Possible Palm Profile issues causing (temporary) device wipes? [Updated] 56
Bevcraw points us to a PreCentral Forum thread where several members are reporting that they woke up this morning to devices that had been forced into being wiped clean and needed to be restored. That's the bad news, but we're not hitting the panic button just yet. The good news is that Palm architected webOS from the get-go to make reliable, daily backups so data loss is at a minimum, instead users are just made to re-sync their devices with their Palm Profiles to restore their data.
Near as we can tell, what's happening is that some phones are getting disconnected from their associated Palm Profile. As anybody who has switched up webOS devices knows, you can only have one phone logged in at a time to any given Palm Profile and any other phone will get prompted to be reset and wiped clean (leaving the data on the USB storage there, of course).
We've reached out to Palm for comment, but in the meantime we're still collecting data points here. If you've recently had your Pre randomly tell you that you're logged out of your Palm Profile and had to go through the initial setup again to get things working, please hit up this thread and let the community know what you experienced, when it happened, on which network, and heck, a general idea of where you live wouldn't hurt.
Thanks bevcraw!
Update: Palm has released a statement on the issue and it's pretty much as we suspected. Some users are getting logged out of their Palm Profile, but data loss is at a minimum:
"Palm has heard reports from a small number of customers that they are being inadvertently signed out of their Palm Profile. These customers are able to sign back in and sync their data by tapping the restart button on the screen. We are working to diagnosis the cause."
56 Comments
uh-oh. I remember waking up way back when and seeing my contacts gone.
fix palm!
:( I hate to ever restore my phone... Apps that have been removed from the app store I'll never get back.. Happen with Free Music Rintones
FMR is on the forums, you can install with webOSQI.
But I agree, mostly because I have poor reception in my home and the stupid restore process doesn't work on Wifi, so I have walk up the street and wait for the thing to finish.
you will only have that issue with free apps, for Paid apps Palm keeps a copy in the cloud so that even if its removed from the catalog by the dev, you still get it back.
As Homebrew apps are also not restored, any that have been removed since are just plain gone, unless you also saved the IPK on your computer.
you can get the save/restore ap in preware to back up things that aren't YET part of the cloud backup but you can also hook pre to ur puter via usb mode n drag the newly installed aps to a thumb drive or memory card when ever you install new aps. That's prolly the best way to always go now that the palm os backup option we're used to is 'obsolete' for now.
thanks for reminding me I need to stay on top of that as well :)
I am glad i have never had this happen to me i have doctored my phone once in a great while but other then that all comes back sept my home brew of course... I did have my profile not there when i did a restore though that sucked huge balls but i backed up all my contacts through google also so was not that big of a deal i just use google for contacts and palm profile for my catalog apps...
LONG LIVE PALM
I had this issue when I woke up this morning. I'm on Sprint.
my sprint pre suddenly slowed in last week n is getting long hanging app loads n poor battery. This has to be big red sabotage for all the 100's of sprint love forum posts lol.
or Jobs has finally gone all the way off the deep end. Gawd knows he's been teetering for a while now......
I'm confused by the title of this article. It is worded to imply that the device wipe is temporary, and that if I wait my data will magically grow back.
It will. Just add 3 oz of water and put it in the microwave.
If your going to assuming the data will magically grow back from the title and story, then I guess I will.
Forgot to mention, 30 seconds on medium. Different microwaves will vary different times. (disclaimer)
Sprint Pre, and a Sprint Pixi, one in Gutherie Ok, the other Oklahoma City OK. No problems so far :)
I'll check with all my other friends who have WebOS devices.
Hee hee hee, good luck. PC mentions a half dozen occurances, and the troll-eez act like all the phones have defective antennas or something. When will androidcentral become a compelling place to visit so we can get this traffic jam of short buses out of here?
I had this happen to me a the day before the 1.4.5 update hit Bell here in Canada, it sucked. The only things I ended up losing really were homebrew apps and WiFi keys (annoying since my WPA key is 64 random characters, not fun to enter). I got pretty well practiced at restore my homebrew stuff though, I didn't read about removing a couple of the non-AUPT-compatible patches which ended up meaning a visit to the trusty WebOSDoctor (which at least fixes the PDK bug too).
If I recall we had something similar to this and Palm asking to update your OS to the same version that is on the phone just before the new version patch came out for 1.4.1.1. I have noticed threads for both events today.
While bad for some it could be good news for others. Perhaps 1.4.5 will drop in the States tomorrow?
I'm wondering how often our phones check in with the Palm Server. I know it connects with the backup server once a day, and contacts are synced immediately if adding new ones, but how often is your Profile validated?
I use batery saver which puts my phone in Airplane Mode each night, so Palm's Server couldn't reach my phone...
I don't know if this is the same thing, but my phone turned off for some reason, and I tried to turn it back on with no contacts whatsoever.
I tried to add my palm and google accounts, but it wouldn't accept them. It wouldn't let me add any accounts.
Thankfully there was an HTC EVO in stock at my local sprint store, and I was just tired of all the issues so I switched.
Ohhhh, you missed out on the Epic 4G. Bad timing. That sucks.
I don't like slide-out keyboards, IDK, just looks tacky to me.
So let me get this straight...You just got a brand new EVO and your on the Pre boards?
I am a WebOS fanboy. I think it is one of the most innovative mobile operating systems out there. It blows iOS out of the waters, and thus far Android doesn't come close to WebOS in ease of use.
I am planning on coming back to WebOS, I just couldn't handle the Palm Pre. I was on my 4th Pre, and there were some hardware issue, and I couldn't stand another 3 hour wait at the Sprint store.
I am definitely planning on coming back to WebOS, whether phone or tablet. I am just going to wait awhile after the release of a new product to see if there were any defects like the Pre.
If I could have gotten the Pre Plus on Sprint I would have stayed with Palm, as the phone seems to have a better build.
But yeah I am here just to see what's up with WebOS, I look forward to any product that comes out, and will definitely be coming back.
I still can't believe that I can't close apps on the Android, and i have to use a task killer or my battery gets drained.
I so dearly miss the gesture area, and the feeling of swiping up to close an app. Truly great OS, too bad the hardware just blows.
i just had my phone wipe WTF
And to think, this morning I was gloating a bit --- I know of a few people with iPhone 3GS'es that upgraded to iOS 4.x and lost all of their contacts.
Guess I can't gloat so loudly. Of course, since all of my data is either in the cloud or Chapura-synced to Outlook, I'm pretty covered for most stuff (but would hate to re-configure my phone again)
"architected"??? I refudiate your use of this made up word.
anyway, more garbage from palm. every week it seems like we get another example of palm amateur hour. one week all your apps disappear, the next week the app store doesn't work, then the next your device gets wiped.
and then palm tries to market their products to businesses? what a joke. palm's current batch of products are totally unreliable from a business perspective, and let's not even get started on the fact that there is still no doc edit functionality. why would any biz go with palm?
seriously, Hpalm, when are you going to get your act together?
You're not ripe for cutting edge tech are you? (passes dan-o a 2G BB-Curve) Here you go, stability you can count on.
Lol. The Palm Pre is not what I could call 'cutting edge tech'
Of course you don't consider a phone with synergy, cloud data,induction charging, gesture driven "glass" interface to be cutting edge. It doesnt have one of those cutting edge KICKSTANDS, DOES IT?
(pats spyral on his posting helmet, swaps his Curve 2G for a Motorola "Micro" TAC, and pushes him up the stairs to the back of the bus (row 3).
Hope you enjoyed your visit in WebOS land.
You seem awfully pissed off. Defending Palm is a tiring and thankless job, isn't it?
I'm not defending them, I called them cutting edge. Cutting edge has risks and inconveniences. I dont like their failures, but they do seem to be limited in numbers when they occur.
I'm a Palm enthusiast that has been very critical of the EP era. But I see enough positive in WebOS to sit on my upgrade card and see when the next generation brings.
You, however, are a full time troll, going out of your way to rub salt in the wounds, no matter how big or how small. If you dont like my attention, don't put a "kick-me" note on the back of your wrinkled Bugle Boys.
I've been a webOS enthusiast just like you since July '09. I tossed my HTC Touch Pro and shelled out $400 for an out-of-contract Pre over eBay. I, too, have sat on my upgrade card after Sprint has made numerous attempts to sell me on an EVO. I still have my Pre after being woo'd by the iPhone 4. I have sold the Pre to 5 of my friends. I make excuses when my stock Pre crashes. Do not judge me as a troll that is here to capitalize upon Palm's failures. I want Palm to succeed, but Palm is not doing themselves any favors as of late.
Ok, you're one of us. So, who is making "cutting edge" phones and what are they doing that is so innovative?
Palm is one of the oldest names in Smartphones. I didn't want cutting edge. I agree there is a place for it, and an audience, but I wasn't planning on it for myself.
I know what you mean. Palm sold the world on Hot Synch, and I'm still seething about it's abandonment. Its a lot of work to replicate it on the Pre.
And I've never been happy to send most of the data out to the cloud. I have to carefully monitor what I put on the Pre, and where it can potentially go. Kinda nice I guess to be able to reflash the phone if I destroy it or lose it, but the phantom erases need better and complete explanation.
According to these people, the Pre IS a "cutting edge tech": http://gizmodo.com/5279413/palm-pre-cuts-the-cheese
#justjokes
it's fine for me i supposed but why in the world would any business ever go with palm when they have to contend with all this nonsense. still no editable docs... ridiculous.
The verb "architect" is far from made up:
http://m.reference.com/d/search.html?q=architect
I had this happen to me twice when I first got my Pre back in february. Luckily everything got restored but it was a pain this the ass. Took forever.
I am a fighter of h8! and there are some salty james up the middles in here!
btw i seen some shadyness with my profile forgetting all of my passwords, saving gmail and yahoo passwords are invalid. I had to remove gmail from contacts and messenger and then add them again. no wipes here.
The other problem is, backups have stopped for some ppl (myself included). They have to be done manually. Not sure if it's a result of homebrew though. Anyone else having this problem? Know of a solution?
I recently noticed that I hadn't had an automatic backup in over a month. I put my Pre into airplane mode every night when I go to bed so nothing can bother me. However, last night I forgot and left the radios on. Sure enough, my Pre did an automatic backup at 7am. I'm not sure what the exact hours are when a backup can take place, but it seems that leaving the phone in airplane mode between 4am (the latest I've turned off the phone in the last month) and 9am prevents the backup from occurring.
I guess none of this is much help, though, if you don't in fact turn off your phone at night!
I have the reboot scheduler restart my phone every morning @3, but my automatic backup would normally run about midnight. Otherwise, my phone is left on overnight.
I had this happen to me about a month ago. I was trying to download something from the app catalog and it kept saying "try downloading later" About the third time it said that I was logged out of my Palm Profile and it did a wipe/reset. It sucked but I did get everything back (except homebrew but that's an easy fix)
Maybe there is a patch for it?
This can happen if your palm database file becomes corrupted...
First thing to check is if your database file is corrupted on device...
This is getting outrageous!!! Happened to me this morning and I just Doctored my Pre, not even an hour later, I get this nice little warning that I'm no longer signed into my profile!!! Twice in less than twelve hours? Why?
So could this have been the result of an accidental remote wipe trigger? Just wondering since it seems to have affected a few phones in the same general timeframe.
I find it amusing that anit-palm people come in and comment on these sort of things and try and make it look like it is as bad as the iphone 4 thing that is being reported as likely to make apple have to recall all iphone 4s. Reality check here is that this issue when it has occurred has never happened to more than far less than one eighth of a percent of all webOS device owners. I'd be willing to bet this is only happening to people who have replaced their device and didn't properly clean off their old device and when they went to refurb it or whatever it if even for a second logged into their profile caused their wipe thing to occur. So it is more likely user error than an issue caused by palm. Unless they make it so you can run the same profile on more than one device.
I have mixed feelings about this. Until we know more, we can't really assign blame, but Palm's past Profile screw-ups (e.g., losing contacts between OS updates) leads me to think this is yet another embarrassment on their part. I could be wrong, but unless Palm can definitively say, "If you patched such and such, you invited the problem", they're going to get the blame, and rightly so. Palm needs to make their backup system iron-clad foolproof, because it doesn't seem to be at this point. Not exactly a way to inspire confidence (HP or no HP)...
For all the Palm bashing I've been hearing from Droiders, I thought I should share the experiences of my bosses with their wonderful Droid phones.
One of the two has a Droid and I get calls from his phone on a fairly regular basis. Not him, his phone. It crashes frequently and the battery life is terrible.
My other boss hass an Eris and compared to my first boss, she has it great. No random phone calls or reboots. But it is very slow about delivering her email (3 hours slow on some occasions, v. my Pre which sometimes gets my work email before outlook does). Her Eris also occasionally loses all her contacts temporarily leaving her unable to make a call, send email, etc. She finally got that fixed after 3 days of phonecalls with VZW (including a ton of time on hold).
Every phone and every OS has it's problems. Anyone who says otherwise is gullible or selling something.
Considering Palm's minuscule budget (compared to Google), they did alright. But if you're selling something other than a feature phone, backing up user's data reliably is job #1. Well, job #2; making phone calls would be #1... :)
Well had it happen around 3 pm yesterday, what killed me more is the fact that it wiped all my patches, beta apps and homebrew apps off my phone. Real pain in the ass to reinstall everything all over again.
I had this happen last week. I wasn't sure what to think, worst part was I didn't notice it until I was out in the field, so the full restore had to happen over 3G. Once it was done I had like 10% battery and it was only 10 o-clock.
This happened to me yesterday on the Verizon network. I restored everything from my profile, but contacts were lost. I also had to re-install all of my homebrew apps and patches. Most annoying was all of my NewsRoom feeds and starred items were lost.
This just happened to me today on Sprint. I was running WebOS 1.4.1.1
This is really frustrating and Palm really needs to take this more seriously.
This just happened to my palm. How come this isn't fixed! It's been how long?