Please Help: ActiveSync Green Icon Spins Continuously

[jonfroehlich]

My laptop will not connect to any of my WM 5.0 devices (including the
i-mate KJAM, the Cingular 2125, and the T-MOBILE SDA). Though I've
experienced this problem in the past, I've been able to uinstall and
reinstall ActiveSync 4.2 and restart my computer to solve the problem.

I've been blogging about my problematic encounters with ActiveSync for
a while now but have never sought the expertise of this newsgroup. I'll
provide a quick summary of my ActiveSync issues here. You can visit my
blog for more details:
http://csharponphone.blogspot.com/2006/05/activesync-41-sit-spin.html

Basically, I plug-in my WM 5.0 device, the little networking animation
starts up in the taskbar (and says acquiring network address, etc.).
This icon dissapears and then the ActiveSync icon in the taskbar turns
green and starts to spin. This continues until a timeout is reached at
which point I'm given a choice of visiting Microsoft's troubleshooter
webpage (it then forwards me on to the "If ActiveSync Cannot Receive
Data Through Port 990" page). I've tried following all of the previous
advice posted here and on the web, but to no avail. My laptop is
running Windows Firewall and McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.0.0.

Any help from MVPs, Microsoft employees, or anyone with a clue into
what might be happening would be much appreciated.

NETSTAT RETURNS:
Active Connections

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State
TCP 127.0.0.1:1150 127.0.0.1:1151 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:1151 127.0.0.1:1150 ESTABLISHED
TCP 192.168.2.76:1038 64.233.167.125:5222 ESTABLISHED

IP-CONFIG RETURNS:
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 16:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Windows Mobile-based Device
#14
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 80-00-60-0F-E8-00
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 169.254.2.2
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 169.254.2.1
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Sunday, July 02, 2006
1:53:41 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, August 01, 2006
1:53:41 PM

[Dave Wehrle]

Well... I'm not sure why this worked for me, but I had this problem with my
PPC6700 running 5.0 and ActiveSync 4.0. It was terribly frustrating. My
usual tack with problems like this is to data mine.

Following is what works for me. I know I gleaned it from a reputable site,
but I cannot recall where and I did not document that:

I don't use any firewall on my machine because I think that NAT is going to
protect me somehow. I have the windows firewall turned off. (I don't think
that matters, though).

What I believe did the trick was turning off all network protocalls, clients
and services for my desktop's ethernet connection that I was not using. For
some reason, I had QoS running as well as two NwLink items. I unchecked
those items in the Properties dialogue of my desktop's ethernet connection
(not the connection to the mobile device, but to the larger network), and the
PPC6700 connected.

Give it a shot.

Dave

[Chris De Herrera]

Hi,
Did you ensure that the firewall is configured to allow ActiveSync to
connect? See See
http://www.pocketpcfaq.com/faqs/activesync/tshoot-as4x-firewall.htm

Also, you may find the overview of the connection process at
http://www.pocketpcfaq.com/faqs/activesync/tshoot-as4x-connection.htm

--
Chris De Herrera
http://www.pocketpcfaq.com
http://www.tabletpctalk.com
http://www.pocketpctalk.com
http://www.mobilitytalk.com

ActiveSync 4.x Troubleshooting Guide -
http://www.pocketpcfaq.com/faqs/activesync/tshoot-as4x.htm

"jonfroehlich" <jonfro...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1151875361....@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...

[jonfroehlich]

Hi Chris,

Yes, I did try this. In fact, I've previously tried just about
everything listed on your webpage, which, by the way, seems to be a
great resource. I've even disabled both the Windows Firewall and McAfee
VirusScan to see the effect; yet ActiveSync remained unresponsive. I've
also explicitly added the ports (listed on your webpage and elsewhere)
that ActiveSync uses as well as permissions for the various ActiveSync
.exes (again, as you advise on your webpage).

Thanks for the responses guys, I'll keep trying.

Jon

[Chris De Herrera]

Hi,
What other networking software do you have installed?

--
Chris De Herrera
http://www.pocketpcfaq.com
http://www.tabletpctalk.com
http://www.pocketpctalk.com
http://www.mobilitytalk.com

ActiveSync 4.x Troubleshooting Guide -
http://www.pocketpcfaq.com/faqs/activesync/tshoot-as4x.htm

"jonfroehlich" <jonfro...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:1151909831.2...@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

[jonfroehlich]

Chris,

I'm ashamed to admit this, but it never occurred to me to check my
process list to see if there was any networking software running on my
computers that I did not know about. Imagine my surprise when I saw
blackd.exe (part of the BlackICE firewall package). As soon as I
noticed this, I figured this might be the root of my problem. It seems
the company that I work for includes a custom install of the BlackICE
installation with their VPN software. I force closed the process in
Task Manager, plugged in my WM 5.0 device and, what do you know,
ActiveSync turns green immediately and says connected.

I probably would have thought of this earlier on, but ActiveSync would
occassionally work--it wasn't a consistent problem. This maybe more an
issue with BlackICE however.
Unfortunately, the install of BlackICE that I have does not include a
frontend, so I must manually edit their configuration file to open the
ActiveSync related ports (despite warnings in the file itself against
it).

So, in the end, it appears my frustration was misdirected at Microsoft.
It really should have been at my IT department for not disclosing that
BlackICE was packaged with our VPN.

Hopefully now my ActiveSync problems are solved.

Thanks for the help!