PalmSync - Thunderbird

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PalmSync for Mozilla Thunderbird (TB) is a conduit to synchronize your TB address book with the Address application on your Palm OS® device. PalmSync is Windows and address book only, no e-mail or calendar sync. It replaces the Palm address book conduit, but with HotSync Manager 4 and above you can switch between syncing Palm Desktop and PalmSync. Other conduits and sync options are not affected.

PalmSync has several #Issues and Limitations. You may lose data if you do not understand and prepare accordingly before you sync your PDA.

A conduit is not a sync manager. You must have a sync manager installed, like HotSync. Make sure you have the latest version of sync management software from (Palm Desktop) or your vendor for your model of PDA.

If you have coding or design skills, especially palm conduit or application experience, please help in the bugs.

Requirements: Thunderbird 1.5 or higher, hotsync manager installed on PC and palm Address application on palm device

Issues and Limitations

These limitations can affect your data. Read carefully before installing. Data integrity problems can be avoided if you know and address these issues before working with PalmSync.

  • PalmSync is not a true mozilla extension. It installs like an extension but it does not show in the Thunderbird addons/extensions list and cannot be uninstalled through addons. See #Uninstall below.
  • PalmSync maps TB address books to palm categories and Palm 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.
  • Palm doesn't allow duplicate Categories. Therefore, duplicate TB Address Book names should never be used, even though TB allows multiple books with the same name.
  • 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 default Personal category. Rename the TB Address Book to avoid the problem, or copy the AB entries to Personal Address Book and delete the offending TB address book.
  • 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.
  • Treo users. Your contacts with a null category will not sync. When you create a new contact and ALL contacts are displayed, Treo sets the new contact's category to null, not Unfiled like as other palm devices do. But, if you select a category first and then create a new contact, the new contact will be set to the currently selected category.
  • Ensure that all Palm Contacts are assigned to a valid Category. Contacts not assigned to a defined category will not sync properly.
  • Palm entries marked "private" will not sync.
  • Avoid renaming TB Address Books after your first sync.
  • Some TB fields do not sync to the palm, for example second e-mail address, mailing address, and mobile phone.
  • Syncing with two PCs is unknown territory - you are on your own.
  • 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.
  • As you might guess from the information above, TB's address book was not designed to work with palm devices. So if you have coding or design skills, especially palm conduit or experience that will help improve PalmSync, please see the bug list. Also, if you cannot avoid one of limitations above please comment briefly in a relevant bug.

Installation

Follow these steps to install the PalmSync conduit. See #Installation Notes for explanation of (1), (2), (3).

  1. Before making any changes, test sync to your handheld's supplied desktop software (ex. Palm Desktop), so you know hotsync manager works.
  2. Back up Thunderbird data. Back up palm desktop data. Read data #Issues and Limitations.
  3. DO NOT INSTALL INTO FIREFOX!'. Save to disk with right (not left) click on and select "save link as".
  4. In Thunderbird, go to "Tools -> Add-ons (Extensions) -> Install" to install PalmSync.xpi from disk. (1) (If using TB 1.0 install Contacts Sidebar next.)
  5. Restart Thunderbird to activate the extension. (1)
  6. 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.
    2. Mozilla Address Book conduit - you should see "Synchronize The Files". If not, change this to "Synchronize The Files" and check "Set as Default". If you do not see Mozilla Address Book conduit listed then check step 2 above and (2).
    3. Desktop's Contacts conduit - To sync to TB it should be set "Do Nothing" and check "Set as Default". The conduit is there with newer versions of Palm Desktop (PD). Having both conduits installed, PD and PalmSync, you can switch between syncing to PD and Thunderbird. Get a newer version of PD if you don't see it and want to be able to switch.
    4. Click OK.
  7. Perform a HotSync® to verify correct operation (3) of palm and Thunderbird sync. If the results not correct consult #Bugs and Troubleshooting.

Bugs and Troubleshooting

Check that Mozilla Address Book conduit is listed in hotsync (Hot Sync > Custom) and is set to synchronize, and Contacts conduit (if it exists) is set to "do nothing".

If no data syncs:

  • Set Mozilla Address Book conduit in hotsync to "desktop overwrites handheld" (do NOT set as default) and hotsync once. If it syncs then the problem was not with PalmSync - it was probably data corruption on the handheld (HH), a condition known to prevent syncing. CAUTION: DT -> HH will clear contact data on your handheld and replace it with Thunderbird's data.
  • If Mozilla Address Book conduit is not listed in the hotsync manager following installation this can be solved as follows:
    • 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.
  • Retest syncing with your handheld's default desktop application (Palm Desktop for example).
  • 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.

Still have a problem / other issues :

  • Ask for help in the Thunderbird General mozillazine forum.
  • Check Bug list and known issues
  • Uninstall PalmSync AND Thunderbird. Reinstall both.
  • After checking bug list and not finding a good match, file a new bug in component "Mailnews: Palm Sync" of product "Core". Select "Other Products" to find "Core". The description should be short but complete, with
    • steps and enough information for someone else to reproduce the problem.
    • versions - paste into the bug comments : version of PalmSync, Thunderbird build string/version from help | about, Hotsync version from hotsync | about, hotsync log from hotsync | view log
    • conduit log file - attached as a file (see below)
  • 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

Enhancement requests

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

Tweaks and Tools

  • 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 Thunderbird's preference menus.
pref("ldap_2.servers.<ab name>.disablePalmSync", true);
  • To sync Home address information instead of work add this preference. Use tools -> options -> advanced -> config editor or add a line to the prefs.js file for each exclusion. This is documented in Bug 226221. This feature has no UI, i.e. you will not find it in Thunderbird's preference menus.
pref("mail.palmsync.useHomeAddress", true);
  • Conduit Tools - these provide detailed control over and information about your conduits, not for the faint of heart

Installation Notes

(1) PalmSync is installed via extension manager but it is NOT a true extension. Therefore you will not see it 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, the log will have nothing useful.
(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

Starting with Thunderbird version 2 you can uninstall using addons/extension manager. The items below are primarily for versions prior to 2 (1.5.0.x, 1.0.x, etc). There is no uninstall procedure that removes the PalmSync software from disk, but you can disable or reset conduit and hotsync settings which affect the connection to Thunderbird. Choose a method depending on the results you need to achieve.

  • To disable the PalmSync conduit, keep it available for future use, and switch the sync back to Palm Desktop:
  1. Right click the HotSync icon in the system tray and select "Custom" to get a list of conduits.
  2. Edit Mozilla Address Book conduit, change to "Do nothing", check "Set as Default", click OK. (If you do not see Mozilla Address Book then the PalmSync was not activated or not completely installed.)
  3. Edit Contacts conduit (i.e. Palm Desktop), change to "Synchronize The Files", check "Set as Default"., click OK. (If you do not see Contacts then you must restore the Palm conduit using the clean and restore method below).
  4. Click OK.
  • To remove PalmSync conduit programatically so Mozilla Address Book will not appear in the hotsync list:
  1. Find PalmSyncInstall.exe in your Thunderbird profile (Thunderbird v2) or program directory (prior to v2)
  2. From a DOS prompt in that directory, do PalmSyncInstall.exe /u<br\>Seamonkey users can remove the palmsync conduit from hotsync with Start > Program > Seamonkey > Palm Tools > Uninstall
  • To remove PalmSync conduit manually so Mozilla Address Book will not appear in the hotsync list, use a tool from Tweaks and Tools, or do the following:<br\>WARNING: Do not proceed unless you are experienced at modifying registry values.
  1. Make a backup of your registry prior to making any changes (File > Export).
  2. Run regedit (Left click on the Start button > Run > regedit).
  3. 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".
  4. Delete this Application X entry where "Name" value is "Mozilla Address Book"
  5. Exit regedit.
  6. Shutdown and restart HotSync manager.
  • To clear and return to factory default settings for HotSync choose from several methods:<br\>Warning: You must reinstall any conduits you added after you last installed Palm Desktop.
    • Run HotSyncWizard.exe - see Tweaks and Tools
    • Uninstall and reinstall the Palm Desktop. Or slightly less drastic ...
    • hotsync -r<br\>
      1. Get a command prompt (Start > Run > cmd), navigate go to your Palm software root folder (cd C:\Program Files\Palm\).
      2. Run hotsync -r (type: hotsync -r). This will reset the Palm Desktop's HotSync conduits to their factory defaults.
      3. Exit the command prompt (type: exit).

See also