BlackBerry Playbook Simulator 2.1 not working after installing on Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit

I was able to install BlackBerry Playbook Simulator 2.1 on Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit by installing supported libraries, see here.

Running the IDE (/opt/bbndk-2.1.0/bbndk.sh) fails with a message as shown below.

/opt/bbndk-2.1.0/host/linux/x86/usr/bin/../..//usr/qde/eclipse/qde: error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The above message says we don't have libgtk-x11-2.0 libraries. Since the IDE was compiled as i386 we need to install the library like:

sudo apt install libgtk2.0-0:i386

Running the IDE again yields the following error message:

(qde:2418): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "hcengine",
#
# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
#  SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0xf771179d, pid=2418, tid=4131637376
#
# JRE version: 6.0_24-b07
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (19.1-b02 mixed mode, sharing linux-x86 )
# Problematic frame:
# C  [ld-linux.so.2+0xb79d]
#
# An error report file with more information is saved as:
# /home/y/hs_err_pid2418.log
#
# If you would like to submit a bug report, please visit:
#   http://java.sun.com/webapps/bugreport/crash.jsp
# The crash happened outside the Java Virtual Machine in native code.
# See problematic frame for where to report the bug.
#
Aborted (core dumped)

What is happening here is that Momentics IDE ships with Java 1.6 runtime but it is not compatible with some of the libraries that comes with Ubuntu 16.04. To fix this install Java 1.9 runtime for i386 architecture, like:

sudo apt install default-jre:i386

The above installation will make Java runtime available in the default path which will override sourcing by the scripts. Running the IDE this time should work but with some minor warnings, like:

(qde:2418): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "hcengine"

To clean the console message out, do:

sudo apt install gtk2-engines:i386

You should now have a working Momentics IDE!!!

Installing BlackBerry Playbook Simulator 2.1 fails on Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit

Tried to install BlackBerry Play Simulator 2.1 on Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit but it fails with error message below.

sudo ./installer-bbndk-2.1.0-linux-1032-201209271809-201209280007.bin

Preparing to install...Extracting the JRE from the installer archive...Unpacking the JRE...Extracting the installation resources from the installer archive...Configuring the installer for this system's environment...
Launching installer...
./installer-bbndk-2.1.0-linux-1032-201209271809-201209280007.bin: 3320: exec: /tmp/install.dir.3056/Linux/resource/jre/bin/java: not found

The installation is failing because it has dependencies to 32-bit libraries. To fix it, do:

$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
$ sudo apt install libc6:i386
$ sudo ./installer-bbndk-2.1.0-linux-1032-201209271809-201209280007.bin

Installation should now complete but the IDE will not be working. Next post details how to fix it.

Follow-up post is here.

How to determine BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator IP address

Click on user icon, a popup dialog will show up and show the IP address.

BlackBerry Tablet Simulator Mouse Gestures

Mouse Gestures for BlackBerry Tablet Simulator

Description	Mouse
Show top bar (notification area)	Move mouse top middle and click
Show Browser options	Move mouse top right and click
Show applications running	Move mouse bottom middle and click
Show application home screen (aka desktop)	Move mouse bottom middle and click twice
Show on screen keyboard	Move mouse to lower left and click

https://developer.blackberry.com/develop/simulator/simulator_gestures.html

BlackBerry Tablet Simulator shows black screen

On Windows 10 Enterprise version 1511 build 10586.589 + VMware Workstation 11.1.4, powering up a BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator 2.1 shows blank/black screen. The simulator was created around September 2012, it may have worked back in the day but with latest versions of the host OS and VMware it is not working using default configuration. The link from here mentions about supported graphics card, thus say, should support OpenGL 2.0. I am using a machine that supports Open GL 4.1 and still not working.

To have a partially working simulator, change QNX boot option to 2.

You can play with the simulator but developing an application that needs EGL does not work.

Reference:
https://developer.blackberry.com/develop/simulator/simulator_installing.html


Hints/Keywords:
Blank screen
Black screen
BlackBerry Table Simulator Not working on VMware Workstation

Installing BlackBerry Tablet Simulator 2.1 fails with "Windows error 2 occured while loading the Java VM"

Installing BlackBerry Tablet Simulator 2.1 on Windows 10 fails with the error message as shown below.

---------------------------
LaunchAnywhere Error
---------------------------
Windows error 2 occured while loading the Java VM
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

To fix this install x86 version of JRE (tested with jre-8u102-windows-i586.exe). Running the installer again will still fail. Workaround is to pass command line argument to the installer, like:

BlackBerryPlayBookSimulator-Installer-2.1.0-1032-Win-201209272349 LAX_VM "C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_102\bin\java.exe" -i GUI

Run the above command on elevated prompt.

Tested on Windows 10 1511 (OS Build 10586.545)

Reference:
https://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Adobe-AIR-Development/Window-error-2-occurred-when-loading-java-vm/td-p/1300033

Google maps on BlackBerry

Google have mobilized their Google Maps and should now be available in BlackBerry. Actually this has been available in BB eons ago (at least when talking about how fast things change in the Net).

Unfortunately, not all cities have as good coverage as in the US. But it is still a nice to have application in your BB device, anyway if you stay in non-English region and you happen to not understand the local language or in some cases Google shows language that is not really the local language (like maybe your internet gateway is located somewhere else) then you can still force to view the English language, thus say:

http://m.google.com/maps?hl=en

~ts

English Blogger draft on BlackBerry Asia Region

When you are in Asia,draft.blogger.com tries to automatically detect your location and sets the UI to the language that was detected by Google. Unfortunately, sometimes the gateway is provided outside of the country mostly from Hongkong. This leaves you with a Chinese interface which I can't really understand. This is even more challenging if you are trying to access sites using BlackBerry.

Anyway, to access Blogger Draft in English, use the following URL:

http://draft.blogger.com/mobile-start.g?hl=en

~ts

Google Mobile on BlackBerry

When I tried to access http://mobile.google.com using my BB8320 in the Philippines, I am always presented with a non-English, non-Pilipino language. I was guessing that it must have been Chinese language which I can not read at all. To get around with this, use the following URL instead: http://www.google.com/m?hl=en ~ts