Contacts problem

In the View Pane of the desktop, Contacts list shows nothing. In the Icon and business card mode all the contacts are there, but when selecting List, nothing shows up. What's going on here? Anybody have any ideas? It's driving me nuts!

Check that you haven't selected a category that has nothing in it. At the top left of your Palm Desktop screen is a box with the chosen category displayed. Try setting it to 'All'.

You can do this on the Palm as well and make Calendar entries accidentally disappear.

Yep, it's set at All. Again, I get info in the other modes - icons business card - but nothing in list.

It's really weird! I've absolutely no idea. Perhaps you should reload Palm Desktop? This won't remove any records.

You could also try opening your conduit list and setting Contacts to 'Handheld Overwrites Desktop' thus forcing the correct list on your PDA to overwrite your PC, but I'm honestly not confident that this will help.

I think that this may be one for my man Potter, our resident Palm genius.

Get this- Today I click on the Desktop icon and the program loads. Lo and behold, there are the contacts in the list tab. So, maybe they're not on the Icon tab - I check. Holy cow, they are there. My problem had been mysteriously solved! Au contraire! Going back and clicking on the list tab, the contacts are gone! At one time I thought that maybe the Palm Desktop program was corrupted, but if so, I don't think it would work at all. What to do? Any suggestions would be helpful.

I would still suggest that you reload Palm Desktop. It's the first thing that I'd do. There's obviously something dodgy somewhere.

I was going to ignoring this post for I was stumped. But now you have invoked my name, so I am compelled to at least try or loose face.

Be careful of the ways of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
Be careful of the ways of dragons, for you are crunching and good with ketchup.

Seriously, trying to analyze this problem: I would think the problem would have to be of one of three different classes:

• Corrupt Data.
• Corrupt Application.
• OS/Driver issue.

Some experiments to try to figure out which:

• Try making a new user in Palm Desktop and adding some address book entry to the new user. If the problem occurs with this new user, also then it is probably not a corrupt data issue.
• Backup you Palm Desktop data, completely uninstall the Palm Desktop, reinstall the Palm Desktop, restore you data. If the problem still occurs, then this probably is not corrupt application. (Hold off on this one, since it will take some time to do. I'll give better instructions later.)

This kind of sounds like a OS or video driver problem. Could you:

• Exit out or Palm Desktop, restart it to see what happens?
• Restart you computer, then restart Palm Desktop and see what happens?

• What OS are you running?
• What video card?
• Could you check that you are running the latest driver for your video card?

How to Backup Palm Desktop Data

Assumptions:

• OS is MS Window variant.
• Palm Desktop is at least partially operational.

Instructions:

• In Palm Desktop:
  
  • Perform a menu, 'Tools', 'Options...'
  • In the Options Dialog box:
    
    • In the General Tab, there is a text field labeled 'Data directory'. Note the value of this field.
    • Press 'Cancel'
  • Exit Palm Desktop.
• In the Windows File Explorer (Windows-Key E):
  
  • Navigate to the 'Data directory' noted above.
  • Off of this directory there will be several sub-directories. One of these sub-directories will be named a shortened version of your device's Hotsync ID. Example: If you device's Hotsync ID was \"John Smith\", the directory might be named \"SmithJ\". Navigate into this directory to double check that this is your device's directory.
  • Inside this directory there will be several sub-directories, such as: address, Archive, Backup, datebook, Install, memopad, QuickInstall, todo. If you are using Hotsync Manager 6.X or latter there will be the file 'HotSyncLog.htm'.
  • If 'HotSyncLog.htm' is there, double click on it to open it up in your web browser. This first line will read 'HotSync operation started for NAME on DATE TIME', where NAME is the full Hotsync ID of you device and DATE and TIME is when you last performed a Hotsync.
  • Assuming this all checks out, navigate back to the 'Data directory' and then select your device's directory and copy it somewhere, say your desktop.

How to Completely Uninstall Palm Desktop

• Using the normal Windows Uninstall control panel (Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs):
  
  • Uninstall anything that depends on Palm Desktop or Hotsync. Examples:
    
    • Document to Go.
  • Uninstall Palm Desktop.
• Using the Windows file explorer, locate and delete any directory trees associated with Palm. Note, you may have more than one. Typical directories include:
  
  • C:\\Program Files\\Palm
  • C:\\Program Files\\PalmOne
  • C:\\Palm
  • C:\\Handspring
• Click 'Start', 'Run'.
• In the Run dialog box, type type: regedit
• Press OK.
• In Regedit:
  
  • Navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\U.S. Robotics'
  • Right click on the 'Pilot Desktop' and select 'Delete'. Say Yes at the confirmation dialog box.
  • If you have it, do the same for 'Palm Quick Install'
  • If you have it, do the same for 'PalmOne File Transfer'
  • Navigate to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\PalmSource'.
  • Right click on 'PalmSource'. Say Yes at the confirmation dialog box.
  • Exit Regedit.

I'll take a shot at this, but it looks like it will take a while.

But, now get this - all day yesterday the contacts are viewable via the list tab all day. This morning, they're gone! Fortunately, I can still see them using the icon tabs. I don't know why, but I have the nagging suspicion that the problem is in the view pane of the Desktop program.

Anyway, thanks for your help.

How to Restore Palm Desktop Data

• Install Palm Desktop.
  
  • When asked for a new device name to make, enter the same name as you used before.
  • When asked to Hotsync your device, don't.
• When finished with the installation, in Palm Desktop:
  
  • Perform a menu, 'Tools', 'Options...'
  • In the Options Dialog box:
    
    • In the General Tab, there is a text field labeled 'Data directory'. Note the value of this field.
      
      • This value may be different than the one used before.
    • Press 'Cancel'
  • Exit Palm Desktop.
• In the Windows File Explorer (Windows-Key E):
  
  • Navigate to the 'Data directory' noted above.
  • Off of this directory there will be several sub-directories. One of these sub-directories will be named a shortened version of your device's Hotsync ID. Example: If you device's Hotsync ID was \"John Smith\", the directory might be named \"SmithJ\". Navigate into this directory to double check that this is your device's directory.
    
    • There is a small chance that the directory name will be different than the name it had when you backed up the data. If it is different, double check that you did not use a different Hotsync ID than you originally had.
  • Inside this directory there will be several sub-directories, such as: address, Archive, Backup, datebook, Install, memopad, QuickInstall, todo.
  • Assuming this all checks out, copy all of the contents of the backup data directory over top of the \"empty\" data directory.

An odd thing I've seen...
Do you have a large number of blank contacts in your db? Enough to fill the first screen of the palm os list display? They will sort first in list mode.

Hi ShiniQuiet,
i am Sandy Rochard and just gone through your i suggest you to with these idea,use the following steps to reset the connection.In some instances you may actually have to remove the Palm Desktop Book completely from your Profile, close Palm, and then re-add it before you can get it to work.