Hi everyone,
I just bought new Motorola Defy and was quite excited about the phone. Finally a smartphone that can survive a little bit rough handling. It has quite good HW and for a reasonable price. There was nothing to think about; I just had to have it! Device of my dreams!
Now the dream is turning into a little nightmare. It seems like I can only use my phone if I let it send every piece of information straight to google (and Motorola). Have you read those thousand lines long agreements telling you, that you must obey this and that while they are responsible for nothing? Did you too think: “What the hell, do I no longer have any rights?” Never mind I tried my very best to avoid this. I created a dummy gmail account (to be able to use android market), disabled as many background data as possible and did my best to have everything under control.
And now the crucial part of my story: I desperately need to use my calendar. I have everything there. I need to sync my work calendar with my mobile and when I’m out of office, I need to be able to plan anyway and then sync it all back. We MUST use Microsoft Outlook. And the most important part (which many may try to discuss about, but there is really nothing to discuss as it is just a fact): everything MUST stay just in my phone, no kind help of google storing my data who knows where.
It was quite difficult to find a free program that would be able to sync my data just from Outlook to Android and back without google. Finally I found two which seemed to be OK: MyPhoneExplorer and Android-Sync. Life was great once again! So I created a test Outlook calendar at home, filled it with some events and tried to sync it with Defy. It was working! Splendid! When I went to Calendar -> More -> My calendars, there was a calendar named “Default”. OK.
As the calendar options were bit less than I expected from it I downloaded from android market application “Calendar Snooze”. Everything was as I was used from Windows Mobile 6.1 and as I needed it to be. I was prepared to sync my real work calendar.
The horror! While playing with my new mobile exploring even more settings and abilities I saw it. Suddenly my calendar was named as my dummy google account. What? Why? What if it sent all information to google despite all my efforts? IT REALLY DID! Though I tried so hard, it was all there and I wasn’t even asked whether I want it!!! I was furious! Unbelievable! Such arrogance! I was only thanking God for my paranoia and using test calendar. You can never be paranoid enough with google obviously!
I deleted all information from google calendar, reset mobile to factory default and started to try again. No google account this time. Knowing which applications I wanted I downloaded them from every possible website except android market (thanks God for such websites!). Then I wanted to sync my calendar once more, but hidden from google’s all-seeing eye. “Surprise, surprise,” said Mr. google. It was impossible! My beloved phone kept telling me: “You must synchronize a calendar before creating a new event. You can set up a calendar using google Mail or a Corporate Sync account.” WHAT???! So I created an fake e-mail account. No, it had to be an exchange or google account! I cannot use exchange. Security policy denies that. (Again, I saw many desperate people searching for solution of same problem as I have and many wise guys saying: “Go to your IT specialists and tell them to allow that.” (or something like that) NO, it’s nonsense! They know why it’s so and no company will change their security policy, just because of one employee trying to sync his mobile. So, please no such suggestions (even well meant), it doesn’t help. Just take it as a fact, please, as I have to.)
I also tried to set google account and then cancel sync settings (an advice I saw somewhere). After creating google account I went to Settings -> Accounts -> selecting google account and there are options: “Sync Calendar”, “Sync Contacts” and “Sync gmail”. None of them can be disabled. And once created it is impossible to remove google account from my phone (except from resetting it)!!!
So here I am and I don’t know what else I can do to sync my Outlook calendar with Android’s calendar, without being scared I’ll find sensitive data in google’s greedy hands. Can anyone help me, please?
If I may humbly ask: please no questions like: “Why did you buy android phone if you don’t want to use all google applications?” I can imagine that it may be a great advantage for many of you, but I think it should be a choice, not a must. What’s more my e-book reader, music player, camera, internet browser, games, photo gallery, SMS, QuickOffice and much more works perfect even without google. (Let’s hope it will not change, but who knows if people don’t treasure their privacy and freedom… ). Also if there was same hardware with Windows Mobile I would buy it after this frustrating experience.
I’m sorry for this loooooooooooooooooooong reading, but maybe this will prevent some people from “attacking” me, just because I don’t have the same needs and preferences and opinions as them. This thread may even be much more brief and helpful without it.
Also I’m sorry if I sound offensive, it’s meant to be defensive after what I saw at many forums.
I’ll be very grateful for any constructive advice or solution. I wish you all a nice day!
www.syncdroid.net
Hello 999phonebug!
Thank you for your tip. When I was looking for the software to use for syncing, I used website you recommended. Based on information there I’ve chosen Android-Sync and MyPhoneExplorer. They really should sync my data without sending it to google. But there’s a problem: if I don’t provide information about my google account, calendar doesn't let me to create any event. When I connect phone to computer and run MyPhoneExplorer it doesn’t sync nothing. When I run Android-Sync it says: “Warning: Default calendar not found on this Android device. Please fix this issue to enable the calendar sync function.” I could just provide gmail info and create google account and it would all work fine, but then (once connected to network) it would sync with google again. Creating account, synchronizing and then deleting account in my phone is not an option too as phone won’t let me delete that account. Is there any solution for that? Something I cannot see? Thanks in advance for any advice!
You can disable calendar sync by going into the account details. That should do.
Or if you've rooted, you can altogether delete the calendar sync adapter from /system/app
I have tried to disable synchronization by changing account settings. I went to Settings -> Accounts -> selecting google account and there are options: “Sync Calendar”, “Sync Contacts” and “Sync gmail”. None of them can be disabled. Rooting the mobile is the last option for me, because I have it only 5 days now and I don’t know much about such things. Also I don’t want to lose warranty (I guess the process is irreversible, right?). But it’s good to know there’s any way how to solve this situation. If there’s nothing else, I’ll have to choose whether to loose warranty or life without being able to sync my calendar. Tough choice… Do you know whether my problem could be solved by official Android 2.2, which should be released very soon? I'm very grateful to you for trying to help me...
google-the_big_brother said:
I have tried to disable synchronization by changing account settings. I went to Settings -> Accounts -> selecting google account and there are options: “Sync Calendar”, “Sync Contacts” and “Sync gmail”. None of them can be disabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's odd, I can deselect "Sync Calendar" in my account settings page
Im going to respond to this thread seriously in the hope that it isnt a wind up, because thats how it reads
maybe im missing something but the only way to wirelessly sync a calendar to your phone is to have your calendar on a server such as exchange, yahoo, google etc.
there are some apps you can pay for which will sync with any calendar but I have looked into them. they are available in the market, but seeing as you dont like this it may be an issue
Sorry, I know im going to sound like a pigheaded troll which I always try to avoid being but in your own words...
"Why did you buy android phone if you don’t want to use all google applications?"
Its a google phone, its made by google and its based around their services. Why not get a windows 7 phone and its likely your problems are solved, even my old nokia n95 would sync with outlook without a google account. You could even try HP (palm), blackberry or good old symbian. Its like youve got a deep hatred for google and then for some unknown reason gone and bought the ONLY phone operating system made by them as part of some sadistic way of trying to make your own life difficult.....
honestly I would consider selling, yes its a tough little phone but there are cases to toughen the weaker ones.
I use MyPhoneExplorer to sync over USB, it works well. The phone will not auto sync with the Google calender unless you go into the 'MyCalenders' option and then it will start syncing.
Hi everyone and thanks for replies...
Stunno, according to what you say, it seems, that this could be ROM dependent problem. Info about my phone:
System version: Blur_version.2.51.1.MB525.Retail.en.DE
Firmware version: 2.1-update1
Basdeband version EPU93ST2_U_03.0A.01
Kernel version: 2.6.29
Build number: JRDNEM_U3_2.51.1
Maybe updating to official Android 2.2 (once released) would solve the problem. (?)
Diggedy, I don't need to find an application for syncing. Adnroid-Sync and MyPhoneExplorer seem to be OK. But the problem is that calendar won't let me work unless I create an account. It cannot be exchange and when it's google, it sends all my events to google calendar which I don't want it to. And as for the google Android phone: This is the only phone that has everything I need from it. You are right about protective cases, but if I can have mobile (smartphone to be correct) which is so well made so it can defy D) dust and water, I prefer such phone. And except this google issue, there is absolutely nothing I could charge the phone with. And the last reason: I don't want to give up so easily, especially now when it seems this problem can be solved. Anyway, thanks for your reply and for being nice to me even though our opinions differ.
SimboXXX, my phone tries to sync as soon as I connect to wi-fi (Edge and others are disabled). It's strange how same model can act differently. Maybe it again depends on ROM version etc.
Don't know about an upgrade, your phone is a newer version than mine, I'm only on firmware 2.21 on a sim free UK phone, completely stock.
Sent from my MB525 using Tapatalk
stunno said:
Don't know about an upgrade, your phone is a newer version than mine, I'm only on firmware 2.21 on a sim free UK phone, completely stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm afraid I don't understand you. My firmware is 2.1-update1, yours is 2.21 so your phone is a newer version, right? But never mind, I guess I found something useful there: supportforums.motorola.com/thread/43287. I'm gonna try that...
would this be useful
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dreamstep.wYahoo_Calendar&feature=search_result
you can sync outlook to almost anything so that side of it wouldnt be an issue
or try
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.companionlink.clusbsync&feature=search_result
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.vecal.vcorganizer&feature=search_result
Here is my recent progress: I obeyed the advice from website mentioned at my previous post. You can find there: “Put the "Power control" widget (in Downloaded Widgets) on the screen and it has a button to en/disable sync. Enabling sync in the widget brings the check boxes back.” So I enabled sync in the widget and than went to Settings -> Accounts -> selecting google account and there were options: “Sync Calendar”, “Sync Contacts” and “Sync gmail” each with checkbox to enable or disable! Hurray!!!
Then I unchecked all those checkboxes to make sure nothing is going to by synchronized and started testing. I created some events in my calendar. Then I disabled and enabled sync button at the Power control widget. It didn't affect the account settings, all checkboxes remained unchecked. I also restarted phone and turned wi-fi on. Then I checked google calendar, and no events were there.
Then I installed calendar snooze to extend calendar functions. I enabled and disabled sync button few times at the Power widget and turned wi-fi on and off few times. And all my events appeared in the google calendar! So I suspect application “calendar snooze” for being responsible for the background sync... Unfortunately I cannot be sure. Checkboxes for “Sync Calendar”, “Sync Contacts” and “Sync gmail” at the google account settings remain unchecked. When I saw all my events synchronized I changed some at my phone and again started enabling and disabling sync button (at the Power widget) and wi-fi and the phone itself too. But no change as for those events at my google calendar (meens no synchronization took place so far). I guess I'll have to test it all again.
However at least I know about the magical sync button at the Power widget.
out of curiosity, why do you not trust google with your calendar information?
It’s not just about me not trusting google. I have company sensitive data in my calendar. No company will entrust its data to any third party.
Anyway, even if I didn’t have such data in my calendar, I would follow my golden rule which is: “Minimize your electronic foot-print!” If I don’t need that information uploaded on the web, why would I let google have it? My privacy means very much to me. That’s the reason why I never yielded to facebook, twitter and other madness, willingly spreading tons of information about myself and why at the great days of cloud computing I’ll have all my data stored and encrypted on my hdd. I’m sure I sound extremely paranoid to many people, but such paranoia never cost me anything, it can only pay.
Even though I’m not so naïve to think I can protect my privacy from everyone and every company. My mobile operator and even google knows abou me more, than I like. Isn’t that scary???
From the man who has tried it all. Here we go
You can most definately disable Google sync (calendar, contacts, email) in accounts. No need for rooting. If this is not available to you then I guess something is wrong.
I do NOT use Motoblur as I do not want my personal information on the internet.
I do use google sync for calendar, email and contacts as follows:
Calendar - full sync as this is my personal calendar and the information here isnt something that I need to keep secure
eMail - same as above
Contacts: for each contact type Android will create an identity - e.g. google contact (and that will be PER google account you have - you can multiple google accounts and for each account you can chose what you want to sync from settings > accounts
I chose to sync my google contacts for my main google account as this basically holds only people's email addresses. In addition to this android will also create a Liteadress book category. When adding a contact in google (online via internet) it automaticlaly syncs to android if sync is enabled in settings > accounts. If you creat an account ON the android phone itself you chose which of the android accounts category that entry should go in (you can chose for it to go to just Liteaddress book or one of the google accounts or all google accounts or liteadrress book and google accounts). If you chose for it to go ONLY in liteaddressbook then it will NOT sync to google even if you have contacts sync on in settings > accounts. Example as follows:
Google account 1
google account 2
Liteaddress book
In settings > accounts I have contact sync enabled for google 1, calendar sync enabled for google 1, mail sync enabled for google 1 and 2. In contacts, settings I chose that contacts are added to liteaddress book and google account 2
I create create a mail on android and send it - it will be syncd to which ever account i send it from
1 create a calendar entry on android - it will be syncd if i create it google 1
I create a contact entry on android - it will by linked to two caregories namely; Lite address book (this will stay on the phone) and google 2. Since google 2 is set NOT to sync contacts it will not send this contact to the internet.
I create a contact entry on android but this time tell the phone to create it in Lite address book and google account 1 - the information will be sent to google account 1 on the internet
I create an entry on adroid but tell it to creat it in liteaddress book - it will stay on the phone
end of example
For outlook sync I use a product called touchdown - the best you can buy and ive tried a few. this however requires to sync via exchange which I beleive you dont want to do. However, since your reason for not using exchange is because your company says the information must stay on the phone (unless im mistaken) then you need not worry. Touchdown works independently of Android sync. Everything you sync via touchdown will stay on the phone - its a completely independent applicaiton and VERY use to use and extremely flexible. You DO have the option to copy (auto or manuall) your contacts, downloaded from exchange via touchdown) to your phone. These contacts will be in a seprate cateogry and as such will not sync to google.
Does the above solve your problem or are you looking to sync ONLY to outlook without using Exchange? there is an option for that too which I can go in to but since above post is long enough already I wont bother with it unless you specifically ask.
NOTE: just to clarify, it IS possible to keep all your info on your phone - just a matter of working the best way to achieve this. You WONT need to root your phone for this.
Hi jean001luc, thanks for your reply.
I’m not looking for an application for Outlook <-> Android synchronization. I found MyPhoneExplorer and Android-Sync and they both seem to be OK. However, that application touchdown seems to be very good and completely separate calendar is what I would need. Unfortunately I cannot synchronize directly with Exchange (I think it’s because all protocols except for the one needed for Outlook <-> Exchange communication are blocked) and even if I could I’m not allowed to use non-freeware program. So even if I bought touchdown, I wouldn’t be allowed to use it (again company policy which I cannot change).
But what I definitely need to know is how did all my calendar events uploaded on the internet to my google calendar despite my tries to block this action. I unchecked all checkboxes at my google account settings (checkboxes for “Sync Calendar”, “Sync Contacts” and “Sync gmail”) and it has copied anyway. But only once. Since then no changes were synchronized… It’s very odd and it makes me angry because obviously I don’t have it under control even though I try so hard.
google-the_big_brother said:
Hi jean001luc, thanks for your reply.
I’m not looking for an application for Outlook <-> Android synchronization. I found MyPhoneExplorer and Android-Sync and they both seem to be OK. However, that application touchdown seems to be very good and completely separate calendar is what I would need. Unfortunately I cannot synchronize directly with Exchange (I think it’s because all protocols except for the one needed for Outlook <-> Exchange communication are blocked) and even if I could I’m not allowed to use non-freeware program. So even if I bought touchdown, I wouldn’t be allowed to use it (again company policy which I cannot change).
But what I definitely need to know is how did all my calendar events uploaded on the internet to my google calendar despite my tries to block this action. I unchecked all checkboxes at my google account settings (checkboxes for “Sync Calendar”, “Sync Contacts” and “Sync gmail”) and it has copied anyway. But only once. Since then no changes were synchronized… It’s very odd and it makes me angry because obviously I don’t have it under control even though I try so hard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends when you stopped the sync. It's possible that you synchronised your calendar wth outlook and then terminated the sync option for google?
OR, you created the google account after the outlook sync? When the google account is created the default option is to sync everything and this sync can take place fairly quickly. So, is it possible that sync took place before you had the option to disable google sync. I cant see any other way calendar would have synchronised.
Going forward though you can test by editing your calendar to make sure it doesnt sync by creating entried on the phone (after unchcking the sync option in settings > accounts).
Not sure how Android sync works but there are syns applications which RELY on google sync - e.g. when you do your outlook sync it will send the data to google and then the phone downloads it from google to complete the sync. If Android sync uses that then it explains why your data is on google.
Quite suprised your company doesnt allow paid application to be used. Its normally the other way round - most corporates do not allow free apps as they have limited support and possibly full of bugs.
You could always try Missing Sync to sync with Outlook, although I have had problems with synchronisning contacts with this software as it wont sync contacts that are created or edited on the android...this is a known problem with product but the company isnt doing anything to fix it...ive supplied them with all the information they need but they are too busy doingn other things - even though they acknowledge there is a problem.
As an aside, are you aware you can chose to display different google calendars within the calendar app on android? this way you can have multiple calendars but only display/sync the one you want - sync of course wont take place for a specific calendar unless settings > account sync is enabled
Well the thing is I first filled all information to connect my phone to my google account (in my phone), immediately after that disabled all three checkboxes for synchronization, then created some fake events in my phone calendar, did some turning on and off (wi-fi, sync button on the Power widget and even the phone). Meanwhile I was checking internet google calendar if synchronization took place. Negative. Then I installed calendar snooze, did some turning on and off few times and it was all there! But since then no changes done in my mobile synced to my google calendar. But in whole process I never synced my phone with Outlook, I was just using phone calendar and did all changes there… I’ll have to do all this once again and check whether sync didn’t take place just after installing calendar snooze.
jean001luc said:
As an aside, are you aware you can chose to display different google calendars within the calendar app on android? this way you can have multiple calendars but only display/sync the one you want - sync of course wont take place for a specific calendar unless settings > account sync is enabled
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess you mean more calendars created in one google account, right? So I could create one more calendar in my google account, leave it empty and then display it in my android calendar app and if something would try to sync it would be this empty calendar. Then when I would like to see my real calendar or sync it with outlook I would just unchecked that fake one and checked the real one. Did I get your point? But it seems quite too complicated and fiddly.
I've only skipped through your thread & much of what's mentioned I've never used so don't fully understand it but if you still get the problem where the google calendar is still syncing even though the sync checkbox is disabled you can disable wifi/data access for the google calendar sync by using Droidwall BUT you would need to be rooted for that. Without going through the thread again I can't remember if you didn't want to root the phone.
*edit - having re-read a couple of your posts I'm not sure if my post is what you are after.
Related
I'm a bit dim, it seems - sorry to ask, but I have set up my Outlook to sync with my Gmail account and although it shows on the Gmail page on my laptop browser, ever though I select that calendar on the phone, nothing happens.
I am obviously doing something slightly silly, but I assumed the problems would be in OTA syncing of contacts (Outlook --> Gmail account --> Hero) and I haven't even attempted that yet!
Many thanks for your help, in advance.
Hi Bigbamboo5
I am trying out an application / service called GooSync that allows you to have over the air synchronisation of calendar and contacts with your WM device.
I am unsure if there is a "free way" that you can carry out an over the air sync with google to WM devices (without restrictions) but if there is then I would be interested in finding out.
Best wishes
Kaid
Interesting, although their website doesn't show the Hero as being supported. Can you let us know what you think, if you get it working?
Ta.
Nuevasync
Hi,
You might wanna look into nuevasync.com, it's a free service which I used on my ipod touch before I got my.
Now since I have everything centralized in my google calendar I don't have the need for the service anymore.
Nuevasync was always stable for me and is easy to set up.
Good luck
garnmeister said:
Hi,
You might wanna look into nuevasync.com, it's a free service which I used on my ipod touch before I got my.
Now since I have everything centralized in my google calendar I don't have the need for the service anymore.
Nuevasync was always stable for me and is easy to set up.
Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I also have everything centralised in my Google calendar but I can't seem to get that to sync with my Hero. I should be able to, right? Thank you for your suggestion, by the way...
bigbamboo5 said:
Well, I also have everything centralised in my Google calendar but I can't seem to get that to sync with my Hero. I should be able to, right? Thank you for your suggestion, by the way...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes you should. Mine does - no problem. You should not need to use 3rd party software.
TheBrit said:
Yes you should. Mine does - no problem. You should not need to use 3rd party software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you please assume that I am an idiot and explain how you set it up? Many thanks...
bigbamboo5 said:
Can you please assume that I am an idiot and explain how you set it up? Many thanks...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There wasn't really any setup apart from switching the phone on for the first time and giving it my gmail login details. That's all there was to it.
My Hero calendar haven't managed to sync since the 20th august, both mail and contacts have been syncing perfect all alone.....
You can try clearing the data for the calendar on your phone. Go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> Calendar Storage -> Clear Data. You will obviously lose data but when you open Calendar again, it will re-sync to your Google Calendar. This seems to be the only way to get everything back in order, particularly if you have retroactively added things to your calendar (like anniversaries that originated before the current date that you have just added), or your Google Calendar wasn't active before you set up your phone. It means for the time being, the safest thing is to store all events in your Google Calendar and not in the local "My Calendar" until someone builds a better syncing mechanism with the current application.
B1ny said:
My Hero calendar haven't managed to sync since the 20th august, both mail and contacts have been syncing perfect all alone.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is syncing to your calendar in your syncing options activated? to me this looks like the calender option isn't checked.
i had the strage occurance once, that somehow syncing my contacts was deactivated automatically. i just activated it again and it worked.
That seemed to kick everything back into action again. Thanks
BlueHawk said:
You can try clearing the data for the calendar on your phone. Go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> Calendar Storage -> Clear Data. You will obviously lose data but when you open Calendar again, it will re-sync to your Google Calendar. This seems to be the only way to get everything back in order, particularly if you have retroactively added things to your calendar (like anniversaries that originated before the current date that you have just added), or your Google Calendar wasn't active before you set up your phone. It means for the time being, the safest thing is to store all events in your Google Calendar and not in the local "My Calendar" until someone builds a better syncing mechanism with the current application.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My phone's bugging out again for some reason today and I'm pretty sure I have to wipe it when I get home, currently I backup all my contacts to my outlook account on my computer at home.
My question, Is it better to use Google as the main storage for my contacts instead of resyncing each time I wipe my phone?
I use google. Main reason is because I use all of the services...like calendar, voice, gmail, and so on. Just easier for me.
Google. One of the best features for me was the integration of Google's address book, my Gmail had more complete contact information than even my last cell phone.
Google because after all it is a Google phone....
Google for sure. SO easy to flash a new ROM. All the app data is back, perfect and pristine; no worries about Outlook formatting things incorrectly, or things getting 'out of sync' when you update things online and/or on your phone.
I wipe WAY too much to leave it on the phone.. so Google it is for me..
Yup, google here. Makes things soo easy.
i use google because its very easy to restore my contacts after a wipe
Google for me as well. Remember you can chose to Sync only the groups you want sync'd. It requires some organizing in google to get your contacts into groups but is well worth the effort. This way you can leave out contacts you don't want on your phone, but can access via google should you really need to.
tyrnight said:
I wipe WAY too much to leave it on the phone.. so Google it is for me..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on this i learned the hard wat to sync to google (first time i flased i messed up and cleared all my contacts) been google ever since
I used to keep them on my Exchange server at work then switched to using Google.
Googleeee.
Google it is.
I really can't believe that any one wouldn't keep them in Googles cloud.
I also used Google for everything. With Gmail push, battery life is even better. Before I used to use stock mail and my battery loose drain faster than using gmail now. It was all trial and error to see what fix your need.
So I an not sure if I am doing something wrong but I can not get gmail to sync my contacts. It does not pull numbers from my phone. It will only add my email addresses from my gmail. Does anyone have any ideas why? Thanks
Google all the way.
Yes. To both. Also, on all of my home computers and MobileMe. Everything has the full contact list always in sync.
Definitely Google. I also export from Google to a csv file every now and then just to be on the safe side, which then gets stored in my Dropbox account.
My wife was quite impressed the night we got our Heros and I had both of our (lengthy) contact lists loaded onto our phones before we even got out of the parking lot.
I save them on google. Coz I am afriaid of losing my phone.
I'm having multiple problems with this, the way it works is really an absolute catastrophy. Don't know if this is a SGS specific problem.
All I want is to sync contacts with FB so that I can use profile pictures on my phone. Nothing more, nothing less.
So first thing I did was set up a new account for FB. Before you EVER get the chance to say you don't want this, FB already syncs and clogs your calendar with numerous events including 100s of invitees you couldn't care less about.
So, I had a hard enough time even getting all the FB stuff out of my calendar again. Not only do you have to uncheck FB under settings -> accounts & sync -> fb, but you also have to uncheck it under calendar -> options -> settings -> calendars. I have absolutely no clue what this redundancy is for except to create a whole bunch of problems.
Fair enough, that worked. But since battery drain is a real problem on this device I tested some of the settings to try and optimize. Should have knew this was a bad idea from the start.
So I turned off 'background data' on settings -> accounts & sync. Market doesn't work without this, so useless, turn it back on. Great, all syncs in contacts have been erased.
Took me about 2 hours to connect my contacts to the appropriate FB friends again. Fair enough, but now all birthdays show up in the calendar again.
What can I do now? Is the only thing I can do to manually delete all these birthdays from my calendar again?
Speaking generally, the whole settings deal on Android is driving me crazy. Bad description, redundancy, and the device doing whatever it want's regardless of what I do, I'm really starting to question whether this device was a smart buy.
I went ahead and moved all my contacts, etc. over to start using as my phone. Here is a word of caution to all. I'm sure it won't be an issue with most users, or people familiar with Android already. I used MyPhoneExplorer to start syncing all my contacts from Outlook, and my Calendars from Thunderbird Lightning. I did it this way specifically to avoid storing these on an outside server. I was not careful enough...in the background over the last 10 hours, it took all my business client contacts and merged them into my gmail account...which sucks but fixable with some time. But along with this it took all my client accounts calendar info and put it online and public viewable...2 years back worth of private client info! I would have never noticed, but I just happened to come accross google dashboard, and thought it would be interesting to see what info google collects from their various programs. Bam...front and center, under calendar was my clients name, address, time of our last meeting..and everything discussed. Took me a while to figure out how delete all this.
Just a warning to double check all settings before using this for any work related storage that you don't want pasted for the world to see.
So, really stumped here. I've tried 4 3rd party calendar applications, all with the same result. Under Settings, Accounts, Google, I for sure have calendars unchecked. I've used 3 or 4 different syncing programs to transfer my Thunderbird calendar to Atrix. Everything works flawlessly...syncing between Thunderbird and device is especially nice using MyPhoneExplorer. I constantly check the settings tick box...and calendar always remain empty = NOT SYNC. Except my calendars always end up uploading to the internet and appearing in my gmail calendar. Ultimately, I need to use this for business...and this is unacceptable. Is there some other setting I'm missing. I realize Google wants to get their hands on your info at every chance...and yes I know there is a trade off to use their services for free. But I'm not seeing a way to even use a 3rd party calendar w/o it getting sucked up by Google. I have no idea what that tick box is for, if it is going to sync no matter what you tell it.
Anyone know of a solution, or workaround? Been at this for weeks now with no luck. Have a nice new phone, and still have to carry around my old Tilt with me everywhere I go. I'm actually using the Tilt more, since I can't seem to get this hardware superior phone to do what my dinosaur does flawlessly.
Hi all,
First of all: I've searched for a while on google and all I found is relative to GDR1, not GDR2 (aka Amber).
After the Amber update I can't retrieve my messages from gmail. The account is setup correctly, the contacts and calendars sync with no issues but not the mail. Sometimes it stays "Syncing..." forever, sometimes I get an error message that says it's impossible to sync and sometimes it says it synced but no message is fetched (and I know there's new messages because I see them in webmail).
Does any one have this issues? Is there any way to get back my mail synced on my phone?
Have you tried removing and reconnecting the account? Does it still sync calendar and contacts, or does none of that work?
Hi,
Yes, I tried to remove the account and add it again. Tried to add the google account as a Microsoft Outlook and the error persists. I see on the web that uninstall skype should address this problem but didn't work too.
The contacts and calendars are all syncing well.
Just the e-mail doesn't work.
I'm a bit frustrated with this. The amber takes a few improvements to WP8, but my e-mail is very important to me.
Thank you for your kind reply!
The simplest next step is to try a hard reset - this will almost certainly fix things, but at the cost of all your data on the phone which isn't backed up. Best case, you have to wait a while while your apps re-download and so on, worst case, you discover there were files stored in some app that you really need and now can't access again.
I'll let you know if anything else I can think of seems plausible. One possibility is to reboot the phone between each change (for example, remove the account, reboot, add it again, possibly reboot again). That's probably not going to do it, though. Sorry I can't help more. I sounds like you've already done the research on this (thank you for doing that, by the way).
Thanks, man!
I feared it was necessary to do a hard reset, but facing the situation I believe it worse a try.
Just one more question: I should do it in the settings/aout/restore or by the combinations of keys at start up?
Should I allow phone to restore my settings at the first boot after reset?
Thank you very much again!
Ok, just did the hard reset by pressing the key combination on startup. My phone was back to the factory settings and after the initial set up was done the first thing I did was add my Google account.
Unfortunately (and it's very frustrating) the phone can't fetch my messages again, but I noted that if I perform a sync on another folder (or label) the messages are fetched correctly, what means that this problem is Inbox relative only.
It's a very cool way to start the weekend! :silly:
Update: I set up my google account as a MS Exchange account and it worked! All my e-mail (with instant notifications), contacts and calendars (after some time all my calendars was fetched) is now working. At least until google definitively shutdown the google sync service.
Harlley Sathler said:
Update: I set up my google account as a MS Exchange account and it worked! All my e-mail (with instant notifications), contacts and calendars (after some time all my calendars was fetched) is now working. At least until google definitively shutdown the google sync service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes.... for Google sync setup google account via Advanced (not google account)... details in my signature