SOHO Organizer uses a commercial database system called OpenBase to store its information in. The communication between SOHO Organizer and OpenBase is done via TCP/IP. If SOHO Organizer tries to open its database and the OpenBase software is not running then the message 'Unable to connect to the OpenBase server on host' will appear.

To see if OpenBase is running on your system launch the Activity Monitor application (/Applications/Utilities/). Choose Window > Activity Monitor, and choose All Processes from the pop-up menu in the toolbar. Then sort the process list by 'Process Name'. If the OpenBase software is running you will see the following processes listed:




OpenBase (this process may or may not be running)

If you have been running SOHO Organizer successfully and one day you all of a sudden received this message, then the easiest thing you can do is restart your computer. When you restart your computer the OpenBase software should start running again and SOHO Organizer should be able to connect to its database successfully. If you have installed SOHO Organizer for the first time and you have received this message then restarting the computer should fix the problem.

If restarting the computer doesn't fix the problem and the OpenBase processes are not running then the chances are the OpenBase software is not installed or the installation has been messed up somehow. The following steps should take care of the problem:

1. Open the following directory on your computer:


2. Drag any file in this directory to your Desktop. 

3. Run the SOHO Organizer installer and choose 'Uninstall' from the pop-up menu that shows 'Easy Install' by default.

4. Click Uninstall to uninstall SOHO Organizer. WARNING: This will uninstall all the component parts of SOHO Organizer. It will also delete any notes, contacts, and calendars in your current SOHO Organizer database. Uninstalling also uninstalls the OpenBase database engine so all OpenBase databases will also be deleted which could affect other products that might be using OpenBase.

5. Run the SOHO Organizer installer again and this time install SOHO Organizer.

6. Restart your computer.

7. Drag the files on your Desktop back to the following directory:


8. Launch SOHO Organizer.