sync issues with todos & contacts

[kdgdr]

Hi,

I have some syncing issues.

Situation:
- using epim pro port 5.03 on laptop & desktop (both win7)
- using latest version of epim android on HTC One V

What works:
I 'm syncing calendar with Google Agenda, & from google agenda to the phone: this works OK

What doesn 't work:
- I 'm trying to sync contacts between laptop & phone via PC-sync. This doesn 't work: sync keeps hanging forever. When testing other epim modules with pc-sync, like todos, these syncs don 't keep hanging
- I 'm trying to sync todos between laptop & phone via google tasks. Some tasks keep duplicating: every time I sync, these tasks have an extra duplicate in the same list & with the same category as the original. The duplicates inherit the due date of the original task, but not the due time (hour).

What 's important:
- I have a ton of appointements & tasks; a lot of appointments are from shared google agenda 's from friends & colleagues, so I 'm a bit scared of deleting the synchronization in EPIM & creating a new one, or clearing the synchronization data via file>database management (considering your remark in the help file: "Clear synchronization data: clears all data about previous synchronizations. This data is important to provide correct synchronization. Clearing it may lead to loss of data on consequent synchronization.")
- syncing todo 's & appointments via google is important to me, because it eliminates the need to boot up the laptop each time I want to sync with the phone. Contacts are updated less often, so using pc-sync for that would be okay (if it worked fine).

How can I get these syncs to work without loss of todos or appointments?

[admin]

There's an updated version of the program that allows syncing contacts without any issues. You can download it from here:
EssentialPIM Pro: http://www.essentialpim.com/download/te ... MPro50.exe
or
EssentialPIM Pro Portable: http://www.essentialpim.com/download/te ... Port50.zip
It hasn't been released, yet as we're working on some other fixes to be included in the next build.

With regards to synchronization of to dos. Will you be able to notice any similarities or related patterns for those that get duplicated? If yes, that would help us a lot.

And is there any problems with synchronization of appointments at the moment? I don't understand why you wanted to clear up sync data.

[kdgdr]

No pattern found in duplicated todos yet. I 'll check it again and get back to you.
I was considering to clear the sync data because the sync combines both todos & appointments, so not because there 's an issue with the appointments being synced but because I assume that the sync data contains errors regarding todos-synchronization.

Google sync settings

Google Synchronization.jpg (89.77 KiB) Viewed 9276 times

I notice that the duplicated todos are in both epim & google tasks. Deleting duplicates in epim doesn 't fix anything: they 're back in epim with one extra duplicate after every sync. Do I risk losing correct todos or mixing up the syncing process if I try deleting the duplicate todos in google tasks?

[kdgdr]

... from time to time I keep getting this error message though. Maybe it 's part of the problem?

sync error.jpg (35.75 KiB) Viewed 9276 times

[kdgdr]

Most likely pattern: it seems that todos are duplicated if they have a due date and a due time (hour). Todos with only a due date and no due time don 't seem to get duplicated:

pattern.jpg (29.99 KiB) Viewed 9275 times

original todo details.jpg (69.33 KiB) Viewed 9275 times

Hope this helps solving the syncing issue

[admin]

- Appointments and to dos even though being marked for synchronization are treated as different modules, so no interconnection in between them during sync. Therefore you can safely assume no issues should arise with Calendar sync
- 503 service unavailable error is coming from Google, but it shouldn't influence synchronization in any way as no sync happens
- Thanks very much for the detailed probable to do pattern, will try to reproduce and fix the issue

[kdgdr]

Thanks. Will limit to using PC Sync with Android until fixed.

One question related to PC Sync: can it be used on a location without Wifi, like simply connecting your Android phone directly to pc/laptop with a usb-cable?

[admin]

You will not be able to synchronize through a USB cable as of yet. However, if you set up your router and firewall the right way (and have EPIM running on your PC), you'll be able to synchronize through cellular data.

And one more thing - still unable to reproduce the issue with duplicated to dos. Did you change one of these to dos either on Google or on your phone or in EPIM after they were synchronized with each other?

[kdgdr]

Yes, I changed todos, but I can 't remember what I changed exactly. I didn 't pay special attention to it, because I didn 't expect any problems in the syncproces. Changes were made in EPIM & on phone, as far as I remember.

[kdgdr]

Been trying everything for hours and hours, and nothing works:

There's an updated version of the program that allows syncing contacts without any issues

Problem remains: been syncing for over an hour and PC sync keeps haning on contacts-sync - even with new version of your link above.

Tried syncing contacts through google contacts: error with text caracters says epim laptop version, so syncing stops. Unable to find out which text characters are the problem, or in which contacts the error occurs.

Cleared all data in Google tasks + cache in EPIM: syncing to google tasks in this "fresh" way does not work either. A lot of todos get synced but then it keeps stopping, before all todos are synced.

I 'm now trying to sync contacts & todos directly from laptop to phone, using PC sync: this doesn 't work either since contacts seem to get synced before todos and there 's an issue syncing contacts as mentioned above - so it doesn 't even get to syncing todos...

A real bummer! Any suggestions?

[admin]

Please forward us the log file (you can PM me with it here in the forum), will check what's wrong with the contacts sync now. You can find it in:
C:\Users\WindowsUsername\AppData\Roaming\EssentialPIM Pro\Logs
Thanks!

[Your V Gal]

Help! In my early syncs, I kept getting duplicate contacts and I only have one way sync checked [I'm sure the duplicates are because the Contacts in my Samsung come from texts and other add points]. So I would go through and delete the dupes because I couldn't figure out how to merge them -- and if they came from a call or text, they wouldn't have my main contact info such as email address, groups, notes, etc. Now I have created a monster as Important contacts are being completely deleted on my Samsung when I PC Sync one way from EPIM to Samsung. I even added one manually back on my Samsung and then did a PC Sync again to see if all of my contacts would transfer to my Samsung and they were deleted again. Please help, I would never have checked that contacts were disappearing off of my phone until I was going to call / text a couple of them and they were gone!

Also, I thought the settings were such that if we made changes or deleted items on our Calendar or To Do lists that they would delete on the synced phone but that's not happening. Actually I have a bunch of duplicates.

I'm going crazy getting ready to head out of town and need to have at least my contacts up to date!

EPIM Pro 5 RC3, Win XP, Samsung Galaxy SIII

[admin]

Here's how a 1-one sync (from EPIM to Android) works. If you have the "remove items" option checked in Sync Options for your device (Tools->Options), then everything that's not present in EssentialPIM will be wiped out from the phone. If this option is unchecked, EPIM will not remove anything from your phone. I think you should be better of using a 2-way sync option for your purposes in order not to get anything unwanted removed or duplicated. Please try that and let us know if it worked.

[kdgdr]

Hi,

About the problem I mentioned above, regarding duplicate todos when syncing to google tasks: has this been solved yet?

Kind regards.

[admin]

We weren't able to reproduce it so far, unfortunately. Need more information.