Thanks, so it seems this problem affects others as well. It's not thatbig
a problem, I just have to turn off the Sync contacts to Address Book
preference until I accumulate a number of new contacts or changes to
existing ones, that way I can go into Address Book right away and re-set my
card. It's just that it would be nice to keep my iPhone contacts as upto
date as my PIM with each backup/recharge. Oh well.
Thanks again,
Jay
The solution is kind of straightforward but to do what you want
requires a workaround as Entourage sync services is problematic and
will cause data errors (fix not in sight). First turn off sync
services in Entourage, then go back into Entourage prefs, sync serv
and turn on one, two or all three modules. Tell Entourage at the popup
to over write the iCal apps. When finished (takes a bit of time but if
you have something like menu meters just watch for disk and CPU
processes to settle down to almost nothing). Now, go back into
Entourage, prefs, sync services and uncheck all the checked modules
then press OK. Back in to Entourage and recheck the modules to be
sync'd. This time, when the popup appears, choose combine (first
option). Let it work for a bit. Now every time Entourage sync's it
will combine the items. Go to Addressbook and go to your card and make
this your card. That will remain in place now unless you decide to do
an over write again (and you may just need to).
Now for the workaround. In the final step, if you have two or more
modules enabled at the same time you will end up with all kinds of
bizarre sync issues that occur in a random fashion (Note: this
workaround no long works for anyone who uses BlackBerry OS4.5 and
above as there is complete data corruption in contacts that is 100%
replicable and is known to Markspace Engineering - I've found it only
happens when Entourage syn'g is enabled). To avoid these bizarre sync
issues in Entourage sync'g only have one module enabled at a time. I
would have your primary module enabled - in my case that was Calendar
and Tasks. Go back to Entourage prefs sync services and uncheck all
but your primary module. You should find that sync's are now quite
reliable. When you need to sync another module, go into prefs, turn
off the module checked and turn on the module to be sync'd e.g.
Addressbook. When the popup occurs choose combine. Your My card will
remain in Addressbook but the new or modified contacts will sync. Once
you've sync'd the other module go back into Entourage prefs turn off
that module and turn on your primary module and combine.
The workaround is fairly reliable but watch for errors regardless.
Make sure you have backups of your main identity especially if you
create projects, categories or links or all the above as if you over
write Entourage with the Mac apps this will all be lost. Although I
have multiple backup systems I use Time Machine for this as it reduces
the amount of work lost. I have had to rely on backups frequently.
If you don't use the workaround, in a very short period of time you
will experience bizarre sync issues (dups of all day events, dups of
modified Calendar items, items not pushed to Entourage, potential data
loss - records will disappear somewhere in your modules and you might
not notice this). If you don't use the workaround and any of the
bizarre behaviors happen and mucks up your Entourage DB you might not
notice this for a while. At this point, a restore from backup might be
very painful as if the good DB is now days old you will loose all work
in Entourage from that backup till now (make sure when you do do any
restore that you've turned off sync services first in Entourage). All
the data will be in iCal or Addressbook but to get it to Entourage
without doing an over write you will have to do it manually.
