Palm Pre

Since the release of the Pre there have been more than a few App Store hiccups. For instance, how besides residents of the U.S.A. everyone else has  a gimped version of the Catalog. We are unable to view paid apps, if that not enough with the release of the 1.3.5.1 some people -such as my self- have run into another problem.

Two weeks ago I updated my palm to 1.3.5.1 happy to hear of the new shift which stores the apps on the ROM, I dove in thinking  ”great it saves battery life too. This thing can use all the juice it can get”. After my phone updated I wanted to try downloading apps from the Catalog rather than Preware. I went to go download the Seismograph app thinking it would be neat to use in the car. However, my excitement when out the window when it said “Failed To Install” and then a pop up appeared stating “Restart Required”. So I restarted it and tried again. I thought maybe it needed a restart. Yet again, it was a failure. I tried different apps, nothing worked.

I tried talking to tech support and after 100s of canned responses I finally got an answer from them which scared me half way to hell. Webos Doctor, any Pre owner knows that using this, especially with patches and hacks installed, is a one way ticket to a weekend of boredom, with dozens of removals and reinstalls. Having done this once already I did not want to go through with it again.

Lucky, I did find something, something which put a smile on my face and the phone and store back on my A list. I went into WebOS Quick Install (not to be mistaken with WebOS Doctor. One will leave you crying the other rather satisfied.) Went to the [Blue Down Arrow] —-> Picked [WebOS Internals Feed (all)] from the drop down menu and there it was. Emergency Migration Helper, this little bugger saved my weekend. The exact thing I needed:

“Install this package on your Pre to help webOS 1.3.5 migrate all your homebrew packages from /var to /media/cryptofs/apps. If you are having problems install applications from the Palm App Catalog, and you have previously installed homebrew services, plugins, patches or themes, then you should install this package. Installing this package just runs a script to do the migration fixes and then removes itself. You should only need to run it once, then the device will restart the user interface and the app migration will then proceed in the background, so give it 30 minutes before you try the app catalog again.”

Every word went by like a Star Wars intro: Fixes, 1.3.5, plugins, patches, APP CATALOG! It was as if someone heard my prayers….

Actually, it wasn’t so glorified and happy-ending right away. Just like the description from above says, it did take a while for the Pre to do its thing. However, for any of you who have gone through this, I am letting you know your not alone and that Web OS Internals has a remedy. As for the paid apps not so much, we are still getting screwed over. However, why I had to go through with all of this in the first please is beyond me. Packet went missing? Installation went wrong? No Idea, what I know now is that this worked an I am back on track.