I have an XDA Argon running WM5. It has on it all my contacts, calendar etc. plus lots of Excel, Notes and other files. It used to synchronise with my notebook PC, but now whenever I connect it to the notebook either the notebook overwrites the data in the mobile, or vice versa. I have not therefore dared to synchonise it for over a year now, so both devices now have a lot of differences. Also I suspect the root of the problem is that somehow the timestamps (or whatever Mobile Device Center uses to control its sync process) have got messed up.
How do I, without risk of losing any data either in my mobile or in my notebook, get the two re-synchronised?
Either I need to back up both sets of data to somewhere I can restore from before trying to sync, or I need a sync process that will never delete or overwrite anything without asking for permission first. So far I've failed to find either solution. I can back up the files from the mobile to an SD card, but I can't find out how to back up the calendar and contacts. Is there a web service that will do it (without connecting to the PC)? Or can I create a new Outlook account and copy the mobile items to it in some way (without the risk that the PC writes the empty Outlook account into the mobile thus deleting everything)?
Hope someone can suggest a safe way out of this mess...
Thanks - Rowan.
Related
I have a strange problem here, haven't seen it mentioned yet on the forums.
Calendar: creating and editing appointments gives "An unexpected error has occurred in this program".
Tasks: when I create a new task, it appears OK, but if I close and restart Tasks, the changes vanish! When I tick-off a task, I get the error "No program memory available".
Contacts: creating or editing contacts gives "No program memory available"
I am able to view entries without problems, but completely unable to create or edit...
There is plenty of memory available, 25MB storage + 50MB program. All other applications working ok, including Notes.
I have guessed that the problem might be in the Outlook databases.
I have tried:
1. Soft reset - no change
2. Restoring ROM backup - no change
3. Deleting the ActiveSync partnership and overwriting the device databases - no change
4. Hard reset - fixes the problem, But comes back as soon as I restore from ActiveSync backup. Sadly the only backups I kept were after the problem arose.
5. Deleting the Outlook databases using PHM PowerToys - but half of them I couldn't get rid of because "another application was using them", though apparently nothing else was running. Deleting the ones I could gave no change.
I DON'T want to do a hard reset and start again from scratch, because I lose a lot of data that will be hard to restore. E.g. a few very important progs that I haven't got the installers for, my SMS messages, the phone call history + timers, GPRS and network settings, and a huge number of program configurations, including photo contacts database, transcribe settings etc. (don't know of a way to back these things up).
I have an XDA2 (Himalaya/xscale/128MB) running PocketPC Windows Mobile 2003 Phone Edition. Please help! :x
Forgot to mention, I am able to create items on Desktop Outlook and sync them across. (I'm using ActiveSync 3.7.1)
I have also tried ScanPST.exe on Desktop Outlook, which finds no problems.
Not sure if it help, but I would recommend to export the files from Outlook on the PC, then delete Contact, Calendar and Tasks on the PC and synchronize - which should delete the data on the XDA as well. Then re-import the data on the PC from the exported files and sync again...
I was having trouble making outlook work. It just suddenly would not start up. All the typical advice, and a lot of nontypical advice, failed. Reinstalls failed. So, I have to move on and I proceed to sync up with a separate machine.. a laptop.
There are already 2 profiles that the phone is synced with, so it tells me I have to delete one. I delete both. They're just profiles, after all, and they don't actually work any more.
Now, all my contacts are gone. I've got a really bad feeling that I just told my phone to delete all my contacts.
I'm a programmer. If that's indeed what just happened, this is such astoundingly bad design that I'm pretty much ready to write off windows mobile as "crap"--especially given the fact that I did all this BECAUSE outlook randomly decided to stop working (the famous crash upon startup).
Is there anything, no matter how technical, I can do to get these contacts back?
I just looked at pim.vol in the phone root, and found some of the information in my contacts list, so it implies to me that it should still be there / recoverable. How can I make the phone / outlook / activesync sort this mess out?
hello i'm afaid i'm not much help. but i think i lost all my contacts as well! very very bad. i upgraded to outlook 2003. i deleted my sync settings and created a new relationship. i ran activesync. outlook/activesync deleated all my contacts!! i wanted my contacts to populate outlook...
i'm sick,
tom
malefactor said:
I just looked at pim.vol in the phone root, and found some of the information in my contacts list, so it implies to me that it should still be there / recoverable. How can I make the phone / outlook / activesync sort this mess out?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Reinstall the PIMbackup in your phone and restore the Pim.vol or transfer the pim.vol to a miniSD card and get a card reader and backup to your PC.hope it'll do the trick.Secondly,it's been reported that the outlook 2007 is having sync problems with contacts on wm6,install outlook 2003 and check if it works out.
Good luck
I'm able to restore the prior pim.vol, finally. But all the contacts are still gone. The microsoft user groups (and microsoft employees that post in there) are quite silent about this - I even tried posting there.
Meanwhile, I have tried every version of outlook I can find. Nothing will actually run on my machine. It's only when you experience something like this that you figure out just how amazingly bad Microsoftware is; I spent about 2 hours trying to make Outlook work, doing everything from erasing all profiles and contacts, re-implanting / re-registering DLLs, to invoking it in every kind of safe mode.. complete uninstall + reinstall..
No dice. Outlook crashes upon startup without a single word as to why. I EVEN TRIED debugging it with visual studio. I'm not a wintel programmer, but it looks to me like the software branched to a nonexistent address (opcodes were garbage).
It is pathetic that Outlook can crash for 50 different reasons with the same failure characteristics, and it holds the user in contempt.
I won't use software like that if I can avoid it. I hope the googlephone buries windows mobile.
Hi guys,
I have a problem: After total system recovery (notebook), most info from outlook got lost already. Now the MDA touch PLUS (T-mobile) is the most recent backup from contacts and calender. Unfortunately that device already has two partnerships. I don't need any of these partnerships, but I need the data to remain at least for one sync. After that I am planning to hard-reset the mobile device anyways.
Is it possible to delete the partnership info from the MDA without losing the contacts/ calender?
Appreciate any answer!
rgds,
Thomas
Delete the two partnerships anyway. Save any data in the shared folders if used or required. When you create a new partnership you are asked if you want to merge or replace the contacts on the device.
Select Merge and the old contacts are still left there. Worst case scenario is that you end up with some or all contacts on the phone duplicated, and have to manually delete them.
Thanks, but I guess, you got that all wrong.
I have all the data on the device (MDA). So that must not be lost. So, when I now try to sync with freshly set up notebook, I have to transfer the device info to the computer. Then certainly computer has no partnerships and mobile device has two already (before connection).
So in order to sync (for the first time) I can only delete at least one of the existing partnerships from the mobile device and then create a new one with the notebook in order to sync.
hope that makes it clear!
Thanks for any answer!
Thomas
Deleting the partnership from either the PC or the device does not delete any data from the device. You can delete both, it doesn't matter. It is only when you create the new partnership that you will be asked if you wish to replace the data on the phone, with that on the PC. Select merge or replace PC data with that on the phone, and it will copy the phone contacts/calender across to outlook on the new PC. It is only if you select replace device data with data from the PC that you will end up in trouble.
you can always use data backup apps like PIM Backup 2.8 to save your contacts/messages/call logs/apps/tasks............... and then delete the partnerships and restore the backup.
nir36 said:
you can always use data backup apps like PIM Backup 2.8 to save your contacts/messages/call logs/apps/tasks............... and then delete the partnerships and restore the backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, you got there first this time.
Have had cause to use PIMBackup to save all PIM data when trying new push mail at work. The installation wanted to overwrite everything with my work's contacts/calendar/to-do. As these are diferent, or they were, all i did was backup, install the package, let the synch settle down so my PDA had all my work stuff only and then restore. It then proceeded to push everything up to the works system. Job done. Nothing got lost.
logic is bliss
I have a little question. My PIM databases are enormous (been growing since 1997 in fact!), and synching up after a flash is just so annoying.
The obvious alternative would be to use PIMbackup or similar to simply write those back after a flash. BUT! The problem is that since Activesync considers it a NEW device, once you sync, instead of realizing the PIM data is all there, it thinks that it's "foreign" data and you end up with double everything - double contacts, double meetings, and so on.
I am sure there's a reg entry somewhere that "remembers" the partnership with your computer, so that Activesync recognizes PIMbackup-restored data as your original PIM data.
In fact, if I use for instance SPB backup on a clean ROM, that's exactly what happens, Activesync/Outlook is sure it is exactly the same phone, and doesn't give me any duplicates.
I thought you might know what that would be? I am sure it is MORE than just the "Owner" settings in the registry.
I'd be grateful for any info you have.
Thanks and all the best!
Laz
You can back up active sync partnerships with the backup tool in sk tools. It's much more than just one reg entry, and it's totally worth it to backup/restore the AS partnerships. Over-writing pim.vol with a copy from your sd card is also a lot faster than syncing, although sometimes it doesn't take the first time (you need to soft reset after doing it).
I made my life a million times easier when i used google's free exchange server to sync my contacts, calender, and mail.
First thing i do whenever i flash a rom before restoring anything else, is go into activesync and establish the server. (use ssl, username is your email, address is m.google.com - only sync calendar, email, and contacts, nothing else).
Voila, all your contacts will be synced up. Takes me about 5 minutes and all of my contacts (complete with picture id's and every detail) are back on my phone. And as an added bonus, i can access my address book via http://contacts.google.com
From what i understand, there is even a way to save these settings to your XDA_UC folder on your storage card making it a part of the UC process (don't know if UC is built into FUZE roms, i upgraded to a Tilt2 a month ago, it wasn't the last time i was browsing the Fuze roms....)
But yeah, I found ActiveSync to my computer a total waste of time - duplicates are a PITA, data is lost, or in my case 2 years ago my phone was stolen - and activesync failed the last time i had synced my phone - loosing about 30% of the contacts I had gotten since my last sync!
Farmer Ted said:
You can back up active sync partnerships with the backup tool in sk tools. It's much more than just one reg entry, and it's totally worth it to backup/restore the AS partnerships. Over-writing pim.vol with a copy from your sd card is also a lot faster than syncing, although sometimes it doesn't take the first time (you need to soft reset after doing it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hah! I knew there was a simple way to sort it out! Thanks Farmer Ted!
Apparently this is possible with Android, by droidwalling everything PIM related, and using myphoneexplorer as a bridge between the phone and outlook, but noone seems to have found a solution to the same problem on Windows Phone 7, and almost noone seems to care.
To put it simply, I don't usually read my mail from my phone, being a PC person for that, but I heavily use it for work with calendar and contacts, and I don't want any of that data to ever be on any cloud whatsoever, not unless encrypted, and only I know the encryption key, so well, let's just say that I don't want it to sync to cloud at all, period.
Not anywhere on the internet that googlebot has put its eyes on, anyone seems to have a working solution to achieve 2-way syncing between a WP7 device and a PC, and since I was really planning to move to mango from WM as soon as a RTM custom rom is available for my HD2, but discovered this piece of info just now, I feel concerned and surprised since it appears I will have to stick to WM6.5.
Isn't there, to the best of your lurking xda members' knowledge, any way so I can sync data with my pc without the phone sending it over the internet to who knows where?
I would also be content if that was something like PIM backup did, with a scheduled utility that backs up every PIM data onto a compressed file, that is subsequently synced to the pc with a normal file sync, as long as I'm sure that all the data on my phone is updated directly onto my PC, and henceforth no internet foreplay is involved. I would need the PC mostly as a remote backup, because the data I use on the phone, I only ever use on the phone.
I do hope normal 2-way file sync is still possible with WP7 by the way?
The fact that noone has replied yet surely tells me that noone cares Which in turn means that there are probably no methods to get proper offline sync.
No its not possible, sadly. I had to move to O365 because of this. O365 is nice though.
not a viable alternative for me, alas... will have to think it through and see if it's not better to keep wm 6.5, or switch to *cough*android*cough* instead.