[RE-SOLVED] Gingerbread ActiveSync Calendar Sync Issue -UPDATED FIRST POST 23/08/2011 - Galaxy S I9000 General

I had 2.2.1 on my phone and ActiveSync worked very well for Email, Contacts and Calendar. It would correctly 'ping' the folders, and go fetch updates when they happened.
Since moving to 2.3.3 with an official ROM (and any other ones I tested) I have always experienced an issue with the Calendar Sync portion of ActiveSync.
Email and Contacts still ping the Inbox and Contacts folders as expected but the Calendar has a mind of it's own.
Even though the Calendar folder is also pinged - it kicks off it's own independent 'Sync' request approximately every minute. And, what is worse is that after every one of these 'sync' requests it also initiates another ping on all folders Email, Contacts, and Calendar.
If I leave Calendar sync selected, multiple parallel ping requests end up clogging the server, and obviously this also has ramifications for data usage and battery draining.
I end up having to disable Calendar Sync for most of the time, only manually turning it on/off to sync any meetings I have set up or have accepted invitations to.
If you look at the attached screenshots, you can see that the date/time of the last update for Contacts is staying the same (09/08/2011 15:25) whereas the Calendar is updating every minute. This is happening even though nothing is changing on the Calendar on the server side.
Is this just me ? Or can other people please confirm that they are seeing the issue also.
EDIT: Well apparantly it wasn't just me - but there are very few people who run into this. Clearing the Email application data completely has cured the problem.
EDIT 23/08/2011:
The problem came back. And my original cure did not work. However, in troubleshooting, I realised that one of my colleagues phone's had also started doing the same - at the same time ! Tracing back I found that I had added a birthday field to one of our shared contacts (that both phones were synching) just before the issue started happening. So, having deleted/re-added/cleared data/etc. to no avail, I simply edited the contact on the server to remove the birthday from the contact and everything settled down again.
To verify the fix, I re-added a birthday record to another contact, and immediately the calendar sync started to spin again. I removed it, and immediately it settled down again.
(NOTE: This ties back to my original "fix" too as I had cleared out any suspect appointments/birthdays/anniversaries/etc during original troubleshooting, but the birthday fields were in non-"ping"ed Contact folders - so the contact records had not been refreshed on the phone until I had done a clear data and reloaded them.)
So, my suspicion is that when Android 2.3.3+ finds a birthday field on a contact it tries to add some kind of calendar event for it (I don't know where this event is, as it does not show up on the calendar as far as I can see.) Every time it asks the server to sync the calendar, it expects the server to have the same event - but when it doesn't find it, it asks for another Calendar sync again.
I also tried the same test with the Anniversary field, but that one did not appear to cause any issues.
Hopefully this will help others.
If anyone else is experiencing the issue, please report back if this fixes it for you.
And, if anyone has any ideas why the birthday field is breaking the sync, it would be great to get a full understanding.

ive been told that this was fixed in JVR
at least some calendar sync issue, do not know if this particular error...

This issue is not fixed in JVR. I loaded JVR specifically to see if it had been fixed, and it has not. I rolled back to stock JVH.
I have seen this issue on every Gingerbread ROM to date.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=16273547&postcount=321
so i gues he is wrong
ever thinked this might some issue on your site?
or your company server?

btw after a short google search
I was able to clear the client/server conversion error on an HTC Incredible by clearing all the data out of the calendar app using Menu/ Manage Applications. Then re-sync and the problem went away.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

$omator said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=16273547&postcount=321
so i gues he is wrong
ever thinked this might some issue on your site?
or your company server?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The same server works perfectly well with Android 2.2.1, Nokia MailforExchange, and WindowsMobile 6.5 -
It worked perfectly well syncing the Calendar on this phone too while it was on Android 2.2.1 - it was only when I went to 2.3.x that the problem surfaced, and it has been identical on all builds.
Regarding your other post - my phone was recently in for repair and came back completely wiped with a fresh install of the latest Vodafone approved 2.3.3
As soon as I set up the email client it immediately began to spin on the Calnedar again - so it seems very unlikely that clearing data would do anything.

trying it would hurt yes?
well all i am saying it works for anyone around you
you are aware that this version as well as jvr one got updated
maybe it needs updating on server side also to latest idk
try other server maybe

No, I'm not wrong On JVR exchange calendar sync works fine (finally).
Of course you may say that I photoshopped images, or created manually the calendar entry in my phone

Don't get me wrong. It is working for me too. I get all the appointments across.
It is just that the calendar is constantly synching for some reason.
If you look at the account sync options as I showed above, does your Calendar - last update timestamp change every minute ?

I don't use autosynchronization but my calendar entries are updated when I change something in my exchange calendar (currently my last update was around 10:00 AM). I believe it works the same way the email does - by "push". Maybe when using autosynchronization it does this constant updates? What are your email settings? It's also possible that some Exchange setting is forcing constant updates.

Following the suggestion $omator found from someone with a HTC Incredible, I did the following
1. Moved all my appointments on the server to a secondary (non-sync'ed calendar) - this step may not be necessary but I had already begun moving them anyway to see if one was corrupted.
2. Removed my ActiveSync account
3. Cleared the data from the Email application (it was showing that there was still 76K of data associated with it after removing the account)
4. Turned off the phone, and turned it back on again.
5. Added my ActiveSync account back, and allowed it to sync all content (Emails and Contacts - Calendar was still empty)
6. Once everything was settled (including calendar sync) - I moved back all my appointments to my synched calendar on the server.
7. Happy days ! No more constant synching.
Thanks again $omator for the suggestion. I am always nervous about that "Clear Data" button.

happy to hear!

and the fix i was talking about in jvr
is enabling multi calendars sync or something like that

I am using a stock JVR and have this problem as well. I also tried the solution posted but that didn't work either. Any other suggestions?

Found root cause - Contact BIRTHDAY field !
The problem came back. And my original cure did not work.
However, in troubleshooting, I realised that one of my colleagues phone's had also started doing the same - at the same time ! Tracing back I found that I had added a birthday field to one of our shared contacts (that both phones were synching) just before the issue started happening. So, having deleted/re-added/cleared data/etc. to no avail, I simply edited the contact on the server to remove the birthday from the contact and everything settled down again.
To verify the fix, I re-added a birthday record to another contact, and immediately the calendar sync started to spin again. I removed it, and immediately it settled down again.
(NOTE: This ties back to my original "fix" too as I had cleared out any suspect appointments/birthdays/anniversaries/etc during original troubleshooting, but the birthday fields were in non-"ping"ed Contact folders - so the contact records had not been refreshed on the phone until I had done a clear data and reloaded them.)
So, my suspicion is that when Android 2.3.3+ finds a birthday field on a contact it tries to add some kind of calendar event for it (I don't know where this event is, as it does not show up on the calendar as far as I can see.) Every time it asks the server to sync the calendar, it expects the server to have the same event - but when it doesn't find it, it asks for another Calendar sync again.
I also tried the same test with the Anniversary field, but that one did not appear to cause any issues.
Hopefully this will help others.
If anyone else is experiencing the issue, please report back if this fixes it for you.
And, if anyone has any ideas why the birthday field is breaking the sync, it would be great to get a full understanding.

do not forget to report it also to google
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile?hl=en
somewhere there =)

Thank you very much for this find! I too suffer from this problem since leaving 2.1 (i think). To all others: this IS a bug, even in JVR. Just about when you think deleting & recreating your exchange account solved this, this problem tends to raise its head again (sometimes after a day or so). Two independent Exchange servers cause this problem for me. The result is that the Calendar still syncs, but at the expense of a constant 10% load, halving battery life. Its even visible in the sync settings of the Exchange account; the spinning circle icon never disappears indicating the looping process. This has been reported to Google multiple times (search code.google.com) but they dont seem to mind.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

LiverpoolFCfan said:
The problem came back. And my original cure did not work.
However, in troubleshooting, I realised that one of my colleagues phone's had also started doing the same - at the same time ! Tracing back I found that I had added a birthday field to one of our shared contacts (that both phones were synching) just before the issue started happening. So, having deleted/re-added/cleared data/etc. to no avail, I simply edited the contact on the server to remove the birthday from the contact and everything settled down again.
To verify the fix, I re-added a birthday record to another contact, and immediately the calendar sync started to spin again. I removed it, and immediately it settled down again.
(NOTE: This ties back to my original "fix" too as I had cleared out any suspect appointments/birthdays/anniversaries/etc during original troubleshooting, but the birthday fields were in non-"ping"ed Contact folders - so the contact records had not been refreshed on the phone until I had done a clear data and reloaded them.)
So, my suspicion is that when Android 2.3.3+ finds a birthday field on a contact it tries to add some kind of calendar event for it (I don't know where this event is, as it does not show up on the calendar as far as I can see.) Every time it asks the server to sync the calendar, it expects the server to have the same event - but when it doesn't find it, it asks for another Calendar sync again.
I also tried the same test with the Anniversary field, but that one did not appear to cause any issues.
Hopefully this will help others.
If anyone else is experiencing the issue, please report back if this fixes it for you.
And, if anyone has any ideas why the birthday field is breaking the sync, it would be great to get a full understanding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have exactly the same issue with GingerBread on an HTC EVO 3D, I followed your instructions to clear any Birthday info on my Exchange contacts, I will report back in a few days to see if this fixes my problem.

I only started having the sync issue when my company upgraded to Exchange 2010.

We've experienced sync issues on my company (using exchange 2003/2007) after some microsoft patches.... we still have MS engineers working to find what the heck broke the sync but without success...

Related

The contacts Facebook association bug

.. is really starting to p*ss me off. I'm going to get really sick really quickly of having to re-associate all my contacts with their Facebook profiles every time the Hero decides to spontaneously delete them.
Has anyone found a workaround?
Edit: Hmmm... seems if you close all the background HTC processes like com.htc.socialnetwork.provider and com.htc.album:remote with TasKiller, it'll re-update everything when the processes start back up again.
It's still stupid!
And if you decided not to update your contact picture when you linked them, it will overwrite your specific photo anyway ! that's also very anoying if you don't want the facebook photos !
That's funny I was just logging in to report this problem. It happened to me for the first time today. It really pissed me off that for no reason all my facebook associations got deleted from contacts, rebooting the phone and killing the process didn't bring them back either. I don't even have the process com.htc.album:remote running in task killer. They need to get an improved rom out and fast, i've had this phone less than a week and i'm really starting to miss my iphone.
This happened to me today, but it was because for some reason I had been logged out of FB. Otherwise, I have not experienced this 'deletion' issue...
Strange.
Does anyone know why the phone would just log you off of facebook? Is there any good way to avoid this? I hope logging on to facebook on a computer doesn't kick you off.
I'm glad I saw this thread and that I am not the only one!
It is getting very annoying but I expect it will be fixed eventually, I just hope it doesn't take too long!
This happened to me the first time yesterday. And 2 other people in this thread had it happen yesterday. Maybe it's something at facebooks end. There could be some sort of timeout and were all getting logged out at the same time.
it is very odd.
Sat here at work, there's four of us with hero's now.
one of us gets it, the other three don't.
the two G2 devices don't, and only one of the Orange Hero's gets it.
very strange.
Okay I think that I can guess what is happening here. I have the same problem with my Facebook contacts losing their picture status and albums about every 24 hours (on stock G2). I know that when I leave my browser up overnight on my Facebook page, Facebook will log me out. I presume that it is doing the same thing with this phone and suspect that HTC did not spend long enough testing the ‘people’ application to observe this. I further guess that when the phone is logged out by Facebook it does not try to sign in again, deleting the information previously retrieved when a refresh is unsuccessful. I am not a developer and don’t have any way to back all this up but if I am correct then HTC would need to implement a workaround for this behaviour in order to fix it. Probably the easiest way to do this would be to have the application:
1. Automatically sign in again (signing out if necessary) every 12 hours or so.
2. Retain previously cached data, e.g. pictures, unless explicitly deleted even when Facebook refresh is unavailable.
This doesn’t fix the problem of the now-permanently unlinked Facebook contact (as per Don Vincenzo on http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=4276194#post4276194) but it would be an improvement.
I hard reset earlier which had previously fixed it, but now it only shows that I have one Facebook contact to choose from and no one else can be linked from.
It shows it as if I have only one Facebook friend.
Very strange.
Yep had the same issues.
Ultimately I found the best cure is just to wait for the two hours before it automatically updates everything.
I've only gone through my contact list once and linked all the profiles, however I have appeared to have "lost" the link many times...
So basically don't do anything, just wait.. lol they will return
Never had this issue yet but all my facebook - contact information is also sync'd with the exchange server
I was afraid that after my master reset I would have to reassociate all of my contacts but it seems that the association is stored on google contacts too, so they just all came back again
Its been 2 days now and my associations have not come back, man that's gonna suck if it resets them every couple of days. The facebook integration was one of the main selling points for me for the phone. I sync my contacts with outlook so I don't have any under my gmail name. Is it better to import all my contacts in to gmail so it retains my facebook links? If so is there a way I can sync the contacts that are already on my phone to my gmail account from my phone?
I may or may not have found a solution, or a way of preventing it. I'm using TasKiller to close all my running processes every few hours to preserve battery life etc. I noticed that when I put some of the system processes in the ignore list, (com.htc.socialnetwork.provider for example) the Facebook problem happened again. If I don't have any processes in the ignore list, and make sure to kill them once or twice a day, my contacts stay associated with Facebook.
Last time my contacts associations disappeared, I killed all running processes, took everything out the ignore list and went into the People app, and scrolled along to the facebook updates page. I hit menu, then 'update now'. This restored everything back to the way it was.
The disassociation just happened for me again - all my contacts suddenly needed reconnecting.
This is a different problem to the one I was discussing in the other thread 'It's a wee bit buggy...', where previously available contact data (profile pic, birthday, albums etc) can now not be retrieved by the Hero once a contact is linked. This functionality has not returned since it first occurred for me, and means that, irrespective of the associations holding, only about 75% of those contacts on the device that should be able to sync actually successfully sync. From what I can tell, this could possibly be an issue with Facebook privacy settings, though why it only happened a week after having the device I'm not sure.
With regard to the associations holding after a hard reset, the People app on the device stores the Facebook association data in the 'Notes' field of the contact, which is then synced to Google Contacts. If you wipe and then re-download your contacts from Google, this info comes back with it, and the People app then sees those contacts as linked. Given this, it seems even stranger that the links get broken in the first place, as it suggests that for some reason that the data in that field is not persistent...
Have the association loss occasionally but I find if you ignore it then the association comes back after a little while.
In relation to some (but not all) friends losing associations it is due to the friend changing their Facebook application settings. My girlfriend's photo disappeared a week ago, so I got her to change her fb settings and it came back. Not sure why it happened a week ago cause she changed the setting longer ago than that, but guess it is Facebook, not HTC.
Has anyone reported this to HTC? Its happening far too frequently on my gf's (pink) Hero.
So maybe it's not the same but it's definitely related:
I've now gotten to the point where I can not view my own contact details when I'm logged into facebook. That is, if I am signed in, and I try to view my contact card, I get a crash in process "android.process.acore" (this also happens when trying to update my status). If I edit my details and make sure I'm signed out of facebook, everything is fine except that all details of all linked profiles disappear...
Can anybody else confirm this?
BTW, I noticed that if you sign out using your contact card, and then sign in again (miraculously this does work!) the People app will retry to link friends to your facebook friends, so you can "force" a resync this way...
I keep getting this issue too. What i do is go to contacts, then on to the 'updates' tab, my contact card still shows my pic and me as logged in. I then press menu and update now. This resyncs all my contacts straight away. Annoying i know but at least it recognises them again after a bit.

Problem with Google Contacts Sync on updated ROM?

I just wanted to ask whether anyone else had run into the same problem or now. I have installed HTC Generic 2.73.405.5 with radio 63.18.55.06EU_6.35.06.18 on my unbranded Hero and it has been great. Really fast and it seems less buggy.
However I had one major issue. When I turned on my phone this morning all my contacts were gone! So I went into data synchronisation and made sure the box was ticked.
I ticked and unticked it, however things aren't quite syncing up properly at the moment. The contacts are back, but when I make edits on my phone they are not carrying through to google's servers ... Any advice? Anyone else having this problem?
EDIT: I have tried syncing my contacts again. After the little arrows stop spinning the last updated time still stays the same. It's stuck on 07:22 at the moment and it's 07:39 here ...
EDIT2: This problem exists on the wifi and mobile data connection.
Could it be that this is a problem on Google's end?
Woah! And we're back!
It seems to have fixed itself!
Not for me. Still have this issue, does anyone else?
God damn! My Hero deleted all its contacts again. It takes ages to sync changes and if you do too many at once it just doesn't do it, crashes and deletes all your contacts.
NOT awesome!
I have posted a support ticket with HTC, I'll see what they say.
I already experienced an "issue" with a delay from google contacts.
But I deleted everything, then synched and after a while (about 15 minutes) all contacts where shining in my Hero.
I have similar issue.
I can get my contacts from Google but cannot make new ones on the server side. I will check it thoroughly later on and report you back.
Google add to contact
The whole option to add to Google contacts is missing on mine. Google contacts are still present and seemingly updating.
So not exactly the same behaviour, but might be worth checking your phone.

IMAP Accounts Not Downloading EMail, e.g. Gmail

Hi guys
I have a HD2 with the Stock ROM 1.66, all working fine until recently, where both my Gmail accounts are blank, every folder is empty, Send/Receive runs, Connecting > Logging on > looking for Changes > Updating Folders > Disconnecting.
No email is downloaded, Ive tried removing accounts and re-adding, checking the deletion and day threshold settings, and its still not download any at all.
The only thing ive done recently is installed SPB keyboard which ive removed, and the Excalibur Android Loader app, which is also now removed. I also changed a registry setting under HTC Album to ignore the .thumbnails folder, but nothing else.
Help!!
My Outlook sync probably works fine, but because i dont have a valid SSL cert on exchange yet, i cant test with that.
Thanks
Does your email account work fine via webmail?
works fine via webmail.
Okay ive found the problem after hours of investigation, the date was set to 2011 for some reason, so it was connecting and seeing no emails for that date!!!
Thanks
flashy said:
works fine via webmail.
Okay ive found the problem after hours of investigation, the date was set to 2011 for some reason, so it was connecting and seeing no emails for that date!!!
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm having the same issue. It checks email and comes back with the current time as the refresh time, but doesn't show any new emails. I have found a trick that if I go into the settings for that mail account and just click through them without changing anything, it will receive the current mail. Unfortunately I have to do that every time I want mail from that IMAP email. The unfortunate side effect is that it also resets default settings for emial size and frequency.
Where was the date field that you are talking about above?
I just went to my phone's date/time setting and it was set to automatic from server. I toggled it to manual and back to automatic. Now it's receiving emails again. That may have fixed it. I'm a little skeptical as I have done little things here and there which will may it update and retrieve email once, but it never seems to work on its own without my tinkering with it. We'll see. If it is still working tomorrow, I'll report back here to let everyone know.
So I tried it again this morning and it isn't working again. So that wasn't it. Also, one correction to my last post ... my IMAP isn't empty it just won't receive new mail. I hit refresh and the sync symbol spins and then shows the current time as if refreshed but no new email pop in. It also does this so fast that it cannot possibly be logging in and checking before it returns with no mail. Still frustrated. Let me know if anyone figures this out.
PS - as additional info, I own my own domain and email hosting through Rackspace. Since my wife has the same setup (Domain and sakes rackspace account) I added her email to my phone and it works fine (tried over several days). So now I'm really baffled.
Solved! Android 2.2 stopped receiving emails (T-Mobile)
Solved! Android 2.2 stopped receiving emails (T-Mobile)
Ok, I have spent countless hours researching and troubleshooting this and I think I have the solution. Apparently, Android's native email software has difficulty with certain things, "Flagged" emails being one of them. I.E. those emails you flag different colors to follow up on later.
I have tried everything I could find on the issue and this seems to be what worked for me.
Background (Just in case this helps you):
Phone: T-Mobile HTC HD2 running Android 2.2 NAND
Issue: Email worked fine on multiple accounts for over a year on this phone, then one day one of my personal IMAP account stopped receiving emails. Gmail and my Exchange accounts still worked fine. However, my IMAP account would say it is "Syncing/Refreshing Messages" and come back with the current time stamp, but would not pull in any of the new messages. My only work around until now was to run through the email account setup for Incoming mail server, Outgoing (SMTP) mail server, etc. Then it would work, but only once. If I wanted my new mail again, I would have to repeat that process. About a day or so before I began having issues, I had flagged several emails for future follow-up. I read a post that mentioned that in passing so I tried it. I went into Outlook and unfledged all the emails I had flagged.
Solution: Un-flag all emails in your INBOX. Then wait 4-12 hours.
NOTE! At first it didn't work, but after a few hours I started getting my emails and have been getting everything fine since (last 48hours). I guess it takes time to propagate in the system or something.
I hope this helps!

MS exchange...Offical fix

Ok i am a network admin, and we were having issues with our exchange server. So i was going though the event log to see what was going on... I noticed all these activesyc errors. ........Let me back a step
I had this lady i work with that has the HTC evo...i told her to get this over the BB b/c it was just a mcuh better phone and plus we got rid of the BES server...Well the first monthy everything worked fine. then one day her calendar stopped syncing....i have done pages worht of works and hints and slips and want nots to fix it...well nothing would work, so i just google calendar sync and synced it up to her gmail account then to her phone...Now on to what fixed the issue..
Again i noticed all these errors in the event log. Did some research and low and behold MS said what the fix was...
If you have access to your OWA *online exchange*, click on options, then on the right side click on phone. You should have a profile for syncing there...delete it or you may have multiple. delete them all. Then reset up your exchange account on your phone and whamo it works. NOW this fix not only works with Evo, but with Iphone, Palm, Windows mobile and all android devices, this lady wasnt the only one i was having this issue with. Hope this helps someone.
I've posted this solution in the past, as I myself ran into it (also a network admin). On initial sync with the new device, you have to wipe out all their old sync relationships on your server.
Beware that all the high-end Android Motorola's display an even more unusual issue: the original Droid, the X, and the Droid 2 all need to be synced at least twice before the calendar, contacts, and email items all sync properly. When I say twice, I mean to say that you have to perform an initial sync and let it finish (something inevitably doesn't sync, either the calendar is empty or the contacts are). Then you have to delete the account, wipe out the entire local cache that remains, reboot, then re-sync. It's odd, and I've never found a reason why, but it's a consistent issue with all Droids.
Some EVO's get weird sync errors too every once in a while. The Froyo upgrade solved a few, hopefully Gingerbread (if it ever shows up) doesn't create any new ones. I've got about a dozen EVO's in our environment.

[Q] htc mail sync problems

Anyone have problems with mail syncing?
It seems to have stopped working and only syncs when I go in the app.
surely I am not the only person with this problem...
yes i have same thing...i disabled calender and book sync and toggled auto sync...then presto mine was fixed...still not sure why.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App
I don't have book and changing calendar has not made a difference. Also noticed that it happens on TI backup now. Not sure if it is related
I've even done factory a reset and nothing has changed. No idea why!
must be a way to get this going again...can't clear data in the app section which is odd
I have this with my school e-mail since they installed exchange server 2010. To fix it (temporarily), you have to clear all the categories on all the events in your calendar (via outlook, thunderbird or web-based) and then re-apply them.
Note: it is temporary because every so many weeks, the issue reappears.
Yep. Same here. Noticed it a few weeks ago and thought it was just me. Had a major clearout on the phone (new SD card, hard reset, etc. etc.) and it's still a problem.
So it's standard HTC ROM (2.3.3) and I'm syncing with MS Exchange. As the OP says, there is no sync unless I open the app, irrespective of changes made to the scheduling. For what it's worth it's currently set to sync every 10 mins Mon-Fri 9.00 until 18.00 and then every hour off-peak.

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