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 the Palm Desktop or other desktop address book software (unless you reassign the condiut in hotsync). Other conduits and sync options should not be affected.

PalmSync has several data issues you should understand before installating and syncing. We suggest you review the list of #Issues and Limitations before proceeding.

PalmSync is a conduit, not a sync manager. This means 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, install and test it before proceeding further.

Requirements Thunderibird 1.5. Or, thunderbird 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:

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!.
2.  TB 1.0 - Download the Contacts Sidebar extension.
3.  In Thunderbird, go to "Tools -> Extensions -> Install" and install the PalmSync extension. (1)
4.  TB 1.0 - Install Contacts Sidebar extension with "Tools -> Extensions -> Install".
5.  Restart Thunderbird to activate the extension. (1)
6.  Verify conduit settings (2):
      a) Right click the Palm Hot Sync icon in the system tray and select "Custom".
      b) Set the Mozilla Address Book conduit default to "Synchronize The Files".
      c) If the Desktop's Contacts conduit was retained after Palm Sync was installed then set the Contacts conduit default to "Do Nothing".

Perform a HotSync® operation to verify correct operation (3) - the palm and Thunderbird address books should sync.

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
• 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 below - the extension might not be working in development versions and perhaps a newer version of PalmSync is available for testing
• 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 of the known issues, most of which involve data limitations of field synchronization, because TB address book was not intially designed with the perspective of the palm device in mind. Here are some important points:

• This is big - PalmSync maps TB address books to palm categories, category names are limited to 15 characters, and you are limited to 15 categories. Therefore you want 15 or fewer address books and with names truncated to 15 characters there should be no duplicate address book names.
• If you have a TB address book named personal then you need to make an adjustment. PalmSync maps the "Personal Address Book" to the palm's personal category. You do not want an address book whose name is personal.
• TB allows multiple address books to have the same name, palm doesn't allow duplicate categories. Duplicates are bad, don't do it.
• Do not delete the unfiled category from your palm. If you have, go back and define it on the palm.
• Make sure all of your palm contacts are assigned to a valid category - not assigned or not defined is bad.
• PalmSync does not sync non-ascii characters, eg. international language, 8-bit, unicode. This will cause a problem with contacts and address books that have such non-ascii characters.

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

Notes

(1) PalmSync is installed via extension manager, but it is not yet a true extension. Therefore the extension will not show up in the list of extensions nor can it be uninstalled via extension manager.
(2) Some newer versions of Palm software retain the 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. As a result, the final step of the Palm Sync install process is to verify the conduit settings.
(3) You might not see a log entry for the hotsync - bug 183722.

See also

• Synchronizing Windows based PDA's