Wednesday, August 25, 2010

MagicJack: Contacts list is empty and drives inaccessible

MagicJack has done some upgrade within these two weeks that cause some users' contact list wiped forever (see their current announcement or the captured image). In addition, the MagicJack drives are no longer accessible after the softphone has been up and running; both drives occupied by MagicJack become "CD Drive" and "Removable Disk" while the softphone is in service.

Drives while softphone is loading right arrow Drives after softphone is loaded
MJ drives before softphone is loaded MJ drives after softphone is loaded
Accessible Inaccessible

I am lucky still to find my contacts list file in the device. Yours may still exist. See my how-to for details.

From now on, all the profile information including the contacts list and the call history will be stored in the MagicJack server. Thus, your softphone may indicate "Contacts list is empty" after the upgrade regardless of the file existence in your device. Currently there is no way to upload the list to the server but manually input yourself.

How to access the MagicJack device to find your contacts list

  • Unplug the MagicJack if currently connected.
  • Wait a few seconds for your system to clear the device.
  • Hold down the SHIFT key and then plug your MagicJack device in. DON'T RELEASE THE SHIFT KEY WHILE YOU'RE PLUGGING IT IN BEFORE YOU HEAR THE USUAL DEVICE CONNECTION SOUND. The SHIFT key will temporarily disable the softphone auto-run. Therefore, you should see two drives named "magicJack".
  • Go to the drive which contains a folder called "magicJack" as well. Usually it is the 2nd one. Your contact list is stored in AddressBook.xml