PalmSync - Thunderbird

The PalmSync extension for Mozilla Thunderbird (TB) provides a conduit to synchronize your TB address book with the Address application on your Palm OS® device. PalmSync only works on Windows and only for address book (no mail sync). It replaces the Palm address book conduit, so hotsync will no longer synchronize your Palm address book with Palm Desktop or other PC address book software (unless you reassign the conduit in hotsync setting). Other conduits and sync options should not be affected.

PalmSync has several data #Issues and Limitations you should understand before you install and sync.

PalmSync is a data conduit, not a sync manager. So, in addition to PalmSync, you need sync management software like HotSync from Palm or another vendor. If you already have a sync manager then check the vendor website to make sure you have the latest version of (Palm Desktop) for your model of PDA. After downloading the sync manager, install and test it before trying PalmSync.

Requirements Thunderibird 1.5 or higher recommended. (Not recommended, Thunderbird 1.0.x at 1.0.2 or higher plus Contacts Sidebar extension to work around TB 1.0.x bug 234391.

Installation

To install PalmSync, follow these steps. See Installation Notes for explanation of (1), (2), (3).

1. Right (not left) click palmsync.xpi for TB 1.0.x or palmsync for TB 1.5 and select "save link as" to download extension to your PC. DO NOT INSTALL EXTENSION INTO BROWSER!. (If using Thunderbird 1.0, also download the Contacts Sidebar extension.)
2. In Thunderbird, go to "Tools -> Extensions -> Install" and install the PalmSync extension. 1 (If using TB 1.0, also install Contacts Sidebar extension with "Tools -> Extensions -> Install".)
3. Restart Thunderbird to activate the extension. (1)
4. Verify conduit settings (2):
   • Right click the Palm Hot Sync icon in the system tray and select "Custom".
   • Set the Mozilla Address Book conduit default to "Synchronize The Files".
   • If the Desktop's Contacts conduit was retained after Palm Sync was installed then set the Contacts conduit default to "Do Nothing".
5. Perform a HotSync® operation to verify correct operation (3) - the palm and Thunderbird address books should sync. If the results are not as expected, please consult #Bugs and Troubleshooting.

Bugs and Troubleshooting

If you have a problem after the above steps and your problem does not appear in the Bug list and known issues:

• If you never had a palmsync working, please uninstall and then reinstall thunderbird, and repeat the above steps
• Although infrequent, Palm Sync sometimes will not complete its installation algorithm for unknown reasons. On these installations, Palm Sync's installation process appears to works properly, however, the Mozilla Address Book conduit does not show up in the list of Palm conduits following installation (Hot Sync > Custom). The problem can be solved with the following workaround:
  • Manually unzip the palmsync.xpi file to TBird's program folder in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird and then manually run the PalmSyncInstall.exe program from there. That is, rename the palmsync.xpi to palmsync.zip and right click to select Extract All to "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird" and then go there and run (double click) PalmSyncInstall.exe.
• If you need further assistance then ask for help in the Thunderbird General mozillazine forum
• For non-stable version of Thunderbird (nightlies, release candidates, etc) check the bug list. The extension might not be working in development versions and perhaps a special version of PalmSync is available.
• If you are still stuck please comment in an existing bug (or make a new bug) with the following information: version of plamsync, build string and version of Thunderbird, hotsync log, and conduit log. Hotsync log is found in hotsync > view log. To create a conduit log:
  • Go into the Windows Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Environment Variables
  • Set MOZ_CONDUIT_LOG=c:\temp\conduit.log
    (if the conduit logfile is empty then the conduit is probably not getting called at all, i.e. you have an install problem)

New bugs should be filed in component "Mailnews: Palm Sync" of product "Core" - select "Other Products" to find core when creating the bug.

Issues and Limitations

The bug list covers many known issues. Some are related to the install and uninstall process. Many are limitations of data (field) synchronization, because TB's address book was not initially designed to work with palm devices. Please note especially the following ... "Important Issues

• PalmSync maps TB address books to palm categories, however Palm's category names are limited to 15 characters. Therefore, you should limit TB's Address Book names to 15 characters.
• The Palm is limited to a maximum of 15 Categories. Therefore, do not establish more than 15 TB Address Books.
• TB allows multiple Address Books to have the same name, however, Palm doesn't allow duplicate Categories. Therefore, duplicate TB Address Book names should never be used.
• A TB Address Book named Personal should never be used. Only one (1) TB Address Book name should begin with Personal and that is TB's default Personal Address Book. (Palm Sync maps TB's default Personal Address Book to the palm's default Personal category. If you have a TB Address Book named Personal it may result in unsuccessful sync operations. Rename the Address Book to avoid the problem.)
• Do not delete the Unfiled Category from the Palm. If you have deleted this Palm Category then go back and re-define a Unfiled Category on the palm.
• Ensure that all Palm Contacts are assigned to a valid Category. Contacts that are not assigned or not defined may not sync properly.
• PalmSync does not sync non-ascii characters, eg. international language, 8-bit, unicode (bug 237624). Therefore, non-ascii characters should be avoided since they will cause problems within Palm's Contacts and TB's Address Books.

Enhancement requests

The most notable requests for additional sync functionality (not just Palm OS® or Thunderbird) are:

• AB sync with non-Palm OS PDAs
• mail conduit for the palm sync
• mail PDA Sync for non-Palm OS Devices
• support opensync conduit

Installation Notes

(1) PalmSync is installed via extension manager but is NOT a true extension. Therefore it will not show up in the list of extensions nor can it be UNinstalled via extension manager.
(2) Some versions of Palm software retain Palm Desktop's Contacts as the default conduit after Palm Sync installs the Mozilla Address Book conduit. This has been documented with Palm Desktop version 4.1.4 with HotSync version 6.0.1. So, to be safe, the final step of Palm Sync install is to verify the conduit settings.
(3) It is normal to not see a log entry for the hotsync - bug 183722.

See also

• Synchronizing Windows based PDA's