HTC Hero (Sprint) Error: Sync is Currently Experiencing Problems

The Problem:
Over the past two or three weeks, my Hero had constantly been syncing my contacts. This hadn't always been the case but the sync icon showed up continuously every few minutes, despite the fact that I had not added any recent contacts. The issue caused significant draining of my battery, which you can imagine was very frustrating. I manually stopped the sync, but when I would enable it again I would get an error message that said "sync is currently experiencing problems," along with a red exclamation point. I messed around a little and finally found a solution to my troublesome Hero that had been acting more like a Villain as of late.

The Solution:
On your Hero, press the menu button and use the following route:

1. settings > applications > manage applications > contacts storage.
2. select "clear data"
3. settings > accounts & sync >
   
4. select "Google"
5. sync your contacts

Since I've done this I haven't had the error message that said "sync is currently experiencing problems." However, before doing this, I strongly recommend going to your Gmail contacts on your computer and manually backing them up just in case. This is just good practice in general. After all, what would you do if all of your contacts suddenly just disappeared?

The only issue that clearing my contacts storage caused was my contacts no longer had their associated Facebook pictures next them. I have done some research but no one really has an answer. I'll do some experimenting on my Hero and will let you know if I encounter a fix of my own.