I cannot get Bluetooth to work properly on my iPaq 5550!

Hi everyone

I am a newbie to Web forums, so please bear with me! This is going to be a long post I'm afraid!

I am also a newcomer to Bluetooth on my iPaq 5550 and Dell home desktop PC, so will be going into a lot of detail, explaining what I have tried so far to get Bluetooth to work correctly!

My Dell Dimension 8200 PC System Specs

Intel Pentium 4 CPU, running at 2 GHz
2 GB of RDRAM
40 GB Maxtor hard disk (I also have an external LaCie 160 GB FireWire hard disk)
Samsung 16 x DVD-ROM drive
Sony DRU-700A 12 x DVD writer drive. This is a DVDEER (DVD-everything except RAM!). Sorry I could not resist that new made-up acronym!
Connect 3D ATI Radeon 9200s graphics card with 128 MB of RAM
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Value 1024 sound card with 8 MB of RAM
Belkin F8T012 USB Bluetooth 2.0+EDR dongle

Operating System and Application Software Installed

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2
Microsoft ActiveSync 4.2
WIDCOMM Blueooth Software 4.0.1.2401

(I have many more applications installed than the above by the way, but for the purposes of this post, I only wanted to list the relevant software for Bluetooth.)

HP iPaq 5550

Microsoft Windows CE 4.2 (AKA Windows Pocket PC 2003)
Windows CE 4.2 is listed in the Asset Viewer program, Pocket PC 2003 is listed on the back of the palmtop itself.

The latest Bluetooth firmware update I have is 1.7.0 – 1.8.0 and the software and driver versions are both 1.4.1.60 (there are no later versions available on HP's firmware download Web site.)
The overall iPaq ROM version is 1.10.10 ENG (English)
(These are also listed in the Asset Viewer)

Right, now that I have the system specs out of the way, on to my Bluetooth problems.

I see some of you have managed to get Bluetooth via ActiveSync working on an iPaq palmtop PC. However, I am still struggling to get the darned thing to work first time, every time!

I was led into thinking that Bluetooth was one of the simplest things to set up on a Windows XP desktop or laptop PC and iPaq palmtop! Well, after my nightmares I can safely say I am wrong! I know I am a newbie to Bluetooth, having never set it up before, but I still thought it would be way easier than the nightmare I have gone through in the last few months! In fact, I have been short of chucking both my Dell desktop PC and iPaq out of the window!

I have been Googling for, finding and reading ActiveSync over Bluetooth help pages on the Web for what must be over two weeks now! I am pleased there are a lot of other Bluetooth users (not just UK-based) who are in the same boat as I am (some have even worse problems than I do!). Everyone seems to have a different opinion on how to fix their Bluetooth problems and a lot of forums are only applicable to using Bluetooth with mobile phones, which does not help me at all!

One of the first things I did was to disable the Microsoft Bluetooth stack by renaming the files BTH.INF to BTH.BAK and I also renamed another Microsoft Bluetooth file (whose name I cannot remember) to have the extension .BAK. Some people have had better luck using the Microsoft Bluetooth drivers, but I would rather use the WIDCOMM ones as I am now used to the way the software works (after a lot of trial and error!).

After initially installing the Belkin adapter (a very recent model I might add) and trying to configure WIDCOMM 4.0, I eventually ended up with four VBSPs (virtual Bluetooth serial ports.) This was the first problem: without having to edit the Registry, is there any way to get rid of the VBSBs I don’t need?

If it makes any difference, I use the Belkin Bluetooth dongle in my Belkin USB hub, rather than a USB socket on the PC itself.

Oh yes, before I forget, you simply cannot go into Device Manager, right-click on the VBSPs you don't need and choose Uninstall! Although the extra ports will appear to be deleted, the next time you restart your PC (or even complete the Uninstall program while you are still in Windows), they will get automatically reinstalled, which I don't want! Another stupid Microsoft idea! Any way around this?

This is not really an issue now, as I only have two VBSPs set up now (see below.) But just in case the above problem happens again, I would love to know how to solve it.

The third time (yes, third!) I uninstalled and reinstalled the WIDCOMM software, the extra VBSPs had vanished! Maybe they get automatically deleted after you uninstall the Bluetooth software? I don't really know!

I added two more VBSPs from the Local Services section of my WIDCOMM software, COM3 and COM4. I set up COM3 in the initial setup wizard and added COM4 when the wizard was completed. I am not sure if you need to set up two on the desktop PC side for ActiveSync, but I did just in case. I did not add any in the Client Applications section! This was the mistake I made in the past! I set up the first serial port in Local Services and the second in Client Applications!

Right, this is my main problem:

When I switch the Belkin dongle off and on again from the system tray (right-click on the Bluetooth icon and choose "Stop the Bluetooth device" and then choose "Start the Bluetooth device") or unplug the dongle and plug it in again and then restart it, the iPaq refuses to connect to the Dell PC. What happens is when I initiate a Bluetooth ActiveSync connection, the iPaq will say "Connection established" and the Dell PC will say "Bluetooth connection successful", but then the iPaq will freeze on the "Connecting to host" window. This is nothing to do with encryption in Bluetooth -- I have tried it with iPaq encryption both on and off. In the "Bluetooth Connection successful" bubble, it shows it has connected on the selected serial port, but yet the iPaq cannot authenticate.

Only when I checked my ActiveSync Connection Settings again, I found out what was happening. The serial port had defaulted to COM1!

What was worse than that, the two Bluetooth serial ports I had set up in the WIDCOMM software (COM3 and COM4) were not on the list! Why?? Surely it cannot take more than a few seconds for all Bluetooth serial ports to "start up" when your dongle is switched on?

Only after repeated exiting and re-entering of the Connection Settings dialogue box four more times, did the serial ports reappear! I don't want to keep doing this rubbish every time I have to unplug my Bluetooth dongle and plug it in again!

Sometimes, when I double-click the VBSPs in Device Manager, I see this error message:

"Currently, this hardware device is not connected to the computer. (Code 45)

To fix this problem, reconnect this hardware device to the computer."

You cannot physically connect a virtual serial port to a PC Microsoft! Arrrgggh!
Also the VBSPs are greyed out.

I know the devices must be connected, as my Bluetooth dongle has been switched on! What is going on Microsoft?!

Surely, as soon as I switch my Belkin Bluetooth adapter on, the Bluetooth serial ports should be recognized and started immediately and automatically and appear in the ActiveSync serial port options? Believe me they do none of these things! After all, I have the check box "Startup automatically" switched on in both serial port settings in the PC Bluetooth software.

By the way, I do not want to reinstall ActiveSync and the WIDCOMM drivers yet again!

So is there any way I can make ActiveSync stay on the COM4 port I have set up every time I want to use Bluetooth with the iPaq?

When Bluetooth is working correctly, the "Connecting to Host" window briefly changes to "User Authenticated" and then the Bluetooth connection is complete and the PC will also say "Bluetooth connection successful" in the system tray by the Bluetooth icon.

Then ActiveSync on the PC will automatically open and start syncing both machines. So I know there is nothing wrong with my Belkin dongle or the WIDCOMM software! The problems seem to be with ActiveSync!

One little undocumented feature that Microsoft don't tell you about is if the iPaq is already connected to the PC via Bluetooth and you try to pull down the serial port list box in ActiveSync Connection Settings on the Dell desktop PC, it will be greyed out until you disconnect the Bluetooth ActiveSync connection from the iPaq. Only then can you pull down the list box and change the port if necessary. This is very confusing at first and had me scratching my head until HP Technical Support explained to me this was meant to happen! To quote Microsoft's stupid response in their Web-based knowledgebases on other subjects "This behaviour is by design"!

When I go into ActiveSync after my PC has initially booted up, the check box for the "Allow connections to one of the following" is always switched off for some strange reason (known only to Microsoft). In short, probably an ActiveSync 4.2 bug! This is crazy! Is there a way I can keep this check box switched on all the time?

Also, when I boot up Windows XP Home, can I make ActiveSync ignore the "Serial or USB connection not found" error message and get it to work with Bluetooth as soon as I plug in and start the Beklin adapter?

I really don’t understand why the above cannot be done! Before you ask, I know I can use USB for ActiveSync, but I cannot always use USB for file transfers and syncing, because my iPaq hardware QWERTY keyboard does not have a USB socket in it and I use this keyboard a lot! Besides, using Bluetooth is so much cooler!

I have already asked HP Technical Support about this problem, but they have been less than helpful so far! And whatever you do don't ask Microsoft for advice! They will ask you to contact the manufacturer of your palmtop PC! And ActiveSync is their own product for goodness sake! You won't even find it on their Web site until you really search for it!

I have even tried deleting the pairing between the iPaq and PC and re-pairing them, but the same problems rear their ugly head once again!

Once again, sorry for the long post, but I hope you can help me sort out all this mess!

Thanks a lot in advance.

Alastair C Parker[/size][/size]