iCal sync does not work in Entourage 2008

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Kristen <> wrote:

Hi,

I want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. I'm just starting
to use Office 2008, and want to make sure it's really not working, and
not an error on my part.

I've gone into Entourage Preferences, Sync Services, and asked it to
sync with iCal. When I open iCal there are three calendars, "untitled",
"unfiled" and "Entourage".

Entourage will then sync your calendar with the Entourage calendar in
iCal (and no other)

It looks like all of the events are on all
three calendars as of when I set up the syncing, but nothing has changed
since.

It shold all be in the Entourage calendar.

Is there some something I need to do to trigger it to send or refresh
the new Entourage items over to iCal? Or is that the part I'm reading a
lot of posts about being broken?

It's syncing withint a minute or so of a modification.
The problem is not there. The problem is that the mechanism is full of
bugs. Some from Apple, some probably from MS.

iCal is notorious to failk to update events in its user interface,
especially if the Brithday calendar is active.
The data is being synced to the central repository where all the
SyncService data lives, but it's just not displayed by Entourage.
Now.... regardless of that, recurring events tend to multiply like
crazy. That's one of the (multiple) other bugs affecting the syncs.

(From there I can't get iSync to put anything on my Palm Pilot either.

That could be different. Did you make sure everything was set to sync
the Entourage calendar from iCal??


Corentin

 

[Kristen]

Okay, let me get this straight....

Sync Services is sending all of the information to a central depository of information, which then iCal should be displaying (as well as Entourage and .Mac if I had an account). But it's not displaying a lot of changes that have been made in Entourage, probably since it first synced. And that is just a world of bugs that can't be fixed, at least by me. What a mess!!

Is there any sort of mobile device (phone, PDA, iPhone, anything) that DOES sync DIRECTLY with Entourage? From what I'm reading, they all go through Sync Services, so if that's where the bugs are then something like Missing Sync won't help. Right?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Is there any sort of mobile device (phone, PDA, iPhone, anything) that
DOES sync DIRECTLY with Entourage?

Well in theory, with Entourage 2008, SyncServices is the only option.

All other apps used to sync to some sort of device access the
SyncServcie Truth database adn sync from there.

Though there are two alternative possibilities.
Paul Berkowitz's Sync Entourage scripts (you have to run them manually)
and an application called iPDA (that I just read about in this very
group and have never tried myself).


Corentin

 

[ovrdrvn]

I have an "Entourage" calender in iCal that does push entries to Entourage. Entries in Entourage, do not go back to iCal. I've backed up, restored, turned sync prefs on/off...all to no avail. This system is so buggy. Is there any true answer to clean this up? I've tried Missing Sync (which used to be successful in the past to move things to a Treo and back in) but it now relies on Sync services via iCal and Address book.

 

[digitaltvguy]

It's inexcusable that Entourage does not sync consistently with iCal. When will this be fixed so the process is stable?

I sync my iPhone every day. It works. I sync Addressbook it works. Why can't Entourage ???

Microsoft can't make a stable product

 

[Steve M]

OK, so I have had iCal/Entourage/iPhone working just fine and dandy and am running both my wife and my accounts on my machine.

As per an earlier post, the Synch Services "broke" on my wifes account and now while entourage sees her full calendar and contacts, they are not being transmitted to iCal (and therefor not to her iPhone).

Any ideas on how to "repair" Synch Services????

 

[Diane Ross]

OK, so I have had iCal/Entourage/iPhone working just fine and dandy and am
running both my wife and my accounts on my machine.

As per an earlier post, the Synch Services "broke" on my wifes account and now
while entourage sees her full calendar and contacts, they are not being
transmitted to iCal (and therefor not to her iPhone).

Any ideas on how to "repair" Synch Services????

Sync Services are broken in Leopard with Office 2008.

 

[Electroscribe]

After switching to Sync Services in Entourage 2008 and attempting to sync my Palm Pilot using Missing Synch for Palm OS 6.02, began getting fatal error messages from the PDA itself about 2/3 of the way through the synchronization. Apparently a fatal error was written onto the PDA. Repeated "full resets" (erasing the PDA) did not solve the problem. One of the reasons I switched to Entourage 2004 was the shoddy way Apple and Palms synched.

After updating to 10.5.2, Entourage 2008 stopped synchronizing to i Cal altogether and displayed a message Microsoft Synch Services (not Apple) was broken. i finally had to uninstall 2008 from my Mac.

In my case, I found that permissions had changed rom "Read and Write" to "No Access" on some Application Support Services and even preferences folders. These permissions errors are endemic to the 10.5.2 update, according to MacFixIt.

What we, as Microsoft Office 2008 purchasers need are:
1. Some sort of explanation from the MBU - Apple developers are much more likely to talk to them than to us.

2. A direct conduit from Office 2008 to PDA's or at least one that works with third-party software like the Missing Synch (by MarkSpace). The MBU's answer that "Apple's synch services already work so we'll use them" does not work, becayse Apple's Synch Services obviously --don't-- work. The MBU developed them for Entourage 2004 -- please allow Microsoft users to bypass Apple's hodgepodge.

Thank you.

 

[Electroscribe]

After posting the above, and deleting all Office (12) preferences from my Mac, I reinstalled Office 2008 but did a customization and did NOT include Entourage 2008. I like the new enhancements in Word and Excel enough to keep the rest of Office 2008.

Hopefully, the MBU people and Apple will talk and in a few months, a product update will appear from one or the other that will fix it. Perish the thought that Apple might consider keeping their synchronization incompatible with Entourage to encourage people to use their own PIM software instead.

The Most Valued Professionals indicate there is a problem with Apple's synch services, and they also are correct that this is not a tech support blog. OK.

One other source of aggravation is Mark Space Software: I will have to pay $59.95 to get any response to my online ticket from their tech support people. We cannot blame that problem on Microsoft.

 

[Donald Stidwell]

Apple's Sync Services have been a never ending source of frustration to me
and I've given up on it for using with Entourage and my Windows Mobile
phone. I used to use the Missing Sync but it too often would make a complete
hash of my information with duplicates and information being removed
whenever I would synch with my phone. Not worth the aggravation and I just
decided to sync my phone with Outlook running in my virtual machine with
Parallels.

Entourage synching did seem to work among my computers (and not having the
phone in the mix) with 2004 but Entourage was such a dog with Intel machines
I just went back to using the Apple PIM programs (not happily, but at least
they worked and synchronised correctly most of the time).

I had great hopes that Entourage 2008 would work better with
synchronisation, but clearly this hasn't happened, so once again, synch is
turned off. The common equation with all these problems seems to be Apple's
Sync Services and non-Apple applications. I'd love to be able to use
Entourage and my phone together again, but it's not happening yet.

Maybe one day...

 

[Electroscribe]

MarkSpace software sent a very elaborate fix to remove the two unwanted strings from the Palm Pilot. That problem had nothing to do with Entourage 2008 --- had to do with some orphan Palm conduits that never posed a conflict as long as I was not attempting to use iCal. (never installed Palm software on the new laptop I was synching with -- never was an issue as long as the Entourage 2004 conduit worked. Missing Sync 6 was advertised as not requiring Palm OS.) Too late: the actual Palm Tungsten E died – the bad synching required so many resets that its reset switch (physically) got stuck in the "engaged" position. But it is not directly a Microsoft-caused problem and Mark Space did try to help.

Wound up uninstalling Office 2008 and reinstalling it without Entourage 2008, keeping Entourage 2004 instead. When I replace the Palm Pilot, will do a kosher installation (first Palm OS, then Office 2004>Additional Tools> Entourage 2004 conduit, then Missing Sync 6.02); will continue using Entourage 2004 until or unless Microsoft does its own conduit.

Last shot (at Apple). Leopard is worse than Vista when it comes to BOI (Broken on Installation). This is being posted on a Windows machine with Vista Business, so I know from whence I speak.

 

[Socrates]

SyncServices seems broken!

I've tried to give Entourage 08 a fair go but on the three occasion where I've had it on for more than a couple of hours, I get an error message from SyncServices saying that's it has to quit and then I loose all my calendars and task items.

I've read on some other threads that this was an oversight on MS behalf and that a fix is on the way.

Any idea if this is actually the case - is there a fix on the way? This problem renders Entourage absolutely useless to me.

 

[mgeary]

I keep getting sync conflicts between ical and entourage 08.

review and resolve choosing entourage. 10 minutes later...The same conflicts pop up again. Over and over and over, etc.

I use Entourage for my mail, calendar address book, etc on my mac, and it syncs to iphone. i even tried deleting ical off the mac...same problems.

Any thoughts?.

 

[Electroscribe]

Use Entourage 2004 as your default mail, calendar and contact program and use its conduit, not Apple's Sync Services, to synch Palm Pilots.

I won't use Entourage 2008 on the one machine that synchs my Palm Pilot until Microsoft rethinks its wisdom about not having a separate Entourage conduit from Apple's stuff. Apple's does not seem to work. But that's just me.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I keep getting sync conflicts between ical and entourage 08.

review and resolve choosing entourage. 10 minutes later...The same
conflicts pop up again. Over and over and over, etc.

I use Entourage for my mail, calendar address book, etc on my mac, and it
syncs to iphone. i even tried deleting ical off the mac...same problems.

Any thoughts?.

Yes: it's a bug.


Corentin

 

[parkernathan]

I'm having issues getting Entourage to sync with iCal as well. I can't get iCal to even create the Entourage calendar. I didn't install Entourage under Office 2004, I let it install under Office 2008 when I upgraded.

 

[Greg Armstrong]

Here is the suggestion I sent to Mactopia:

Syncing with iCal and Address Book. I have been a heavy user with 2004 and expected a syncing correction with iCal and Address Book. It wasn't addressed.
this is what I see to work: Create multiple Entourage calendars to sync with the multiple calendars in iCal. In iCal they show up as that calendar's "sister" with an Entourage extension. Then in Entourage it shows up as a category. This way syncing though .Mac back to a second computer would transfer specific category and calendar through the process.
Then create and sync categories to match groups in Address Book. This way there are enough calendars and groups to match the single category choice in Entourage, which will then be compatible with other Microsoft platforms and CalDav stuff/Exchange. Groups in Address Book and Categories in Calendars will end up having the same choices, but logic almost makes that make sense since it's the same way Entourage and Outlook is set up.

Now if we could only have projects sync through .Mac and we could have a fully functioning platform.

Mactopia's only threat is if Apple comes up with a project management program that brings their products all together including Mail.

---- I hope that makes sense to most of you. What do you think?
-Greg

 

[Electroscribe]

One more time: The Sync Services connection between Entourage 2008 and iCal DOES NOT WORK . Microsoft knows it.
If Apple knows it, they're not saying much.

Microsoft apparently has talked to Apple and >>may<< fix it sometime in March (Update Day is usually the second Tuesday in March but who knows).

iCal has always handled items synced from Entourage by putting them in an Entourage calendar. One one of my Macs, iCal treats the calendar and everything in it as locked items and won't allow changes, and on the other Mac I can change the Entourage calendar just fine. I would say that is an iCal problem.

Another iCal problem with Microsoft is that if one uses Apple Mail to send notification of an iCal appointment to an Outlook for Windoze® user, Outlook 2007 treats it as a separate calendar, not an appointment.

If people like iCal, they should keep using it.
If they like Entourage and don't synch with a Palm Pilot, Entourage 2008 works.

If we need to synch to a Palm Pilot and like Entourage better than iCal (it isn't hard) Entourage 2004 still works and the improvements in 2008 other than the daily reminders are not that significant.

Whether nor not Microsoft ever provides a separate conduit from Entourage 2008 to PDAs like they eventually did in 2004 probably depends on whether sales of Office 2008 abruptly drop off do to this and other issues.

 

[GM80]

I'm fascinated by the people who are so bold as to claim Sync Services between Entourage and iCal and/or Address Book is "broken" and "does not work," rather than "does not work on MY machine" or in "MY current setup."

I'm running Leopard 10.5.2, Entourage 2008 with Sync Services active, and syncing everything in both directions with my iPhone.

Aside from the obvious limitations of categories not being denoted in the single iCal calendar, everything else has worked as expected with no errors and no missing functionality.

I may have to "YouTube it" to get anyone to believe me, but the product is not completely broken. In my case, at least, it works as advertised. Tweaking everything may be a pain, and the setup may have to be *just right*, but the code's there.

 

[Guest]

Syncing the 2 calendar programs should simply not be this complicated. The end. Given the number of people reporting problems and complaining about the difficulty of sync, from a product design standpoint, Entourage is "broken". If MS had decided to be adequate consumer research to learn that iCal/Entourage sync is an important feature to its customers, then this wouldn't even be an issue.