My Pulse Smartpen Won’t Transfer Notes

Note: With the addition of the new Livescribe desktop, you should review this post first. The post below is antiquated, and while still useful to those people who are currently using the 1.7 (Win) or 1.2 (Mac) Livescribe Desktop, it will not help in any way with the new 2.0.1 LD.

You’ve been using your pen successfully for days, weeks, months, and it’s been working perfectly fine the entire time. Ever since that call to tech support, telling you that you need to charge your pen before you can begin using it, anyways. (Don’t worry, I won’t tell if you don’t.)

Suddenly, you realize that your notes didn’t go through. You just got through with a big meeting, and nothing’s showing up in the Livescribe Desktop!

After checking to be sure the USB Traveling Cradle is plugged directly into a USB port, and not a hub, you’re still not getting anything.  Then, you do a hard reset of the pen.

A hard reset is where you hold down the power button on the Pulse Smartpen, until it finishes ‘Checking File Systems…’ (It’ll turn off, turn on and look like it’s recording something, then turn back off, and finally turn back on and say ‘Checking File Systems, with a progress bar underneath it. ) Make sure to hold down the power button until it’s finished checking file systems. Then, turn the pen off and put it in the cradle.

Damn, still no luck. Pen’s still not transferring information. The audio sessions are there, just like they should be in the Livescribe Desktop, it’s just the images that aren’t where they should be.

Next step is to Verify Device Drivers. Done with that, and still no luck, there’s one last thing to try.

This is to rename the ‘My Livescribe’ folder in your My Documents on your computer. It’s the last thing to try before uninstalling/reinstalling the Livescribe Desktop, or even worse, a request for logs.

It’s pretty simple, in and of itself. The way the Livescribe Desktop is set up, it saves your files and audio sessions to the My Documents section of your computer. That way, if you do have to Uninstall/Reinstall your Livescribe Desktop, then you don’t lose the information you’ve already transferred over.

It has to do with the pathway that the files are saved in. Renameing the folder severes this tie, and forces the Livescribe Desktop to create a new My Livescribe folder.

You have to be sure the pen is out of the cradle, and the Livescribe Desktop is turned off, and there’s nothing in the Icon Tray. This is very important.

On a Windows (the 1.6 Livescribe Desktop is the most current version of the Windows Livescribe Desktop, at the time of writing this post.) you go to your My Documents folder. In this folder, you should see a My Livescribe folder. Right click on the ‘My Livescribe’ folder and name it something else.

It doesn’t matter what you name it, just so long as it’s not ‘My Livescribe’ anymore.

Then, you turn on the Livescribe Desktop, and put the pen in the cradle. It’ll ask you to name your pen, and then register your pen.

It doesn’t matter what you name your pen, it’s no longer tied to the same folder it was before, so if you kicked yourself for what you named it before, now’s the best time to change that.

Registering your pen is still important, and it’ll reset the time that your year began, so take advantage of this.  Also, be sure to use existing account, instead of creating another account. That way you don’t have to worry about the ‘Cannot Register Your Pen’ error that would make you think you did something wrong.

Your information should transfer over. If not, then there’s something wrong and you’ll need to call Tech Support. (877-SCRIBE9)

For a Mac, (The 1.1 Livescribe Desktop, for the Mac, is the most recent version of the Livescribe Desktop for a Mac, at the time of the writing of this post) you want to access your Go option in the menu up top.

Now, you want to navigate to your Application-Support folder. It’s in the Library folder. There, you’ll find the ‘Livescribe’ Folder. Rename it, and follow the information above for a PC. It’s just as easy.

Have you ever had to rename your ‘My Livescribe’ folder? Ever called Tech Support? Did they solve your problem, using this method?

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Filed under: Livescribe