Syncing with MobileMe

[CBDC]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Power PC
Email Client: pop

Having had some bad initial experiences with MobileMe (like many on Apple's discussion boards), I've stopped syncing with MM. iCal and Address Book continue to be synced seamlessly with Entourage via Sync Services. Apple has not been very forthcoming on what are MM problems and what are problems with Entourage. I need a way of syncing Entourage Contacts and Calendar between my iMac and my MacBook Air, but I've wasted hours dealing with the "inconsistent data" messages which keep recurring even if their "fixed," it doesn't seem to last.

Is there anyway that MS or other users could post on this board information on whether the MM sync is reliable enough to risk again. OR any other suggestions for keeping my Air and iMac in sync. (My iPhone I sync using iTunes and the USB cable and I'm fine with that as I don't want contacts of calendar data to disappear from my iPhone because MM had a bad spell.)

What are others on this forum doing to sync between computers. I don't work for an organization that has Exchange so I need to find something that works. I've also written Chronosync to find out if there is a way of configuring their tool to work.

Most of the postings on this board speak of .Mac and not of Mobile Me. Any help would be appreciated and any information on what MS is working on with Apple as well. I can wait, I would just like to know if the future looks rosy.

 

[Diane Ross]

Most of the postings on this board speak of .Mac and not of Mobile Me. Any
help would be appreciated and any information on what MS is working on with
Apple as well. I can wait, I would just like to know if the future looks rosy.

I suppose most of the MobileMe problems are being posted on the Apple
discussion boards.

What we know:
1) Even without MobileMe involved Sync Services under Leopard and Entourage
2008 has been troublesome.
2) Regardless what you call the process, the sync involves a database called
the "Truth" If this database has corrupted data then it will keep
repopulating the duplicates and/or other problems over and over.

Basics of how Sync Services Works
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/syncservices/basics.html>

You can reset the Truth and create a clean primary source to be used. This
has solved the problem for some users. You might even consider only turning
on Sync Services to sync then turn it off again until the problems are
ironed out. Obviously this is a very complicated process or we would have
seen a fix by now. Backup before syncing in case of problems.

How to reset sync services and start fresh: (Warning this erases data!!!
Backup your data first!!!)
1. Turn OFF all sync services in Entourage preferences
2. Quit ALL Office applications (including Daemon - How to quit
daemon)
3. Quit Safari, Address Book & iCal and all applications synching
through .Mac (Transmit, Yojimbo...)
4. Use Activity Monitor to quit Sync Services
5. Delete the contents of ~/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/
6. Optionally: if you want to replace all data in the system Address
book and iCal with Entourage data, delete all iCal & Address Book Data
Files:
~/Application Support/iCal/*~/Application Support/AddressBook/*
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iCal/*
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook/*
7. Open the .Mac System preferences and make sure .Mac synching is
enabled
8. Restart all applications that sync to .Mac (Safari, Address Book,
iCal, etc.... and Entourage).
9. Turn ON Sync Services in Entourage preferences. Select "Replace
Sync Services items with Entourage items"