On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:04:42 +0000, Bill wrote:

For a bit of light relief from my tussle with JDBC connectors, I'll
continue the conversation here.

Hi Bill,
We have both been working on moving forward, albeit in divergent
ways (where that's just fine).

Yes, I use "Open Camera" on both my phones and it is the best camera app
that I've found.

Great! I'm glad you use it, as it's the best there is for such things.
We seem to agree on our "assessment" of things.
That's good because it shows you're rational.

My days of getting under vehicles are now well and truly over. I did do
some work on them in the past, and I have rebuilt small marine engines
and gearboxes, but even that would be difficult now. My "old vehicles"
have now progressed to the age where the electronics is taking over, so
I've done a bit with OBD2 diagnostics.

Sounds like you have similar experience.
OBDII was a quantum leap in diagnostics.

It basically makes diagnostics for emissions-related stuff, almost simple.
(I say "almost" because it's just a pointer ... but it's a good pointer.)

You still have to figure out if it's the power to the sensor, or the sensor
itself, or what the sensor is sensing (which is usually the real problem).

On the 4x4 front **, I've had 2 Land Rover 110's, a Mk 1 Discovery that
caught fire while being welded by my local friendly mechanic.
Then we hit electronics.

Yikes! Good luck with that! Ouch.

You reminded me that, way back in the late sixties, I did my first welding
on a door sill, where, I didn't even THINK about the fact that there was a
thick wiring loom UNDER the metal I was welding with that gas welder!

I was splicing wires for hours after that!

The nightmare Jeep Grand Cherokee followed, where I got
to the stage of talking to the ECU using a terminal program on an
Android tablet before discovering the brilliant free app written by
someone from Estonia.

Now _that_ is a nice feat!
That's the kind of app I want to write, but for alignment.

Now I'm on a 2004 Range Rover, where I use some
BMW diagnostics into a laptop.

Yup. I know my bimmer well. Ediabas is the main interface.
It's a pain because the software was meant for RS232 serial ports.
Which you can't find anymore (not easily).

So we use adapters from the laptop USB port to the OBDII port.

Most of us use Inpa, but we all have NCS Expert, NCS Dummies, DIS/GT1,
EasyDIS, and Progman (for programming one of the dozen or so Electronic
Control Units in the E39 (which is what I own).

The great thing is that this is the same stuff the factory and dealer use.
The bad thing is a lot of it is still in German.

You probably know all this stuff. I have pointers to ALL the software if
you need it. I have everything, but it has been YEARS since I had to
download it so I hope it's still there as that stuff tends to die out.

The Rangie has just had its annual MOT test and had a bit of suspension
work and a new tyre.

Yup. Those smog tests on older cars are sometimes a PITA to pass.
And suspension work is, often, a PITA too!

I'm currently honing my skills for suspension alignment.
While most people have an outdated opinion of both mounting & balancing
tires and doing an alignment at home, the reality is that the tools are
getting better and cheaper and more available by the day!

Just as we can now repair, mount and balance tires at home for an outlay in
tool costs that is amortized over about 3 or 4 sets of tires, the same is
happening for alignment.

On the problem is tremendously different, where, again, you'll hear
everyone say the outdated words that they can't do it - but it turns out to
be eminently possible.

I have a recent thread, for example, on the Android tools for doing an
alignment at home over here...
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/alt.home.repair/aPbvm5vRti0/kUaNVtBhAgAJ


This meant it had to be jacked up which, as you may
know, means the air suspension loses all touch with reality and has to
be reset electronically.

Actually, I don't have fancy "air" suspension. I have struts.
So that's too bad that you have to reset it.

The mechanic has several very expensive
diagnostic tools, but nothing that would work with either the Jeep or
Range Rover, so he does the work and brings it back to me for the
electronics to be set up again.

Wow. That's not good. I'm glad I don't have that problem.
What a pain.

Unfortunately, today's reset hasn't
worked and one corner droops, so it's back to him to find what has
fallen off or burst.

Yikes. Again, I'm glad I don't have to deal with that.

This is exactly where a camera snake app would be excellent, allowing me
to inspect the underpinnings without having to crawl.

Yup. Do you already have the snake camera? If so, didn't it come with an
app? (Mine did.)

I've just been
reading about some big square bright 12 volt LED panels that would be
ideal to throw under the car to illuminate the problems.

Yup. I have Costco LED garage lights that I put to each side of the car
when I'm working in the garage. They are meant for the ceiling, but they
work on the floor perfectly!

They light up the underside of the car like it's daylight.

** Only needed to tow the 3 ton boat we built - now given to my son, so
the need for 4WD and low range gears has gone.

Makes sense. 4WD, IMHO, has a LOT of overhead costs, that 2WD just doesn't
have, which is why I love 2WD over both FWD and 4WD and AWD (but to each
his own on that decision).

As for my Android, today I solved (sort of) the Genymotion problem.

My 20/20 hindsight to you is "Don't use the Genymotion S9 emulator!".
My irksome problem was that I _started_ with that emulator.
It failed EVERY time (I spent HOURS on it!).
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.mobile.android/ix9empN-mxg/GvBpgIkOAwAJ

Then, I tried a half dozen others, and they ALL worked just fine.
Had I not started with the S9, I'd be saying how great Genymotion is.
Sigh. 20/20 hindsight.
http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=9646339genymotion15.jpg

The Genymotion emulator is the cat's meow, when it works though.
It's BEAUTIFULLY integrated into Android Studio, for example.
And it's FAST! (real fast!)

So far, I have the following tests done (in this order).
http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=8909620genymotion16.jpg

Works (using Genymotion 2.12.2 with VirtualBox 5.2.14 on Win10 1803):
o API 16, Jelly Bean: HTC One X - 4.11 - API 16 - 720x1280
o API 18, Jelly Bean: Samsung Galaxy S3 - 4.3 - API 18 - 729x1280
o API 19, KitKat: Motorola Moto X - 4.4.4 - API 19 - 720x1280
o API 21, Lollipop: Google Nexus 4 - 5.0.0 - API 21 - 768x1280
o API 23, Marshmallow: Samsung Galaxy S7 - 6.0.0 - API 23 - 1440x2560
o API 24, Nougat: Samsung Galaxy S8 - 7.0.0 - API 24 - 1440x2960
o API 25, Nougat: Google Nexus 6 - 7.1.0 - API 25 - 1440x2560

Fails (using Genymotion 2.12.2 with VirtualBox 5.2.14 on Win10 1803):
o API 26, Oreo: Samsung Galaxy S9 - 8.0 - API 26 - 1440x2960
o API 28, Pie: Google Pixel XL - 9.0 (preview) - API 28 - 1440x2560

The bad news is that I _started_ with the S9, where I spent hours trying to
get it to work before I decided to try the others.

The error message is most likely a red herring.
If I knew what I know now, I would have just used one of the others.

The great news is that there are a LOT of Genymotion emulators,
so, at some point, I hope to report that I have Android 8 emulated.

I'm going to look up how to downgrade an app once it's built to a
particular SDK version, so that it works on a lower SDK version.
I'll report back when I have something to report.