ernzo

In Short, this is crap and I am sorry. I really would like an answer and thought I had found one but no, this just gives you, basically, nothing, as I am sure many here have found.....

Still working on a solution that is easier - no rooting - but......



I have tried this and it does work, however you must fool with the big data file in order to edit out the local contacts.

The Problem: When a customer initially buys a Palm Pre, her/his contacts are transferred into the Palm Pre via Cellebrite or Palm Data Migration. Later, when attempting to retrieve those contacts for a customer, Cellebrite fails to recognize them and will not proceed. Additionally, Palm Profile backup will only transfer contacts back into a Palm Pre if the customer remembers their login. The result is your customer contacts are inaccessible and the customer must re-enter them all in their new device where a Palm Pre or another model.

The Solution: The procedure detailed below will allow a customer to access the contacts that are in their device under Palm Profile, and save them to a data file allowing them to import them into Outlook, Palm Desktop, other data management programs, Google or other online resources, Excel or even Cellebrite for direct transfer to another device. All the software detailed is publicly available and free.

Abstract: Customer installs three software titles from Pre Central / Home Brew. They are Internalz and FileMgr Service. Installs must take place in a specific order, and WebOS Quick INstall is also required in order to install the required files. FileMgr Service allows the customer see view and copy the data file, containing their contacts, to a directory accessible to them during a USB session such as TEMP. Customer opens a Palm Pre USB session, and copies the specific file to their computer (desktop). Customer then downloads and installs sqlitebrowser 1.3 a free sql data manager program . This database program allows the customer to access the file structure of the main Palm Pre data file, and export out just the contacts portion. Customer selects the specific directory with the contacts and flags it for export. Customer exports the file as a CSV file to their desktop. Customer then uses Excel to import the CSV file, giving them access and visibility to all their contact files, including the “local” files which are the files from their Palm Profile. Customer then uses Excel to select the rows containing the “local” files, copies those rows and pastes them into a new sheet, and saves it (as well as the master sheet). Customer opens the new sheet and edits the sheet to contain only the various columns that contain relevant Palm Profile Contact information. Customer can then export the data to a CSV or TXT file, or can simply save the Excel file, copy it to a USB thumb drive and bring that drive to any Sprint Service store. The Sprint Service Center can install the Excel File into a new device using Cellebrite / Desktop tools.

Let me know what you think, I am NOT geeky, have never rooted my phone and found this to be fairly useful and easy to do.

davis.rob

I think all you really need is WOSQI to get the file. It has an option to "Receive File" from the device. You just have to know the exact name of the file and it will copy it to a directory on your PC. Then (after you get sqlite) there's a script on the WebOS Internals web site that will extract and format the data for you.

Dr.Grace

What's the name of this file, and in what directory is it located?

asapelectric

I too , would like to know this answer.

ernzo

PalmDatabase.db3. There are actually 2 of them, the larger one is the file I used.

It is located under /var/luna/data/dbdata

And yes you can easily just use WebOS to pull the file out.

For those of us who are not familiar with scripting, but can use Excel, importing the file into Excel may be easier, anyway that is what I did.

The thing is I searched and searched her for this answer and I hope that this thread speaks to us "shade-tree" geeks so we can pull off this relatively easy procedure!

myblackz28

I used file manager to copy PalmDatabase.db3 into one of my photo folders. I then plugged my pre into my pc, usb mode, and copied PalmDatabase.db3 onto my desktop. What do I do now? If I have this file on my desktop, does this mean my contacts are backed up on my desktop?

ernzo

more or less. see the next post

ernzo

Those with MUCH more savvy feel free to hijack this post!


More or less, yes. Remember that your contacts ought to also be backed up to the Palm server anyway.....

If you want to go further, I downloaded a program called sqlitebrowser
SQLite Database Browser | Get SQLite Database Browser at SourceForge.net

This tool allows you to access and export the specific data file (the file palmdatabse.db3 contains a ton of data besides your contacts) as a CSV file for importation to excel or other tools.

Here is another useful link that will tell you how to access the specific file in SQL

PalmDatabase.db3 File - WebOS Internals

In fact, I just noticed that this link (above) pretty much caches out the entire routine! You see, I am NOT a SQL guy, I am not a script guy etc. I was lost reading these things, so I wanted a way to do this that a bonehead like me could do!!

I installed sqlite, asked it to open the palmdatabase.db3 file (you ought to see a big directory) I went to File and Export (table as CSV) pointed to com_palm_pim_Contact and exported it to my desktop.

davis.rob

I took a quick look at this ... used WOSQI to pull the PalmDatabase.db3 file off my Pre and used the SQLite Manager plug-in for Firefox to look at the database structure and actual data. That part is pretty easy.

But (big BUT), your contact data is actually spread across 3 or 4 different SQL tables. You need to look at com_palm_pim_Contacts, and then correlate that with com_palm_pim_ContactPoint (the actual phone numbers and email addresses), com_palm_pim_Location (street addresses), and possibly com_palm_pim_Person.

What might be nice is if someone could write an Excel macro to gather all of that up and put it in one Worksheet that Google would accept (I think they're pretty flexible in terms of format and content if the columns are properly labeled). But that's more work than I can do today 8^). And there is the Python script on the WebOS Internals web site which can do this for you (although it doesn't look like it gets the street addresses).

myblackz28

That all seems to complicated for me. I wish someone could make a homebrew app that will do it all for you.