MS Handheld Sync Problems with Entourage X

[GadgetLover]

A few people have reported sync problems and out-of-order contact addresses (company names displayed randomly and non-alphabetical).

Has anyone else experienced these things?
And if so, do you use DateBk4, ActionNames, or MissingSync?

 

[kcmac]

I am not about to try this yet. The things you mentioned have been posted all over. Plus, email is not included with the sync.

I am going to wait for iSync and iCal in September. If these pan out, I will drop Entourage all together.

Looks like iSync will bypass Palm desktop software as well which will also simplify my life.

 

[Sinbad]

Yup! I am using a PowerBook G4 with MissingSync software for my yummy Clié. Also, while I don't know if it is related since Palm Address Book data is also f@#d up, but I do have Action Names Database 5.22 installed (in demo mode).

All of my contacts with COMPANY fields filled in are totally messed up -- I tried to play Sherlock Holmes and figure out the enigma-code game puzzle (it is NOT in alphabetical order by Company/Last, Last/First, or any other recognizeable form) --- do you think Evil Empire Aliens are trying to talk to me? "Kill Microsoft."

 

[GadgetLover]

Yup, I've verified that it messes up the company contacts even without Action Names installed or even if it's not a Clié. I have now installed it on a few separate PalmOS devices with the same result.

... it is either Microsoft's conduit itself or MissingSync ...

VersionTracker.com's comments area for the conduit list several people experiencing the same thing... I wish we could all say what apps we use so we can troubleshoot.

Anyone on a NON-MissingSync Mac ever have the problem?

 

[GadgetLover]

"Microsoft Handheld Synchronization for Entourage_X

Microsoft Handheld Synchronization for Entourage X is temporarily unavailable as we investigate some technical issues that have been reported to us by customers. We are working hard to identify and correct these issues. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience. Please check back here for more information as it becomes available."

Microsoft may finally realize that (a) it has developed a piece of crap conduit and (b) that it did *not* obviously test it adequately --- but just out of curiousity, how do use miss f***ed up contacts in non-alphabetical order and bloated databases, and other problems people have noticed.

Nutz!

 

[simX]

At this point, it would probably be worth it to just wait for iCal and iSync like kcmac suggested. Sheesh, Apple is just killing mediocre applications left and right! Not that I'm complaining...

 

[mryuk]

I had some initial difficulties; but it's working great now. I never used mail sync so I don't miss it.

My setup is m505 w\ Hotsync 4.01; TiBook 667 (1.5 mo. old). The address db "ballooned" to over 4.6 MB with a Palm overwrites Entourage initial sync; but after a subsequent "both sync" (w\ the address db is safely backed up to an SD card) it came back down to the 65K size.

Some of my contacts did not list alphabetically, so I edited them - basically opening the record and closing it again. It works fine so far.

I've been using Action Names since v3. I'm still on 4.61.

 

[GadgetLover]

Originally posted by mryuk
Some of my contacts did not list alphabetically, so I edited them - basically opening the record and closing it again. It works fine so far.

I've been using Action Names since v3. I'm still on 4.61.

Was it just your COMPANY contacts that were out of order? If so, were they ALL basically mixed up?

If so, then maybe I'll try it again and do what you did -- but boy would that be ALOT of contacts I'd have to open and close ... hundreds of entertainment restaurants, theatres, hotels, businesses, etc.

 

[mryuk]

Yes - the company contacts were messed up. Most of mine were airlines, so I just pasted "airline" in the name field and they work okay.

On closer inspection I now see that many of my home addresses are not getting to the palm. Entourage copied them correctly and they show up in Entourage as "Home" but they are not on my Palm Address DB. I'm not sure, but I think it depends on which phone number is marked "default". Now I'm not happy - I want to retract my "hell yes" vote. And figure out how to get those home addresses back on the palm...

 

[mryuk]

All I had to do was check "default address" in Entourage and hotsync. So it's a little bit of a hassle to check all those home addresses as default. I'm still going to use the conduit. - I was worried for a minute though.

 

[GadgetLover]

Originally posted by mryuk
All I had to do was check "default address" in Entourage and hotsync.

Glad to hear you figured out a solution ... as for the non-alphabetical order of "company" names, I think I have too many to do the paste technique -- but I might find myself trying it one of these days.

Q: after you do the trick once can you then synchronize data or do you still have to do Entourage overrights handheld?

 

[mryuk]

I sync normally now. I only did the Entourage overwrites Palm once; right after a Entourage Database rebuild. The nice thing about my m505 is I had a backup copy of the Palm Address DB throughout the process - I never worried about irreversable corruption. You can do the same thing if you "install" the address DB from your backup directory in Palm Desktop.

 

[GadgetLover]

Originally posted by mryuk
I sync normally now. I only did the Entourage overwrites Palm once; right after a Entourage Database rebuild.

Your paste technique worked for me too! I noticed an even quicker method ... just put the cursor right after the last character in the company name and create a "-" or "space" and then backspace to delete the modification. THen just click [Done]. Problem is you have to do it for ALL company contacts and I have HUNDREDS. Pain in the arsse.

Hey, after you did the paste-technique and then synchronized did you notice if it affected your Entourage data at all (e.g., double entries or messed up contacts?).

 

[mryuk]

No problem yet. To be honest, I've been noticing a bunch of Entourage v.X bugs that have nothing to do with the Palm Sync. I'll probably post them to microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage - they seem to have a pretty good response rate there.

 

[LordOphidian]

Well it was working for me. But today when I synced it, it decided to move just about every date in my calendar (and resurect some I'm sure I deleted) to todays entry in my datebook. When I hit datebook today it took about a minute to load up.

Then I had the joy of moving all my dates back, or just getting frustrated and deleting them. This conduit is always an adventure.

 

[GadgetLover]

I'm back to using Queue Sync ... which is still better than the MS conduit even though it doesn't sync the custom fields, etc. and has limitations.

I tried the cut-paste trick for the non-alphabetical company contacts problem and it worked! BUT!!! now my 80k address book database -- after two hotsyncs -- is now 1,500k!! Yikes!! So, I trashed it, started over and will not be using MS's conduit any time soon.

Sucks!

 

[GadgetLover]

Microsoft recently updated it's temporary notice concerning it's PROBLEMATIC Hotsync Conduit for Entourage X. As you may recall, MS took the buggy conduit down from it's servers after many people (including me!) reported numerous errors with the conduit, including (1) alphabetical list order problems, (2) memory size problems, and (3) datebook issues.

The NEW notice states the following (perhaps the fix will be arriving soon then):


Microsoft Handheld Synchronization for Entourage_X

Microsoft Handheld Synchronization for Entourage X is temporarily unavailable as we investigate some technical issues that have been reported to us by customers. These issues include problems associated with the memory size of records and conflicts with DateBook.

English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish and Swedish versions of Microsoft Handheld Synchronization for Entourage_X will be available as a free download by the end of August. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause and appreciate your patience. Please check back to obtain the download