Android(synthesis) - Funambol - Thunderbird

[afx]

Hi,
I am trying to figure out how to sync my Android phone (HTC Desire, Android 2.1) with my Thunderbird/Lightning (Ubuntu). Addresses, calender and tasks. Lightning has multiple calenders, one local and one cached from a SoGo Server.

I can not use any WLAN connection to a company or public server as WLANs are a nogo for the company server and public servers are not allowed for the data...

So I installed funambol on the Ubuntu box, synced from TB and could see everything is there.
Then I tried to grab that from the funambol server into the Desire via the synthesis app over the USB tethering connection.
Took me a while to figure out that each sync solution sees different names for the data, but once that gotten sorted, I could grab the stuff from the funambol server.

But, the results are not pretty:
I had synced the contacts previously via the funambol app and ended up with a duplicate contacts set. The contacts application does not show my any differences between the dupes.

The calender sync grabs only my local lightning data but not the stuff from the SoGo server that is cached on Lighning (and also visible in funambol web interface, so it is available there).

So how can I make sure that the addresses are not duplicated?

And how can I influence what is grabbed from the calender? I want all calenders that I have cached on my Lightning, not just my local one.

cheers
afx
PS: Using the funambol server for historic reasons, was thinking of trying the synthesis server and then realized I already forgot that registration pw and the web interface has no pw reset function ;-(

[bfo]

Duplicates are usually a server issue, as the server is doing the matching of the client and server items at slow sync. The SyncML client has no influence on that.

The different calendars can be included/excluded at the settings -> events menu. Their origin will be transferred in the categories field, so it can be assigned back correctly to the corresponding Android calendar.
By default, only the first calendar is switched on.

[afx]

Originally Posted by bfo

Duplicates are usually a server issue, as the server is doing the matching of the client and server items at slow sync. The SyncML client has no influence on that.

I am not sure about that in this case.
I can select various active contacts in the contacts preferences of the synthesis client. And the synthesis client defaulted to com.google whereas funbambol defaulted to com.funambol.
Only realized that later on ;-(
But then I don't see any categories listed as such in the android contacts entry, but both entries are listed as Funambol contacts (title). (Is that the category?)

Now if I knew where to nuke the whole contacts DB I could play that again....
Ahh, found it.

If I nuke all entries and the sync again (option download to device) the app thinks all is in order and syncs nothing.
If I force the download, (reload device) it downloads entries but I don't see them in the contacts db.

The different calendars can be included/excluded at the settings -> events menu. Their origin will be transferred in the categories field, so it can be assigned back correctly to the corresponding Android calendar.
By default, only the first calendar is switched on.

I get offered id=1, id=2, id=3 and afxmac@gmail.com
All the three id thingies are switched on. The gmail stuff is off (don't want anything to leak over there accidentially, that's the whole reason I bother with syncml).

How should the app know the categorization of the calender stuff on the server beforehand? Have not found it in the funambol docs either...

thx
afx

[afx]

A few more experiments...
(Which seem to confirm that the funambol server is a bit yucky (stupid thing doesn't even work dualhomed)....)

Empty DB on phone, sync with the synthesis app twice, have duplicate address book ;-(

Even though I have seen the sogo calender entries in the web interface of the funambol server I needed to explicitly sync the sogo calender into the funambol server before the synthesis app would pick it up.
And I have no idea how to keep the two separate so when I sync back from the android to Lightning I get any changes sorted into the sogo and the private calendar.

So should I start to play with the synthesis server on the laptop? Would it be able to keep the subcalenders apart?

cheers
afx

[bfo]

Was it a normal sync or slow sync ?
Without specific information it is very difficult to find the root cause for problems :-(!

the Synthesis server of course can assign Android subcalendars correctly, but every SyncML compliant server should be able to do so as well, if supporting a category field.

[afx]

Ok, trying the Synthesis server instead....

Step one: sync from Thunderbird (Lighning/funambol) into the Synthesis demo server.

Aborts rather quickly (Funambol plugin error:
Error: Can't access to the server. Please check your network connectivity and your account server's location.)

Synthesis logs attached.

cheers
afx

[bfo]

Thanks for the logs.
They show that the server is successfully starting the session, allow login and then sends back the answer but never gets any next message from the client. So the session ist stopped with a user abort later.
No idea why the client is not answering anymore.
Have you checked on client's side if the server message will be received there?

[afx]

This is what I see in the log (debug log would be way too large (28K lines) and contains sensitive stuff)

17:41:31 GMT [INFO] Checking for contact sync...
17:41:31 GMT [INFO] The source contact isn't set to be synced
17:41:31 GMT [INFO] Checking for event sync...
17:41:31 GMT [INFO] Required sync mode: 'two way sync'
17:41:31 GMT [INFO] Checking for task sync...
17:41:31 GMT [INFO] Required sync mode: 'two way sync'
17:41:31 GMT [INFO] --------------------> Begin SyncML Synchronization <--------------------
17:41:31 GMT [DEBUG] Synchronization URL: http://127.0.0.1:8011/
17:41:31 GMT [INFO] Preparing synchronization of event...
17:41:31 GMT [INFO] Preparing synchronization of task...
17:41:31 GMT [INFO] [event] Initializing all events...
17:41:31 GMT [INFO] [event] Initialization done
17:41:31 GMT [INFO] [event] Detected 347 items
17:41:32 GMT [ERROR] MozillaTransportAgent::sendMessage error: Cannot send http request
17:41:32 GMT [ERROR] Error in syncing: Error: Cannot send http request.
17:41:32 GMT [INFO] --------------------> End SyncML Synchronization <--------------------

Doesn't sound very informative though...

cheers
afx

[afx]

Another interesting data point in this saga....

Deleted the funambol android app. Tried to run the synthesis app.
Can no longer modify the contacts settings. ;-(
And all my contacts are gone.

Looks like the funambol app that I started out with installed all contacts in a com.funambol domain. That was lost when I deinstalled the funambol app and all the contacts in it went away....

But why would the synthesis app need that?

Guess I need to find a place where those domains are explained and hopefully find a tool to manage them manually.

cheers
afx

[bfo]

All addressbooks and calendars on Android are account based.
There is not THE addressbook or THE calendar.
If you remove such an account, it's gone.