Parsing a blackberry .ipd file

Question

I recently lost my Blackberry. When I discovered it was gone very shortly afterwards and called it, the sim card had already been removed. I ain't seeing that Blackberry again. Ok. I am out $300, but at least my data is backed up. I had an older working Blackberry fortunately and I got a new sim card and proceeded to restore my data using Blackberry Desktop Manager. 7000+ emails, hundreds of autotext entries, sms messages, calendar events, all backing up. Looking good. Lo and behold! My Address Book contacts refuse to back up? I try advanced, and it is greyed out as an option to restore. Far more frustrating than losing my bberry in the first place is wrangling with software that defies human logic.

Ok, now I guess I will have to enter all 327 names by hand. That is, if I can read the .ipd file. I have tried the free version of ABC Amber Blackberry editor, but when I open the .ipd file, the contacts just do not show up. I am beginning to feel like the gods are conspiring against me. Then I found this: http://jabide.com/2009/03/parse-blackberry-ipd-files/

He posted a perl script that claims to extract the files. I copied and pasted the code and it did list all the different databases in my .ipd file, I was elated that a cool solution like this was published. I followed the instructions and garbled data with some discernible ascii was sent to standard output unlike a .csv file like he said it would. This is enough to make a grown man cry.

Does anyone out there have a solution to extract my address book contacts from an .ipd file?

Answer 1

FYI, on January 12, 2010 the perl script on http://jabide.com/2009/03/parse-blackberry-ipd-files/ was updated, and works fairly well. I just used it to extract the contents of the 'Address Book - All' database. It wasn't perfect, and required some cleaning up in Excel, but it got the content into a usable format.

Answer 2

Check out the ipd file discussions at http://dotwhat.net/ipd/853/ - most questions have been asked/answered there.

Answer 3

When you say that it is greyed out, do you mean on the left side (Computer Databases) or the right side (Device Databases)?

If it is the right side, it's because wireless sync is enabled. Temporarily delete your Desktop [SYNC] Service Record if you are on a BES. If it's not BES, but Google, there should be a SYNC Record for that as well.

If it is on the left side, is there actually a number next to it for number of entries?

Sorry for not answering the question directly, but it could save you the need to even require an answer to this question.