PalmSync - Thunderbird

PalmSync 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 synchronization of e-mail or calendar). It replaces the Palm address book conduit, so hotsync will no longer synchronize your Palm address book of Palm Desktop or other PC address book software (unless you reassign the conduit using a hotsync setting). Other conduits and sync options should not be affected.

PalmSync has several #Issues and Limitations, especially data issues, 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: Thunderbird 1.5 or higher.

Issues and Limitations

These limitations can affect your data, read the list carefully before installing. The integrity and the amount of data that syncs may be affected.

• PalmSync is not a "modern", true mozilla extension. Thunderbird does not show it in the addons/extensions list and so it cannot be uninstalled there. See #Uninstall below.
• PalmSync maps TB address books to palm categories, however Palm's category names are limited to 15 characters. Therefore, 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. (PalmSync 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, avoid non-ascii characters since they will cause problems within Palm's Contacts and TB's Address Books.
• TB's address book predates palm and was not initial designed to work with palm devices. See bug list for additional bugs and issues, including technical notes on the install and uninstall process.

Installation

This assumes you have a working hotsync manager installed. Then follow these steps to install the PalmSync conduit. See #Installation Notes for explanation of (1), (2), (3).

1. Backup your Thunderbird data, palm desktop data. Read data #Issues and Limitations.
2. DO NOT INSTALL INTO YOUR BROWSER!'. Save it to disk with a right (not left) click on palmsync for TB 1.5 or palmsync.xpi for TB 1.0.x and select "save link as" to download the extension to your PC. (If using Thunderbird 1.0.x, also download the Contacts Sidebar extension.)
3. In Thunderbird, go to "Tools -> Extensions -> Install" and install the PalmSync extension from disk. (1) (If using TB 1.0, also install Contacts Sidebar extension.)
4. Restart Thunderbird to activate the extension. (1)
5. Verify conduit settings (2) :
   1. Right click the Palm Hot Sync icon in the system tray and select "Custom" to get a list of conduits.
      • Mozilla Address Book conduit - you should see "Synchronize The Files". If not, change this to "Synchronize The Files" and check "Set as Default".
      • Desktop's Contacts conduit - you should not see this. If this was retained then set the Contacts conduit to "Do Nothing" and check "Set as Default".
   2. Click OK.
6. Perform a HotSync® 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, PalmSync may not complete its installation algorithm for unknown reasons. On these installations, PalmSync'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). This 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 PalmSyncInstall.exe. That is, a) rename palmsync.xpi to palmsync.zip, b) right click to select Extract All to "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird" and c) 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 versions of Thunderbird (nightlies, release candidates, etc) check the bug list. Development versions of TB may require a special version of PalmSync.
• If you are still stuck please comment in an existing bug or make a new bug, and paste in : version of PalmSync, Thunderbird build string/version from help|about, Hotsync version from hotsync|about, hotsync log from hotsync | view log, and conduit 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 being called, i.e. you have an install problem)
  • Hotsync
  • look for the log file

File new bugs in component "Mailnews: PalmSync" of product "Core" - select "Other Products" to find "Core" when creating the bug.

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

Customize

• To choose not to sync one or more address books, create a preference for each book to be excluded. Use tools -> options -> advanced -> config editor or add lines to the prefs.js file for each exclusion. This is documented in Bug 227507. This feature has no UI, i.e. you will not find it in preferences menus.

pref("ldap_2.servers.<ab name>.disablePalmSync", true);

Installation Notes

(1) PalmSync is installed via extension manager but it is NOT a true extension. Therefore it will not show up in Thunderbird's list of addons/extensions, nor can it be UNinstalled/removed via extension manager. Use the Uninstall instructions.
(2) Some versions of Palm software retain Palm Desktop's Contacts as the default conduit after PalmSync 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 PalmSync install is to verify the conduit settings.
(3) It is unfortunately normal to not see a hotsync log entry for the address book - bug 183722.
(4) Thunderbird 1.0.x at 1.0.2 or higher is not recommended. It requires Contacts Sidebar extension to work around TB 1.0.x bug 234391.

Uninstall

The following procedure will completely uninstall PalmSync from Tbird. Warning: This will also uninstall any other add-on Hot Sync conduits that you have installed and involves modifying the registry. Do not proceed unless you are experienced at modifying registry values. An alternative sure fire way to uninstall PalmSync is to uninstall/reinstall the Palm Desktop.

To uninstall the PalmSync xpi:

1. Run regedit (Left click on the Start button > Run > regedit). Be sure and make a backup of your registry prior to making any changes (File > Export).
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\U.S. Robotics\Pilot Desktop\ApplicationX (Where X is an integer - look for the entry that has a value "Name" with data of "Mozilla Address Book".
3. Delete this Application X entry where "Name" value points to "Mozilla Address Book" and then exit regedit.
4. Shutdown Hotsync Manager.
5. Take a command prompt (Left click on Start button > Run > cmd) and go to your palm root folder (cd C:\Program Files\Palm\).
6. Run hotsync -r (type: hotsync -r). This will reset the Palm Desktop's Hot Sync conduits to their factory defaults.
7. Exit the command prompt (type: exit).
8. Done! The Handheld device should now resync with the Palm Desktop software which has been reverted back to its original configuration.
9. You must now reinstall any other Hot Sync Conduit software that you want to run.

See also

• Synchronizing Windows based PDA's