Comments on: Palm Pre Woes — When the Cloud Goes Down

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:14:06 +0000

When everyone moans about the Pre’s backup strategy, why is no one concerned about security?!?

I have my life on my PDA, and I really don’t want my whole schedule and all of my contacts and *personal* notes in a web service backup that can be hacked and exposed at will.

Palm Pre’s backup strategy stinks, and I won’t buy it. It’s a shame. I used the original Palm for years and currently carry a TX.
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By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 02:39:16 +0000

This happened to me, although it was on 10/1, rather than during the other meltdown. I had to do a full web doctor erase, and all of my photos and usb files were deleted.

Not fun, and a colossal FAIL on the part of Palm!

By: Brent Hopkins

Brent Hopkins — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:21:10 +0000

Personally, I did not experience any problems. But I turn my phone off at night!
The sync FAIL and hard reset problem sounds like a bug to me. Could not possibly be an intentional design goal. Let’s hope Palm has its ear to the ground, has heard these complaints, and is hard at work devising a remedy! After all, they have been responsive to other concerns.

By: Peter Struart

Peter Struart — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 08:16:31 +0000

After tracing the traffic it seems that palm has a single image to handle all traffic and every service is coming from the same set of servers. This is a major architectural disaster. Did someone say they got kids from school running amok in the service delivery department. Besides broken security, mixing up all different services in one box is so stupid. I see smoke coming out of their servers. This is height of incompetence. Sold my Pre on ebay while I can still get more than 50 bucks for this piece of crap.

By: BaDZeD

BaDZeD — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:31:58 +0000

A local backup feature would indeed be welcome.

By: James Kendrick

James Kendrick — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:21:15 +0000

Can’t tell you. We cover what we use and first-hand experience drove this report.

By: Se7en

Se7en — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:07:59 +0000

James, why was the blogosphere so quiet about this issue? Your post is the first I’ve even heard of this issue occurring, and it looks like it happened 2 days ago? Did the tech blogs cover this besides you and the PalmPre Central forums?

By: Rodfather

Rodfather — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:20:27 +0000

Ya it’s a bit worrysome relying on having a service up to get an activation going.

As for backups, ya it could be better. I wish it would backup information on how different accounts are linked. On restore, how an AIM/gtalk account, Facebook contact, and Google contact is linked is lost.

By: NeoteriX

NeoteriX — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:46:58 +0000

With this keyed-CDMA device, I’m thinking you cannot use the Pre overseas.

That said, I recently had the Pre with me on a trip to Turkey (to use wifi in the hotel room) and nothing crazy happened. It was off network.

By: James Kendrick

James Kendrick — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:31:31 +0000

There is a Missing Sync version for the Pre but I don’t use it. I prefer syncing with the Google cloud, not a given computer.

By: Michael Manna

Michael Manna — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:14:44 +0000

Doesn’t The Missing Sync backup everything from the Pre?

By: bob

bob — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:25:50 +0000

This doesn’t sound good.

What happens if you are out of country and roaming? Do you have to have a data connection back to the mothership? If so that could get very expensive.

By: CTSLICK

CTSLICK — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:55:16 +0000

My experience is that a full hard reset on my Palm Pre under webOS v1.1.0 completely wiped the device including photos and that the back up on webOS v1.1.0 did NOT restore any photos.

By: bluemonq

bluemonq — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:44:35 +0000

Odd. I don’t recall text messages being backed up. They always disappear after a factory reset, yet mine are all there. For that matter, I thought photos and such were also wiped after a factory reset. Didn’t have to turn Advanced Gestures back on, either.

Perhaps this is a geographical thing; I’m in California.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:40:24 +0000

True, the actual issue is the Palm Profile server, but my point is that it appears to be manifesting itself with the backup. You’re saying that Synergy is great (which it is), provided that the Palm servers are up. I’m not certain the second part of that is correct. Why? Because my Palm Profile has 2 contacts while my Palm Pre has hundreds. I’ve never backed up the phone because the backup service is a little weak. Essentially, I can’t see where or how my Pre has used the Palm Profile or the Palm servers other than day one and for the device updates.

So my ultimate point is: it sounds like folks had the issue because of the backup dependency on the Palm Pre profile server. Palm’s servers don’t appear to affect Synergy or any other functions of the phone that I can think of if they go down, aside from Palm Profile related services, i.e.: backup. In other words: if Palm’s servers go down, my phone won’t be a brick, nor is it “knocked off the cloud.” Then again, I wasn’t up in the middle of the night when servers were offline, so it’s conjecture on my part. ;)

Palm needs to address some graceful error handling in case like this without a doubt. I could be wrong, but the phone and it’s use isn’t totally dependent on Palm’s servers from what I can see. Maybe I’m not understanding the architecture of Synergy? It appears to be client-driven, not server driven in my use. Palm’s own explanation of Synergy says “Whatever you do on your phone, it will either sync with the web service you chose above, or it will be backed up to your Palm Profile.” I read that as meaning I can use my phone and the Synergy accounts / data regardless of Palm’s server status.

By: tal

tal — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:39:12 +0000

People will understand that over time. Cloud is taken too far to the extreme.
Mails in GMail is one thing. But general data and media without your own backup is silly. And apps is well going that extra silly step.
If this is how Pre is managing the platform then you are better off to a more balanced system/platform, where you have the power to decide what is and what is not in the cloud.

Tal