How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

Hey all,

I'm new to the forums and new to Blackberry. I had immense trouble migrating all my stuff from my old Treo 680 to my new Blackberry Bold, especially with syncing my contacts and calendar. Kept getting that annoying 0x80040fb3 error.

Well, after literally spending hours surfing the web, I finally found a solution. Just thought I'd share it with you all, because I know a lot of people have had trouble with this.

Situation: When syncing your Outlook with your Blackberry, the sync process stops halfway through saying "Error Encountered 0x80040FB3, Check Documentation".

The Actual Problem: Blackberry doesn't like the attachments in your contacts list or calendar entries (or both). What attachments? Photos (profile pictures) in your contact list, and attachments in your calendar events.

Solution: When you search error code 0x80040FB3 online, everyone will refer you to this not-so-helpful Blackberry support article [Link 1]. This will tell you to modify a few system files in your Blackberry folder to enable error logging, obtain the logs, stick them in an email, and then "send the email message to your technical support representative so that the synchronization log files can be analyzed."

Link 1: www[dot]blackberry[dot]com/btsc/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB14 818&sliceId=SAL_Public&dialogID=189220282&stateId= 1%200%20189216933

Riiiight. Not helpful. Here's what I did instead:

Photo Removal:
Thankfully I only had a few contacts with photos so I found them on Outlook and deleted them straight. If you have lots of contacts with photos or can't remember which contacts have photos, well things get a little trickier.

Two solutions I found online include: 1) exporting and reimporting your contacts list [Link 2]; 2) doing that whole logging thing I mentioned above, finding the finding the "corrupt" entries, deleting them, and recreating them [Link 3]. I started going through the second method here (the first one seemed kinda messy) but stopped as soon as I realized it was just the photos in my contacts that were the problem.

Link 2: www[dot]blackberryforums[dot]com/rim-software/137009-help-dm-sync-error-0x80040fb3.html#post1182052]

Link 3: forums[dot]crackberry[dot]com/f5/pearl-shows-error-code-0x80040fb3-during-synch-10653/#post191888

Calendar Event Attachment Removal:
This one I found much more tricky, and there's a lot less advice on the Net about this one. I use Outlook 2007 to manage my calendar so the following steps apply to that version, although I imagine similar principles apply in Outlook 2003.

To find out which events have attachments:

1. Open your Calendar in Outlook.
2. Click View > Current View > Events
3. Click View > Current View > Customize Current View
4. Click Filter... > the More Choices tab > select the "Only items with:" and set it to "one or more attachments".
5. Click OK > OK, and you should be able see the problematic events now.

When I did this, I had 150+ events with mysteriously hidden attachments that I couldn't find. I'm guessing it's something to do with faulty Palm - Outlook Hotsync conduits.

To remove the attachments without deleting the actual events, I found a neat VB macro someone posted on experts-exchange [Link 4]. I got desperate and signed up for the 7-day free trial to see the VB code, but everyone else's benefit the relevant instructions are here:

Link 4: www[dot]experts-exchange[dot]com/Hardware/Handhelds_-_PDAs/Blackberry/Q_23485790.html

1. Start Outlook
2. Click Tools->Macro->Visual Basic Editor
3. If not already expanded, expand Microsoft Office Outlook Objects and click on Module1
4. Copy the code from the Code Snippet box and paste it into the right-hand pane of Outlook's VB Editor window
5. Edit the code as needed. I included comments wherever something needs to or can change
6. Click the diskette icon on the toolbar to save the changes
7. Close the VB Editor
8. Close Outlook
9. Start Outlook
10. Select the appointments with attachements
11. Run the macro*

*You may need to fidget with your security settings here to enable macros. Try fishing around Tools > Trust Center, and reopening Outlook as the administrator.

Macro below:
After doing this I re-ran my blackberry sync and it sailed through smoothly (YES!). Btw, after doing all this you'll need to put your calendar views back to normal. For that, just go back into "View > Current View > Customize Current View" and hit the reset button. Then go to "Click View > Current View > Day/Week/Month (or whatever setting you like)".

Anyway, after all my hours of frustration I figured I would type this out to save everyone else the same trouble. Hope this helps!

Beej

--------------

Note: BBForums won't let me post links because I'm a new user, so excuse the awkward link formatting. If a mod could edit my post for me that would be helpful.

Thanks for your help on this one, Beej.

I was getting sync errors in my contacts, calendar and keepass updating.

Since I only had three contacts with photos I thought I'd give your solution a try. It turns out that two of them were corrupt. When I looked at these two contacts in Outlook (2003) instead of the photo or the place-holder for the photo, there was just a blank. Deleting these two contacts and reentering them solved the Outlook sync problems.

I'm still having keepass sync problems, but I'll keep working on that one.

My fix to that annoying 0x80040fb3 error
 

Hey Beej,

thank you so much for posting such thorough instructions. After following your instructions, however, my sync was still getting interrupted.

I had no problems syncing my device with outlook on my Dell XPS the past several months, but I just bought a new Sony VAIO and installed Desktop Manager, and all of a sudden I have been experiencing the very same interruptions with the error you stated above.

I removed the photos from both Outlook 2007 and my Curve 8330 address book, not much of a pain as I fortunately had a select few.

After much fiddling with the sync configuration on the BB software under Calendar Setup, I synced using "Transfer all scheduled items" so both Outlook and my device exchanged as much data as possible before getting interrupted.

I verified that my device/outlook had indeed recorded some past items, then I Immediately input a few important dates that did not record into each program (yes, a pain, but only a handful for me). Next, I changed the Calendar date range from "Transfer all scheduled items" to "Transfer only future items", checked the "Remove alarm for past items" under Alarm Settings, and clicked next. Clicked "Finish", and synced again...VOILA...no more conflicts for me! (y):bb:(y)

Everything that I input in the device for today and beyond (as a test, items for today's date and random futures) showed up in Outlook...and of course, whatever I input in my calendar today input with a past date (as a test, an event I named "test from device" for yesterday) will not transfer. A small price to pay, but I'm okay with it. I really need it only for future appointments going forward, and I don't care to spend another few hours more toying with it, I've wasted enough time...if I really need to look back at all records, I will have to do so sifting through Outlook.

Hope that helps someone with a similar problem.

Found a "fix" for 0x80040fb3 error?
 

Wanted to share my epxerience and fix-to-date. I have been trying all the fixes mentioned in posts above and other threads with no luck. Decided to use the "reset configuration" option and set limits to calendar time (<10 days old, and < 120 days in future), removed the option to sync pictures on contacts and now it works (today anyway). Sounds too simple so I will write back if anything changes or problem reoccurs over time.

I am using DM version 4.7, by the way.

All I want to say is Wow! What an informative first post! Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your experience.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! You the man beej! I just started getting this error on my Curve and it was killin' me! I went through and deleted the pictures in Outlook and it sailed through the synchronization. Props!

I'd like to thank BEEJ for his very thoughtful write-up. I did everything that he suggested, but the problem persisted. I visited the two URLs that he supplied, and found the "magic bullet" answer at this URL:

forums[dot]crackberry[dot]com/f5/pearl-shows-error-code-0x80040fb3-during-synch-10653/#post191888

The solution proposed there, and the solution that worked for me, was to review the synchronization log generated by the DM. To view the synchronization log, press the "SYNCHRONIZE" button in the DM (this will bring up the synchronization details page), then select "CONFIGURE - SYNCHRONIZATION" from the menu on the left side, then press the VIEW LOG button.

The very end of my log contained the following line:

IGNORE = SMITH

This was the defective (corrupt) contact that was causing the failure. The only problem was that I had more than one contact with the name Smith. So, I went to my contact list and appended a number to each of the Smiths, so the last names read Smith1, Smith2, Smith3, etc.

Next time I attempted synchronization, I saw the following detail at the end of the log:

IGNORE=Smith4

I then printed out Smith4's details (so I would have them for later re-entry), then deleted Smith4's contact record. The next attempt at synchronization worked perfectly, no more problems.

So, based on several hours of attempting to solve this problem using the various fixes proposed here and elsewhere, I suggest that folks with the "error code 0x80040fb3" error first try looking at the end of their synchronization lot to see if there is a contact tagged with IGNORE, then deleting that contact. It is possible that by doing this first, you might avoid the need to delete all the contact photos, strip out the attachments to contacts, etc.

Lastly, my thanks to everyone here on this forum for sharing their experience. It is a real pleasure to visit a forum where everyone is so polite and articulate.

Just a post-script here:

I examined the corrupt contact in detail, and found that due to an error during data entry, I had the suite number of the contact (852) in the data field for the state or province. That was the only anomaly I could find in this contact. I wonder if that was sufficient to screw the synchronization up?

Thanks to everyone for the tips. I viewed my Log and found the troublemaking Event, but can't find it in Outlook itself (not in the list of events, nothing came up in a search of events).

Any ideas? Thanks in advance for any help.

I've figured out my problem. All events that were killing the Sync were in some way linked to Google Calendar Sync. Removing them all (one by one, thanks to the log stopping at the first troubled event) has worked.

Workaround error message
 

First, I set the synch options to only synch calendar and the calendars synched ok. Then I sent the option to synch only the mail and it failed. My wife had attached a number of Facebook photos to her BlackBerry contacts so seeing that photos could be a problem, I went to the field mapping in the advanced options for mail and disabled the photo synching. Now, mail and calendars synch fine.

Funny thing is that she did not have this problem in the earlier verison of the BlackBerry desktop.

A different fix to this error
 

I've just had this error, and the problem I found was it was erroring when it was syncing the email.
I checked through all the emails and all seemed ok, however in my Outlook 2007 it had moved one of the messages to the 'Junk E-mail' folder which the sync software really didn't like.
I moved the message back in to the inbox, and hey presto, it's all working fine.

After removing each image in about 150 of my Outlook contacts, the sync still failed. But this fix resolved the issue. Thanks!

Thank you Beez for the fix on error code 0x80040fb3
 

Beez,

I felt like there might be some issue with something in one or more of the Contacts in my Outlook 2007 address book that could be generating this message. It never occurred to me that images could be the problem.


Based upon you great feedback, I went back removed the images from the contacts and all is working great now!

Many thanks for taking the time to post this valuable information.

Six down.. What are they going to do on 11...

I have had the same problem with my new Tour 9630 (syncing with Outlook 2007 running on a Windows XP Pro netbook), and am using the steps outlined in here to take care of it. Seems to be working!

One thing I'm not worried about is if this is caused by some flaw in the BB Facebook app. I didn't add any photos to the contacts on my device; they were added automatically by the Facebook app the first time it synced up.

I have a Tour and was having the same error code problem while trying to sync. After seeing the above solutions, I decided to take a look at my contacts in Outlook 2007. I found two that I had no idea what they were. No names, no information other than each had a phone number. I deleted these and am now able to sync with no problems.

The solution to this for me, as Smocker99 pointed out above was to not have Intellisync copy the Contact pictures. Once I removed that in the map fields section the problem went away. Thanks Smocker!!!!

Ending the Pain
 

If you are having the error as stated above - (but it is effecting your calendar section only) Try this: Open DM. Choose Backup and Restore. Choose Advanced. Accept Mass Media as ok. Select calendar files (3 files). Move to Back up and don't forget to save under the "file" pull down. (THIS IS FOR BACKUP PURPOSE ONLY). Now for the fix: CLEAR your calendar files in your device using this module in Backup and Restore. (This will delete them from you device). Now go under synchronize. Select Sychronization configuration from left navigation pane. Choose Sychronization wizard. Change configuration for Outlook to sychronize ONE WAY to device. Exit utiltity. Pull battery on device. Restart DM. Sychronize. Viola! You are up and sychronizing again. Don't forget to change your settings back so you can sychronize both ways.

Here's another possible fix that has worked for me on two different occasions when all the other proposed solutions failed. The Blackberry Pearl has those odd memory issues from time to time, some of which can be fixed by taking the battery out for a couple of minutes and then restarting. When I tried this, all of my synch issues also resolved themselves.

Thanks, PanEuropean for the tips on reading through the Synchronization Log.....this has saved me an incredible amount of time too.....I had been reading through some of the earlier posts & had tried a few of those reconfiguations....but the easiest, by far, was looking for the 'IGNORE' message at the end of the log & attending to each item that came up.....I only had to re-synch about 6 times, to catch the 6 entries that had been causing the 0x80040fb3 error message. I had also disabled the 'photo/picture' synching in the 'address book' set up. I think this may be the 'fb' (Facebook?) reference in the error code, because part of my errors began right after I had addd Facebook to my BlackBerry & in the synching, it didn't like synching photos/pictures!!

Look for the "Ignore" item
 

I got the same message, but have a huge number of photo-linked contacts. I took a cue from one of the other posts, and opened the log. I found an "Ignore" item in my appts, deleted and resynchronized. Success!

US Airways Calendar Entries Caused 0x80040fb3 error
 

I'd been syncing with no problems, and then started to receive the 0x80040fb3 error code. This thread gave me the clue I needed to solve the problem, although it didn't originate with attachments to contacts or calendar items. I tried to think what could have changed since my last successful sync, and the only thing that came to mind was the addition of flight schedule information downloaded directly from the US Airways site to Outlook. These calendar entries contained no attachments, but they all had several links to various US Airways web pages (check-in, etc.). I deleted all of the links, and cured the error problem.

Thanks....
 

This has been aggrivating me with my new Tour... But now seems to be all fine. THANKS FOR THIS POST!!!! LIFESAVER!!

Ignore messages on log
 

Hi all - thanks for the advice above - I'd downloaded the World Cup Fixtures into Outlook and the problem started after that.
Oddly, most of the fixtures had been set as appointments, which were fine, but 2 were set as meetings, with a webaddress in the "To" field, and which showed as "ignore" on the log. Deleted them both and put them back in as appointments -and all fine!

Attachment No My Problem
 

I appreciate this fix - but it didn't work for me. First, I didn't have any attachments with my calendar. Then I removed all contacts with attachments.

I ran the synch and still I get this error message. Has anybody else experienced this challenge that could help me out.

thx
 

The answer for me was also to check the synch log and kill the contact that had the IGNORE tag.

Thanks!

The problem for me is the contacts. I have delete all attached photos. The log does show 'IGNORE + unspecified' I can't find which one is unspecified as I seem to have hundreds of them in the log. So what now. Any suggestions?

Bad Photo
 

After looking at the solution provided I started going through my Outlook contacts and deleting photos. About the fourth or fifth contact I discovered a contact that said it had a photo attachment, but it wasn't showing up when I opened the contact. When I tried to open the attachment I got an error message that the file was not available. I deleted that attachement and reran the synch with no other probelms. Turned out to be just one bad attachment/photo was corrupting the entire process.

Easy fix. Try this first.
 

Wish I had tried this first. I deleted all my contact pics to no avail. Then found this forum that helped immediately.

Open BBDM and select sync. Select configure sync, then the configure option. I was having problems with address book so I selected it and clicked on advanced. From there I selected map fields. Scroll down the device field until you find picture. Double click the entry to remove the sync arrows.

Wish I had done this before removing all the pics, because my Tour worked fine with them embedded. Since it's frozen, I switched back to my old Curve in order to have a phone while a replacement came. Spent hours trying to fix, and this fix took under 2 minutes.

Found a simple solution myself: When accepting invitations from others from Outlook on your bb, some invitations put data in the Notes field of the appointment. Intellisync can't deal with these.
Solution:

1. check any Outlook calendar invitations on your hand-held and clear the Notes to that invitation.
2. Sync runs smooth after that.

I am tired of synching problems with BB
 

I have done all the above things many times with no success.. still received the dreaded 0x80040fb3 until I finally told it to do nothing with conflicting items... finally the sync worked...

The Blackberry is a strange device - it works for a while, then decides to delete all your previous calendar data... so now that I have actually synched the BB successfully, I have synched by iPod Touch to my Ouotlook calendar as a backup because the iPod ALWAYS works properly!

I have been using BB's for many years, and teach courses about them and find I spend a lot of time troubleshooting for people.. how depressing is that?
D :)

Rebooting works
 

This is an awesome thread with great info on resolving this problem. I did follow most of the suggestions and have had success with resetting the DM synchronization settings, removing the calendar attachments.

But I also want to note that sometimes just closing DM, disconnecting the phone from the PC, rebooting my Blackberry Bold, and restarting DM resolves the problem.

I had this problem with BB Destktop 6.0 and found that no matter what I did it got worse. I had 3 entires in my address book, no entries in my phone list and then 50 addresses copied incorrectly etc.

I decided to go the long route. I reset the Bold 9700 and then started fresh and resynched. I also went back to the BB Destktop 5.1 and will leave it there until 6.0 has a patch released.

Now my BB is running faster than ever and I have more items installed and entered then ever before. Looks like I needed to restart the BB.

Here is an easy solution that worked for me.
 

Please check out the screenshot of my methodology.

please see what worked for me - it is an easy solution

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

I was having the same problem...and after trying much of what was suggested, to no avail, I simply took out my battery from my BB, put it back in and Voila...everything synched with no errors.

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

I tried deleting any photos and images in the Outlook Contacts, but I get the 0x80040fb3 Error still. Do icons for attached documents or emails count?

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

I tried deleting any photos and images in the Outlook Contacts, but I get the 0x80040fb3 Error still. Do icons for attached documents or emails count?

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

Thanks for all the info regarding this problem. The "Ignore" tag was the culprit here too

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

BeeJ,
Thanks so much! Your efforts were a huge help to me and I appreciate you taking the time to figure the problem out and sharing the solution.

Deb

0x800040fb3 error syncing Address Book after Sprint Bold 9650 upgrade to 5.0.0.130
 

KB14818-"Error encounter. Error code

I found one old contact causing the issue - email populated, email 2 blank, email 3 populated.

Funny things:
1) I have been USB syncing with 5.0.0.699 for awhile without seeing this issue and I have a Tour 9630 syncing to the same Address Book without issue.
2) I have not updated this contact in about 3+ months.

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

Hey!! Thanks for this great thread.

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

Storm2 : error code - 0x80040fb3

No photos or attachments in calendar or address book and still got the error code - 0x80040fb3. In the Desk Top Manager, I reset all sync configarations and then I deleted the all address book data in my storm2 and re-sync. Oviously the data in the phone was corrupted. You may have to hard boot. Works perfect.

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

Thanks for the solutions! This is the most direct explanation yet. DM also kept crashing. I pulled the battery, and eventually found in the log that my problem was in two calendar events, that have been there since I started with BB 4 months ago. Both appointments were recurring with no end date (birthdays, bill payments). My Synch log also stated Ignore (event) - I had to delete from both Device and Outlook, and synch twice to eliminate the culprits.

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

Yes. Hard boot is Ok,thanks.

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

Hi All

You can turn off the photo synchronization between pc (outlook) and device as follows - I tried this after deleteing all photos and still had the error code - 0x80040fb3 - Launch Black Desktop Software. Click on Organizer, Click on Configure settings, click on Address Book, Click on advanced tab, Click on Map fields, Scroll down until you see Picture with bidirectional arrow and Contact photo. Click on the bidirectional arrow. This will remove the synchronization or transfer of photo in outlook to Device. Click OK, ok, ok Hit Sync and it should work. My device was a curve. Hope this helps!!

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error, Contact Email problem
 

Hi
Thanks for being a life saver.
After spending countless hours on the phone with Sprint Tech support after switching my device from a broken to a new 9630 I kept on getting errors this 0x80040fb3 error.
After stumbling into this group, I finally got it resolved, Thanks to all

But i would like to add a few notes, to make it easier for someone who has the same problem.

1)when using DS version 6, the logs are hidden in the upper right corner next to the ? when you click on the down arrow it will open a line saying Support resources, opening the log.

2) for those who are using Outlook like me (BTW I have more then 4200 contacts) when looking at the log it will only show Last names so I had many company contact records without last names it showed "<Unspecified>" I had to export all my contacts to an Excel sheet, then looking at tho log where it stopped a counted the lines to closest last name, to know which contact is the problem.

3)Now finally what was the problem? after the 3rd time deleting contacts i looked to compare the 3 in error, i realized that those contacts which had an Email address only at Email 2 and NOT in Email 1 in Outlook those were the conflicts, so I sorted my contacts by Email address2 and fixed those contacts, GUESS WHAT it fixed all the problems we had for the last few weeks.

Thanks again

Abe

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

This problem is a nightmare!

I was able to find a workaround (trying to sync contacts). Each time I tried to sync the sync failed, but when I then went into my contacts on the handset I could see how far it got. The last one listed was always the problem so I went back into Outlook Addresses on the PC to see whether there were any obvious problems. Failing to set a default email address when an email address was listed was the most common problem. I fixed the problem and then synced again, and kept going in that way until I managed to get all of them over. Thank goodness I don't have a calendar to contend with too...

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

Beej, Information shared by you helped me understand that the problem is solvable.

All, If you dont think that there are too many mapping errors in the outlook contact sync - please read on to another possible solution. When syncing the outlook contacts,
1. Run BB DM Outlook Contact sync.
2. pay close attention on which record number does BB DM fails when WRITING records.
3. Export your contacts to xls or access file.
4. Go the record number where DM failed.
5. Remove that contact from Outlook Contacts
6. Repeat step 1 till sync completes.

This process is good for low single digit contact errors. I was able to complete the sync with 2 runs. In one of records it was not photos that was the problem - Blackberry Curve it seems could not handle a different symbol instead of @ in the email address.

Re: How I finally sorted out that 0x80040fb3 error
 

Your efforts were a huge help to me and I appreciate