Database Users

SyncMyCal & Google Calendar

I've been trying for months to reliably sync my Wizard to Google's Calendar, and I must have tried every app out there for the purpose. Today I stumbled on SyncMyCal, and I think I've found a winner.
I did have trouble with an annually recurring event, but this seems to be an issue with how Outlook formats things. At least SyncMyCal gave a useful error message, and I was able to also resolve the problem. This issue may have also been the cause of some problems I had with other applications, but none of them gave enough info to find the root cause.
The free version is limited to only three days forward and back, and doesn't autosync, but that's fair. If you want more, there is a paid version.
I don't have any connection with these guys, I just posted this to save others some of the wasted time I invested looking for a solution.
***** UPDATE: Having used this program for six weeks, I'm withdrawing my endorsement, and have deleted it from my Wizard. Although it is somewhat better than others, it is still to flaky to be reliable, deleting some events, duplicating others, and changing the times on still others.
Back to searching

I've been using GooSync for a couple of months. I don't update my events on Google--just on the PPC then sync. It was spotty with recurring events, but has gotten better lately. I also use the contacts sync one way as well. Either I or Goosync has duplicated all the entries once. There was also one time where ALL the contacts and calendar entries were wiped out! I never figured out who was at fault then. I've been using various sync software for a decade and there never seems to be a solution that works right and then keeps on working right.
I think I paid around 20 bucks for a years service. I have to say, they are getting better rapidly. I would try SyncMyCal, but the contacts sync is REALLY what I want....
What is killing my Wing is the size of the pim.vol file, 4.72 mb's and growing. I have deleted all the voice tags and only have ~10 contact photos (resized for the web with CS3, ~7-11kb each.) I pisses me off that I can't move that file to a storage card. What the hell is the use a PPC that limits how many peeps you know or do business with. That makes voice commands and photo contacts useless! I know, I know-- I should get a Tilt-- but that's just a temporary solution. Anyone know of a contacts program that stores it's data on a card?

Google Calendar Sync
5 March 2008 Google Calendar Sync allows you to sync events between Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Calendar.
http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=89955&
You can now access your Google Calendar account from your mobile phone! Just visit mobile.google.com/calendar/ with your phone's web browser and once you're logged in, you'll see your list of upcoming events with date and time information in an easy-to-browse format.
Cheers
Tom

Not Helpful
Several major problems with the last post. First, the URL listed for sync info is garbled.
Second, it only works if you have a Widoze desktop. I'm running Linux.
Finally, using the mobile web interface doesn't allow you to edit or delete events, so it's of very limited use.

klausner said:
First, the URL listed for sync info is garbled.
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URL link fixed - thanks for pointing this out. Note the Bboard truncates the display but now the link works. If not, try a search:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Google+Calendar+Sync
klausner said:
Second, it only works if you have a Widoze desktop. I'm running Linux.
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Agree but none of the posts mention Linux. In fact the first post mentions "issue with how Outlook formats things"
klausner said:
Finally, using the mobile web interface doesn't allow you to edit or delete events, so it's of very limited use.
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The mobile web interface does allow you to ADD events and has a bandwith friendly view of the next few appointments. Nobody in xda-developers forum had mentioned either mobile.google.com/calendar or indeed the new Google Calendar Sync before me.
klausner said:
Several major problems with the last post.
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I don't think these are "major" problems or warrant a rating of "Not Helpful". I shared the pain of the first two posters who "must have tried every app out there" that "duplicated" or "wiped out!" all the entries . Like them, I "just posted this to save others some of the wasted time I invested looking for a solution."
Cheers
Tom

Contacts

The G1 is the most unfriendly device for contacts.! With that being said, i rooted my phone a few weeks ago and have been having a great time...no problems to speak of.
Just found one. So I had this problem with my contacts where I installed Kigoo (client machine), and Touchdown (Exchange Client (Phone Side)) and I got triple entries of every contact. BLAH...
So today I deleted all of my contacts from my Gmail contacts and I then go into Contacts -> Menu -> Edit Sync Groups and uncheck "Sync all contacts". Now everytime I chose ok I'm getting the error message "The process android.process.acore has stopped..." What the heck?
N E 1 got N E ideas?

Sounds more like you mucked things up with third party apps.

i would agree with that but i mucked it up before upgrading to 1.5... when the G1 first debut i was looking for a good way to use my phone for work. and getting my contacts into Gmail seemlessly with a program seemed like a better idea than csv files, looking for automation. but then the endevour of finding an Exchange app screwed it all up - so yeah i guess your right in part. is this a bug in 1.5 cupcake and is it universal or is it specific to the JF 1.5? the reason i ask these questions is due to my jailbreaking my phone and loosing all Tmo support - whats a guy supposed to do?

Frogzilla said:
i would agree with that but i mucked it up before upgrading to 1.5... when the G1 first debut i was looking for a good way to use my phone for work. and getting my contacts into Gmail seemlessly with a program seemed like a better idea than csv files, looking for automation. but then the endevour of finding an Exchange app screwed it all up - so yeah i guess your right in part. is this a bug in 1.5 cupcake and is it universal or is it specific to the JF 1.5? the reason i ask these questions is due to my jailbreaking my phone and loosing all Tmo support - whats a guy supposed to do?
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Well so long as your contacts are backed up somewhere (pc, exchange server, etc) I'd try wiping then pulling in your contacts again.

Frogzilla said:
The G1 is the most unfriendly device for contacts.
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Nice blanket statement that probably doesn't matter for 90% of G1 users who only use Google Contacts. Maybe next time consider adding in some qualifiers or caveats?

jashsu said:
Nice blanket statement that probably doesn't matter for 90% of G1 users who only use Google Contacts. Maybe next time consider adding in some qualifiers or caveats?
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Apoligies. Didn't mean offense to any of the 90% of G1 users. Life, I have found, does't live in one app. My statment should be read with an air of frustration. The force close is an error that occurs everytime I try that process and needed to find a work around. Otherwise this post should act as a notificaton to all other G1 users that they also may expirence this error.
Side note -> I found my work around.

Calender Issues for recurring appointments

I have been trying to enter birthday as an all day and recurring appointment.
When you do this for the month that it is (ie. if i do it for december atm). Its fine. When I try to jump forward to January and set another 'all day' and recurring appointment (recurring on the same day every year), nothing happens after I press the 'done' softkey (I mean it goes to the day screen, but has no appointment added). I can only make an appointment if i do it as an 'all day' and 'does not repeat' and then go back and edit it to be recurring. Bit of a pain when you want enter birthdays for the year ahead.
Anyone got this problem or know a solution?
Tks

i have this issue as well i did let htc know about it with a long list if other problems. they then started investigating the sms problems and now they have "enough data" for a hotfix they want to close the ticket, not sure though if they meant to fix this issue as well.
As for a workaround make a non-repeating appointment, fill in all data as you want it but just a single appointment save it then edit it to make it repeating, worked for me at least.

Thanks mate
I gathered the way to get round it but it just another thing that seems not to work properly on this phone. I so want to believe its a good phone but I keep finding these bugs which make me lose faith. Anyhow, my 14 day returns ran out today so I'm stuck with it for the next 18 months! HTC and wm7 better sort it out.

I hear that, I'm in the same situation, however I don't think I would take it back overall it is a nice piece of kit just too many bugs. been thinking about getting a no hassle replacement but I really don't think it'd do anything, just need to wait for htc to do the patches, then for wm7

I have taken to using the WM 6.5 calendar when adding or editing things. This is not a WM 6.5 issue it is an issue with the Sense UI calendar. Go to Start -> outlook folder-> calendar. You get much better functionality its just not as finger friendly or pretty.

Weird thing is that when you try to enter these 'all day, yearly recurring events' nothing happens in the sense UI calender nor the outlook calender (having entered via the sense UI calender), but if you sync with my phone you get all the phantom events in that calender!

Exchange contact sync breaks after a few hours

When I first recieved the Evo, everything synchronized just fine. Contacts both ways, emails, and calendar, but after about 5 hours, I started getting a notification that there were Exchange sync issues.
Whenever I would open up the accounts page under settings, I would see the sync symbol next to Contacts, repeatedly trying, over and over again. Finally, after a while, it stops, and a sync symbol with an exclamation point appears in the notification bar, as well as next to Contacts, and at the bottom of the accounts page, the same symbol with "An I/O error has occurred," explanation.
I don't understand what is going on here... as the original sync worked great. I can remove my Exchange account and re-add, and it works great for a few hours. Same thing if I wipe the phone completely, (factory reset.) The only solution I have had so far is to un-tick the Contact sync, and it seems to work okay, but obviously I need this service to work properly.
I have tried searching for a few days now and couldn't find anything really related to this. Some have had issues with reboots, and I had it BAD two days ago, and I finally wiped my phone. I do believe that there are some serious core Exchange integration problems on the Evo..
Does anyone have any insight on the matter, or should I just email HTC? Would a cooked ROM perhaps be any better?
Thanks guys

Same issue here. Very frustrating.

theadlee said:
Same issue here. Very frustrating.
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Also, this DESTROYS my battery. If I actually let it attempt to keep syncing, it's completely dead within an hour.

Also have the same issues and was searching for answers to no avail. Another problem I have is that sometimes random emails just stop showing up on the phone. I can open once and view but later they are gone even though they haven't been deleted. I obviously see them on my outlook on my computer but never see them again on the phone. I hoping an update in the future will fix these issues as I never had a problem with my Touch Pro so I'm thinking it's not the server at work.

njward75 said:
Also have the same issues and was searching for answers to no avail. Another problem I have is that sometimes random emails just stop showing up on the phone. I can open once and view but later they are gone even though they haven't been deleted. I obviously see them on my outlook on my computer but never see them again on the phone. I hoping an update in the future will fix these issues as I never had a problem with my Touch Pro so I'm thinking it's not the server at work.
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No problem on my Pre either, and I really don't want to have to buy 3rd-party software to fix something that is supposedly integrated into the phone...

Fellas, talk to your IT dept and have them check the Exchange logs. Different versions of Exchange have different levels of administration over mobile synchronization.
I have an EAS on my EVO with no issue whatsoever.
Bear in mind, Exchange 2003 doesn't seem to like Android synching with a mailbox that was previously synched with another device. I have seen synchs crash consistently until the synch relationship is deleted on the server side.

i have zero issues with exchange on the android.
you guy can try touchdown form the market. its the best exchange app out. dataviz has road sync which is another idea. i have not used road sync but have used touchdown on the hero. it works well.. bullet proof.
i would check with your respective IT Admins and make sure they allow Android handsets to access the server. some companies do not OR recommend you use a 3rd party app (such as touchdown)

Strange, I had my phone replaced yesterday, and it worked from about 5pm to 9:45am today, perfectly... then out of nowhere, it failed, and is now in an infinite loop to sync contacts.

Something to do with Facebook
I think it has something to do with contacts that are linked to Facebook. Very Very frustrating.

theadlee said:
I think it has something to do with contacts that are linked to Facebook. Very Very frustrating.
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I just created a ticket with my IT department to investigate the logs to see what is going on. Something tells me it's related to Sense, and not my Exchange server at all... considering that multiple Windows Mobile phones, and my Palm Pre have all worked fine... even some of my old Sprint dumbphones worked okay, when I used Sprint Email.
I would root my phone and try a standard version of Android, but isn't it Sense that does the Exchange sync? or is that built into Android at this point?

ScrapMaker said:
I just created a ticket with my IT department to investigate the logs to see what is going on. Something tells me it's related to Sense, and not my Exchange server at all... considering that multiple Windows Mobile phones, and my Palm Pre have all worked fine... even some of my old Sprint dumbphones worked okay, when I used Sprint Email.
I would root my phone and try a standard version of Android, but isn't it Sense that does the Exchange sync? or is that built into Android at this point?
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I've tried touchdown and can't even get it to create an account. I think it maybe something with my work server that these programs don't like. I know that my employer was too cheap to get an exchange server so they use some sort of activesync client that runs on the standard server. Not an IT guy so I don't know how this affects things but I do know that I had no issues like this with the windows mobile email. On top of my contacts not syncing, I still have emails that randomly disappear or no longer have a body to the email after viewing once. Very strange and very frustrating that I have no work around.

Well we are definitely using Exchange 2007, and I had to bypass our whole "ticketing system," and contact our Exchange/Outlook department secretly. I am hoping for a response in the next day or so. I bet you anything it has to do with the policy-push that happens once or twice a day... basically re-affirms your device is compliant. IE, if you went through and manually disabled your password protection, this is SUPPOSED to push out the requirement again.
One thing I should probably try, is re-wiping my phone and NEVER installing lockpicker... even though the phone is nearly non-functional without that handy utility, perhaps that can be causing issues?

Been running HTC Sense, and Exchange on my EVO without any issues for three weeks.
I have not made any changes to the original setup, other than adding about ten apps from Market Place.

Holy crap, I just got a call from two highest-level managers (with attitude, I might add,) that no one from the company is _ALLOWED_ to help me get this to work. It's an unsupported device. So are iPhones and all WM phones... so this is bizarre.
Basically, this ActiveSync service is a back-door offering, with zero support, and everyone is real hush-hush about it. My asking to investigate the logs seems to have REALLY irritated people in my company, and this is a big place. I hope I didn't create waves... damnit Android, you are ruining my life!!

What assholes. I hate these arrogant ass IT guys. They need to recognize that they are a cost center which only exist to make you a more effecient employee. If your effeciency is enhanced by using android vs a crappy blackberry, they need to make reasonable efforts to accomodate you.
I would send an email to THEIR boss, and ask him what the mission of an IT organization should be. And if he gives you crap, ask the CIO.

You don't understand... the top-dogs just made their call... the next higher up is the VP of our IT group... basically, if I bring it up again, I can consider myself terminated. I didn't realize this was such a sore subject, but apparently it is.
Apparently it has a lot to do with export control, policies, all sorts of random BS that I don't really know about. The ActiveSync service is mainly provided as a back-door 'friendly' service to help those who don't get corporate blackberries.
So it's totally unsupported, and I don't know anyone I can buy a few drinks for in order to get this fixed. I guess I'll have to work the other angle with HTC, but damnit, I already know nothing will help there. Even if they were to offer to help, my IT department would be less than willing to lend a helping hand.
Also, most of our stuff is out-sourced... but I know there are DEFINITELY people in my own building that can help me---I just don't know who, and I also don't want them getting in trouble.
It just bothers me that when the iPhone came out, there were enough 'important' people around, so that even though it's "not supported," our environment was definitely modified to work with the phone...
Le Sigh.

Man, this problem is killing me... I have delete my exchange account twice a day.

man, I wish there was a solution to this... no one else is having this issue?

You could root and get Cyans new Froyo build, it has native exchange support. There is definitely differences between HTC sense exchange and Android exchange.

fragchild said:
You could root and get Cyans new Froyo build, it has native exchange support. There is definitely differences between HTC sense exchange and Android exchange.
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Does this build support Camera and 4G? I keep hearing about these new ROMs and all their problems.
I just installed TouchDown and figured I'd give it a whirl. If the new Froyo build works on all aspects, I'd obviously rather have that. I like the integration of the stock solution. I don't like that I will have to use TouchDown for everything... calendar alerts, and everything, but we'll see. I also hate that I might have to pay $20 for something that should work out of the box...

Exchange Sync unreliable, almost useless

Hey guys
first off, I know all the BS posts i'm going to get so let me head them off right now:
- i'm working and living in exactly the same locations
- i've had Android 2.3.3 on my HD2 and this issue has not occured
- i've used Windows Phone 7 and this issue has not occured
- both my Exchange server configs has NOT changed at all
- i'm working and living in exactly the same locations
OK so, something I personaly have experienced is really poor Exchange sync with this phone. I have contacts sitting on my laptop (Outlook), PC at home (Outlook) and on OWA on my server which are just not coming down to the phone, no matter how many times I reboot. Thing is, and this makes this hard to solve, its only a few of them - in fact, VERY few of them.
I've also noticed Emails are sometimes very slow to appear on the phone from either of my two hosted accounts even though they are both set to push on peak and off peak schedules.
Baseband - I9100XXKDH
Kernal - [email protected]#2
Build - GINGERBREAD.XWKDD
I am new to this Android malarky so it could be something i'm doing (?) or there might be a newer firmware out there by now but, with the strange naming convention I don't really know.
Not sure if anyone else has seen this? Any clues? Any newer firmware?
Thanks in advance!!

Just to summarize
- You can sync alot of the contacts from the server to your phone, but not all.
- Those you can sync, are those consistently working fine (ie if you make any changes to them server-side, are those changes always synced to the phone)?
- The few contacts that cannot be synced, can you see any differences between them and the ones that do sync (the info added to them, certain symbols used, or similar)?
If you edit one of the contacts not synced, and remove all the info from them except for the name "a" and possibly the phone number 012345, does this in any way change the sync behavior?
- If you add a new contact, and give it exactly the same info as one of the unsyncable contacts, does that sync aswell, or does it also not sync to the phone?
- Probably not the case, and I'm not sure about behaviors across several different phone all running 2.3.3, but are your contacts all in the same folder on the server, or have you sorted them into different folders?
- Try adding your Gmail account, or a gmail account, to your phone as a new exchange account, and see if the same unsyncable outlook contacts, if you could possibly export them from your outlook and import them into your Gmail account, also fail when synced from the Google servers.
- try downloading either NitroDesk touchdown or RoadSync from the market, and try adding the same account to either of those and see if the behavior changes. Atleast that will show if the problem is general with the server, or if it seems to be only the stock/samsung exchange client causing this in some way.
Not sure at all what is going on, but some of the above might give some results that are useful.

TechNoir said:
....
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Sorry, JUST before your post came it I discovered a tick box that corrected everything! Some how I had turned off Sync'ing but yet that still enabled mail!? I honestly couldn't remember how I got there or where it was, sorry
Although that doesn't explain why mail is unreliable....
Thank you for your detailed steps though! I hope they come in useful for someone

I'd imagine the Samsung e-mail app is just an overlay on the native Android client. All my Android phones have worked great with Exchange. If Samsung completely re-wrote the e-mail client and it doesn't work I'll be distraught. I rely on Exchange heavily and think TD sucks because it flattens the databases.

To be fair to it, it does work now ... maybe the tick box I discovered will encourage mail to be a little more prompt
For me it was Unuseable if I could not reliably sync contacts and schedule... which looks like I now can.

...and Tasks, which is an unexpected bonus for me!
I've been impressed with the speed with which the phone handles data, even on non-3G networks. No problems with Exchange either.
All good so far, in fact.
Worth adding a [SOLVED] to the title of the thread?

Gustopher said:
...and Tasks...
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I know, I'm thrilled. I read somewhere that Samsung really sweated the details on the Exchange app. In addition to tasks, it's supposed to be able to use the company directory and do a calender busy search. There's also Citrix integration and a lot of VPN feautres they've added to the phone. I'm guessing, especially in the U.S., that high-volume corporate accounts are going to be a big audience for the phone which is why Samsung included so many upgraded connectivity features.

Monty Burns said:
Sorry, JUST before your post came it I discovered a tick box that corrected everything! Some how I had turned off Sync'ing but yet that still enabled mail!? I honestly couldn't remember how I got there or where it was, sorry
Although that doesn't explain why mail is unreliable....
Thank you for your detailed steps though! I hope they come in useful for someone
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Click to collapse
No problems at all mate, glad you got it working.