Phone Data Cable question(s)

[iSaint]

As I stated in this thread, I wanted to try a data cable with my Samsung X497 cell phone. I searched eBay and found and bought this item. There are numerous Mac drivers that would enable me to sync my phone, so I didn't worry about the drivers that came with the cable.

The cable I received didn't have the block in the line as the one in the picture on eBay does. Here's a shot of the eBay auction.

When I plug the cable into the phone, the phone shuts off and won't restart until I unplug the cable, and take the battery off of the phone for a few seconds.

My questions are, what is the block that is in the line of the cable, and is it the reason my phone shuts off when the cable is plugged into it?

The seller tells me the reason it doesn't work is because I don't have the driver installed. I think they are FOS.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: The sync driver I downloaded for use is OnSync

 

[matticus008]

Well, the seller isn't necessarily wrong. Many phones don't actually support USB syncing and software must be installed to create a virtual serial port to exchange data. Your phone might be attempting to create an RS-232 socket when anything is plugged into the data port, which your Mac can't do.

It would be bad design to crash the phone on bad incoming data, but it's not out of the realm of possibility--after all, buffer overflows can still bring down PCs .