Amin Sadeghi's Blog

I have seen many claims over the internet about unsuccessful attempts at synchronising data between phone and a personal computer. While some cases were solved by trying it on another computer or another operating system, some never succeeded.

Like the minority, I was never able to find out what’s wrong with the procedure. At first, there were reports that HTC Sync doesn’t work properly on Windows 7, but the newest version released by HTC was Windows 7-compatible. What I found, as being the source of my problem, is going to be very tricky. I’m happy if someone with the same problem reads this blog and syncs happily ever after!

Below, I’m going to explain my issue alongside all other probabilities:

1. Windows 7/HTC Driver problem

While the HTC Sync software and the HTC driver are two different things in their very nature, many people will get confused and think once they have installed HTC Sync, they have all the means of starting the synchronisation process. The truth is, after a successful installation of HTC Sync the software will try to recognise your phone type and based on your operating system e.g. Windows 7, it will download the relevant driver for your phone. Be informed that the software itself cannot establish a connection to your phone on its own, on the contrary, needs the driver as an agent.

Previous releases of the software would download an incompatible driver for Windows 7, as a result you can find many posts over the internet about Windows Vista drivers, where you needed to download the Vista drivers and manually copy them to the designated folder in your Windows 7. Fortunately, HTC fixed this problem in HTC Sync version 2.0.18. So, if you’re using the new HTC Sync 2.0.33 this should probably not be the issue. These new versions work as a charm, so skip to the next solutions.

2. You’re firewall blocks the connection

Though it may sound a little amateur, but most people using a firewall really have no idea which files to grant access and which to block. Therefore, if you’re behind a firewall, which is installed on your PC, not the router, like ZoneAlarm, Comodo Firewall, etc., go to the programs sections, where you can assign security permissions, and make sure the following files are marked as trusted:

• Program Files\HTC\HTC Sync\Mobile Phone Monitor\HTCVBTServer.exe
• Program Files\HTC\HTC Sync\Mobile Phone Monitor\FSynSrvStarter.exe

In case you don’t a firewall installed on your PC, you should take a look at this post on lifehacker. The metaphor is hilarious!

3. The service on your phone was killed by mistake! (my problem)

Most people using Android-enabled phones will notice that programmes and services don’t stop when you return to your home screen on the phone. This means that all programmes will be running in the background while you don’t need them. Soon enough, comes the need for a killing device. People familiar with this have already been using software like Taskiller and TaskPanel. Using these software is, again, very witty if you know how to use them. Similar to a Firewall, you must know which processes to kill and which ones to add to the exemption list.

Unfortunately, I’m using another ROM at the moment which doesn’t show that service name, but I clearly remember that in the factory ROM based on Android 1.5 (Cupcake), it had a service running, visible in TasKiller’s list of services that was responsible for making the synchronisation on the phone. It wasn’t a service specific to HTC but from its name I could deduce this was Android’s service of enabling a third-party synchronisation software to function. To put it simple words, using TasKiller once would disable this service and make you unable to pair it with HTC Sync.

The way of solving this problem would be to uninstall your task killing software on the phone e.g. TasKiller and rebooting the phone.

I hope you could see your own phone name instead of the Disconnected status as well.