I have had my Ipaq 2210 for about a year and a half without any problems. Got it as an adaptive device for a disability as a result of brain surgery (memory issues, lack of sense of time, personal organization issues, etc.). Find it very helpful and have even named it (“Petey the PPC”), as it’s (he’s!) rather like a little digital secretary. Never had any problems syncing. I use Outlook 2002 and rely heavily on the Calendar, Tasks, and Contacts. Some use of Pocket Word and Notes. I do not use it for email or internet. I do use NEVO, but that’s just because our puppy ate our VCR remote control!

A couple weeks ago, something changed, for no apparent reason. When I tried to sync, it did fine with all info types except Tasks. Here’s the message I got:

“The following information type on your mobile device has items that have not been synchronized with this computer before.
Information Type: Tasks
-Combine the items on my device with the items on this computer
-Replace the items on my device with the items on this computer
-Do not synchronize this information type at this time”

When I gave it the instruction to combine the tasks, I got double Tasks on the PPC (and, I think, on the desktop). *That* got really annoying, so I started just not adding Tasks to the PPC while on the road, which basically defeats half the point of having a PPC for me, since its whole purpose is to give me a place to maintain my (necessarily ridiculously detailed) to-do lists. These days I just have the desktop overwrite the PPC Tasks. All the other info types keep syncing like they’re supposed to.

Another dimension of weirdness was also happening in the Tasks section. Suddenly, although the desktop Outlook interface seemed fine (running Win 2000), the Tasks section on the PPC was kinda weird – some (but not all) recurring daily Tasks which had always rotated correctly (such as “take pills” or “walk dogs”), hibernating once checked until following day, suddenly began regenerating immediately and refusing to hibernate. Also, Tasks I had deleted (or changed the start date until next month) on the desktop were still hanging around as “Active” on the PPC, even after syncing. One task in particular refuses to be deleted from the PPC (it doesn’t even exist anymore on the desktop). It was an annual Task to remind me of an anniversary. On the PPC, it only shows up under “Recent” Tasks, nowhere else. When I try to manually delete it on the PPC, I get told that there’s not enough system memory and that I have to go close all running programs. I do, and then I try again to delete the Task, and it tells me the same thing.

[Memory-wise, I’ve got 14.81MB free in storage memory, and 27.09MB free in program memory. I’ve also got a CF card near (9/10) full with uploaded music from my cd collection (no downloaded music).]

Okay, so, *even weirder* -- just now, while I was running the PPC through a sync and attempted rogue task delete (so I could accurately recount the situation here), the anniversary task just vanished from the “Recent” tasks right before my eyes and replaced itself (as I tried to delete it!) with another legitimately active task that I didn’t put there. Now it’s just vanished. Me senses a corrupted file somewhere! Anyway, hoping that somehow the problem had magically corrected itself, I manually deleted all the tasks from the PPC and synced, which went smoothly (I’ve tried this before and that part always goes fine, except that it seems to think there are fewer tasks than there actually are), then disconnected and tried the sync again. Back to square one (“The following information type on your mobile device…”) except the anniversary task is gone, but the other problem(s) still exist.

Help! It’s like some awful Catch 22 – I have the PPC because I can’t remember things but because its all screwed up I have to remember them long enough (except I can’t!) to get home and enter them on the desktop so my PPC can remember them for me!

I tried a soft reset, but that’s about as brave as I got. It’s been a rough two weeks, what with the PPC on the blink and other things that have prevented me from having the time to sit down and search the forums and/or post this request (I’ve done both). I’m quite computer-savvy (my dad’s a firmware designer) BUT this is my first PPC and although I believe I understand *conceptually* what y’all mean when you say “delete the old partnership and establish a new one under a different name” or “perform a hard reset and rebuild the PPC from scratch” – thanks to my brain surgery I do need nice clear detailed steps to be able to accurately execute unfamiliar tasks (no pun intended, I swear).

Please help?

**********************************
Jennifer
**********************************
Okay, so it's not the finely detailed insanity
you've come to expect from me;
It's just a theory.
**********************************

tsoyptc, first of all, welcome to the site

The first thing to do is to check which version of Activesync you are running. The latest is version 3.8, & can be downloaded from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobi...as-eula38.mspx

If you don't yet have version 3.8 installed then install it & see if that fixes your problem.

To install ActiveSync you must uninstall the version that is currently on your PC before you can install the new version. Also, you must not connect your PPC to the cradle until told to do so, otherwise the installation will fail.

If you are still suffering then try the following:

1. Make sure that your PPC has all the appointments, tasks etc that you need, as we will be deleting all the information held on the PC.
2. Do a search on your PC for the following: *.pst (if you can't find it then search for *.pdb). This is the file that contains all your Outlook stuff (appointments, tasks etc).
3. Make sure that Outlook is NOT open on your PC, and then delete the file that you searched for.
4. Open Outlook, & you will (hopefully) find that Outlook is now empty. Use ActiveSync to sync with your PPC & hopefully everything will now be hunky-dory.

I would wait a while before trying this, just to see if any other members spot errors in my advice, or can offer better advice for you (but you can still go ahead & install the latest version of ActiveSync if you don't already have it).

good luck, and let us know how you get on

Thanks, sugar cube!

I think you're right, I almost certainly have a pre-3.8 version of A/S. I'm at my part-time job right now so I won't be able to try the uninstall-old/reinstall-updated trick until later this evening when I'm at home.

Quick question about your "if you are still suffering then try..." suggestion: Given that the problem appears to be on the PPC rather than the PC, how does wiping the PC outlook clean address the glitches on the PPC? (just want to make sure I understand what I'm doing!)

**********************************
Jennifer
**********************************
Okay, so it's not the finely detailed insanity
you've come to expect from me;
It's just a theory.
**********************************

I've uninstalled A/S very carefully, and re-installed new version. Followed instructions in wizard. Initial sync seems to have gone well...

O-kay... So far this *might* have worked. Tasks *seems* to be cooperating, and daily items seem to be hibernating until next day....

Now, let me just remove the PPC from the cradle, add a new task to it, and try a normal sync...

Yippee! I think we have liftoff.

<big sigh of relief>

Sugar cube, I think you've solved my problem. Thanks *enormously*

**********************************
Jennifer
**********************************
Okay, so it's not the finely detailed insanity
you've come to expect from me;
It's just a theory.
**********************************

Glad you got it sorted

The reason I suggested wiping the information from your PC (even thought the problem looked as though it was PPC related) was to get you to have a clean start. Hopefully, by forcing your PC to start from new, Activesync would behave properly. If this hadn't worked then the next option would have been to wipe the information from your PPC & try it that way round.
Fortunately we didn't need to get that far

NIce work sugar_cube

Welcome to the site tsoyptc

Regards

Rob

  

For future referece, when Pocket PC is having a software issue, you can almost always jot things down in either Notes or Pocket Word. I did this when I upgraded and had to wait for the new Microsuck Money 2006 for PPC. I had a note lables "Today's Transactions" that I would delete when I entered them on my desktop.

This is a simple and effective temporary work around. My back-up back-up is a napkin and a pen, ROFL.