Syncing with 2 Outlooks - problem w invalid email addresses

[Guest dave archer]

I have an Orange SPV C500, and I'm new to it.

Using ActiveSync I'm trying to sync Calendar with both my work and home PCs, Outlook on each.

All working OK except for at home it complains about unrecognised email addresses within the appointments. I think this is because the addresses are from my company address book, which is not available at home.

It won't sync the appointment without forcing me to pick an alternative email/contact for those it doesn't recognise. If I do this it then changes them at work on next sync - not good.

What I'd like is for my home Outlook to ignore the fact it doesn't recognise these contacts and sync anyway - anyone got any ideas?

Any help much appreciated, thanks.

Dave.

[Guest snowgoon]

I'll bump this one. I don't recall it being a problem with the Original SPV, but I'm getting it too. I've checked all the ActiveSync settings and none of them seem to help. Anyone got any ideas?

[Guest dave archer]

Hey snowgoon, well at least I'm not alone in this.

I've been through al the Oulook settings to try and find a way to tell it not to check email addresses, but found nothing. I suspect there is a setting somewhere, even if it's only modifiable via a registry setting...

Any Outlook experts out there able to help ?

Dave.

[Guest hotphil]

Perhaps not the answer you're looking for, but would a workaround not be to categorise your contacts and have them synced on both PC's?

[Guest hotphil]

Oh, and after very nearly 2 years of being here, that's finally my 100th post. Hurrah! Not a very good post/day ratio I know, but I read more than I comment!

[Guest boysweek]

I think there is a difference in the way the C500 syncs Outlook Contacts and previous versions. I had an E200 and this problem didn't arise but it has happened on my C500 although not in the same way you describe.

I didn't realise this was a prolific problem but now a few members have raised it I will look into it a bit more.

However let's get one thing clear - you can definitely have two different sets of Contacts used by Calendar, the work one and your personal one, and succesfully sync them. This is how mine works and it is fine.

To clarify. In my case the email database used by Calendar at work is the global company database plus any personal business contacts I choose to put in my desktop's Outlook Contacts. At home, I only have my personal contacts in Outlook Contacts. I sync my Calendar every day both at home and work and it is fine except for the point in next paragraph. I only sync my personal Contacts at home and not at work purley to ensure my personal contacts don't end up on the company server.

As we speak, my work ActiveSync says I have an unresolved Appointment yet at home it is fine. The reason is because there is an appointment sitting in Calendar containing email details for someone who no longer works for the company and whose details have been removed from the database.

I just have one question before I go digging. Have any of you had to reset your phone's ActiveSync partnership, either at work or at home, AFTER a previous partnership had been set up and used with no problem?

Steve

[Guest hotphil]

Frequently.

[Guest dave archer]

I just have one question before I go digging. Have any of you had to reset your phone's ActiveSync partnership, either at work or at home, AFTER a previous partnership had been set up and used with no problem?

Steve, in answer to the above, no.

Good luck with your digging, if you can help me out of this I owe you a beer or 3. If I can help at all, more info or whatever, please post here or PM me.

Cheers, Dave.

[Guest boysweek]

Hi Guys,

Try this procedure and let me know if it solves the problem. Read carefully before commencing and please do everything in the order listed here otherwise you may have problems:

STEP 1 – AT HOME

* Disconnect your SPV from the PC

* Open Outlook Calendar on your home desktop/laptop

* Back up your existing Outlook Calendar:

- Click File, Import and Export, Export to a File, Personal Folder File (.pst)

- In Export Personal Folders dialogue select the Calendar folder and click Next

- Name the backup file and select the directory to save to

- Click Finish

* Delete all existing data:

- Click View, Current View, By Category

- Click Edit, Select All

- Click Edit, Delete. All data should now be deleted from your PC’s Outlook Calendar

- Reconnect the SPV to the PC and synchronise

- All the Calendar items will now also be removed from your SPV

IMPORTANT - DO NOT CONNECT YOUR SPV TO THE WORK PC!!!!

STEP 2 – AT WORK

* DO NOT CONNECT your SPV to the Work PC otherwise you will wipe all the Calendar data on it

* Back up your existing Outlook Calendar on the work PC using the same procedure as Step 1

* Delete existing partnership to remove all synchronisation ID’s:

- Open ActiveSync on the PC

- Click File, Delete Partnership, Yes. If you have more than one Partnership, make sure you choose the one for the SPV used in Step 1.

* Re-establish Partnership and copy data to SPV:

- Connect your SPV to the work PC

- Start ActiveSync, if it does not start automatically, and follow the instructions to create a New Partnership. You will be prompted to delete an existing partnership from your SPV before you can complete the process. Ensure you delete the Work partnership and not your home one.

- When the Partnership is set up, ActiveSync will synchronise and copy your PC’s Calendar data to the SPV

- Check the SPV Calendar to make sure the synchronisation was successful

STEP 3 – AT HOME

* Copy data from SPV to Home PC:

- Connect your SPV to the home PC

- Start ActiveSync, if it does not start automatically, and synchronise. The Calendar data will be copied to your home PC

If everything has gone according to plan you will have an error free synchronisation across the three devices.

Good luck and let me know how you get on.

Steve

[Guest dave archer]

Hi Steve,

I will try the above procedure and let you know the outcome, thanks.

I don't understand why it will solve the problem of a calender event being copied from workPC to SPV to homePC throwing an error on homePC as the event contains one or more attendees who only exist in the work exchange address book, and so are unknown to homePC Outlook...?

Can you shed any light?

Cheers,

Dave.

[Guest boysweek]

Dave

please try it first and then I'll explain.

Steve

[Guest alenzini]

I have the same problem but with a twist. I use Outlook at home and Notes at work. At work I sync with CommonTime's mNotes and at home I just use ActiveSync with Outlook.

The same thing happens to me when I try to sync the calendar on my home pc.

My solution is to not sync the calendar at home but I'd like to. Any suggestions.

Cheers,

Andy

[Guest dave archer]

Dave

please try it first and then I'll explain.  

Steve

Steve, finally managed to try your process above (sorry for the delay).

Sorry to have to report it's resulted in the exact same problem as before - Step 3 gives me unresolved items, and each one is "Microsoft Outlook does not recognize "" where name is a contact which exists in work address book but not home one.

Any ideas? Would you mind explaining why you thoughts this might work, might spark some inspiration somewhere.

Anyone know how to tell outlook to ignore the fact it doesn't recognise a contact in a calendar item??

Much appreciate your efforts anyway Steve, cheers,

Dave.

[Guest boysweek]

Dave

sorry for delay in getting back to you, I have been away. Also sorry for another long reply!!

Shame it didn't work ^_^

The reason I suggested the process was to make sure there were no old sync tags, from previous failed ActiveSync installations, causing the problem - in other words to make sure everything was totally clean. I had an issue when I first got my C500 (upgraded from E200) and had problems trying to set up ActiveSync. Once I finally got ActiveSync working properly at both ends, I had a problem similar to that you described. The problems were completely resolved when I cleaned everything up using the process I described.

But we haven't resolved the problem and I feel there is a bigger issue here. Above, I say that mine works fine. Yes, it syncs and doesn't come up with any conflicts, but when I look closer at things - mine doesn't really sync properly either.

I was trying to understand why mine seemed to work and yours doesn't despite us appearing to have the same set up. I opened up a few sync'd Outlook Calendar appointments on my home pc and then looked at the email addresses for the meeting organiser and attendees. Something very odd - the meeting organiser's email address has been replaced by my private email address from my home PC Contacts and made me the meeting organiser!

However, if I look at meetings that I have organised at work and invited people to and then sync'd, Outlook on my home PC has captured all the information correctly including their email addresses.

So, is your problem the same? Do you only get an error messsage on those meetings that someone at work has organised and invited you to?

Regards

Steve (very confused but determined to get to the bottom of it)

[Guest dave archer]

Steve, again apologies for delay not had much time to mess with this. Had an back to factory settings in a blink crash on my phone t'other day whic too ages to restore everything too, but that's beside the point.

This Outlook issue, do I only get it with meetings I've organised... No, I get a problem for every calendar event which has any participant from the work address book.

I wonder if the nature of the work address book is a deifference between our setups. Mine is Exchange Server based I tihnk, and displays full names in Oultook, e.g "Bill Smith". It is these names that the Oulook at home is objecting too on sync, e.g.:

Microsoft Outlook does not recongnise "Bill Smith".

Would you like to:

Create a new address for "Bill Smith"?

Change to

[(No suggestions)][show More Names]

I suspect:

- somewhere in the syncing from Outlook at work to phone the participant details are being synced, but in text form not underlying email address, so phone record has "Bill Smith" not "[email protected]"

- Outlook as home insists on verifying calendar participants are eith in Contacts, or full email addresses (as it thinks it may need to mail them about changes etc)

...If I could only find a way of telling Outlook at home not to do this verification I think all would be fine, but as yet no look scouring web for this...

Not sure how this theory explains the behaviour you're seeing with organiser being replaced by you??!

This is a frustrating problem. More configuration power over ActiveSync (e.g. don't sync particapant names at home) would help. I feel an email coming on...

Dave.

[Guest yamahafazer]

Dave / all, did you ever resolve this? - it's been driving me mad too for months! :x