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Why Are The Help Screens Blank On SkySafari 6 Pro On iOS 8? (Answer: iOS 9.3.5 Is The Minimum Required)

I'm running SS 6 Pro 6.7.5 on an iPad 2 running ios 8.3. It seems to work fine except the help screens are blank. I deleted and re-installed it and have the same problem. I've restarted the iPad but that didn't help, either. I don't want to update the ios because that's pretty much death to an iPad 2. I have SS 5 pro 5.4.1 on the same device and it's working fine, so this isn't a huge deal to me; I'm just thinking if there's an easy fix, it would be nice to have the help screens functional in version 6 as well.

The help menus show up, and "quick start" works, and menu choices that lead to submenus work (i.e. the submenus display), but the actual help pages full of information don't display. The screen just goes to black with "SkySafari Pro 6 Help" on the top left in blue, the title of the help page I'm supposed to be seeing on the top center in white, and "Done" on the top right also in blue. It does this whether I'm connected to the Internet or not.

Version 6.7.5 is the latest version that the App Store will let me download to this iPad, so updating SS isn't an option.

Again, this is not a big deal and I don't expect anyone to go to a lot of trouble to try to fix a glitch on an outdated platform, but if anyone has an idea of what's going wrong and how to fix it, that would be way cool. Thanks.

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4 comments

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    Garry Bluhm

    Currently I use an iPad Pro w/SS6Pro but have kept my old iPad 2 as a backup. Checked it today and SS6Pro was at V6.3.0 with iOS 9.3.6, Help Menu works & displays info correctly. Was able to update SS 6Pro to 6.8.0.15 & no problems with the Help Menu info at all. Understand the hesitation on doing iOS updating but it could be the only way to fix the issue with the Help Menu info blank screen & being able to update to latest SS6Pro. My iPad 2 has WiFi &Cellular hence the last iOS 9.3.6, w/o Cellular it’s 9.3.5

    Have not had any issues with the iPad2 final iOS 9.3.6. The only obvious thing now after using an iPad Pro for years is that the iPad 2 seems so slow😀.

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    J Oltion

    Thanks for the info. I'm reluctant to upgrade to iOS 9 because of the slowdown hit. 8 is still relatively fast, and as long as SS runs okay on it otherwise, I think I'd rather live without the help screens than slow down the machine just to fix that one problem.

    I'm betting it's an addressing problem. SS probably can't find the files it needs in order to display the help screens. I may try to connect the iPad to my desktop machine and root around in the file structure to see if I can spot an anomaly. Not really eager to drop down that rabbit hole, but I may work up my courage and give it a go one of these days.

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    Garry Bluhm

    There is a pdf manual here you could download/import into iBooks on your iPad

    https://support.simulationcurriculum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360002730593--Request-SkySafari-6-Pro-iOS-Manual-In-PDF-Format

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zRb_3w3WT6GeHbsWKIUFgsBlwzyqXQ-f/view?usp=sharing

     

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    J Oltion

    Aha! That's a great work-around. Many thanks.

    I see that the title of this topic has been modified with an answer: "iOS 9 is the minimum required." I'll reiterate that SS Pro 6.7.5 does seem to work fine on an iPad 2 running iOS 8.3, other than the missing help screens, and the App Store did let me download it. (I got the message that SS Pro 6.7.5 was the latest version compatible with my system, would I like to download that?) So all is not lost if you're running old hardware. With the manual Garry linked to, I think this is a satisfactory solution.

    Again, many thanks!

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