Tuesday, January 28, 2003
A Curious Calendar Sync Problem
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 08:53 AM
The only thing worse than running into a Pocket PC problem that I can't solve right away is when it happens on a Pocket PC that isn't mine (like a client's), and I have to say "I don't know what's going on." For someone like me, that's a painful admission. So here's what's got me stumped:
The problem is that appointments created on the desktop PC in Outlook XP don't sync over to the Pocket PC unless they have a category applied (either Personal or Business). I know what you're going to say "The ActiveSync Calendar settings are set to only sync those two categories" - they're not. I double-checked the settings, and it's set to sync all future appointments and four weeks of past appointments. I could create an appointment on the desktop computer without a category, and ActiveSync would do nothing - no sync. As soon as I assign a category, the appointment syncs over. 8O Also, Outlook XP was somehow configured to create every single new appointment as a full day event, and I can't seem to find the setting that controls that.
Now here's where it gets even more odd: there was an appointment on the Today screen of the Axim, but when I opened the calendar application, that appointment wasn't shown on that day. Wait, you're thinking calendar was set to only display appointments from certain categories? I checked that - it was set to display all categories (Personal and Business). And, no, they weren't all invisible because they were full day events - I changed them to normal appointments. So how can you have an appointment displayed on the Today screen that doesn't exist in the database?
I'm totally stumped - I've never seen anything like this before, or even heard of it, and I can't figure out the twisted logic of what Outlook XP and the Pocket PC are doing. Help? :?
The problem is that appointments created on the desktop PC in Outlook XP don't sync over to the Pocket PC unless they have a category applied (either Personal or Business). I know what you're going to say "The ActiveSync Calendar settings are set to only sync those two categories" - they're not. I double-checked the settings, and it's set to sync all future appointments and four weeks of past appointments. I could create an appointment on the desktop computer without a category, and ActiveSync would do nothing - no sync. As soon as I assign a category, the appointment syncs over. 8O Also, Outlook XP was somehow configured to create every single new appointment as a full day event, and I can't seem to find the setting that controls that.
Now here's where it gets even more odd: there was an appointment on the Today screen of the Axim, but when I opened the calendar application, that appointment wasn't shown on that day. Wait, you're thinking calendar was set to only display appointments from certain categories? I checked that - it was set to display all categories (Personal and Business). And, no, they weren't all invisible because they were full day events - I changed them to normal appointments. So how can you have an appointment displayed on the Today screen that doesn't exist in the database?
I'm totally stumped - I've never seen anything like this before, or even heard of it, and I can't figure out the twisted logic of what Outlook XP and the Pocket PC are doing. Help? :?
