Critical communications systems have failed to start

[actaeon]

I recently bought a Jornada 568, replacing my old 545.
I upgraded to ActiveSync 3.5, and everything was working fine, including my wife's 545 being able to sync correctly through the new ActiveSync and USB cradle.

A few days ago I tried to sync my 568, and it failed, with the following error message:
Critical communications services have failed to start. To correct this error, quit all programs and restart Windows.

I have been unable to sync since, with this one Jornada. My wife's 545, and my old 545, have no problems. The connection is made fine, and it recognises the partnership, but gets this error.

The backup/restore option is greyed out, but the Explore icon is ok; when I try clicking on that, however, I get the following message:
Invalid password or IP address: Critical communications services have failed to start due to invalid authentication information on the desktop computer. To correct this error, please disconnect and reconnect the mobile device. If the problem persists, exit all applications and restart Windows.

Naturally, restarting Windows does nothing.
I tried deleting the partnership and starting agin, but it now won't create a partnership with this 568.

Any ideas?

[Tiger_Dave]

Hi

I have a Compaq IPAQ and am having exactly the same problem.

I have re-installed Activesync with no success.

Have you managed to get yours working?

[AnswerDude]

Are you running firewall or security software on the desktop? Temporary disable it and try again.

[Tiger_Dave]

Excellent. It works. :) :) :)

Thanks

[AnswerDude]

And if you want to run both activesync and your security program together, you should be able to configure the firewall to allow activesync to run and use certain ports. There are more details in this article from MS;
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/help/activesync/default.mspx