[Solved] Elephant stops working after a while

After working with Elephant for some more days it seems that it constantly fades away, when not in use. I regularly need to fondle the Dial and recall the settings overlay via double tap every few minutes, to keep Elephant working. After more than say 10-15 minutes without usage it's not possible to wake it up again, I need to close it via Task Manager and restart the App to get it back to life.
Sry for my sappy metaphors ?

That is the surface dial sleep mode.
I beer working on a beta version of Elphant to address that and some other problems, not is enough stable to release and I can confirm a release date yet and if that finally solve all the dial issues.

https://www.google.com/search?q=surface+diial+sleep+mode&rlz=1C1BNSD_enAR945AR945&sxsrf=ALeKk00-ipXHmUOYFEj29-xdDLBlrN-DUQ%3A1619597537476&ei=4RiJYInNHN_U1sQP0faf8Ao&oq=surface+diial+sleep+mode&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBwgjELACECc6BwgAEEcQsAM6BggAEBYQHlDUD1jPEmCoE2gBcAF4AIABaogBqwKSAQMxLjKYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6yAEDwAEB&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwjJwZn_vqDwAhVfqpUCHVH7B64Q4dUDCA4&uact=5

Understand. I'm crossing my fingers. Let me know if I can help with tests.
Thank you very much for continuing to work on the software!

Well.... if what I working now works ok, the sleep mode not be fixed but Elephant continue under control, and also the explorer behaviour be fixed due the same hack have on mind both scenarios and fix all this issue, will see soon.
Also read this post and stay tuned!:

https://savethehuman5.com/forum/troubleshooting/exit-elephant-needs-long-press-impossible-to-use-as-is/#post-1605   

For sure, working right now on this in the middle of the work of development Chameleon new version.
Every change I do in the code, i have to wait 10 minutes what is the sleep time of the dial.
The process is slow, duet have to wait 10 minutes for every new try.
Is really sad MS not allow to user to decide the sleep time, increase the sleep to 20 minutes really will be welcome for the the Dial users.
Anyway at the end of all I hope can gain control of the dial no matter the status of energy of the dial.
Will see!!

I think the Sleep Mode of the Dial itself is not that bad in order to save energy. But it would be great to go on working also with Elephant with a "wake up" tap, without restarting Elephant. If that's technically possible at all.

I post this on Microsoft support some time ago under nick name Groboto,  with no answer form support:
The dial firmware use the  system off mode available on nRF52832  chip inside the  Surface Dial, and that is the deepest power saving mode the system can enter. When the device have entered system off mode, the only possible wakeup sources are reset, GPIO, NFC, USB or LPCOMP modules. A wakeup from this state, will trigger a reset of the device. It is not possible to wakeup from system off mode using the RTC.
In simple words, every time the dial go to sleep mode, the internal system is off, and have to booth when wakeup, and that is the reason make the dial take few seconds to wakeup.  I cant confirm 100% this is exactly what happen, but all indicate to me it is.
The firmware need be reworked or they can increase the time probably to 20 minutes or more instead of 10. 
 
Surface Dial support Over-the-Air Firmware Update, if they want fix this they can........ the question is...........they want?
The sad side of the history is no answer from they.

Also when I fix this, the Dial go to that power off mode and recover the control not happens in instant way so you have to deal with that.
The sleep mode itself not is wrong, not allow to user to increase that time is what is wrong, my dial have now over 1 year without replace the battery, increase just a little bit the  sleep mode wont kill the batter in a radical way and make the usage more comfortable, despite any improvement I can do.

A break for a moment, to pickup a a coffe!...........upps I have to run before the dial sleep !! lol

Oh for sure, when the dial go to sleep mode, not inform of that.........what is another major problem.

@savethehuman5 Maybe you could build your own timer into Elephant? If you know it's exactly 10mins after the last action, maybe try to avoid the sleep mode (don't know if you can access the device this way) or try to make Elephant keep control over it somehow...? ? Just some vague thoughts, I'm not a developer.

Thats not works.
After dial go to deep power off mode,  communication ended. I can do something like make you can gain control again following some steps, but do that every 10 minutes is a bad idea............... will see what I can do soon.

I mean doing something to avoid loss of control before it goes into deep power off mode, like 9 minutes and 50 seconds after last usage.

There is nothing to avoid lost control, that is handled by the Dial API,  what I already  implement this time is a new dirty hack for to have the control always. Every one millisecond new reinitialization run in background with near to 0 CPU impact, no matter the status of the Dial, in that way when the dial wakeup gain the control in instant way (there is a delay not associated with Elephant, related to the wakeup itself process inside the processor of the Dial).  This also make the behaviour of restart the explorer disappear, if work ok under all scenarios this fix  solve 2 troubles at once.
Is under test now, if all goes ok, i publish a new version soon.

Oh for sure, in this new behaviour, press and hold now not do nothing, just a default haptic feedback vibration from the dial.
But better not do nothing in order prevent accidental press make appear the menu (what is the default Dial way of work with the radial men, what I not like it).
Also prevent now close the software as a previous version.

OK all fixed, at least on my deep tests!!
Explorer issue when open Elephant, solved!
Elephant lost communication at random ways, fixed!
Elephant lost communication on dial sleep and after wakeup the dial, fixed!
Press and hold do nothing.
Close Elephant will be available on the advanced menu.

Al the fixes working but now the question is.....
Should change double click the dial to open menu to press and hold the dial to open menu?
Or leave press and hold the dial doing nothing?

My opinion is press and hold is and action can happens in easy way by accident and open the menu by accident really broken the workflow.
What you think?

I prefer double click the dial  or custom key or hotkey open Elephant menu, and double click again hide Elephant menu.
Press and hold dont should do nothing, maybe close the menu....maybe.