Oct 18

File this one under the “nerd” category as this will be highly technical but I finally fixed the hotsync from my Treo 650 to my Mac. Hopefully this post will help anyone else grappling with the same issue and googling for the cryptic error message I was getting. The problem turned out to be multiple issues. First the background…

I had the bluetooth hotsync working under the Palm Desktop software and OS X for awhile but one day it just crapped out throwing the error message “unexpected error 71013.” It was seemingly a problem with the conduit since we could open the Hotsync manager but upon trying to open the conduit manager, nothing happened. I tried reinstalling the Palm Desktop software but ran into a strange issue where I couldn’t delete the old instance. Apparently the Palm installer installs the software as root rather than the administrator that it’s running under and I was getting the message “Cannot delete trash. Localized.rsrc in use.” It took a friend to show me how to go into the command line and navigate to this hidden trash folder under /users/root/Trashes to clear out the file in use. So we were able to get it back to square one with no Palm Desktop.

My friend Jay told me about an app called Missing Sync which supposedly would bypass the Palm software altogether and allow me to sync my contacts directly to the address book and my calendar to iCal (which was all I wanted). I bought the software (there is no free trial) and installed it per the readme but unfortunately got a new error saying “Unable to connect to Hotsync, port is in use by another application.” This was annoying. I followed the Missing Sync tech support representative’s instructions and tried killing the bluetooth preferences and repairing my phone to the Mac. Nothing.

MissingSyncBlue.gifWhat ended up being the problem was an obvious mistake on my part in failing to enable the bluetooth connection from within the Missing Sync software. Apparently the bluetooth is turned off by default and the interface for enabling it is an icon which glows blue when it’s on. I missed this crucial step so the bluetooth connection was working fine but my phone was effectively “knocking on a door that nobody knew to answer.” Once the Bluetooth was enabled from within Missing Sync, all worked perfectly.

I will say Missing Sync is pretty slick and gives you all the functionality you’d want from the Hotsync software plus the capability to sync iPhoto and your iTunes playlist as well as AvantGo. Kudos to Mark/Space for excellent software and solid support.

5 Responses to “Treo to Mac bluetooth hotsync prob resolved”

  1. sean says:

    So my Mac recently locked up during a shutdown sequence where filevault was recovering space from the HD and it corrupted all the preferences for my applications. This trashed my missing sync and broke my Treo hotsync capability.

    Once again, Mark/Space support is right on the money with a timely accurate response to fix this issue that was my fault. Kudos to Mark/Space yet again for the fix. Below is my message to support and their response. Dave, you are the man! Thank you.

    -sean

    **********************
    hi,
    I recently had a crash on my system that trashed the preferences for a
    few applications (firefox, adium and apparently missing sync). I
    updated to the latest version of Missing Sync just now but when I try
    to sync it fails to sync successfully w/ iCal and the Address Book.
    Here’s the sync history:

    Sync starting at 12/5/06 11:15 AM (11:15:37) on Bluetooth (5.1.2)
    OK Install
    NSInvalidArgumentException *** -[NSKeyedUnarchiver
    initForReadingWithData:]: incomprehensible archive (0x4d, 0x26,
    0xffffffe6, 0x40, 0xffffff8b, 0xffffff90, 0x4d, 0x45)
    OK Mark/Space Contacts with 1 message(s)
    NSInvalidArgumentException *** -[NSKeyedUnarchiver
    initForReadingWithData:]: incomprehensible archive (0x3e, 0x3f, 0x39,
    0x54, 0x70, 0x8, 0xffffffc9, 0x63)
    OK Mark/Space Events with 1 message(s)
    OK Mark/Space MemoPad
    OK Mark/Space Tasks
    OK Install
    Sync completed successfully at 12/5/06 11:16 AM (11:16:27)

    Can you advise?
    thanks
    Sean

    *****************
    Sean,

    Go to iCal and click on the ‘File’ menu and choose ‘Back up database’ then go back to ‘File’ and choose ‘Revert to database back up’.

    1. Go to Missing Sync and hold the ‘option’ key while you double click the ‘Mark/Space Events’ conduit
    2. Click on the ‘Advanced Options’ button
    3. Click the ‘Unregister Sync Client’
    4. Click ‘OK’ out of the dialogs

    Then sync, when you do, you will get a dialog box with an orange iSync icon on it. Check the box to erase the device, then click the ‘Allow’ button. This will cause you to lose data on the handheld that hasn’t already synced to the Mac, but it should be able to complete the syncs properly after this process.

    –Dave

    Mark/Space, Inc.
    Technical Support
    http://www.markspace.com/support/

  2. BJ says:

    “It took a friend to show me how to go into the command line and navigate to this hidden trash folder under /users/root/Trashes to clear out the file in use. So we were able to get it back to square one with no Palm Desktop.”

    Could you be my “friend” and tell me how to do this so I can start from “square one” too?

    I had my Tungsten T3 syncing with ISync just fine until a handheld crash (don’t remember what it said) now I can’t seem to do anything properly in hotsync or Isync.. I just want to start over.

    Thanks,

    BJ

  3. […] You’ve finally done what no other app has been able to do until now: keep a Treo, Mac and Google calendar in sync. I’ve had the left half of this equation now for a few months using an app called Missing Sync. Spanning sync just re-opened their public beta this morning and makes the right half of the equation now possible. You need to check out their screencast to understand why this is so huge. […]

  4. Andi Hindle says:

    Hi

    Just in case anyone else runs into this… I did a cache clean recently to try and fix some unrelated issues. Doing so broke sync between my Ericsson phone and both Address Book and iCal. I’ve had this problem before as well (with another device) and never managed to fix it.

    Turns out that the ‘backup-restore’ routine on Address Book, and then a reset sync on the device cures everything.

    Hopefully this post will help others find the solution if they have run into this issue… and thankyou for having it posted here in the first place!

    –&e

  5. Andi Hindle says:

    Hi

    Just in case anyone else runs into this… I did a cache clean recently to try and fix some unrelated issues. Doing so broke sync between my Ericsson phone and both Address Book and iCal. I've had this problem before as well (with another device) and never managed to fix it.

    Turns out that the 'backup-restore' routine on Address Book, and then a reset sync on the device cures everything.

    Hopefully this post will help others find the solution if they have run into this issue… and thankyou for having it posted here in the first place!

    –&e

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