SetupSwarm

As it seems that alot of people seem to have problems with Active Sync. In the following article i have posted some fixes. I work with the program a lot, although i don’t like it because it often bugs me with error messages.

Lets get started:

• Getting Connected
• USB Connect Problems
• IR Syncing
• Hot Tip2
• Killing WCESCOM
• Killing Activesync 4.x
• Stopping Five Minute Sync Interval and Constant Wakeups
• Kill all Active Sync sounds

Getting Connected

I am going to assume that you are reading this because you can’t connect your phone with active sync. This article is providing all the required information that you need to figure out what’s happening. Read it carefully and if you are really frustrated go ahead and read one of our relaxing movie review articles. Haste seldom makes for good decisions.

You have heard it before, but when you are trying to pin down elusive problems, always begin with a clean slate by doing a “soft reset” on your mobilephone before you begin any diagnosis.

1. On the PC, open ActiveSync, then click File/Connection Settings. Make sure that your method of connection is checked.
2. Then click the “Get Connected” button. Once it finishes it shows a report that contains enough information on where you need to look for the problem.

In this report snippet, “Not Available” indicates that COM1 is being used by another program. In many cases other programs such as cellphone or pager utilities that use serial connections may have the port open without your knowing… even if you never used them, so the solution is to track down what else is using the com port and shut that program down in order to connect using activesync.

If you were connected to COM2 in the above case and couldn’t connect, one possibility is a bad cable or even a bad serial port in the PC. Here’s a tip… get ready to run “get connected” with your device disconnected and turned off. Just before you start “get connected” connect the device on COM2… it [b][i]should[/i][/b] turn on and display a connection dialog… if not, you have a hardware problem somewhere and it could be the cable, wrong connector, a PC or Device serial hardware problem.

Before giving up, soft reset the Device and give it one more shot.

The “Not Installed” message is applicable to other ports as well… the IR result message shown above indicates that the PC either doesn’t have that port or [b][i]doesn’t believe[/i][/b] that the port exists. If you know that the port exists, you may have to turn it on in your PC’s bios, and you may have to prod the computer into “finding” the port by running “Add New Hardware” in the control panel and get the PC to search itself again.

Note that there is no reference to attempting a Network connection. Network Sync connections must always be initiated manually on the Device and ActiveSync will never try to initiate a network connection from it’s end.

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USB Connect Problems

There are constant reports of inconsistent USB connect problems with all of the kinds of mobile devices. From my observations of a number of my own connect problems, I have concluded that information specifying exactly which USB port was used for the initial sync connection is referenced in subsequent sync connections, so, as long as the USB connector stays in or is always plugged into exactly the same USB port, there will be no problems.

However, if the sync cable is plugged into a different USB port on the PC or the hub that was used initially, or if a hub is plugged into the PC port that was used and the connection made through a hub, the problems arise It would be my guess that Activesync “sees” the connect on the new port, but attempts to communicate out through the original port, not only precluding a successful connect, but potentially disrupting any device that is now connected to that original port.

The solution is to:

1. Connect MObile Device and confirm that it is on.
2. Open the PC’s “device manager”
3. Find the device
4. Remove the device.
5. Disconnect the device
6. Turn the device OFF
7. Reconnect the device
8. Assure that the device is always connected to the same port in the future.

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IR Syncing

IR syncing works, but it can be frustrating. There are a whole series of possibilities on the PC’s IR side alone to cause problems.
On the PC…
In some cases, the IR port may have to be turned on in the bios.

Check the Device Manager, find the IR port and confirm that it is “working properly.”

IRDA has to be up and running on the Laptop (Icon’s in the systray and there is no “X” showing) Go to START/CONTROL_PANEL/INFRARED and activate it with the defaults.

On the PocketPC…
Make all attempts with the PocketPC and PC’s IR ports pointed directly at each other and less than 6 centimeters inches apart.

Activate some type of IR action such as sending a file with IR from Explorer and put the ports together and confirm
that the laptop “see’s” the CE device by checking the IR con in the systray. If not, this must be resolved before going any further!

Next, start the PocketPC and select the Start/Connections/”IR ActiveSync” icon (2000) or “Tools/Connect Via IR” (2002)

[b][i]Immediately power down the CE device[/i][/b] and place it on the desk with the PPC’s IR port aimed directly at the
laptop’s IR port, no more than a couple of inches apart. (we are not ready to begin until the following steps are taken on the PC)

On the PC…
Start ActiveSync on the Laptop and go to file/connection settings, confirm that the “Com” box is checked.

Click on “Get connected” When the process finishes, check the result dialogue and confirm that the IR port was
available. If the IR port reports “Not Installed” or “Not Available” the problem is on the PC and needs to be resolved before continuing. Again, there are a whole series of reasons why IR might not work on the PC side, from not existing to the port being used by another app that you don’t even know is running, so, until this screen shows IR as “Available” concentrate your efforts on the Laptop/PC.

Once the “Get Connected” result shows IR as “Available,” it’s time to power up the CE device, confirm that it is attempting a connect and at the same time click the “Retry” button on the “Get Connected” results screen. If the connect fails, immediately click the “Retry” button once more in case the attempts were “out of sync.”

The reason for the “power up” on the PPC, on startup, the OS checks to see if an ActiveSync “connection” is occuring, and
since you previously selected IR, the AS process on the PPC will attempt an IR connection.

Once the first IR sync is achieved, you should be able to simply select “IR Sync” on the CE device and put it near the
IR port on the laptop for future connects.

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Hot Tip 2

Syncing files outside of the sync folder Frustrated because you can’t sync a file that needs to be at a specific
location on your PC other than in your devices “Sync Folder” Well… while you can’t, there is a way to accomplish what you need.

1. Move the file to the sync folder
2. Right click on the file
3. Create a Shortcut
4. Move the shortcut to the folder where you needed the file to be
5. Name it the same as the file
6. It will show up as a file in apps such as Word and Excel and can be opened and edited as if it were a file.

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Killing WCESCOM

First, know that you can use to bring up the current tasks at any time and “End Task” the Activesync module in memory named WCESCOMM at any time that the pocket pc is not connected without doing any damage. Depending on your system, this action may make a significant improvement on your available system resources, in particular on any other comm port app that you may need to run. To reload the module, simply click on the “Activesync” icon that was installed on your desktop… or,
reboot your computer. This information has an extra added benefit if you use a USB connection in that it will “clear” a current session
and allow you to reconnect your device without rebooting.

If you are familiar with MSCONFIG, you may have already discovered that even if you “uncheck” the Activesync entry in the startup options, it will re-appear the next time you reboot. Actually, it will appear before you reboot. Every time any sync action, including the installation of third party PocketPC software, is run activesync generates a registry entry that absolutely assures that it will load and run every time the computer is started.

With the advent of ASync 4.x, Microsoft has brought Windows Media Player into this fray. Installing Activesync 4.x “Patches” WMP10 to automatically launch Activesync if it is not already running when WMP starts. With WMP10, you can download and reinstall media player to get rid of the patch, but WMP11 has it built in, so there are no options to prevent this behavior.

Note… the following involves registry edits and batch files… if you are one of the many who are not comfortable
in such territory, take a look at the prepackaged options available such as
ASToggle. (At the time of this writing, if you are using AS4.x, you will need the “beta” version of ASToggle)

Run REGEDIT then find the key and value:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]

“H/PC Connection Agent”=”" and edit the value so that the string is empty as above. Export the above key and name it something like “KILL_ASync.reg” Put it in the DESKTOP directory. When you double click on this.reg file, it will remove the registry entry generated by Activesync… but, remember, the next time Activesync is run, the entry will be re-created.

You can polish the execution of this registry file by creating a shortcut to it that reads something like;
C:\WINDOWS\REGEDIT.EXE /s C:\windows\desktop\Kill_ASync.reg
and it will execute without asking you if it’s ok to revise the registry.
Finally, if you are one of those computer users who has sufficient intelligence to click the Activesync icon when you need it, make a copy of this shortcut and place it in your “StartUp” folder… it won’t get the next session, but it will stop subsequent sessions until you run Activesync again.

onward… XP has a dos utility named TASKKILL that allows you to kill current tasks from the dos command line.

TASKKILL /IM WCESCOMM.EXE

With “TASKKILL” you can also create a batch file that will both kill the current process and fix the registry so that activesync will not reload on the next reboot

======step 1======
Export the “KILL_ASync.reg” registry file as shown above

=======step 2======
create a “batch” file containing:

taskkill /IM WCESCOMM.EXE
taskkill /IM rapimgr.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\regedit.exe /s C:\
\KILL_ASync.reg
exit

======step 3=====
place the batch file on your desktop or create a shortcut to the batch file on your desktop so that it is easy to run.

Still got problems? Hit Google using the words POCKETPC and ACTIVESYNC to find other sites that attempt to deal with Activesync’s failings…

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Killing Activesync 4.x

The above batch file has been altered to deal with 4.x and to also kill the RAPI process.

For some reason, I am finding that I have to run the above batch file twice to have it take effect… pretty hardheaded. In addition, even if you don’t connect a device, I have found that there are other events that will reload activesync without your knowledge or consent, so, if your system “slugs out” for no apparent reason, open taskmanager and check for WCESCOMM’s reappearance. Opening Windows Media Player or other programs such as Audible manager which use the AS pipe will reload Activesync as well.

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Stopping WM5 Activesync 4.x Five Minute Sync Interval and Constant Wakeups

There are some frustrating behavioral problems with Activesync 4.x and since it’s new, approaches to deal with 4.x’s specific
problems are still evolving… the following two approaches deal with two different needs… first, throttling 4.x’s instance to sync constantly which is not only unnecessary in most cases, it robs the sync computer of valuable resources needed for other apps and tasks… second, connecting a device in need of a charge triggers it to “turn on” even if turned off… not only irritating, but, since juice from a USB connection is limited, it significantly extends the time needed to charge the device.

Restoring the Manual Sync Option Use Regedit and find the key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows
CE
Services\Partners\**********\Services\Synchronization

Set the following values correspond to 0 in hexadecimal value.

• Continuously Update
• Update on docking

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Controlling the WM5 Sync Connection With the device connected, open network connections, rightclick the Windows Mobile Devices icon and create a desktop shortcut.

Once this desktop shortcut is on your pc, you can it and select “Disable” which will break the activesync connection _until you re-enable it!_ (remember to check this setting before you post that you can’t sync)
When the RAPI network connection is set to DISABLE, it will stop AS4′s insistent syncing… however, the following facts should be read and understood before you elect to use this approach:

If RAPI connection is “Enabled”

• device syncs every 5 min
• device charges
• device will turn itself on if turned off

If RAPI connection is “Disabled” and PPC is “ON”

• device stops syncing
• device does not charge (a penalty fee?
• suggestion… set “on external power” setting to “power off” at 10min to prevent a dead ppc

If RAPI connection is “Disabled” and PPC is “OFF”

• device stops syncing
• device charges
• PlugNPlay bongs occur at random (turn them off…see below)

Again, the emphasize, it looks to me that in the case of the second senario above, it is possible that a WM5 could completely
discharge the battery while connected to the Sync PC

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Hey ActiveSync!!!! Shut the Hell UP!!!

The “Boings” and other Activesync noises can drive you batty as the PC appears to “retry” the RAPI connection when it sees that the usb
connection doesn’t have a parent. You can deal with this by disabling the Activesync “sounds” using start/settings/control_panel/sounds or, in my case, I replaced the default sounds with very low volume alerts by editing the originals using SndRec32.