[Anastasia]

Good evening!

I bought an essentially-new HP Pre3 (AT&T) to replace the one I accidentally dropped and cracked. The new phone had had the Sign In bypassed, and I could see that the phone otherwise worked and definitely appeared new (phone, packaging, etc.) other than the bypass.

Time to swap to the new phone from the old, so I Doctored the new one, put in the old SIM chip, and began the restore. It failed at just past the 50% mark of the restore. I reversed the process, putting the chip back in the old phone and performing the restore, and it worked fine. Tried again this morning to get the new phone working, using the old phone's battery and with the new phone plugged in, and the data still wouldn't finish restoring.

So...what am I doing wrong? Is there anything I can do to make this work? I really don't want to go to a new phone platform. Can I do the bypass and still do everything that I used to do with webOS and the Pre3?

[Garfonso]

With "woudln't finish restoring" you mean that after you logged into your Palm profile the download bar does never finish, right? Do you get any error message? I once had this, too and needed a few tries to get the restore done.
Other question: Did you ever use tailor on your old device? Maybe increased the size of the database partition, because you got the error message that the application database was going to be full and device would be resetted?


Anyway, if you can't get it to restore, you bypass first use and log into your profile from Impostah later on.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think that will prevent the restore of your data and stuff from the palm profile completely. So everything that is directly in your Palmprofile (contacts, calendar, sms-messages, ...) will be deleted and if you enable backup it will also be deleted from the backup servers (as I said, I'm not 100% sure about that). But you can download all your apps (probably you have to do that manually, too or using Perware saved packagelist and app tucker box, maybe?) and use your phone with your old profile. New data should also get backuped.

If you kept your calendar, contacts and stuff in external accounts, like google or yahoo, then this should not be too painful. But you should run save/restore on your old device, if you haven't done so. And maybe get an up to date saved package list in Preware before, too.

[John Steffes]

Good evening!

I bought an essentially-new HP Pre3 (AT&T) to replace the one I accidentally dropped and cracked. The new phone had had the Sign In bypassed, and I could see that the phone otherwise worked and definitely appeared new (phone, packaging, etc.) other than the bypass.

Time to swap to the new phone from the old, so I Doctored the new one, put in the old SIM chip, and began the restore. It failed at just past the 50% mark of the restore. I reversed the process, putting the chip back in the old phone and performing the restore, and it worked fine. Tried again this morning to get the new phone working, using the old phone's battery and with the new phone plugged in, and the data still wouldn't finish restoring.

So...what am I doing wrong? Is there anything I can do to make this work? I really don't want to go to a new phone platform. Can I do the bypass and still do everything that I used to do with webOS and the Pre3?

Did not hear you updated the CERTS? did you do this? if not then it might not work, if you have another Pre3 you have the certs on the old phone you can copy them, if not you can follow HP/catalog update procedure of pushing the date back, download the catalog etc...

[Garfonso]

You don't need the new certificates for the profile restore. Only thing that does not work is downloading apps without the new certs... but most of profile restore is done at that point already.

[Anastasia]

Thank you for all of the above!

- Yes, I know about the certs, and as Garfonso indicated, no, they're not needed for the profile. (The update is readily available if the network time is turned off, and the phone date is set back to before the deadline...I chose April 1, 2013 for fun, and it worked fine when I was restoring my old Pre3 when the new one kept failing to get past the data recovery.)

- "Wouldn't finish restoring"...as in it would get to just past about 50% of the data restore, and hang, until the "Sign In Failed" error popped up. I have tried several times, over several days, including re-Doctoring, using a different battery, having the device plugged in, etc., and no joy. This has been making me so crazy...about the only logical thing I could think of was that HP needs to be told I have a new serial number, so that it lets the restore occur...conjecture, but I can't think of anything else?

- Why, yes, I did have to increase my partition size on my old phone! Interestingly, when I restored the old cracked Pre3, it restored with no problem and had most of my stuff. Again, interestingly, while I had my historical SMS for a few days, the SMS data automagically disappeared by itself...left me with a completely empty SMS history. The one weird thing is that I can no longer edit (or even see the list of) my Bookmarks...doesn't even give me the option or the list.

- Yes, I have a backup of everything important, so basically all I want at this point is to be able to connect the new phone to my profile, so that I can get the thing to work (including all of the basic stuff like phone, SMS, etc.) and have access to my apps and App Catalog. Would you be willing to walk me through the bypass sequence? I am teachable (I did do the partition increase, for example), but I have very limited experience hacking a phone and would love to have my hand held so I don't screw up.

[Garfonso]

No, the restore of the profile should work on the new Pre3. No Need to tell anybody about a new Serial or stuff... just did the profile move two times last week from one Pre3 to anotherone and back again. Restore was no issue.

But if you increase the partition size for the database, that means the database has more place to grow. The stuff in the database is essentially what is backed up in the profile and restored. If that is too big now for the original size of the database partition it makes sense that restore fails. Maybe you should try to increase partition size on the new Pre3 then, too?

Bypass is quite easy: Bypass Activation [webOS 2.x] | webOS Nation

After the bypass you can follow your old procedure to increase the partition size and maybe try a restore again.

[Anastasia]

No, the restore of the profile should work on the new Pre3. No Need to tell anybody about a new Serial or stuff... just did the profile move two times last week from one Pre3 to anotherone and back again. Restore was no issue.

But if you increase the partition size for the database, that means the database has more place to grow. The stuff in the database is essentially what is backed up in the profile and restored. If that is too big now for the original size of the database partition it makes sense that restore fails. Maybe you should try to increase partition size on the new Pre3 then, too?

Bypass is quite easy: Bypass Activation [webOS 2.x] | webOS Nation

After the bypass you can follow your old procedure to increase the partition size and maybe try a restore again.

Thank you! If you have a few more seconds, could you indulge me another few minutes?

- As a way to test the partition size idea, is there a way to reset the phone back to stock (i.e., not just reinstall the software as done by Doctoring it)?

- I had happily paid for the HomeBrew app...but don't have ready access to that unless I go through and re-Doctor the cracked Pre3. As I said, I'm teachable...and I was "taught" by following the instructions! Is there another cheat sheet I can look at?

[Anastasia]

Bypass is quite easy: Bypass Activation [webOS 2.x] | webOS Nation

You won't believe this, but bypass doesn't seem to work.

- From the HP WebOS Account screen, I pressed the phone in the lower right

- I got an option to Emergency call, Call customer service, and Cancel

- I selected Emergency call, which got the dialpad with 911 loaded in it

- I deleted 911, and I typed in #*3386633#

- I pressed the green call button...absolutely nothing happened: It's like the call button wouldn't "take". (I also tried 911, and nothing as well...even after a reboot. Backspace (delete) and Cancel worked...just not Call.)

I must be making a stupid mistake...thoughts?

[John Steffes]

You won't believe this, but bypass doesn't seem to work.

- From the HP WebOS Account screen, I pressed the phone in the lower right

- I got an option to Emergency call, Call customer service, and Cancel

- I selected Emergency call, which got the dialpad with 911 loaded in it

- I deleted 911, and I typed in #*3386633#

- I pressed the green call button...absolutely nothing happened: It's like the call button wouldn't "take". (I also tried 911, and nothing as well...even after a reboot. Backspace (delete) and Cancel worked...just not Call.)

I must be making a stupid mistake...thoughts?

On my phone Verizon Pre3 ##devmode# (hash hash 3 3 8 6 6 3 3 hash) do not even need to push call...

Now some GSM use #*devmode# not sure as the only device I have that is GSM is the Veer and it only works if you dial #*devmode# then push the dial button...

[Anastasia]

On my phone Verizon Pre3 ##devmode# (hash hash 3 3 8 6 6 3 3 hash) do not even need to push call...

Now some GSM use #*devmode# not sure as the only device I have that is GSM is the Veer and it only works if you dial #*devmode# then push the dial button...

ah-HA! So...I re-Doctored the new Pre3, and lo and behold, I was now able to enter DEVMODE. This tells me that @Garfonso has probably hit the nail on the head with respect to my expanding the partition on the old Pre3 causing the problem with the HP Profile and the new (unexpanded) Pre3. Now I'll see if I can figure out how to expand the partition on the new phone...and I also want to let @Audemars02 and @dkirker know, since they're the ones that helped me originally with the partition. I'll let you know what I find.... THANK YOU for listening to me!

[Tyh2o]

ah-HA! So...I re-Doctored the new Pre3, and lo and behold, I was now able to enter DEVMODE. This tells me that @Garfonso has probably hit the nail on the head with respect to my expanding the partition on the old Pre3 causing the problem with the HP Profile and the new (unexpanded) Pre3. Now I'll see if I can figure out how to expand the partition on the new phone...and I also want to let @Audemars02 and @dkirker know, since they're the ones that helped me originally with the partition. I'll let you know what I find.... THANK YOU for listening to me!

Did you have any luck?

[Anastasia]

Did you have any luck?

@Tyh2o: I posted what I learned to the thread which gave the partition expansion instructions, so that readers know that it works great, but with the caveat that they won't be able to Doctor the device after the partition is expanded: http://forums.webosnation.com/hp-pre...ml#post3404664

I am now going to try the last entry here: http://forums.webosnation.com/hp-pre...m-profile.html Keep your fingers crossed...I'm keeping fingers and toes crossed!!!

What would help is if anyone knows how to reset the device back to its original state...not the software portion, which can be done by Doctoring it, but the actual underlying structure.

[Anastasia]

@Tyh2o: I posted what I learned to the thread which gave the partition expansion instructions, so that readers know that it works great, but with the caveat that they won't be able to Doctor the device after the partition is expanded: http://forums.webosnation.com/hp-pre...ml#post3404664

I am now going to try the last entry here: http://forums.webosnation.com/hp-pre...m-profile.html Keep your fingers crossed...I'm keeping fingers and toes crossed!!!

What would help is if anyone knows how to reset the device back to its original state...not the software portion, which can be done by Doctoring it, but the actual underlying structure.

I am stuck. I am in DevMode on my Pre3, I have Quick Install (v4.5) on my computer, and I am trying to install Preware, and it's been spinning for quite some time. I've tried twice rebooting both the computer (Win7) and the Pre3, and I'm still spinning.

How long does it take to install? Has anyone else had this problem with Preware? (What am I doing wrong?) Do I need Preware? For my purpose, can I just go to Impostah?

[Garfonso]

You always *need* Preware. But if you can install impostah via Quick Install, then just go with that...

It should take just some seconds to install... if it takes longer, probably something went wrong. But never had any issue like that.

[Anastasia]

You always *need* Preware. But if you can install impostah via Quick Install, then just go with that...

It should take just some seconds to install... if it takes longer, probably something went wrong. But never had any issue like that.

Story of my life, eh?

Okay, will try that.

Man, needing handholding like this is making me nuts.

[Anastasia]

There has to be something basic wrong. Impostah also doesn't load. Interestingly, when I use Task Manager to cancel it, it says it's waiting for a response from me...although there is no prompt for me: There's just the pop-up that says it's Installing Preware (or Impostah).

Really could use the handholding about now...I'm several hours into this and no resolution in sight.

[Anastasia]

Just to double-check: On the Pre3 I'm on a screen called Developer Mode (its toggle is On), and it says: "Your device is in Developer Mode. You may use Palm Mojo SDK tools to connect to the device" and there is a "Set/Change Password" bar. Is this where I should be when I'm in the Quick Install?

[Garfonso]

After you switched developer mode to on, you can also close the screen and do other stuff... that does matter. You got that right already, because quick install could find your device. So that's fine.. :-)

What matters though, is other install processes. Was the device busy loading/installing updates/apps by itself? That can hinder quick install to install apps. But you said, you tried to reboot the device already, not? Hm... should not be the issue... did you repair the root certificate?
You did pass the activation this time, right? Or is the device busy restoring stuff?

Quick install has a device shell. You can try to run "tail -f /var/log/messages" and see if it says anything interesting during install (I'm not sure if that works with the shell quick install gives you... it was a bit awkward at times... if it does not work, you'll have to run tail /var/log/messages without the -f parameter repeatedly... or you could try less /var/log/messages and press end/page down to scroll down in the document.. don't know if that works. Last option would be cat /var/log/messages).

[Jimbode]

You could try version 3 of Quick Install. I always keep version 3 around for when the latest version just doesn't seem to work. You did re-boot the phone after turning dev mode on?

[Anastasia]

You could try version 3 of Quick Install. I always keep version 3 around for when the latest version just doesn't seem to work. You did re-boot the phone after turning dev mode on?

Thanks for the suggestions. Here is what I've been doing:

- No, I did not repair to root certificate because I don't have access to the App Catalog...unless there's another way to load it?

- Yes, I have rebooted the device several times, in different sequences. For example: Turn OFF DevMode, reboot, turn ON DevMode, reboot, try to install, and no go.

- No, the device isn't doing anything, since I successfully got it bypassed.

- Will try later on tonight to see if tail works.

- Where can I get v3 of Quick Install?

The interesting thing is that every time I try to End Task through Task Manager, it tells me that "The system cannot end this program because it is waiting for a response from you." I see no prompts or dialog boxes anywhere. I'm using Win7; maybe I should go through my XP virtual machine?

Man, the only other thing I can think of is to reDoctor? [This is killing me. ]

Again, thank you for everyone trying to help! It's greatly appreciated!