Palm Desktop Macintosh HotSync Issues

[mabfan]

I have no idea if a general appeal to the world on my blog will yield a solution, but who knows? Maybe someone out there will have an idea of how to help me.

Since last Sunday, the Calendar on my Palm Tungsten E2 has not hotsynced properly with my computer (iBook G4 running 10.4.11). Everything else syncs just fine; if I tell the Hotsync Manager to skip the Calendar, all else works. But with the Calendar, it displays the Hotsync window on the Macintosh screen for a while, then it blanks out and vanishes without completing. On my handheld, the screen stays frozen on the claim that it is syncing the calendar; I have to hit cancel and reset to get it to work again. When I do, I find that all my new calendar data, entered into the handheld, is still there.

I've tried resetting the handheld and restarting the computer; installing the latest Palm Desktop software (4.2.1); deleting old data from the handheld in case I was using too much memory (edited to add: and then trying "Handheld overwrites Macintosh"); and trying to sync with Mac's iSync, which also failed on the calendar. Any other ideas would be appreciated.

Comments

[points.livejournal.com]

If I had to venture a guess, I'd think that you either entered a character that the Mac side of the software doesn't like, or an entry 'too long' for the field... or that some entry on the handheld (or Mac) may have become corrupted. So...

The quickest way to fix it would be to -wipe- the calendar data on the palm side I suspect, but I'm also guessing that's the last thing you want to do. Short of fiddling with it in person, and going through entries looking for a smoking gun (as it were), I'm not sure what else to suggest at the moment.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I forgot to note before that I also tried "handheld overwrite Macintosh," which also failed. If necessary, I may re-enter all the data into the Macintosh and try overwriting the other way, but I'd like to avoid that if at all possible...

[ckd]

You might try replacing Palm Desktop with Missing Sync. (Unfortunately, it's not free.)

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Is there a way to try it first and make it sure it solves the problem before I pay for it?

[http://openid.aol.com/baronsky10 (from livejournal.com)]

I had this problem and it was a bitch to get around. The problem is the calendar file on your handheld is corrupt. You need to set the desktop copy to overwrite the copy on your handheld. This sucks because you'll lose everything since your last sync but it is the only way to fix it. This problem has made me start syncing way more often.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestion! That was the next thing I was planning to try, but first I'll enter by keyboard all the new stuff I added since my last sync. Fortunately, I know what most of it is.

[ckd]

I don't think so, and it sounds like you have a working solution anyway.

[rivkaesque.livejournal.com]

I had this problem briefly- it turned out to be a problem with my cable. either that or it resolved itself around the same time I replaced the cable.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's going to be a working solution, and depending on my schedule (I've got Town Meeting tonight), I may not be able to try it until next week! (I've got to enter all the data in an rtf file from the past week first, so I can then re-enter it into the Palm, assuming the overwriting works.)

Anyway, we'll see what happens. I do appreciate the pointer to the other syncing program.