Are there any ways to prevent 'com.htc.bg force close' issues?

I have a HTC Legend, and on occasion, I get an error "Process com.htc.bg has stopped unexpectedly".

According to other forums, this could be caused by issues with internet connectivity relating to updating Facebook contacts.

I have removed the syncing of Facebook all together (only syncs when I force it to), but I am still getting these errors.

Has anyone else worked out what is causing these issues, and how to resolve it? The processing crashing is usually just a popup, the process restarts ok without any issue, but on occasion the entire thing locks up, restarts, or the home screen reloads (as if coming from a restart)