Database Info

is their a (Pimbackup.pib) extractor?

dear all!!!
really it's so hard to restore many pimbackup.pib files on a device...
i have been searching for an extracor, or kind of emulator that alow me to view the backuped file on my pc...
thankyou
best regards...
moiisse

If I remember correctly, you can rename the .PIB file as a .ZIP and then look at it with your "favourite archive tool".... Within the ZIP/PIB file there are loads of CSV format files for each of the messages/contacts/phone logs etc.
The only problem may/might/will be if you did the PIM backup in binary format; your best bet would be to post on the PIMbackup thread (here) and see if Dotfred or anyone else can help
Cheers,
Mark.

Dear Mark
I have tried this trick but the files I got were not .CSV one some other extension files. I am afraid if I am doing anything wrong.

The extension is not .CSV, but they are in CSV format. If you rename them to .CSV and open them with Microsoft Excel or Openoffice Calc (or whatever), they can be imported as semicolon delimited files (so strictly speaking, they're SSV - "Semicolon Separated Values" rather than CSV )
Hope that helps,
Mark.

That was a great tip!
Any idea how to import these into an Android Phone - just got an HTC Hero today. Took a backup of my existing contacts, sms etc from WM6.5 (HTC Touch HD) and could see the .pib (renamed as .zip) and individual files (which I renamed as .csv)..
Guess there might be a simple trick to restore them as well in HTC Hero?

I think I may have found something........
sam_htc_touch said:
Any idea how to import these into an Android Phone - just got an HTC Hero today. Took a backup of my existing contacts, sms etc from WM6.5 (HTC Touch HD) and could see the .pib (renamed as .zip) and individual files (which I renamed as .csv)..
Guess there might be a simple trick to restore them as well in HTC Hero?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was about to say I have no idea and I don't really care (about Android phones that is, not your problem getting your messages onto your Hero!), but then.......
I found this - Sprite Software's FREE (at the moment) migration software - which looks like the answer to your prayers
I've seen a report from someone who used it - apparently, it's pretty slow, but as it's a "one-time" transfer operation.....who cares how long "free" takes!!!???
Let us know how you get on - and post something in the Android-related forums so that other users can benefit.....
Cheers,
Mark.
(At times like this, I wish I had a Paypal "donate" button.....this gem of wisdom is surely worth a buck/quid/euro or two ....Ho hum!!!)

Excellent! That seems to be promising!
Just tried using that and tried to restore only the sms on my android, however it gave an error. Have emailed sprite software the relevant log file, lets see if they come up with the reason of failure. Guess it might have something to do with the threaded view on my win mob 6.5
PS : Paypal donate button shudn't be that difficult to get

And yes just thought that I would mention about the contacts - its actually very easy - just get them into csv file using the trick that you mentioned above and then import the csv file in gmail contacts! that's it! gmail automatically syncs the contacts thereafter!

Mark Crouch said:
I was about to say I have no idea and I don't really care (about Android phones that is, not your problem getting your messages onto your Hero!), but then.......
I found this - Sprite Software's FREE (at the moment) migration software - which looks like the answer to your prayers
I've seen a report from someone who used it - apparently, it's pretty slow, but as it's a "one-time" transfer operation.....who cares how long "free" takes!!!???
Let us know how you get on - and post something in the Android-related forums so that other users can benefit.....
Cheers,
Mark.
(At times like this, I wish I had a Paypal "donate" button.....this gem of wisdom is surely worth a buck/quid/euro or two ....Ho hum!!!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Mark (Am I Noob to Android)
It seems like, you have solved the issue here. I did have one question for you:
What if you allready had a PIM back of your old phone. Then the phone you have sold it. But you still the the PIM backup file on your SD card. Can you still go on to follow and start from 2 step and then step 3.
Or is the another way of doing this then?
Many Thanks.

yes u should be able too as long as the PIM file is on your SD card. you can just directly transfer it onto your PC, then rename it to a ZIP file and proceed as instructed above.

sam_htc_touch said:
Any idea how to import these into an Android Phone - just got an HTC Hero today. Took a backup of my existing contacts, sms etc from WM6.5 (HTC Touch HD) and could see the .pib (renamed as .zip) and individual files (which I renamed as .csv)..
Guess there might be a simple trick to restore them as well in HTC Hero?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tried it..
i just took the contacts.csv file ,tried to extract with gmail...
then
An unknown error occurred while importing your contacts.Learn more
.....oohhhh.....really needed help

Hello to everyone!
I had an HTC Touch HD and after a serious accident it's officially dead! I had a backup of contacts and messages to my sd card and i did what is described. I renamed it to .zip and i extracted it to my pc.. The result i get is files .pba, .pbl, .pbc, .pbx, .pbd and .pbt
Does anyone know what is all that and how i can use them in android phone????
please help me!

isovitis33 said:
Hello to everyone!
I had an HTC Touch HD and after a serious accident it's officially dead! I had a backup of contacts and messages to my sd card and i did what is described. I renamed it to .zip and i extracted it to my pc.. The result i get is files .pba, .pbl, .pbc, .pbx, .pbd and .pbt
Does anyone know what is all that and how i can use them in android phone????
please help me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that is what I got also, I tried importing data to excel (with / without renaming to csv or ssv) but the text was not understandable in any language so I did not even proceed in selecting the separator and actually import the data.

Mr Black'd said:
that is what I got also, I tried importing data to excel (with / without renaming to csv or ssv) but the text was not understandable in any language so I did not even proceed in selecting the separator and actually import the data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Come on guys read a little more on the web, if you would have done so you would have figured out you have the binary backup files, not the text file, so what you need to do is convert. Now if you press the search button for the forum you would have found this interesting link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=424641
the title says: 'Convert PIM Backup binary file to text without using windows mobile device'
(considering yours broke like mine)
You can read there that you can convert it to a text file using an emulator on your pc and subsequentlyfollow the steps that were described here...

First of all what makes you think that none has bothered to use search button or at least Google the issue?
Second and last ok you have proved us stupid.
Anyway thanks for the link even though a late reply cause personally I have solved my issues.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA app.

[Q] How to (re)move demo epub.apk?

EDIT: oops - got the title slightly wrong - it should be "demo epub.epub" not .apk
The MyLibrary app comes with a copy of "Alice in Wonderland".
I like to keep my filesystem organized, so I moved that into a folder with my other ebooks.
However, MyLibrary seems intent upon re-creating the "demo epub.epub" and "demo epub.png" files in /mnt/sdcard/
Does anyone know how I can stop it doing this? It's rather annoying.

davedontmind said:
EDIT: oops - got the title slightly wrong - it should be "demo epub.epub" not .apk
The MyLibrary app comes with a copy of "Alice in Wonderland".
I like to keep my filesystem organized, so I moved that into a folder with my other ebooks.
However, MyLibrary seems intent upon re-creating the "demo epub.epub" and "demo epub.png" files in /mnt/sdcard/
Does anyone know how I can stop it doing this? It's rather annoying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i copied it to my desktop, the deleted it from my library and added the file back to where i wanted it...that seemed to work for me...

Yeah, its not only annoying its spooky - where the hell does the file come from?
Do they download it from their cloud? Does that mean they are backing up some of my files to a cloud? (Which I never asked them to do)
I deleted the damn thing over and over, I don't wish to move it - I wish to GET RID OF IT. And nothing works *grrrr*

+1 I found the @#[email protected]# book once, but I was not rooted then so I could not delete it.
Today I was annoyed by our Alice in Wondeland epub reappearing every time again. I cant find the origanal from where it is copied.
So if anyone knows....

Kermode said:
Yeah, its not only annoying its spooky - where the hell does the file come from?
Do they download it from their cloud? Does that mean they are backing up some of my files to a cloud? (Which I never asked them to do)
I deleted the damn thing over and over, I don't wish to move it - I wish to GET RID OF IT. And nothing works *grrrr*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Man, you guys must have some diabolic tablet!!! lol

jwilliamf said:
Man, you guys must have some diabolic tablet!!! lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What, it doesn't happen on yours?

Yup Dido Does this with mine... Kinda annoying actually.

Everytime we get a new OTA, I hope for the best and try and delete. And like a bad penny it comes back again.
i have found mine under mnt/sdcard In the file manager app i'm using it says it has -rw permissions only so I'm guessing that's why it keeps coming back?
I've tried moving as well, but it also comes back, which is so annoying because this book starts with A! So alwys at the beginning. Also called ASUS about it once. And I had to walk tech support through it as they didn't believe me that it kept coming back.

starafire said:
Everytime we get a new OTA, I hope for the best and try and delete. And like a bad penny it comes back again.
i have found mine under mnt/sdcard In the file manager app i'm using it says it has -rw permissions only so I'm guessing that's why it keeps coming back?
I've tried moving as well, but it also comes back, which is so annoying because this book starts with A! So alwys at the beginning. Also called ASUS about it once. And I had to walk tech support through it as they didn't believe me that it kept coming back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad you tried to get through to ASUS on this one.

The "Alice in Wonderland" epub is build into asusreader.apk.
If rooted open the apk in 7zip or similar go to "assets" folder and delete the "default_book" folder. No longer comes back. Worked on my wife's.
-Mark

Yeah, not rooted, but if its in the apk then it really is something we should badger asus about - what were they thinking.

Tera Tike said:
The "Alice in Wonderland" epub is build into asusreader.apk.
If rooted open the apk in 7zip or similar go to "assets" folder and delete the "default_book" folder. No longer comes back. Worked on my wife's.
-Mark
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you mind to direct us to the location of this asusreader.apk? I did a search and could not find it.

I uploaded it here.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=16706464&postcount=4
Hope it works for you.
-Mark

Polaris Office corrupting .doc files

I've found that if i import an ms .doc file into polaris, edit it and then transfer it back to my pc, i'm unable to open the file - i get an error "unexpected error occured while reading". I get the same result whether i open it in word, wordpad, open office etc.
tried this with a few docs, even tried an factory reset, but the problem still occurs. maybe it's just a bad install on my transformer but at the moment it makes polaris pretty much unusable - if i can't sync up my documents, or send them to other people to open on their computers, then it's pointless.
has anyone else noticed this?

alan77ss said:
I've found that if i import an ms .doc file into polaris, edit it and then transfer it back to my pc, i'm unable to open the file - i get an error "unexpected error occured while reading". I get the same result whether i open it in word, wordpad, open office etc.
tried this with a few docs, even tried an factory reset, but the problem still occurs. maybe it's just a bad install on my transformer but at the moment it makes polaris pretty much unusable - if i can't sync up my documents, or send them to other people to open on their computers, then it's pointless.
has anyone else noticed this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My PC is down right now, so I can't test, but I had edited a doc file that was emailed to me and sent it back without problems. Does this only happen when you edit an existing file or also with newly created docs?
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

alan77ss said:
I've found that if i import an ms .doc file into polaris, edit it and then transfer it back to my pc, i'm unable to open the file - i get an error "unexpected error occured while reading". I get the same result whether i open it in word, wordpad, open office etc.
tried this with a few docs, even tried an factory reset, but the problem still occurs. maybe it's just a bad install on my transformer but at the moment it makes polaris pretty much unusable - if i can't sync up my documents, or send them to other people to open on their computers, then it's pointless.
has anyone else noticed this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't get my PC to read a document I created and then transfered from the Transformer either. I could read it when I emailed it to myself and picked it back off of my email on the PC. Could be in the transfering?

DilloDroid said:
I couldn't get my PC to read a document I created and then transfered from the Transformer either. I could read it when I emailed it to myself and picked it back off of my email on the PC. Could be in the transfering?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tested with one excel and one doc document, didn't have any problems viewing them on PC.

Thanks for the response.
Seems to be an issue just on edited files. So it might be that the files on the PC are somehow corrupted. But then i don't have a problem editing and sending docs on my PC - it's only once edited through polaris that there's a problem.
i noticed that when i open up a doc polaris prompts me to 'remove protection' - no idea what that's about as i don't protect the files. maybe it's something to do with that.
Pretty sure it's not the transfer methods, i've tried bluetooth,ftp, drag 'n drop etc...same results.

In my line of work I have come across some interesting information about older office files (doc,xls,ppt). There was an update for office that basically broke them, if you opened an older format file and saved it corrupted them. This same problem may have gone across to Polaris.
Does Polaris allow use of the newer format files(docx,xlsx,pptx)? If so this might be a way around the problem.

Well i tried creating a new document on my PC, edited it in polaris then transferred it back and had the same problem. can't really try other file formats (odt, rtf) as polaris doesn't appear to support them. i might try a quickinstall/refund of one of the other office apps and see if the problem is replicated.
incidentally i can open the editd documents on the docs2go viewer app and i can upload to google docs. so it might be that i have an ancient version of word, but then surely open office should be able to open it ?

I had edited a file for work last week using Polaris (document file with images, headers, etc... ), so I tried opening it on my office PC using Office Word 2007 and it opens and renders perfectly.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

Ok well the problem does seem to lie with polaris. i did a quick install/refund of quick office and was able to edit docs and view them on my pc with no problems.
i've got a feeling it's to do with the 'remove protection' prompt i get in polaris, didn't get that with quick office.
maybe it's just a bad install on my device as no one else seems to have the problem. I guess i'm gonna have to call up ASUS as polaris doesn't seem to offer any support on its site.

Same probs here. Gdocs let's me view but not edit. Kword crashes, libre office can't open.

alan77ss said:
Ok well the problem does seem to lie with polaris. i did a quick install/refund of quick office and was able to edit docs and view them on my pc with no problems.
i've got a feeling it's to do with the 'remove protection' prompt i get in polaris, didn't get that with quick office.
maybe it's just a bad install on my device as no one else seems to have the problem. I guess i'm gonna have to call up ASUS as polaris doesn't seem to offer any support on its site.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got that same message on the file I edited, but what I did was save a copy and worked off the copy. Not sure what the protection was, but that's what I did and it worked with opening the file on a PC.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

EP2008 said:
I got that same message on the file I edited, but what I did was save a copy and worked off the copy. Not sure what the protection was, but that's what I did and it worked with opening the file on a PC.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just tried your method and it worked with one file but that didn't prompt me for copy protection, but the other file with protection still wouldn't open. also tried creating a couple of docs in polaris from scratch but they wouldn't open either. it's just far too unreliable,i can't risk using this for work.
kind of thinking, to hell with it, i'm gonna buy quick office, it may be a tener but at least it works and you can actually paste stuff into it from other apps, which polaris doesn't do.

Had exactly the same issue, could write things / edit but once i saved it.... nothing would open it. Compounded by the known issue that you can't copy n paste from polaris (why!?).
The work around I use (while considering what office app to buy) is to send to google docs.
In view mode (not edit mode) click the menu and send to google docs (you'll need to have the google docs app installed first obv. - it then imports it and you can save from google docs, or email a link to the doc.
Hope this helps.
(long time reader first time poster)

With further testing I've found older versions of MS Word and Open Office won't open files edited on Polaris - Newer versions of MS Word will.
Can anyone else test and confirm this?

I tried a trial version of the newer word and was able to open up documents edited in Polaris - but it flagged up a security warning teling me it might be unsafe to do so.
But these were older documents writtten in an older version of word so maybe that has something to do with it. It might be that Polaris isn't handling older word documents properly.

I've been using Polaris Office for school work. Any file created in or edited with Polaris Office is seen by LibreOffice as outright corrupt. Can't open it at all. I tried opening the file on the school's computers with Word (probably the latest version) and it prompted me to open the file in "Protected mode" informing me that the file could possibly damage my computer (I assume they mean it could contain malicious code or something). Seems ASUS needs to get some bug reports about this.

Yep, exactly same issue... Lucky I got a backup of the files cause, only Polaris can read them!... sucks

Hello. I am using the Endnote X5 for my thesis and it makes some automatic arrangements on doc file. When I transfer the file to my Asus, polaris reads it. But back to my PC, not! So I realized that the doc files that contain plain text doesn't make any problem with polaris.

Possible Solution
I have had the same problem.
I could still open the document on my Android smartphone but not on my computer. I am using an old version of Office 2000. My android had 2 office suites that would read the office document. Polaris Office and OfficeSuite. Polaris would not seem to save it in any other format but Office Suite let me re save it in docx format. I then synced with my desktop and was able to open the docx file with Office 2000- though you need to install Microsoft's free file converter to do that.
I use MyPhone Explorer to sync between Android and desktop. I think the issue is associated with Polaris rather than MyPhoneExplorer as I have no other problems with that. I did wonder if Polaris had changed the format to docx without changing the postscript but just changing it to filename.docx did not make any difference so the full conversion seems to be the solution.

[Q] Polaris is corrupting my .ppt and .doc files

Hi all
I searched for a solution but can't find anything decent.
The problem is that on my pc everything is ok but when i transfer the documents and presentations to my transformer and open them with Polaris they get corrupted and i can't open them back on my pc.
For the .doc there is a workaround with Google docs but this isn't working for me with .ppt. It keeps saying it can't upload them.
Hope you all can help me...

de_gijbels said:
Hi all
I searched for a solution but can't find anything decent.
The problem is that on my pc everything is ok but when i transfer the documents and presentations to my transformer and open them with Polaris they get corrupted and i can't open them back on my pc.
For the .doc there is a workaround with Google docs but this isn't working for me with .ppt. It keeps saying it can't upload them.
Hope you all can help me...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What version of Office are you using on your PC? I've found that in order to not run into problems with Polaris, I have to save all my documents as older 97-2003 versions. Polaris opens the new versions for Office 2007/2010, but when I try to save them is when it will either give me an error / corrupt the file / save it automatically as the older version on my tablet (I generally open and save all mine via DropBox, so when it saves to the tablet it's kind of annoying).

I use office 2010,but save my files as older versions 97-2003 because of compatibility isues with my friends when working together.

It's been an issue for a while now, unfortunately. Here is a previous thread on it. They probably have an error in the xml formatting in their save routine.

Yes I know this is where i got the .doc workaround but it does not work with .ppt.

Polaris has screwed me over so many times...
I know this isn't exactly the answer that you are looking for, but try out kingsoft office.. I'm pretty sure its free now and imho its far superior.

Polaris corrupting Word doc line breaks?

I saw a thread listed for the Transformer Prime similar to this, but none here.
While travelling, I used Polaris and a bluetooth keyboard to work on a paper I'd started at my PC, in Word .docx format. (I use Dropbox and Dropsync on my GNote to keep the files synced.)
I was really happy with how well Polaris seemed to work as a Word compatible tool, especially with the BT keyboard. I also have OfficePro and DocsToGo Pro, which I had used interchangeably prior to this, but Polaris seemed like a possible all-in-one replacement. As a note, my main issue with DocsToGo is that it won't open a lot of inserted images and tables within Word docs. OfficePro and Polaris display them, DocsToGo often just puts in a square outline of them, with text "unsupported format" or similar. (They are screen grabs pasted in, not any unusual formats. Go figure.)
Well, I just opened up the Word doc on my PC. The good news is that the ten pages I added while traveling are there, so I won't have to rewrite them.
But the bad news is that Polaris somehow corrupted hundreds of line breaks/word wraps. So now, inexplicably, the word mortgage is split on to two lines as "mo" and "rtgage." This error is repeated throughout the document. Worse, the error is not only at the start and end of lines where it is easy to find, but some words are split in the middle of a line, such as "e conomy."
Anyone else see this behavior before?
-JC
EDIT: Thankfully, Dropbox is awesome and automatically caches previous versions, so I only have to fix the pages I added while travelling and paste them in to the previous properly formatted version.

I have this exact same issue as well, and it persists when copying and pasting the text to a word doc. I don't have a solution, just wanted to add my voice to hopefully get this resolved.
Sent from my GT-N8013 using xda app-developers app

quadratimkreis said:
I have this exact same issue as well, and it persists when copying and pasting the text to a word doc. I don't have a solution, just wanted to add my voice to hopefully get this resolved.
Sent from my GT-N8013 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response-- I was starting to think it was just me! :silly:
I'm going to keep using OfficePro and DocsToGo for the most part.
JC

jchammerpants said:
Thanks for the response-- I was starting to think it was just me! :silly:
I'm going to keep using OfficePro and DocsToGo for the most part.
JC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did find a workaround for this issue just right now. Simply copy the text from the corrupted Word doc to Notepad, then re-copy the text from Notepad and back into a new Word doc. The formatting is lost, but so is the annoying text wrapping.

quadratimkreis said:
I did find a workaround for this issue just right now. Simply copy the text from the corrupted Word doc to Notepad, then re-copy the text from Notepad and back into a new Word doc. The formatting is lost, but so is the annoying text wrapping.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A faster way with the same results is to clear all formatting of the text. Select this option from the Style menu. Offcourse, afterwords you should format again. You will see Polaris messed up all standard Word styles...

To fix this problem in Word, open the document, in the Styles menu - Change Styles - Style Set - Reset to Quick Styles from Template. Save the doc, re-open it and it should be fixed.