Help! WMDC stopped synching.

[hamishmacdonald]

I installed WMDC 6.1 the other day to use with my WM5 device (Acer n311), and now nothing will synchronise between the PC and the PDA.

So far I've:
- uninstalled and reinstalled WMDC
- tried to System Restore from before installing WMDC 6.1
- deleted my partnership several times and recreated it (where are the references to old partnerships stored? I'd like to not have to come up with a new named each time)
- hard-reset my WM device

What's really strange is that my device shows up in the Sync Center, and I can see it in the "View Sync Partnerships" screen, and even ask it to sync. But then it fails every time. Occasionally, I receive this message:

Synchronization could not be completed. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=72544.

...Which takes me to a marketing page.

I'm about to leave town for three weeks, and I can't get my device to synchronise PIM information or files. I can even browse the device through the File Explorer, but can't synch anything.

This is really maddening. I'm liking Vista, except for its hateful inability to work with drivers of any sort. I'm constantly being asked to search for drivers, and the system is finding all manner of things here and there, which sometimes work, sometimes don't. Vista is so polished in so many ways, but to leave the handling of drivers completely unfinished like this is giving me a constantly awful experience of working with peripherals.

I would really appreciate any help or insight from the community here.

Thanks.

[hamishmacdonald]

I'm not using OneCare, by the way. In my searching around, I discovered that this is usually what causes this problem for others. But no, my case is special. Lucky me.

I thought that my .PST folder might have become corrupted, and sure enough, it did need to be repaired and cleaned up. But even afterward, I'm having the same issue. I feel totally hamstrung, and I hate that there seems to be nothing I can do to fix this, because:

- the connection is okay
- WMDC recognises the device and lets me browse it, and even offers to synchronise media files to it

It just refuses (and fails) to synchronise contacts, tasks, calendar items, files, and OneNote notes. It sits, waiting to connect, telling me it's ready, but not making a connection on its own. When I tell it to manually, it fails.

[Darius Wey]

Sadly, OneCare isn't the only culprit. Do you have any other firewalls, security, or networking applications installed?

[hamishmacdonald]

Hi there. Thanks for replying.

No, I've nothing extra installed security-wise except Avast. (I'm using the built-in firewall.)

I'm increasingly convinced that the problem is WMDC 6.1. This all started happening after the upgrade. But the upgrade seems impossible to uninstall; only last night did I realise that it persists, so that when I take it all out in Add/Remove Programs and reinstall WMDC 6, WMDC still identifies itself in the 'About' box as 6.1 -- and that's without Windows Update having run.

I've spent two days on this now, and am very frustrated. What actually made me take the plunge and buy this new PC was the hope that Vista/WMDC would be better than ActiveSync. Now I can't synchronise at all.

Thanks for listening, if nothing else. It's nice to be able to explain this to people who can understand, and won't say something like "This wouldn't happen on my Mac", as my flatmate might, which makes me want to stab him with children's safety scissors.

[hamishmacdonald]

Hmm, this might be useful information:

Most sites don't go any deeper than "Just install WMDC, and everything will work!" And the error messages WMDC gives me are useless.

But Chris De Herrera's excellent PocketPCFaq.com gets right down into the nuts and bolts of things. I wasn't familiar with the Event Manager, but sure enough, there it was under All Programs/Administrative Tools, and it logged each of WMDC's failures to connect with my device.

All of them fall within this category:
8 RapiMgr WMDC received a connection from the device, but something failed during the connection protocol.

And this is the what detail view in Event Manager says (this is the last one, but they're all roughly the same):

- System

- Provider

[ Name] RapiMgr

- EventID 8

[ Qualifiers] 49152

Level 2

Task 0

Keywords 0x80000000000000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2007-06-15T09:06:38.000Z

EventRecordID 12325

Channel Application

Computer hameputer

Security


- EventData

communication (

communication (0x80072745)

All that said, I guess this is just a more elaborate version of "It's not working".

[Darius Wey]

But Chris De Herrera's excellent PocketPCFaq.com gets right down into the nuts and bolts of things.

Yes, Chris' site is an excellent resource for anything to do with ActiveSync/WMDC.

Anyway, back to the issue. I'm assuming you have yet to try uninstalling and reinstalling Office. Give that a go (ensure that you backup your .PST first) and then let me know if it helps.

[hamishmacdonald]

#$%^!! I just ripped out my spleen and smashed it on my desk.

I uninstalled Outlook, Office, and WMDC (I even deleted everything I could out of the Windows/Windows Mobile directory.)

I reinstalled everything, found the drivers (why, oh why, can this 2007-era OS not identify and install any drivers on its own? I have no confidence in having to locate them manually, since half the time the system chooses something random that isn't the proper device). I also ran Microsoft Office Diagnostics, and it said nothing needed to be repaired.

Now WMDC is running an update on itself.

Now WMDC is sitting with my device showing "Ready for first sync." I've seen this one lots over the past three days. I'm scared to click "Sync all", because that invariably brings up the error.

..."Sync failed."

Oh, I could cry. What's especially sickening is that this used to work. I didn't change anything.

[Darius Wey]

Dang. Well, you've exhausted most of the options. The only remaining one that I can think of is a format and reinstallation of Windows, but that's a real pain. WMDC shouldn't be this much of a bother; I'm sorry it's just not working out for you. :(

[hamishmacdonald]

That's what the folks at Acer said, too. I laughed. I use QuarkXPress, and it's so fiddly and restrictive about being installed, how many times, where, activation, and all, that I can't even consider this.

Well, I'm out of the country now, so this'll just have to go in the freezer and, as with Walt Disney's head, hopefully later there'll be a cure.

Thanks very much for all your help.