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This is a similar and related posting to my Palm problems: Pt 1: reset loops, crashes. You may want to check out that posting as well. That posting and this posting are related but are still somewhat a bit different. The resets posting discusses resets problems in general while this posting focuses more specifically on the specific hotsync reset problem.

Again, I don’t claim that the ideas I’ve presented here will fix your problem but hopefully they will get you closer to a solution at least.

I’m not sure if many people experience this as often as I do, but anyway, for whatever reason, doing a simple Hotsync session is like a nail biting time for me. Okay, maybe not that bad but it can be quite nerve racking and frustrating. I have yet to figure out what is really causing the problem but it seems to happen often enough that I’ve decided to find a way to get things working and get hotsync to complete without resetting.

Most of the time, it’s any one of the PIM apps that causes the reset. Most times, it’s Calendar. Sometimes, it’s the MemoPad or Memos but lately it’s been the Tasks that’s been giving me grief.

What usually happens is that I initiate a hotsync and as it’s going through its list of synchronization, it gets to a certain program and then, the Treo resets. And, of course, I get one of those popup Hotsync error message windows that tells me to check the hotsync log for details of the error.

To view the hotsync log, you can do so in various ways. The first way is to go into the Hotsync Manager app located in the System Tray and view the Hotsync Log. To do so, locate the Hotsync manager icon, normally found in the System Tray, which is all the little icons you see right beside the clock in the bottom right hand corner.

Right or left click on the hotsync icon to bring up the pop up menu.

Then select the View Log. Your default web browser will open to show the hotsync log similar to what you see here.

The second way to open up the Hotsync log is to go directly into the Palm directory ( C:\Program Files\Palm\YourHotsyncID [replace YourHotsyncID with your own HotsyncID] ) and open the HotSyncLog.htm file

If I look into the hotysnc log, I can usually determine which PIM app has caused the problem and the reset. Usually, it’s the last program or app that shows up in the log before the ‘Connection is lost’. In this example, it’s obvious that something in Calendar is corrupted and causing the reset since it’s the last item on the hotsync log before the ‘Connection is lost (6410)’ message.

Again, I’m no geek or wizard (or whatever else you can associate here as usual) but here are some ideas that I’ve found helps me get over this annoying and aggravating occurrence.

Quick and dramatic fix: Wipe out your Palm and start back from scratch

The easiest way to get rid of the problem is to do a hard reset or zero out or factory reset. More information on how to do those and other resets can be found in my How To Series: Peform soft, warm, hard, zero out and in-cradle reset. What these hard, zero out, factory reset does is wipe out all data on your Palm or Treo. But, before you do your hotsync after wiping out the Palm (remember that hotsync is also a somewhat unreliable backup utility), you must first rename your Backup folder to something else like Backup-old, Backup-date, or whatever else, as long as it’s not Backup. The Backup folder is normally located at:

C:\Program Files\Palm\YourHotsyncID\Backup (replace the YourHotsyncID with your own Palm or Treo’s HotsyncID)

or something similar

However, I’ve found that sometimes, simply renaming the Backup folder only doesn’t work so I’ve actually been renaming the entire YourHotsyncID folder. If you don’t rename your Backup folder or YourHotsyncID folder, you will reload everything back, including the problem because hotsync again, is a backup utility and will re-load and sychronize everything back. So, you get back to square one with the hotsync resets again. So, you must rename the Backup or YourHotsyncID folder if you want to start back with a clean slate.

After a successful hotsync with a clean Palm, re-load and re-install the files and programs from your old Backup or YourHotsyncID folder back one at a time, testing with a hotsync to make sure you didn’t re-load the problem back. Especially if you have an idea which PIM app is causing the problem, you can re-load everything EXCEPT that PIM app. But, not re-loading that PIM app and database specifically means that you aren’t re-loading some potentially important data (the main reason why we have a Palm in the first place). For example, if you don’t load back your Calendar data, you have lost all your appointments so that may not be as great of an idea as it may sound.

Depending on what was causing the reset problem, you may not be able to load some valuable data (eg. calendar appointments, memos, tasks, etc) if they are what’s causing the reset. Before you resort to that, here’s some more ideas you may want to try out that may somewhat limit your database loss and get your Palm working without the hotsync resets.

Ideas to fix the hotsync resets

Run dbScan to fix any corrupted database files

First of all, you may want to try using a freeware utility program named dbScan (from Pimlicosoftware, the developers of Datebk5/6) and run it through the scan and see if it can detect and fix any corrupted data. Scan both “Current” and “History” and fix anything that comes up. You can also try to use many of the other tools that this little utility offers. Simply go into the menu and select from amongst all the various other tools that you can see in the screenshots here.

Try doing a hotsync after using the program and see if it fixes the problem. If it’s fixed, that’s great. If not, read on.

Use DbFixIt

DbFixIt is created by the same developers (Pimlicosoftware) of DBScan but this program, first of all, is not freeware. It will however, allow you to scan your database files and notify you if it has found problems but the free trial version WON’T fix or remove it for you. For that feature, you must pay for the software and register it. You may wonder why you would pay for the software if DBScan is very similar. Well, let me tell you that there are some things that dbScan won’t be able to detect or fix that DbFixIt will. In my view, it is well worth the money. I actually use both software to scan and fix the database corruptions that tend to creep up over time.

Use Fix Databases

Another similar utility to dbScan is Hobbyistsoftware’s Fix Databases. This is another freeware (I’m so glad and grateful these great developers come up with free excellent utilities that can help fix corrupted databases). Download and install the utility and go through scanning and fixing any potential corruptions in the files.

Again, try doing a hotsync after using this program and see if it works. Again, if not, continue on.

Set Hotsync Conduit to Handheld overwrites Desktop

Sometimes, you can fix these kinds of hotsync problems simply by specifying which source of programs and files are “the boss” (so to speak) and who gets to overwrite over the other. In most cases (not all, but most), since we do most of our data entry in our Palms, the most recent database and records are usually in the handheld device itself. Since normally by default, the Hotsync Manager sets the databases to be “synchronized”, this may be where the problem may lie, especially if we make changes to both the Desktop (Palm Desktop or Outlook) and the Palm handheld. Then, Hotysnc Manager may get a bit confused about how to synchronize it on both places; which database entry to add or subtract from which source and so on.

In these cases, simply changing the Hotsync Manager Conduit setting to “Handheld overwrites Desktop” (for that one time) may fix this problem. This basically instruct Hotsync to go by the data in the handheld and make a copy of it and put it on the Desktop so that in the end, both handheld and Palm Desktop are the same.

To do this, again, go into the Hotsync Manager. Right click on the Hotsync icon in the system tray (lower right hand corner of Windows, near the clock) to bring up the pop up menu. Select Custom….

You should now see another pop up window similar to what’s shown above. Select the program you wish to change the settings for. In my example, I will select and highlight the Calendar. By default it’s normally set to “Synchronize the files”. Click on the Change… button.

Again, you will see another pop up window similar to what’s shown above (depends on which program you have selected). Select the “Handheld overwrites Desktop”. Then click on the “Ok” button.

Now try to do a hotsync and see if it will work without resetting.

An additional idea would be to delete the desktop files and set it to “Handheld overwrites Desktop” and do the hotsync. In my example, since it’s Calendar that’s resetting the Palm, I will go into the datebook folder (C:\Program Files\Palm\YourHotsyncID\datebook) and delete both the datebook.bak and datebook.dat files. If it’s To Dos or Tasks, I’d go into the todo folder; memopad folder for Memo and so on.

Try initiating a hotsync and see if it works.

Set Hotsync Conduit to Desktop overwrites Handheld

Alternatively, you can also try the other way and have the Desktop overwrite the handheld and see if it will work. The same idea I’ve described applies except you are now changing the method somewhat to have the Desktop overwrites the Handheld instead of Handheld overwrites Desktop.

Try a hotsync and see if it works without resetting.

Restore the problematic app and databases from a backup archive

You knew that sometime in the posting I will be talking about backups and archives, right? It’s not very hard to figure out since I stress that way too much in my postings about how important it is to have a backup program and strategy in place. And this is one of those examples where it can really help save you a lot of hassles, and time.

If you don’t have a backup program already, it may be a bit late in this instance to help you, but if you already have one, you can use it in hopes that it can help you. Check out my Putting it all together: Pt 5 : Backup your Palm just in case posting for more suggestions including some very good freeware backup programs.

So, if you regularly make backups and keep an archive of them around, you may be able to simply go back to an archive and restore the one particular database and program that was giving you the problems (refer back to the hotsync log to determine which app was causing the reset). In my example, I would restore the Calendar database files, which would be: CalendarDB.PDat, CalendarLocationsDB-PDat files. After restoring the files, normally the backup program will force a soft reset. If it doesn’t, do a manual soft reset so that you clear and flush out cached files.

Now, do a hotsync and see if it can complete without a reset. If not, restore from an older archive. Most times, simply restoring from an older archive will solve the problem. This is one reason why I consider backup programs so important because for whatever reason, something gets corrupted or that hotsync doesn’t like something and forces a reset. That is another reason why I stress having a backup of archives (as many as you can store on the card), because if you don’t keep an archive, you may find out that you can’t get some valuable data back because you didn’t keep it backed up or that your archive didn’t go back far enough. So, again, I stress that keeping an extensive archive of backup is essential.

You may want to also do a hard, zero out or factory reset first and then restore everything from a previous day’s or older archive. Sometimes, simply restoring part of a database may not work very well. If you wipe out the data on the Palm device and then restore, it may be all that’s needed.

Personally, this last idea is usually what I do because it’s usually quite painless and doesn’t take up a lot of time to get things working again. Again, I’m not an expert on this (as I keep stressing this over and over again). If you have an idea or want to share how you deal with these types of problems, please either leave a comment or contact me. That way, every Palm Discovery reader can benefit from it. Thanks!

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