Registered: Aug 2002
Location:
Posts: 3

Easy Sync calendar woes with Notes R5

I recently set up an attorney in the firm I work for to synch his Visor (2mb dinosaur) with Notes R5. After much crying out and gnashing of teeth, I discovered that Palm Desktop did not support Notes synchronization. Therefore, I ventured out to find a 3rd party synchronization software for Notes. I stumbled upon EasySync (if only I had read the threads on this site before then), and decided to use it. My thought process at that time was,"IBM makes Lotus Notes. IBM makes EasySync. Who better to provide 3rd party software!!???!!!!"

But all has not been smooth. Besides the limiting conduit options presented by EasySync, I have been unable to get Lotus Notes Calendar to correctly sync with his Visor's Datebook. Apparently, during synchronization, Hotsync transfers some of the dates from his Visor to Notes calendar and then randomly erases some of the appointments off his Visor. I looked through his Notes Calendar and Datebook to compare entries, but I can find NO RHYME OR REASON to why some appointments are not synching and others are. This attorney relies heavily on his Visor's datebook, and he called me the other day very upset that he missed an appointment because it was erased from his Visor during synching. This frustrates me to no end and makes me look bad as an IT technician. And now I learn from the threads in this site that easysync "invades" the Palm device and places secret databases on it, thus preventing the user from defecting back to Palm Desktop without performing major "surgery" on the Visor. Needless to say, I am not impressed with Easysync. So here are my two questions:

1. Has anybody experienced this problem using EasySync 3 with Hotsync Manager 3, or does anybody have any ideas?

2. Once I exterminate EasySync from this attorney's desktop and Visor, what would you seasoned and wise visorphiles pick as a 3rd party sync software for Notes R5: Pylon or Intellisync?

thanks for your help in advance

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Alive and well on VisorCentral.com
Posts: 861

I use EasySync for work.. it's not bad once you know it's quirks and understand how it wants to work..

Here is what I learned after much pain and anguish...

I have posted here on VisorCentral about this in past (search for it).. but in a nutshell, the Palm desktop is rendered useless when you install EasySync, everything gets routed to Notes.. Infact I uninstalled the "desktop" part of palm desktop.. Also, I recommend creating a local replicate copy of the Notes mail database (if you don't know how, look it up, its a bit much to try to explain how here) and ALWAYS, and I really mean ALWAYS hostsync from the local replicate copy, you have to switch your location to local (or island) prior to doing the hotsync.. do not hotsync directly from the domino server!!!, you are just asking for trouble.. Since I have done this I have really had very few issues...

I'm not joking, you really have to hotsync only from the local replicate database or things get really weird.. stuff either gets missed, deleted or duplicated.. It has something to do with the fact easy sync retains some sort of server id when it does a hotsync. The situation is worse if you have fail over servers or other replicate domino servers they have their mail on..

forget once and its game over..

Oh and the handspring backup module doesn't work correctly with easysync .. if you try to restore from it, all you get is junk in your calendar, mailbox, notepad, etc....

I found the memplug works best for backup/restore, but you have to manually restore the syncdb files as well or you will just get garbage..

good luck and happy sailing...

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Last edited by EricG on 08-24-2002 at 12:41 AM

Registered: Aug 2002
Location:
Posts: 3

That makes more sense then. We don't use replication in our office for several reasons. I'm not quite sure what these reasons are (I haven't been in this IT department long). Basicaly, replication is not an option as far as I can tell right now. It's one of those things where it would cause more problems than it would solve in our situation. I know we have only one domino server, so I'm not sure the server ID issue applies here.

thanks for the suggestions, this may be a step in the right direction.

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Alive and well on VisorCentral.com
Posts: 861

Yeah, I am referring to "local" replication, i.e. on your laptop's hard disk for what to hotsync from..

I've been doing it this way for several years now and rarely have had a problem -- aside from the backup/restore issue, but I know how to get around that..

__________________
"One of the most important things you learn from the internet is that there is no �them� out there. It�s just an awful lot of �us�." -- Douglas Adams