LG CU720 Shine - PBook Sync/backup software

[desertrek]

BTW anyone found a solution to the lack of phone book sync/backup software for this phone?

No CD with CU720 in the USA... LG says susteen.com DataPilot... but DataPilot doesn't support this phone? Getting very frustrated with LG run around on this issue. I'm about ready to tell LG to put it where it won't shine... since the U.S. customers don't seem to count as much as the customers in other countries who recieve the software cd with their phone.

If anyone has info about a download of PBook software that defintely works with this phone, please let me know.

Any help is greatly appreciated?

[Phones4Bones]

Well, I did find something helpful here How to export contacts from your Shine to Outlook using Bitpim > Forums > LG Community

[desertrek]

Thanks for the post,

I did try to use bitpim but it seems that the biggest problem is finding a properly functioning usb driver that works with any of the sync software that is out there. The phone it's self gives you three options for linking up with a computer via usb data cable. Music sync, Mass storage and data service. Music sync links directly to Windows media player for downloading mp3, wma, music files and it works fine. Mass storage gives a direct usb link to the SD card for up/downloads of picture, rintones or music files striaght into folders on the card and it works fine.

Data Service connection via usb is the problem... So far the only thing it's good for is charging the phone. when you put the phone into data service mode and plug into usb you get the good old "Found new hardware" Windows xp pop up. I've tried at least four different "LG usb" modem/data connection drivers and only accomplished a near phone crash with the last one... oops that's enough for trial and error for me. I laid out too much cash to kill a new phone.

I'm guessing that ATT doesn't want anyone to have that capabilty so they can sell their $1.99 a month "contacts only" online back up service. The stereo mp3 music player, 2meg camera, cool look and other stuff on this phone is very nice but they forgot about making it fully functional for the people that actually plan to use it as a business tool for scheduling apts., tracking business contacts and sync to outlook. So for now, until that problem is solved, As much as I like this phone, I could not recommend it to others.

I guess, shame on me for thinking that in the USA and ten years with AT&T, I would get the same functionality and services that most of the rest of the world is getting with comperable LG phones. I confess, I got spoiled by my old SonyEricsson and Motorola MPx220.

I'll get off my soap box now... sorry if I bored anyone.

So if anyone comes up with that right combo of usb driver and or software PLEASE let me know.

[Phones4Bones]

desertrek,

so, here is what i did to back up my shine's contacts to my computer. It worked great. I got this info from lgcommunity.com I found the drivers there as well, posted under the file library as DRIVERS: File Library

First I Installed the software listed above and then hooked up my phone via USB Cable. ( I didn't change any usb settings i just left them at the default setting when i got the phone). I then Launched BitPim which showed "Other CDMA phone on COMx" (where x is the COM port being used) I Chose Edit, Settings and I changed the Phone Type to "LG-VX8700".

(You can then try just simply slicking the Get Data From phone icon and checking the phone book box and then OK. to download all your contacts from your phone to your comp.)

The rest was difficult to figure out but it worked and it is safe to try without fear of killing your phone!

In Bitpim
File> Export> CSV Contacts> All(# of contacts)> OK

In Outlook
File> Import and Export> Import from another program or file> Next> Comma Separated Values (Windows)*> Next> browse> select bitpim.csv file> Next> Highlight “contacts” and click Next> Check the “import bitpim.csv into folder: contacts” box.

When you do this a window will pop up which allows you to map custom fields. This is the tricky part. On the Left you have the Bitpim file and on the right you cave the Outlook file. To align everything properly, you need to drag the correct value from the bitpim.csv file and drop it into the correct field in Outlook. Here are some helpful hints but it all depends on what data you have in your phone.

Bitpim.csv / Outlook field
Names_full--> Name
Names_first--> First Name
Names_last--> Last Name
Numbers_number--> Mobile Phone
Emails_emial--> Email Address

When you are done mapping your contacts into the correct fields, click OK to go back to the main window where you click finish to complete the import.


*Note: If the CSV (window) format doesn’t work completely, follow the same process with the CSV (DOS) format and it should work fine.

[desertrek]

Thanks,

Great info and I will try it just as you spelled it out for me. Out of curiousity, did you have access to the phones calendar or SMS messages, call history or anything else besides the contacts in the bitpim program from the "get phone data?" BitPim looks like a great little program...

[Phones4Bones]

Originally Posted by desertrek Thanks, Great info and I will try it just as you spelled it out for me. Out of curiousity, did you have access to the phones calendar or SMS messages, call history or anything else besides the contacts in the bitpim program from the "get phone data?" BitPim looks like a great little program...

Well, bitpim is a great program, the only thing is that the it normally only works with CDMA phones. I found out that the shine worked on accident and it's the only non CDMA phone that i know of that works. So of course not all of Bitpim's functions will work with the Shine. but you can have access to the File system so there fore you should be able to access everything that is stored on your phones memory and not the sim card. i haven't spent much time trying to figure out where everything is on the File system but, once you can view it, just look around WITHOUT CHANGING ANYTHING and find out where things are. you should be able to get the information you need there. Good luck, and sorry i couldn't be of more help.

[mooresmsr]

It looks to me like Bitpim will do everything I want for the LG Shine phone (basically backup/restore my phone book), but I'm having trouble installing the drivers. I downloaded the zip file from the LG site, and unzipped it, but there are no "install" (setup/exe/???) files. When I try to exec the .inf files through start/run, it just launches notepad. How do I get the drivers installed?

S Moore

[mooresmsr]

So I plugged the phone into the USB cable, then plugged the USB cable into a USB 2.0 slot in my PC. I got messages about new hardware, and when it asked about drivers, I pointed it to the unzipped win2k driver file, and the drivers "installed" but didn't work, probably because they are not for winxp. Where can I find winxp drivers for this phone?

S Moore

[Phones4Bones]

well, it should have worked by just having them on your hardrive, even for the XP. If you need to, just google it.

[shinywannabe]

incredible - i must have spent 2 - 4 hours trying to access the CU720 using bitpim.

first i installed the w2k drivers by right clicking the inf files and selecting install.

that didn't take apparently - don't know for certain - rebooted a couple of times along the way and also selected the w2k drivers upon usb new hardware found detection during which it prompted me for three drivers that got installed a second time (first was the context menu method)

finally got bitpim to see the phone as other cdma on com8, only after having to hack around on the net for msvcp71.dll - why sourceforge didn't include this i can only imagine....

follwed the recommended change to lg-vx8700 and was able to read the file structure, but unable to get bitpim to upload using get phone data.....

[desertrek]

Sorry for all your trouble and time invested. Seems that we are in the same boat, I got just as far as you did with about the same amount of time invested. I finally caved and bought the 2 bucks a month ATT online backup service. I figured time save goofing with this was at least worth that much until someone comes up with a true functioning software that will sync all or at least access and backup everything to a computer. I'm still watching this thread for the magic solution...

[mooresmsr]

My investigation has shown that an LG Shine is not an LG Shine. The one that Verizon sells can be backed up with bitpim, the one that AT&T sells can't be backed up by anything. I am still within the 30 day "give it back" window on my two LG Shines and I think I'm going to get something that does a better job of PC-to-phone connection. Any suggestions?

[Phones4Bones]

Originally Posted by shinywannabe follwed the recommended change to lg-vx8700 and was able to read the file structure, but unable to get bitpim to upload using get phone data.....

Did you try accessing the file system? Go to View>Filesystem. A little orange icon will appear to the bottom left. Click on it and the a blue folder with a plus sign shows up which allows you to view the shines file system. Once you do that, then try to export your phones contacts to outlook, not using the get phone data icon but the exporting option under File on the toolbar. You might even search around in the filesystem to find the spot where the contacts are stored and backup that file to your computer. I dont know if that will work but it might be worth giving it a try.

[Eric47]

i have a feeling that if you goto an ATT store you can buy the proper USB cable and CD to access the phone for a reasonable price.

[mooresmsr]

I bought the USB cable when I got the phone. It connects the phone to the PC just fine. Only problem is that all it does is charge the battery. There is no--repeat NO-- CD with appropriate software on it. There is no software that touches the LG CU720 Shine. Period. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nichevo. Bupkis. Zero. None. Wonder why I'm upset? Wonder why others are upset?

[Phones4Bones]

just as a quick piece of info, all LG phones use the same drivers to communicate with computers. so if you can find the drivers for any LG phone, then they will work for the shine and every other LG phone. Google is a good tool for finding places where the drivers are posted.

[mooresmsr]

Have all the drivers. the phone says it's connected, and the XP messages say the hardware works fine. Bitpim doesn't recognize the phone. There is no other software out there that does backup. Nothing. Nada. See previous message. The only choice you have is the for-dollars options AT&T gives you to upload into their system. There is NOTHING that will connect this phone to the PC and make the PC useful as a phone management system. NOTHING. I am eager to be found wrong, but so far there is no Google/Yahoo/search engine interface that I've found anywhere.

[Eric47]

have you thought about just backing them up to your sim card?

[mooresmsr]

To be quite truthful, the reason for the push to put it on the PC is to get around a bunch of restrictions built into the cell phone world. I'd like a much easier way to manage the phone book, including adding my own pics, ringtones, groupings, notes, etc. These can be done with the phone, but either they cost money (it's just the damn principle -- why should I have to give AT&T extra $ for a music clip used as a ringtone?) or they are done much more easily on the PC. Phones either don't have a keyboard, or have a pretend keyboard, and navigation with wheels, scrollers, joysticks, toggle switches, etc. is such a pain I would rather do it where I can use a mouse and a real keyboard. It just pisses me off that the technology is so locked up I can't even back the phone numbers up (ignoring any editing) except by using the AT&T $2/month backup service. And putting the numbers/phone book on the sim card is just as much an issue as not backing up at all. People loose their phone books because they loose/trash the phone, not because something electronic happens. I'm just pissed. Why is this so difficult? Where's the open world?

[shinywannabe]

P4B,

maybe i'll try fooling about with it some more later this week.

didn't you mention earlier though that you sucessfully used the get phone data command?

on a cu720?

my test was on a dell xpsp2 laptop using bitpim 1.0.5

the w2k drivers worked after either the reboot or the directed install during usb device discovery

the directory read went pretty well, was able to browse through many many directories, found the folder with the ringtones, pics, etc....

got lazy and attempted a full tree backup of the LGAPP directory - which after many minutes of data collection crashed at the save as zip file dialog - bitpim needs a correction there - that operation should spool to a win32 memory mapped file while in progress i think would be better.

anyway i had intended to grep though this dump to find the phonebook. but i'm not quite pissed off enough to hack at it this evening or to give up my drinking to join the bitpim team if even my skills would yield worthwhile results....

i'm definitely pissed though - with the same point of view from mooresmsr - who in the f wants to manage a phone with it's crappy little user interface and/or pay to put pics and tones on the damn thing!?

[mooresmsr]

Shinywannabe,

question -- I'm running win XP Pro SP2 + lots of other maintenance. When I tried to use the win2k drivers, I got the XP messages about the drivers installed, but the hardware probably wouldn't work (and it didn't). After I went to the control panel/system/hardware tree and deleted the phone, then reinstalled using the standard XP "I'll go get the drivers mystelf" mode, I got messages about new hardware found, installed OK, should work now. However, bitpim still wouldn't recognize the phone no matter what option I picked (LG XV8700, XV8000, other CDMA device, etc.) I couldn't download anything from the phone tree. I thought it might have something to do with the way the USB connection was defined in the phone itself. There are three choices -- Music Sync, Mass Storage, Data Service, and I tried all of them with no change in the way the non-connection worked with bitpim. I even thought the problem might be caused by not having a micro-sd card in the phone, so I bought a 1GB sd card, which went right into the phone, but did not improve connectivity. So that's where I am -- XP recognized the phone OK, the USB cable appears to work (otherwise how would XP get everything installed) but no backup software/sync software will read/write the phone stuff. I'll be real interested if P4B got the transfer to work with a CU720. Everything I've read says that the problem is isolated to the CU720 -- the verizon VX8700 works fine.

Eager to find out if anything works for a more sophisticated user.

[shinywannabe]

mooresmsr,

the cu720 usb option for sure i think has to be set to data service mode to upload the file structure

no telling what other stops you're running into

at one point i found the freaking usb was partially seated on the laptop

for me i think maybe this is what ended up working:

i'm guessing that the three infs got properly installed during the found new hardware wizard

after that a reboot

connect cu720 in data service mode
launch bitpim
click the find phone button
get the found other cdma on com8 message

keep at it, it worked for me somehow on my latitude d400 xpsp2.
haven't tried it yet on desktop though....

[mooresmsr]

So far you listed all the things I've done. The problem with bitpim happens with the "recognition" process. It does find the Other CDMA device, but when you try to import the phone book and stuff, none of the options are selectable. If you change the phone type to something else (the recommends say LG VX8700), the options for importing things become selectable, but don't work. I've never gotten any data transfer to occur.

[Charlyee]

As far as I know bitpim is for CDMA devices only. It is possible to have bitpim recognize a GSM device by choosing "other CDMA device but it is not possible to synch/transfer phonebook or calendar; the only thing that works is the file system, not any other functions of BitPIM unfortunately. This has been my experience with CU500 & Windows XP.

[shinywannabe]

mooresmsr,

the farthest i've gotten was just to upload the directory structure - so i think you should be able to that too

on the view menu click the view file system option and it will show a new window with the root directory folder. right clicking on this give some additional context menu options

[mooresmsr]

I did the view file system, and it gives a nice tree structure in the left pane of the window, but that tree structure is related to info internal to bitpim. There is nothing in any pane that relates to information on the phone. Still no data transfer from the phone to bitpim. I stand by my previous contention - there is NO sync software that will recognize this phone. Period. You can get it to hook up to the PC (the USB drivers appear to work just fine), but there is nothing that can then effectively read what's on the phone, put it into any format that is decipherable, and allow the user to manage the phone on the PC. Still pissed.

Oh, and I also stepped through every LG phone definition in the bitpim list. I got some funny stuff -- the phone tried to dial some numbers -- for definitions VX 5300, 8100, 8300, 8500, 8600, 9800 and 9900, indicating to me that there is some data movement between the phone and the program, just nothing effective.

[Phones4Bones]

i wish i could be of more help to you guys. the only thing i can say is that perhaps there has been an update in the shine's software that i dont have which makes the updated phones' unable to be accessed through third party softwar like bitpim.

another thing that i noticed in your last post. The tree structure that you are seeing, does it stem from a blue folder at the top? if it does, then that is the file system and is not Bitpim internal info.

Look at the attachment for more help.

[mooresmsr]

P4B -- got one step closer. I did get the file system to open like your picture, but nothing shows up beyond the rood directory. I tried all the right-click options (refresh, etc.) but nothing more than the single folder. In your post, you called bitpim 'third-party software" -- do you know of ANY software (3d party, from AT&T, from LG) that does the sync on this phone?

[shinywannabe]

mooresmsr

you are simply incorrect. the file structure read by bitpim is from my cu720. and in fact i just successfully downloaded an mp3 using it.

the phone is as follows

hardware version = CU720 Rev1.0

firmware version = KLRZ-4.0.90201C

software version = CU720-MSM4090201C-V10b-OCT-20-2007-ATT-US

DM Client Version = Version 1.1

just did this

1 plug in cu720 in data serv mode
2 run bitpim
3 click find phone icon/button
4 bitpim finds phone as other cdma on com8
5 under edit settings change phone type to lg-vx8700 (thanks p4b!)
6 in leftmost window click filesystem icon
7 in middle window click + symbol next to folder

in fact i just stuck a 13mb mp3 into the LGAPP\Media\Midis\RingTone folder

[mooresmsr]

Oh, I'm not worthy!!!

I duplicated your process, and it does show me things from the phone! When I expand the entire tree, there are lots of folders. One obvious one is the folder called ringtones. I think I can edit an mp3 file down to make a ringtone file. When you right click and select new file, does this actually transfer the new ringtone to the phone?

Also, I can't see anything that looks like contacts -- any idea which file/folder these are in?


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