the scanning of WIFI access points (AP). If you have WIFI turned on, there are processing overheads associated with that as it sometimes need to scan for AP to connect to. This will adversely affect performance and causes random lag as IUGO games always max out the CPU to deliver a compelling gaming experience.

SOLUTION: Reduce or turn off the frequency of email pulling. If the game do not require networking, turn off networking on the device altogether. On iPhone, simply switch to Airplane Mode in Settings. On iPod, turn off WIFI in Settings.

by **Tech Support** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:36 pm

Do IUGO's games/apps save progress automatically when I suddenly exit the application by pressing the HOME button? wrote:
ANSWER: Yes, we always do that when it is required. However if the game is a checkpoint-save type of game, your game will be saved at the last checkpoint to prevent cheating.

Why is my game progress not saved when i reply an SMS message? wrote:
ANSWER: This is a known bug in the iPhone firmware 2.2.1 and earlier. It will probably be fixed with new firmware updates from Apple.

Why does the game's music and sound effects go silent when i reject an incoming phone call? wrote:
ANSWER: This is a known issue with the iPhone OS.

SOLUTION: The only solution available is not really viable as it will destabilized the game. The best solution is to either pick up the call or restart the game.

When i flip the silent switch on my device (iPhone), the game sounds do not turn off. wrote:
ANSWER: This is a known issue with iPhone firmwares preceding 2.2.1. In 2.2.1, this issue no longer exists.

SOLUTION: Upgrade device firmware to 2.2.1 or later.

Why do some games drain batteries faster than others? How can i extend my gaming time? wrote:
ANSWER: Games usually drains batteries faster due to the high level of CPU utilization for audio, graphics, logic and physics. Games also normally activates additional hardware such as embedded graphics chipsets that would otherwise be unused and powered down. All these contributes to the observations that games drain batteries much faster than say, the Notepad application. IUGO is a longtime mobile games developer and we pride ourselves in our ability to maximize the gaming experience of our games while ensuring the battery power are not unnecessarily wasted.

SOLUTION: Fortunately, there are a lot of things that users can do to extend their battery life. For iPhone users, turning off 3G (phone will go into Edge mode), will drastically reduce battery drain. If you can, turning off networking altogether To do that iPhone users can go into Airplane Mode while iPod users can turn off WIFI. In general, turning on WIFI drains more battery than 3G or Edge. Turning off bluetooth when the game doesn't need it will help as well.

My device is running Apple's beta firmware and the game doesn't work. wrote:
ANSWER: Beta firmwares are subject to change before they are finalized for public deployment. Hence we can never fully guarantee that our games will run flawlessly on any beta firmwares.

SOLUTION: Only install beta firmwares on devices that you will not be using to purchase applications from the AppStore. No commercially available apps or games can guarantee 100% compatibility with beta firmwares. If they happen to execute flawlessly, it is all due to plain luck. IUGO is committed to fully supporting the new firmware versions once they are finalized and deployed by Apple. If you still encounter problems with our products after the firmware had been finalized and deployed by Apple, please drop us an email immediately, we will try to rectify the problem as quickly as possible!

by **Tech Support** on Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:18 pm

The application installation is stuck! The blue progress bar doesn't move at all! wrote:
ANSWER: This situation had been reported by many iPhone and iPod users. It is a problem with the iPhone OS's installation procedure which would be too complicated to get into a discussion here.

SOLUTION: At this point, we had not received any confirmation of a fix for this problem. Try deleting the application in iTunes and resync. Don't worry about losing the game/app. It is locked to your Apple ID account and you can re-download without charge. Other than that, there is really nothing 3rd party developers such as IUGO could do to resolve this problem. The ball is in Apple's court.

I tried to update my IUGO game/app but it didn't update or install properly! wrote:
ANSWER: Please refer to the previous issue. They are the same.

SOLUTION: Please refer to the previous issue. They are the same.

by **Tech Support** on Mon Apr 13, 2009 12:20 pm

I had been told to provide the crash logs from my device. How do i retrieve them? wrote:
ANSWER: Sync it to your device! Crash logs are really useful to us, please read on!

SOLUTION: Firstly, after you'd experience a crash that you can repeat, sync your iPhone or iPod Touch with your PC or Mac.
The log files will be transferred to your computer once the sync completes.
Here is how you locate them on each platform:
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\Application Data\Apple computer\Logs\CrashReporter\
Windows Vista: C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\Apple computer\Logs\CrashReporter\MobileDevice\
Mac: /Users/USER_FOLDER/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/YOUR_DEVICE_NAME
The files should look like the following samples:
TheGame_2008-11-11-265948_localhost.crash
TheGame_2008-11-11-265948_localhost.plist

The logs' filenames are always dated and prefixed with the name of the app. Make sure to grab the correct ones.

Finally, zip up the log files using any file compression program such as winzip or winrar and email it to support@iugome.com with a description of how the repeatable crash occurred. You must also note down the version of the app. Either the AppStore version or the version you find in the credits screen will suffice.

The more information we have, the faster we can diagnose the problem, so please give us as much information as you can.

by **Tech Support** on Thu Apr 30, 2009 12:01 pm

I bought your game from iTunes but it doesn't install! wrote:
ANSWER: This is issue had been reported before and is entirely out of the control of IUGO as Apple is solely responsible with any issues pertaining to iTunes transactions. You can go to this link and directly report the problem to Apple.

There is a new version of your game but iTunes does not allow me to update. wrote:
ANSWER: This is issue had been reported before and is entirely out of the control of IUGO as Apple is solely responsible with any issues pertaining to iTunes transactions. You can go to this link and directly report the problem to Apple.

I purchased your game but never got it downloaded to my device! wrote:
ANSWER: This is issue had been reported before and is entirely out of the control of IUGO as Apple is solely responsible with any issues pertaining to iTunes transactions. You can go to this link and directly report the problem to Apple.

My device is jailbroken and i could not buy your In-App Purchase items! wrote:
ANSWER: This is a known issue with jailbroken devices. Fortunately there is a workaround.