K
Kerry
I finally got around to testing sync with Snow Leopard and Entourage
by turning on more than one module at a time to see if there was
improvement (Calendar and Contacts). Not only are things as bad as
they were before but they are far worse.
With more than one module on dups of calendar records (changes to an
existing record) still happen but then all of sudden all records dup.
Previously, it seemed that only all day records dup'd.
After reverting to the backup of Entourage before starting the test, I
then uncovered a more serious flaw. Sync services, at a deep level, is
affected. It is no longer enough to just tell Entourage to over write
the Apple apps and then continue sync'g one module through combine.
This doesn't appear to work and in fact the over write caused my
entire Entourage calendar to magically disappear as I was watching it.
To recover required resetting sync services and I even ran the reset
of the syncservices folder to ensure everything was cleaned up. Now
using my backup Entourage DB which is my DB I was able to over write
iCal and Addressbook and establish two way sync with each but only
with one module turned on at a time.
However, the problem generated out to my BlackBerry and possibly my
Palm (was unable to determine this as it functions a little
differently using Missing Sync). An over write of the BlackBerry DB's
on first sync followed by sync's would normally bring the BlackBerry
back to status and syncs proceed normally. This was not at all the
case and syncs not only messed up they choked on the BlackBerry. To
recover, I had to boot Windows in Parallels, run the BlackBerry
desktop, clear all the BlackBerry databases and then quit Parallels.
To ensure that nothing went awry, I deleted the Missing Sync handheld
app that you need to use in V2 (choking of the BlackBerry I have found
in the past is often related to this handheld app and the only
solution I've found to this is re-install after first removing) and re-
installed it. Sync's are now back to normal on the BlackBerry and the
Palm TX.
However, for all this to happen sync services itself got severely
messed on up with more than one Entourage module enabled requiring
quite a bit to re-stabilize it.
So the people at Objective-Decisions were right in that they not only
have found that there is no improvement in Sync services in Snow
Leopard but they have discovered three new bugs. I have to report back
to their beta team an odd but not horrendous result that I got with a
Contactizer-Pro sync but I think I will include this in the message to
assist them with their own issues around sync services. As far as I
know, their game plan is still to get out of sync services entirely by
writing directly to iCal in their V3.9 product (3.8 about to be
released) and let iCal then populate sync services and if there is an
issue their strategy is just to refer people to Apple as they don't
have the resources to deal with this any longer.
So I would say definitely continue to follow the workaround for sync
that has been in place since March 08 - sync only one module at a time
and never have two or more modules turned on at the same time. The
results will be far more extreme in Snow Leopard if two or more
modules are turned on
by turning on more than one module at a time to see if there was
improvement (Calendar and Contacts). Not only are things as bad as
they were before but they are far worse.
With more than one module on dups of calendar records (changes to an
existing record) still happen but then all of sudden all records dup.
Previously, it seemed that only all day records dup'd.
After reverting to the backup of Entourage before starting the test, I
then uncovered a more serious flaw. Sync services, at a deep level, is
affected. It is no longer enough to just tell Entourage to over write
the Apple apps and then continue sync'g one module through combine.
This doesn't appear to work and in fact the over write caused my
entire Entourage calendar to magically disappear as I was watching it.
To recover required resetting sync services and I even ran the reset
of the syncservices folder to ensure everything was cleaned up. Now
using my backup Entourage DB which is my DB I was able to over write
iCal and Addressbook and establish two way sync with each but only
with one module turned on at a time.
However, the problem generated out to my BlackBerry and possibly my
Palm (was unable to determine this as it functions a little
differently using Missing Sync). An over write of the BlackBerry DB's
on first sync followed by sync's would normally bring the BlackBerry
back to status and syncs proceed normally. This was not at all the
case and syncs not only messed up they choked on the BlackBerry. To
recover, I had to boot Windows in Parallels, run the BlackBerry
desktop, clear all the BlackBerry databases and then quit Parallels.
To ensure that nothing went awry, I deleted the Missing Sync handheld
app that you need to use in V2 (choking of the BlackBerry I have found
in the past is often related to this handheld app and the only
solution I've found to this is re-install after first removing) and re-
installed it. Sync's are now back to normal on the BlackBerry and the
Palm TX.
However, for all this to happen sync services itself got severely
messed on up with more than one Entourage module enabled requiring
quite a bit to re-stabilize it.
So the people at Objective-Decisions were right in that they not only
have found that there is no improvement in Sync services in Snow
Leopard but they have discovered three new bugs. I have to report back
to their beta team an odd but not horrendous result that I got with a
Contactizer-Pro sync but I think I will include this in the message to
assist them with their own issues around sync services. As far as I
know, their game plan is still to get out of sync services entirely by
writing directly to iCal in their V3.9 product (3.8 about to be
released) and let iCal then populate sync services and if there is an
issue their strategy is just to refer people to Apple as they don't
have the resources to deal with this any longer.
So I would say definitely continue to follow the workaround for sync
that has been in place since March 08 - sync only one module at a time
and never have two or more modules turned on at the same time. The
results will be far more extreme in Snow Leopard if two or more
modules are turned on