[alvinator]

I have a Core 2 Duo iMac and an 8703e BB. Has anyone with a the same
configuration had any success installing and running Pocketmac?

[mr_kitty]

i have a core 2 duo macbook & blackberry pearl 8100. pocketmac works, and after i put pcscd into conservative mode, it stopped crashing my system.

[bcaslis]

I have a MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo and a Pearl. What is pcscd? What is conservative mode?

[road7]

I also have a MacBook Pro core 2 Duo and a Pearl

[mr_kitty]

Originally Posted by bcaslis

I have a MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo and a Pearl. What is pcscd? What is conservative mode?

basically you change /private/etc/mach_init.d/securityd.plist

from:

<string>/usr/sbin/securityd</string>

to:

<string>/usr/sbin/securityd -s conservative</string>



Notes: -- please read this before you do this hack.

These files are owned by the root, so if you are comfortable with the terminal and it's text editors, know that you'll need to sudo to modify them. If you have no idea what that last sentence meant, you should probably use TextWrangler from BareBones software. You can find it on macupdate.com. You'll need to enter an administrator password to save your changes.

You should absolutely backup securityd.plist before you attempt any modifications. again, owned by root, affects system processes. bad things could happen.


Now what it does.... Basically pcscd is a component of the OS that is called whenever a smartcard (compact flash, etc) reader is attached. AFAICT, it's job is to try loading several different smartcard drivers until it finds the one that works and then goes away. It's how the OS is able to natively support digital cameras and flash card readers, etc without installing drivers for your specific device.

Well in default mode it is also called whenever an "unknown USB device" is attached, on the chance that it is a smart card reader the OS doesn't know about.

For whatever reason, the blackberry's internal memory seems to be detected as an unknown usb device, pcscd will on occasion (sometimes just on the connection of the phone, sometimes on the sync, sometimes when trying to upload files, sometimes not at all) try to talk to it and not give up... the process will remain, utilizing all your free processor strength and not allow your computer to shut down without hard booting the machine.

And if you didn't know, everytime you hard boot your system you risk damaging the volume formatting of your drive, and making your OS non-bootable or corrupting files.

Conservative mode just tells pcscd to only launch for known smart card devices, thus it doesn't try to talk to the phone. Which is great.... pocketmac generally talks to the phone no problem, it quits out and your machine restarts without risking killing it.

The problem is that digital cameras and other valid smart card readers that the OS doesn't know about (eg. "unknown usb devices") won't call pcscd either, so some of your devices might not work.


As i said, these are system files and shouldn't be modified lightly. my instructions are intentionally vague, because if they don't give you a clear picture of what needs to be done you probably shouldn't be doing it (im sorry if that comes across as rude). ultimately i'd like to wrap it up in a shell script to do and undo the change, but my regular expressions are rusty anymore so i haven't figured out how to do the find & replace string from the command line.

[mr_kitty]

oh yeah, one last note. i'm not a developer. i don't work for/with apple, blackberry or pocketmac. i can not say 100% that this is the cause or solution for any problems you're receiving or that it won't cause other problems.

but it has worked for me, and a couple of my clients. your milage may vary.

[thejackamo]

odd, and maybe someone could shine some light on this for me - in looking for the /private/etc/mach_init.d/ directory, it was found to be not on my main (ie. boot) drive, but rather on a secondary drive. any reason why it might be there instead of on the boot drive?

[mr_kitty]

Originally Posted by thejackamo

odd, and maybe someone could shine some light on this for me - in looking for the /private/etc/mach_init.d/ directory, it was found to be not on my main (ie. boot) drive, but rather on a secondary drive. any reason why it might be there instead of on the boot drive?

i've never seen the /private directory route to a secondary drive unless it had an os installed on it.

perhaps unrelated but apparently pcscd is new to os 10.4.x. doesn't exist on panther systems (intel machines have to be 10.4.x of course).



the other problem i've seen cause pocketmac 4 issues is if pocketmac 3 was ever installed. something lurks around and grabs the new blackberry out from under pm4. i've only been able to fix that by manually uninstalling both and reinstalling pm4. pain.in.the.arse.

[aslondon]

I run pocketmac with my 8703 e on a macbook pro with absolutely no problems.

[macman]

Since I switched to the 8703e and the intel, I have had so much trouble with Pocketmac it isn't worth the trouble..... The main reason I went for it because it syncs with MeetingMaker, which no one else does. It worked great until I switched to Intel and the 8703e. I have seen absolutely no update from Pocketmac, I just check rim's website this week and no new verions since Oct 06!!!!! 5 months and NO UPDATES!!!! What is with that!!!!!!!!

I have lost parts of addresses, phone numbers, one time I have it, next time I don't? Go figure!!!! I hope a fix comes sooooooon!!!

[yg17]

I got PocketMac working on my Core2Duo iMac with no problems.



Now The Missing Sync on the other hand.......lets just say it should've stayed missing. Piece of crap.

[bcaslis]

Have you tried it? I've tried PocketMac and it's terrible. It's also supposed to be production.

I've tried Missing Sync with Palm OS, WM5, and now the blackberry preview. All have worked great. The preview doesn't sync the contact pictures or notes yet, but it clearly states that in the documentation. Both are supposed to be there for the final release.

I'm a long time Mac user and I have to say PocketMac has been the single worst company I've ever dealt with while MarkSpace and Missing Sync have been fine.

Originally Posted by yg17

I got PocketMac working on my Core2Duo iMac with no problems.



Now The Missing Sync on the other hand.......lets just say it should've stayed missing. Piece of crap.