iSync failure
Troubleshooting, Communications General, S60 3rd Edition, UIQ 3, S60 5th Edition, Symbian^3Q. I've been syncing my Symbian smartphone happily to my Mac for over a month, yet all of a sudden the iSync has started failing, with error: “[Nokia N97 mini] Connection to the phone failed. Please make sure that your phone is turned on.” I'm tech savvy and have tried power cycling both phone and Mac. What's next?
A. Aha, I've seen this before, though not often. The problem is that the Bluetooth pairing has become corrupt in the phone and there's a simple solution: Go into 'Settings>Connectivity>Bluetooth' and tap on the 'Paired devices' tab. Now highlight your Mac's (or PC's connection) and then use 'Options>Delete'.
You'll probably also want to delete the pairing on the desktop too, so that a new Bluetooth connection can be set up from scratch. On the Mac, you need to 'Open Bluetooth preferences', highlight the phone's name and then click on the '-' icon. Then you can 'Setup Bluetooth device' and the wizard will lead you through the simple pairing again.
As usual, on the phone, on that 'Paired devices' tab, you'll want to again 'Set as authorised' your desktop, so that you don't have to keep bothering to acknowledge connections between the two bits of kit.
(This original text of mine was originally published in Smartphone Essentials magazine and re-purposed here with kind permission)