Pocket PC Weirdness

[annathepiper]

Anybody out there know of any issues with the Pocket PC misbehaving when you try to sync files up with a desktop or laptop? The behavior I have been seeing is that if I've been editing a file on the handheld and I try to sync the handheld up with my laptop, then the file gets copied up to the laptop but then it gets deleted for no apparent reason. The file is still on the handheld. If I go do a trivial edit on the thing and then sync again, the file comes back. But for no reason I can discern, it's tossing versions of these files when they sync up.

I've been poking around the Microsoft Knowledge Base, but so far no luck finding anything up there about this behavior.

Comments

[brightbeak.livejournal.com]

check which defaults you have set in ActivSync as you may hve it set that your PDA overrides your desktop, instead of it being set to ASK you which version to save/override...
i get around this by saving w/ a diff name (i append the date-time to the file name after i edit) each time, so i don't lose the history

bb

[annathepiper]

I'm not quite sure that's relevant, though? Let me try to be a little clearer about what I'm seeing.

1) On my PDA, I edit file A.
2) I tell it to sync up to the laptop.
3) File A comes on up to the laptop and SEEMS to properly overwrite the older version of the file that's sitting on the laptop.
4) Then file A is deleted COMPLETELY and I am left with nothing on the laptop AT ALL, though file A is still on the PDA.

It's part 4 that is making no sense to me here. The PDA version of the file overwriting what's on the laptop I'm good with--it's the complete deletion that I don't get.

[brightbeak.livejournal.com]

ok, that part 4 thing? ummm.... NO CLUE!
best i can POSSIBLY think is either your firewall or antivirus is getting confuzzled and zapping it...
but seriously, i've never seen the delete portion of that 'argument' before! oy!

bb

[annathepiper]

Don't have a firewall system active on the box--I do have antivirus software, but I don't get any warning off of it about the file. I'm pretty sure that isn't it, though I guess a check of Norton's logs can't hurt. I'll see what I can come up with.

Thanks for bending your braincells to the problem, anyway!

[brightbeak.livejournal.com]

the only other thing i can possibly POSSIBLY thing is that your activSync software isn't the latest for your beastie... but even THAT makes no sense, b/c i've had older versions of AS and had not those woes!!!
wonder if there's a forum eithr under microsoft or under the home site for your PDA that might have addressed this issue or help you detective out the problem??

bb - who'sREALLY puzzled & confuzzled over this one!

[annathepiper]

I have a theory at this point. Pocket Word on my handheld creates a temporary backup copy of a file I work on--I've seen it do this when I've had one of my story chapter files open for any length of time on the device. I have the sneaky suspicion that even though this temporary backup copy is deleted when I close Pocket Word and commit the changes to the real copy of the file, the ActiveSync software somehow gets confused... and tries to delete the real copy of the file up off the laptop because it thinks it has to delete that temporary backup file. I am not sure of this, though.

I found an internal alias at Microsoft for Pocket PC users and have posed this question to them, but so far nothing back yet in terms of actual data. I'll have to see what happens. :)

And I do have the latest version of ActiveSync, yeah.

[brightbeak.livejournal.com]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... that's more plausible than anything ELSE i can think of.... hmmmm....
lemme know what gets figured out, cuz i know that i've made some changes to rather large word files and not seen this woe...
you sync'ing up quickly after editing/committing the final changes to save? could it be disrupted during the temp file cleanup phase? or are you sync'ing up say 10 minutes + later and that shouldn't even be an active process at the time?

bb

[annathepiper]

The times I've done this so far I have had the device syncing up with the laptop reasonably quickly after shutting down Pocket Word, so it is in theory possible that it may have gotten confused in cleaning up after itself after I kill the program.

I will have to try this with having worked on a file for a while, then shutting down Pocket Word and then syncing up a significant amount of time later.

[brightbeak.livejournal.com]

at this point, it's the ONLY logical thing i can even POSSIBLY eke out of this entire debacle... esp since i know it can take a desktop beastie a while to let go of all it's *.dll files when it unloads a program, and i'm cranking a LOT more MHz than my PDA is! so... twas all i could think MIGHT be happenin'!

oy!

bb

[annathepiper]

*nods* Yeah... so the interesting question would be whether this is a bug in Pocket Word or a bug in ActiveSync. HmRmRmRMm. And one that was recently introduced, as I never saw this on my last handheld device, the old Velo which solarbird has now inherited from me.