UK Mac Wizards

Blackberry Bold Missing Sync

I’m looking for answers here from anyone who has succeeded with tackling the problem of syncing Mac and Blackberry Bold. Missing Sync looks like it should work but on my client’s mac it goes well at first, and then subsequent syncs start deleting contacts catastrophically!

I worked through the solutions provided by Mark Space technical support on behalf of my client, but nothing worked in the end after the first few syncs. As you can imagine, handling someone else’s precious data with this sort of error occurring without warning can make one twitchy.

I take small comfort that I am not alone, but really feel that Mac users are treated like second class citizens by Blackberry RIM, who should really bundle working sync software with their new phones – after all a fair amount of their customers are publishing types who love their Macs! And Mark Space should get this sorted out too, because Missing Sync is an apt name for their product for all the wrong reasons.

There is a thread in Mark Space’s forums about this and I have posted there.

We will see.

UPDATE: Following Luca’s comment (below) I tried the Google Sync method. I haven’t quite got it working yet as we ran out of time, but I just want to note some gotchas I need to be aware of when working with Blackberries:

1) Make sure that the Blackberry contains the actual SIM card that is to be used. So dismal was the Missing Sync experience on the Bold 9000, the client had moved his SIM over to his previous phone.

2) Make sure the Blackberry has a data plan. This was my naivety in that the I am so used to an iPhone that comes with an unlimited data contract by which it gets email, whereas the Blackberry email is a separate deal from the internet contract. So I was scratching my head wondering why Google Sync wasn’t able to login.

3) Unfortunately you must wipe either the Mac contacts or the Blackberry before the first sync or there is going to be duplication. In this case my client has over 1200 contacts, and a differing number on each device.

Having been critical of Blackberry RIM for not producing Mac sync software for the Bold 9000 out of the box earlier, I now wonder if Apple is also to blame. If they want to they can make it possible. I note for instance that syncing with Googlemail’s contacts in Leopard was just a matter of ticking a check-box in preferences. However, whoever is to blame, it is an absolute shambles that given the money invested in these devices by both developers and consumers, that they don’t “just work”.

Customise iPhone dictionary auto-correct 'feature'

Make a contact (perhaps First Name iPhone, Last Name Dictionary so you remember) and put in the company field all the words you don’t want auto-corrected.

That’s it.

I think it is daft that we have to go to such lengths, but fab that there is a work around. I have sent so many SMS, tweets, and social network messages with gaffs in them thanks to the iPhone auto-correct feature. It is a godsend when typing quickly on the phone as it catches most of the miss-types fairly intelligently, but its when it has corrected something you meant to type that it gets infuriating.

Thanks to a fairly cryptic tweet from @goobimama of Smoking Apples. ‘Ducking He’ll’. I’m a bit slow.

Have you tried turning it off and then on again?

When I hear myself asking a poor long-suffering client “have you tried turning it off and then on again?” I feel a little shudder of geeky anguish.

And yet, like asking them to check the connections, it can sometimes yield great results. I think I am going to begin a list of devices that refuse to play ball unless they are given this treatment from time to time.

Virgin Media Modem

First on the list is Virgin Media’s cable modem (255 or 256). To be fair it does say on the sticker on the modem to turn off the modem (and everything attached to it) and then turn it back on again, and connected devices sometime afterwards. A big clue if you are having internet connection problems. But you don’t immediately do that if you have been told that the problem is with something else on the network. In the case I am thinking of I was told that the problem was an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station. And so it appeared to be because in the process of trying to fix it the client had totally scrambled its settings. But infact the true culprit was the modem that was not communicating with the Airport unless it was in bridge mode. The user had bypassed the Airport with a direct connection between Mac and modem, which did work, and so assumed the Airport was at fault. Well, you know what fixed it.

More to come as I meet with Macs and devices behaving in a flakey way.

Please feel free to add to the list in the comments.