Microsoft Sync Services and Needs To Close Error

[Lv4Tunes]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel Hello -

I searched for this - found one 'answer' but was unable to figure it out. The following appears every few seconds when Entourage is open

"Microsoft Sync Services has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

This problem JUST started for me - after running Entourage without issue for a few months.

Any suggestions - with detailed help - would be appreciated.

 

[Diane Ross]

"Microsoft Sync Services has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are
sorry for the inconvenience."

You can turn off Sync Services in Entourage preferences until you can get
time to fix your issues.

Sync Services goes through a database called the truth. Until you get the
database cleared of the problem you are going to keep having problems.

Turn off Sync Services.

Select one device as the primary source. Clean up the data in the primary
source. In Entourage you might want to export all contacts and events as
..rge file and import to clear any corruption.

Follow details here to reset:

How to reset sync services and start fresh
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/syncservices.html#ss2>

More info:
<http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070205125711148>

 

[Dunc Fowler]

Diane,

I sync with a Blackberry and Mobile Me.
My life was good until I installed the 12.2.3 update.
Now I continue to get that same Sync Services message
But looking at the list, It seems this was a problem before.

Any other thoughts for fixing this issue other than what you have in the
note below?

Dunc

 

[Kerry]

Diane,

I sync with a Blackberry and Mobile Me.
My life was good until I installed the 12.2.3 update.
Now I continue to get that same Sync Services message
But looking at the list, It seems this was a problem before.

Any other thoughts for fixing this issue other than what you have in the
note below?

For some odd reason you initial post doesn't seem to be in this
thread. There's a couple of things I can think of that you can try
that are pretty simple to see if it resolves the problem. First
though, verify that your Entourage DB is running correctly and is not
damaged. Turn of sync in Entourage prefs altogether. Quit Entourage
then restart it by holding down the option key and verify that its
running fine. If it is you can then try the following:

First, enable sync again but in this case for the first sync tell
Entourage to overwrite iCal and Addressbook and Notes if you use it.
Sometime this works better if you do one module at a time. After you
do this and iCal etc is recreated go back into Ent prefs turn off sync
and then enable it again but this time choose combine.

If this method doesn't work with iCal specifically, turn off sync
entirely and delete the Entourage cal in iCal. Wait a few secs. Now in
Ent prefs turn on sync and choose combine. This will re-create the
iCal DB entirely. See if you don't get the sync error message of Ent
now. Make sure you back everything up before you do any of this.

Finally, I find with Ent its best to only have one sync module enabled
at a time so as to avoid all the bizarre sync behaviors in Entourage.

If this doesn't work, you'll have to reset sync services using Apple's
support doc TS1627 on Apple's web site support. Then doe the above.

 

[Diane Ross]

Any other thoughts for fixing this issue other than what you have in the
note below?

Sorry there is no magic fix. When you are resetting Sync Services as
described, be sure you have backups.

 

[Kerry]

Sorry there is no magic fix. When you are resetting Sync Services as
described, be sure you have backups.

Hi Diane, I know you have some access to the Macbu developers. I
recall you wrote back in the summer that you didn't think we'd ever
see a fix to the sync issues with Entourage. Do you have any idea why
they've never fixed this other than Apple has issues here too. I don't
believe this will now ever be resolved with Outlook only 1 year out.
However, in my case I am just totally curious as to why this has
never been resolved in almost two years. Honestly, it is the only
thing on my Mac that is problematic but it is probably the most
important function to me as due to the way I use mobile devices.

 

[Diane Ross]

Hi Kerry,

Since Entourage uses Apple Sync Services, it's going to be up to Apple to
fix it... if that is possible. I fear that users will need to go to hosted
Exchange accounts in order to sync reliably. There are just too many
variables in the mix to sync reliably.

We'll have to wait to see if we can expect any improvements with Outlook for
Mac regarding Sync Services.

I'm lucky. I don't need Sync Services.

 

[Kerry]

I'm lucky. I don't need Sync Services.

Yes Diane, you are lucky you don't need it. You're right about Apple.
I've recognized this and opened a case with them and got this over to
engineering. Unfortunately, I don't believe we are going to get
anything out of Apple on this at all. Engineering got back to the
Product Specialist and although they are aware of the issues they will
only support and ensure that mobileme, iCal and Addressbook work
properly and provide all the supporting documentation on their website
to fix sync services should it fail with these products. In terms of
third party products, they have said that unfortunately they have to
leave it to the third party developers to make their products work
properly with what's provided. I told them that all third party
developers are having a heck of a time with this and it is forcing us,
the users, into a proprietary environment that being the Apple
solutions. The product manager immediately said that we should not be
forced to use proprietary solutions but unfortunately his hands were
tired as this was engineerings official stance. He was aware of the
issues, not fully though, out of sync services due to the inital mess
of mobileme and all they had to do to sort that one out.

We won't know whether Outlook resolves this until it comes out of
course but my suspicion is it will work a lot better as they will use
a completely different database architecture suited specifically to
the architectural environment of the Mac. The one thing I worry with
this switch to Outlook is that it is not a pure clone of Outlook on
the PC but rather keeps some of the nice features of Entourage such as
linking and the Project Management facility. Microsoft only cloned
Office once (I think it was v6 in the classic envir) and it didn't go
over well with the Mac community. So possibly they won't do that again.

As you know, the only thing that presents a problem to me and I
suspect many others is the issue of sync. Its all too bad about this
sync serv archit

 

[Diane Ross]

In terms of
third party products, they have said that unfortunately they have to
leave it to the third party developers to make their products work
properly with what's provided.

This says it all...

Have you looked at a hosted Exchange account? The additional cost might be
worth it.

 

[Kerry]

This says it all...

You're right on in that it says it all.

I haven't looked at Exchange. I do use gmail's Exchange support on my
iPhone as it provides push e-mail much like my BlackBerry and thus
avoids my need to return to mobileme (I was a .mac user for 4 years
and just never used its functionality enough to make it worth about
the $160 CDN it came to).

I'm not sure Exchange would resolve my problem with sync to my
handhelds my 4 year old Palm TX which I actually use more than my
iPhone and my iPhone. Actually, the way I've got my iPhone configured
with exchange I could easily have set it up to work with Google
Calendars and Contacts. I don't want to do this.

Really, using Missing sync for the iPhone and the Palm, it is super
simple to have all devices in sync and requires no effort at all as
long as I were just to use iCal and Addressbook and for the iPhone
their Missing Sync software includes Notes and task sync'g to
Entourage (very cool). The problem, as you know all too well, is the
sync out of sync services to Entourage and the mess that occurs in
Entourage if more than one module is turned on. To avoid this, I just
keep Cal and Tasks on and its really as reliable as just going to
iCal. Where the problem rests in this workaround, as you can imagine,
is that to say update a contact I have to turn off Cal and Tasks and
switch on Contacts. Again this works perfectly and the sync will be
100% if I change a contact in Entourage or anywhere else and sync.
Then I just switch back to Cal and Tasks. The problem here is that
this is very manual process and prone to human error. A mess might
result in Ent. If this were fixed gone would be the mess.