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Issue #393: Feb 1–7, 2015
Q: A year or two ago I asked about programs temporarily stopping – The title bar on the window says “(not responding)”. Most respond after a few to several seconds. At the time you felt I has joking and used my question in your “humor” column. However, it is real and I still have the problem with many programs not responding for a while. Currently I’m trying to root my phone with SuperOneClick. It runs for a while and then stops responding – I have waited for many minutes before aborting. This happens on both my desktop and my laptop. I wanted to upload a screen shot when it happens by couldn’t see a link.
– Terry P.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
A: I’m sorry if you got offended by my poking fun at your question, Terry, but let me refresh your memory of what you wrote to me: “Not Responding – I get that often with many applications – not all from MS. Research says memory problem – but this is on 2 computers. And others have the problem. So what is your take on this? I’m about to abandon Bill for Steve (rest in peace).” That’s it. That’s everything you sent me – I didn’t leave anything out. I can’t imagine what you expected me to do to help you when you gave me so little to go on. There was no information about your computer, its age, CPU class, operating system, RAM, or available hard drive space. What you basically told me is that you own a computer, and that it runs slow. I’ve written several columns on how to speed up a slow computer, and I didn’t feel the need to repeat it. So, to put it bluntly, upon its arrival your e-mail was immediately filed under “Unusable – not enough info” and only brought to light when I was searching for fodder with which to have a little fun on the column’s 7th anniversary last year (I.G.T.M. #366, July 27, 2014). You didn’t provide much information this time around either, except to add that your system is running Win 7. I do have good news for you though. I recently updated the question submittal form on ItsGeekToMe.co to include a way to upload a screenshot.
Now, let’s look at your situation logically, and see if we can extract some information that will be helpful. You have two separate computers exhibiting the same behavior. It seems unlikely that they both have the same problem, which means that something common between them (such as your home network, to which both devices are presumably attached) must be causing issues. Both of the times you’ve written you said “programs temporarily stop” (plural) but you’ve only ever actually cited the name of one program, specifically SuperOneClick. Not being a user of Android devices, I know little of how this program works, but I looked it up before responding to your e-mail, and at least one article I read was not very complimentary. In fact, when I did a web search for it, while typing its name into Google, the Google auto-complete function actually suggested “superoneclick not responding” as what I might be looking for. That means a lot of people are searching for that phrase. Not good.
As usual, I want to help if at all possible. My first advice is that if you are serious about rooting your phone, find a more stable and reliable tool. Second, send me some real information about your computer problems if you want me to try and formulate a solution for you. I can only work with what you give me.
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