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My PDA Doesn’t Stay Up Past Midnight

Recently my Sony Clie has been giving me the following error when I try to HotSync:

— Date Book
– Your device does not support events spanning midnight. The end time
was set to 11:55 on both the Palm Desktop and the device for this event:
[event description

I finally found the problem.

You need to right click on the HotSync icon in the system tray (or open the HotSync Application) and go to “Custom…”. Then find “Datebook”, and set it to “Do Nothing” and check to make it default. Then make sure “Calendar” is set to Sync. Press “OK”, then do your sync.

That fixes one of the most annoying problems I’ve seen in a long time. Apparently there are two versions of the Palm Desktop Calendar HotSync API’s, each with their own conduit. Even if your event goes from 9:25 AM – 10:30 AM, you can get this annoying error if your using the wrong conduit. By making this change, your computer and PDA can communicate in the same language.

Perhaps someone else will be able to make use of this little tip I figured out. As for me, it might be about time to start thinking of a replacement for this PDA.

5 replies on “My PDA Doesn’t Stay Up Past Midnight”

One thing to keep in mind is that the solution above applies if you are using a calendar other than the Palm’s built-in Datebook, such as Outlook. In my case, I am using only the Palm Calendar both on my computer and on my Palm device. Therefore, I had to do the opposite, as follows.

1) Click on the HotSync icon in the system tray (or open the HotSync Application).

2) Go to “Custom…�.

3) Then find “Datebook� in the list, and set it to “Synchronize� and check the box to make it the default.

4) Make sure “Calendarâ€? is set to “Do Nothing” and check the box to make it the default.

5) Click “Done” and then synchronize.

I found another trick. Sometimes, even when my settings are right, the synchronization produces the dreaded “spanning midnight” message. It happens when I go in to a recurring event and type in a change to the time span, regardless of when or how long the time for the event is. However, if I simply pull the box of the item up or down to make it take less or more time on the calendar, it synchronizes correctly.

All of this combined with TERRIBLE service when I had to contact Palm on behalf of a customer is enough to send me back to a paper calendar!

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