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?
