The Syncing Apple An Exploration of Technology and Devices

USB Sync and the Mac

I've been having an issue with my Mac and the Treo650 for a while now: the USB sync stops working. I know it's related to the Mac OSX doing something loopy with USB, because for the past two versions of OSX my USB has been flaky-- devices stop working, the T650 won't even charge (on a powered hub). After a reboot I can sync for a while, usually a day, then it stops.

So there was a nice new version of Chatter Email Client (which is almost ready for its 1.0 release) that I needed to install, and the USB flaked out. I didn't feel like rebooting my Mac-- since I've had it back with the new Power supply, I've been happy to be able to have it run for days and days.... but I needed to sync now. So I spent a few moments and got the BT Sync working, which turns out to be a breeze with MissingSync.

First I tried to stop and re-start the MissingSync 'usb watcher' process, which shows up as:

root      187   0:01.86 /Library/Application Support/Missing Sync for Palm OS/MissingSyncMounting

But no matter what I did, killing and restarting that would not kick over the USB and allow the T650 to sync.

So I quickly setup a new BT connection profile on the T650. In it I searched for an found my previousy bonded G5, which I bonded using the Bluetooth Assistant in OSX. But How to make MissingSync sync? The trick I found was to enable the Menu icon for MissingSync (a preference option). With that in my menu bar, I had a choice to sync. Choosing that after telling the T650 to sync started my sync going.

I had forgotten how slow BT syncs are on the Mac... they are slowwwwwwww. USB is at least 10 - 20 times faster. I'm still waiting here for this sync to finish up.