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Sun, 9 Jan 2005

Treo 650 Sync Problem

— SjG @ 9:57 pm

Background data:
After a brief pissing match with Verizon over my slowly failing Kyocera 6035 SmartPhone, I decided to exercise my capitalist prerogative, and ended our 3+ year relationship.

Now I’m a Sprint user, equipped with a Treo 650, which is a great toy. The Treo’s clearly “one-oh” software; I have to (get to?) do a reboot once or twice a day, and there are a few obvious pointer bugs that need to be squashed (e.g., try searching for the second word in a multiple-word contact name), but I can see that with a few ROM updates, it’s gonna be an outstanding device. And hey, if I didn’t wanna live on the bleeding edge, I wouldn’t be in a room surrounded by computers at this moment.

So here’s the puzzle:

The Treo performed a perfect sync over USB the first 3 times I tried it (I’m syncing to a Powerbook G4, running Mac OS 10.3.x, and using Palm Desktop 4.2.1 Mac). Then, after the third sync, I started consistently being unable to connect to the desktop (dreaded “The Connection between your handheld computer and the desktop could not be established. Please check your setup and try again” error ).

I have tried the following to no avail:

  • Reinstall all Palm software on the Mac, then attempt sync.
  • Manually hunt down and remove all Palm software (excluding my User data). Reinstall all Palm software on the Mac, then attempt sync.
  • Manually hunt down and remove all Palm software (excluding my User data). Reinstall all Palm software when logged into the Mac as root, then attempt sync.
  • soft reset Treo, then attempt sync.
  • hard reset Treo, then attempt sync.
  • start Mac with Treo plugged in, Transport Manager enabled, Hotsync Manager not started before attempting sync.
  • start Mac with Treo plugged in, Transport Manager enabled, Hotsync Manager started before attempting sync.
  • start Mac with Treo plugged in, Transport Manager disabled, manually enable Transport Manager before attempting sync.
  • start Mac with Treo unplugged but Transport Manager enabled. . Plug in Treo, but Hotsync Manager not started before attempting sync.
  • start Mac with Treo unplugged but Transport Manager enabled. . Start Hotsync Manager, and plug in Treo before attempting sync.
  • start Mac with Treo unplugged, Transport Manager disabled, and Hotsync Manager inactive. Start Hotsync Manager, enable Transport Manager, and then plug in Treo before attempting sync.
  • With Mac running, unplug and re-plug Treo with Transport Manager enabled, then attempt sync.
  • With Mac running, unplug and re-plug Treo with Transport Manager disabled, enable Transport Manager, then attempt sync.
  • start Mac with Treo plugged into powered USB hub plugged into Mac, Transport Manager enabled, and Hotsync Manager started before attempting sync.
  • repeated all of the above tests in the other USB port.

Other Diagnostics I have tried:

  • the Treo does not show up as a USB device under System Profile.
  • USB-Probe, from Apple Developer’s kit, doesn’t see the Treo when it’s plugged in, unplugged/replugged, etc. Not that I really have any detailed idea of how USB-Probe works.
  • The hotsync cable is confirmed good (contacts tested point to point with a voltmeter)
  • The USB ports work for other USB devices.

Successes I have had:

  • I can sync via bluetooth, but only directly to the Treo, not to the SD card

Tomorrow, I will try installing Palm Desktop on a Windows machine at work, and see if I can sync (using the same cable, of course).

Most mysterious….

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2 responses to “Treo 650 Sync Problem”

  1. troswalt says:

    i had the exact same problem. having it now. did you find a solution?!

  2. SjG says:

    Here’s what’s works for me. It’s kind of voodoo, but hey, that’s modern computing:

    First, I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.4.

    I plug the hotsync cable into the Treo before I plug the cable into my notebook’s USB port. Then I press the Hotsync button.

    This works 80% of the time. When it fails, I plug into the other USB port and try it. This works 90% of the time. In the remaining cases, I end up rebooting the notebook, and then the first approach works.

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