Missing Sync ? for Mac Users

[sjlesq]

I have emails in my Mac Address Book labeled as "work" and "home", but the labels on the Treo come out as "e-mail." I've followed the suggestion on the Mark Space support site to correct this problem (namely, resetting the sync histrory, restarting the Mac, and synching with the desktop overrighting the handheld setting), but this does not seem to label my Treo fields as home or work. Anyone else have this issue? Have I missed something? TIA.

[kabeyun]

Did you correct all your contacts' information on the Mac prior to that overwriting sync? If not, the incorrect labels will persist.

-K

[sjlesq]

Well, I did rename the email fields that Missing Sync renamed "email" or "other." Aside from that, the info in the Address Book was correct. I did not change any substantive info b/c that was not needed. Are you indicating that I have to re-enter the emails?

[kabeyun]

No, I don't think so. Here's a longish answer but, imho, worth a read.

My experience is that Missing Sync, while an excellent Mac-syncing solution, has always had trouble with field mapping. My opinion is that the Mac's Address Book fields are far more extensive than the Treo fields, and, no matter what Mark Space tech support says, there can be trouble asking them to sync perfectly. We see this with custom fields, birthdays, etc.

Here's an experiment I did on your behalf that supports this conclusion:

1. I created a new contact on the Treo (called "Tester") with an e-mail address in the first field, labeled Home. I then hot synced with the Contacts conduit set to synchronize.
RESULT: Tester appeared properly in the Mac Address Book, with the e-mail address in an e-mail field correctly labeled Home.

2. I changed the field label on the Treo to E-mail and hot synced again.
RESULT: The Mac Address Book properly reflected the change, with the field label changed to E-mail.

3. On the Mac, I changed the field label back to Home and hot synced again.
RESULT: The Treo field label did not change back.

4. I changed the conduit setting to "Desktop Overwrites Handheld" and hot synced again.
RESULT: The Treo field label still did not change back.

5. I then repeated the experiment with a contact created on the Mac.
RESULT: The same. It seems that once a Treo field is named E-mail, it remains that way until manually changed.

My thought on this? As I mentioned above, I believe the root cause is an inherent discrepancy between the Mac & the Treo in the way contact labels are handled. On the Mac, there are regions where phone numbers and, separately, where e-mails can be listed. A phone number can acquire the label "E-mail" (see step 2 above) but as a custom label field, which the Treo can't do. The Treo can't understand this: contact info is either Home, Work, E-mail, Mobile, Other, Pager, etc. In other words, the Treo's field can't have subcategories like home e-mail, work e-mail, mobile e-mail, etc. the way the Mac Address Book can. Thus, and here's the point, when an e-mail address ends up in the e-mail region of the Mac Address Book, Missing Sync deals with it appropriately as an e-mail address, and calls it that on the Treo, no matter how you subcategorize that e-mail address on the Mac. Put differently, Missing Sync can't make the Treo think that contact info in a Mac Address Book e-mail field is anything other than "E-mail," no matter how it's labeled in the Mac Address Book.

I know it's confusing, but suffice it to say that I don't think this problem had a solution with the current versions of software. MarkSpace will probably continue to tell you to reset sync services until they're blue in the e-face because it's easier than acknowledging that their software has limitations (they're great, but still human) but all the sync services resetting in the world won't change this inherent field discrepancy.

You're more than welcome to pass on this message to MarkSpace for consideration in their next version. I'm probably already on their blacklist.

btw, this conclusion is based on my own experience and testing. If I'm wrong, please someone out there correct me and provide a solution.

Cheers,

-K

[sjlesq]

K, thanks for the answer. You are definitely right and believe it or not, Mark Space got back to me. Below is the response:


This is as designed. The problem is that email addresses that are labeled as something other then email will appear in the contact list on the device with blank spaces. It's hard to explain without seeing it, but in any event, out conduit changes the label for all email addresses to email rather then Work or Home.

--Dave

Mark/Space, Inc.
Technical Support