Ann: Zmacsync-1.5 Available

[dhns]

Well, I finally got around to trying the latest 1.5.1 version.  I started from scratch. I wanted to get addresses from my PC in Outlook to my Mac Address Book.  I started with an empty Zaurus, synced from my PC to my Zaurus, then from my Zaurus to my Mac.

All the addresses that were previously in the Mac Address Book are now gone.  

Time to restore from the backup.  

Ganoe,
sorry that you have this unhappy experience.

To better understand what has happened: how did you "start from scratch"?

Did you delete all entries on the Zaurus by a Delete all... command?
Or did you do a hard reset of the Zaurus?

-- hns

[ganoe]

I did a "delete all" within the different apps.  Let me guess, the sync software then assumed I wanted to delete everything on my Mac?  I guess that's the right behavior, but I think some kind of warning that everything was about to be deleted would've been appropriate.

I have to be honest, I really prefer the way the Zaurus Windows sync software works.  It prompts you with the numbers of additions/deletions/changes and gives you much finer grain control.

Let me try another sync and see if it gets me any closer to what I want.

[time passes]

I guess I should've read the manual and done a Bidirectional Copy, but that didn't seem to do it either.  Now I have everything I want on my Mac (everything that was on both devices), but for some reason the Zaurus now only has the addresses that were originally on my Mac and all the addresses that were originally on the Zaurus are gone.

It also stuck an extra card with "No Name" in one of my groups in the Mac Address Book.

I tried another sync to see if it'd pull everything together and it didn't do anything.

Then I tried another Bidirectional Copy, and now everything is on both devices plus a bunch of duplicates on both.  What was duplicated seems a little inconsistent (at least on the Mac).  Now everything that was on my Mac in the first place is on the Zaurus twice.

I don't know.  From here, I guess I'll clean up things on my Mac and reset my Zaurus.  That should get me to wherre I wanted to be.  My addresses needed a cleaning anyhow.

Well, at least I can now print my address labels from my Mac.

[dhns]

I did a "delete all" within the different apps.  Let me guess, the sync software then assumed I wanted to delete everything on my Mac?  I guess that's the right behavior, but I think some kind of warning that everything was about to be deleted would've been appropriate.

Yes, that is the way ZMacSync is working. But you are right - adding a warning message would be helpful if you are deleting let's say more than 10% of all records. On the other hand having to confirm all deletions would not be helpful for small daily changes. And, by the way, it indicates the number of deletions/additions etc. even before you press the Sync button.

I have to be honest, I really prefer the way the Zaurus Windows sync software works.  It prompts you with the numbers of additions/deletions/changes and gives you much finer grain control.

I think I can make a Preferences setting for this. Some users prefer to get prompted and control - others want to have it just being magically synchronized in the background.

I guess I should've read the manual and done a Bidirectional Copy, but that didn't seem to do it either.  Now I have everything I want on my Mac (everything that was on both devices), but for some reason the Zaurus now only has the addresses that were originally on my Mac and all the addresses that were originally on the Zaurus are gone.

Yes, for importing addresses it should be better to do the Copy (the next release will also have two unidirectional copy commands). This will never delete records.

It also stuck an extra card with "No Name" in one of my groups in the Mac Address Book.

Did it have any other contents? It might have been an invisible card on the Zaurus with no name entries.

Then I tried another Bidirectional Copy, and now everything is on both devices plus a bunch of duplicates on both.  What was duplicated seems a little inconsistent (at least on the Mac).  Now everything that was on my Mac in the first place is on the Zaurus twice.

I don't know.  From here, I guess I'll clean up things on my Mac and reset my Zaurus.  That should get me to wherre I wanted to be.  My addresses needed a cleaning anyhow.

Sorry for that additional work and thanks for the illustration of the issue.

-- hns

[eji]

My first sync with ZMacSync hasn't gone as well as I'd hoped it would.

The straight "copy" function gives me the spinning beach ball. I've left it for 2 hours to see if it was just a hang, but no, the app simply isn't responding. Force quit and my Z says 169 addresses (of 370) have been copied, though they seem to be all there.

Only once did the sync x-fer most of my Mac files -- notes, to-dos, calendar -- to the Z. I don't know why or how it chose this particular time to work, but the calendar and to-dos only partially synced. I think I got a total of two to-dos and three or four calendar entries out of it. I don't know if Safari bookmarks are supposed to x-fer -- but one thing is for sure: they don't.

I've tried all sorts of different ways, such as selecting "ignore" or "reset" when prompted, deleting all Z entries and starting afresh, and so on. My umpteenth attempt is taking place now using the "ignore" function. ZMacSync is busy "Committing Zaurus-1 with Local-1". It looks slightly promising.

Is there something specific I should do to ensure a full first sync? Or is it a gradual process?

[wigglebeagle]

Hi,
Is there anyway to measure the status of the first synch... to see if it is still working or if it is hung? I've run the sync and it is still chugging away... 20 minutes later. I'm just about ready to kill it and try again... but if it is halfway through then I would end up with lots of duplicates!

Anyway, I know the connection hasn't died because I can still ssh into my Zaurus. I can even see the dtm2xml command, I think! I just don't know how to see if it is hung or if it is still communicating.

I did a big kill and database reset on my Zaurus before running the synch.

[jamesannan]

The calendar sync fails for me when I have repeat events. Everything subsequent to the repeat event is missed out. If I delete the repeat event, it seems to work pretty well, although all day events get extended into the previous day too.

James

[dhns]

I am back from vacation...

... spinning beach ball. I've left it for 2 hours to see if it was just a hang, but no, the app simply isn't responding.

A typical sync should complete withing some minutes (in most cases even less).
So this indicates a real hanging call. The most probable reason is a corrupt DTM database. Please try the "dtm2xml reset database" command.

I think I got a total of two to-dos and three or four calendar entries out of it.

The calendar processing is still incomplete and can't handle all records properly. Most important is that it does not handle recurrent events yet. So, events starting last year and repeating every week will show up only once: the first event last year.
To improve this, it even turned out that we have to rewrite the iCalendar parser from scratch - which is short before completion. And for syncing to the Mac we have to write calendars - in a way that there is NO data lost. This is very tricky and needs a full implementation of RFC2445. The most complex parts are the management of timezones and recurrence.

I don't know if Safari bookmarks are supposed to x-fer -- but one thing is for sure: they don't.

No, they are not synced.

-- hns

[dhns]

The calendar sync fails for me when I have repeat events.

These are stored as RRULE: records which is not yet processed as described in the answer to another post.

...
although all day events get extended into the previous day too.

This has two reasons. One is that a full day event is stored as ending at 00:00 of next day. And the Zaurus Calendar shows that...
And the other one is the time-zone which might make events span two days.

We are working on that.

-- hns

[ianwj]

Hello hns,

I have now got Rel 1.5.2 installed and "working" for my SL5600 as per the User manual. However, it is quite slow (lots of spinning beach balls) and does seem to slow the iBook right down when trying to open other apps. The good news is that it does sync but misses some calendar appointments. The Log window looks very similar to the sample in the User manual, it just that it takes 6-7mins to get the sync done. Is this normal? (less than 100 names and only 3 weeks of ICal appointments.

PS: On another matter, I managed to blow away all my original Zaurus Address info when first experimenting. No big loss, as I have it backed up on a USB HDD, but need a get a Wintel PC to reload the info again. In order to avoid this, is there any way I can see the raw address files in the Z? i.e via the command line? Where can I get information of the formating of the Zaurus user data?

BR,
Ian

[dhns]

Ianwj,

However, it is quite slow (lots of spinning beach balls) and does seem to slow the iBook right down when trying to open other apps. The good news is that it does sync but misses some calendar appointments. The Log window looks very similar to the sample in the User manual, it just that it takes 6-7mins to get the sync done. Is this normal? (less than 100 names and only 3 weeks of ICal appointments.

It should be a little faster. Less than 1 minute for 100 entries. What I suspect is - especially as you are telling that it slows down the Mac - is that some process is keeping hanging around and wastes CPU time.

PS: On another matter, I managed to blow away all my original Zaurus Address info when first experimenting. No big loss, as I have it backed up on a USB HDD, but need a get a Wintel PC to reload the info again. In order to avoid this, is there any way I can see the raw address files in the Z? i.e via the command line? Where can I get information of the formating of the Zaurus user data?

The raw data format of the Zaurus address files as stored in the DTM database are documented roughly. I have taken them from the ZUG Wiki where I found two documents - one describes the databse low level API and the other the data fields.
All this is wrapped into the dtm2xml tool that is part of ZMacSync.
If you want to look into a Zaurus backup, I would expect that it is a tar-gzip (tgz) file. So, you could try

Code: [Select]

tar tvzf .

Hope this helps,
hns

[samxiao]

works for Cacko only?
how about for OpenZaurus and pdaXrom?

[ccrandal69]

I had a lot of problems with ZMacSync 1.5.2.

My handheld is a C760 running Cacko Qtopia 1.22 ROM.

My Mac is a Powerbook G4 running OS X 10.3.8.

I installed the USB driver version 0.2.8 and performed the reboot.  Then I set up the en2 interface and was able to ssh into my zaurus.

The first problem occurred when I tried to create a Samba connection to the C760 to transfer the zmacsync IPK.  However, it wouldn't allow a connection and complained that the username/password was incorrect.  However, I was successfully able to ssh in with the username zaurus and no password... so there's got to be some problem there either with OS X or the Z.

So, instead of transferring the file via Samba, I just used sftp to move it over.

Then I tried installing the zmacsync IPK.  It said it installed alright, but after closing the Add/Remove Programs program, all of my tabs at the top vanished.  All of the icons in the Q menu were missing.

So, I tried a hard reset.  It came up with the Cacko splash screen, but after that the screen remained white and nothing else happened.

Fortunately, I didn't have anything important on my Z... that's what my Treo is for.  Has anyone else had problems with either the latest OS X version or Cacko 1.22?  I'll try it all again this weekend... hopefully it works.

Curt

[ccrandal69]

I see what happened now.  When I tried to install the zmacsync IPK (version 1.5.2) it rewrote all of my directory ownerships under /.  So, when I reboot and try to load Qtopia, the zaurus account can't get anywhere.  Fortunately, all the files are still there.

When I run a `ls -ltr /` as the zaurus user, I get:

-bash-3.00$ ls -ltr
dr-xr-xr-x   45 0        0               0 Jan  2  1970 proc
drwxr-xr-x    5 0        0               0 Feb 26  2004 root
drwxr-xr-x    1 0        0             214 Dec 21 19:52 usr
lrwxrwxrwx    1 0        0               9 Dec 21 20:34 etc -> /home/etc
drwxr-xr-x    2 0        0               0 Dec 21 20:34 bin
lrwxrwxrwx    1 0        0              16 Dec 21 20:34 var -> /home/system/var
lrwxrwxrwx    1 0        0              12 Dec 21 20:34 tmp -> /dev/shm/tmp
drwxr-xr-x    2 0        0               0 Dec 21 20:34 opt
lrwxrwxrwx    1 0        0               8 Dec 21 20:34 mnt -> /var/mnt
drwxr-xr-x    3 0        0               0 Dec 21 20:34 lib
drwxr-xr-x    2 0        0               0 Dec 21 20:34 sbin
drwxr-xr-x    2 0        0               0 Dec 31 10:47 boot
drwxr-xr-x    5 0        0            8064 Mar  9 23:08 dev
drwx------   12 0        10513           0 Mar 10  2005 home

I have no idea what group number 10513 is supposed to be as it doesn't exist in /etc/groups.

Did I miss something in the FAQ that would explain this?
Does anyone know why this happened?
Can someone mail me back with the correct directory ownerships so I can restore my system?

Thanks
Curt

[d.maddock1]

Fortunately, I didn't have anything important on my Z... that's what my Treo is for.  Has anyone else had problems with either the latest OS X version or Cacko 1.22?  I'll try it all again this weekend... hopefully it works.

Curt
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I did this too a while back.

Not sure about restoring (I just reinstalled cacko rom), but you don't need the zmacsync ipk.

Just install the dtm2xml ipk and you'll be fine.

The zmacsync ipk is just a combination of dtm2xml and the ssh server.  Cacko 1.22 already has the ssh component.

[ccrandal69]

I did this too a while back.

Not sure about restoring (I just reinstalled cacko rom), but you don't need the zmacsync ipk.

Just install the dtm2xml ipk and you'll be fine.

The zmacsync ipk is just a combination of dtm2xml and the ssh server.  Cacko 1.22 already has the ssh component.
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I can't restore until I get home since I left my AC adapter there, and I'd rather not do that since the filesystem is still intact.  I just need to change the perms on all the files under /.

I did see that FAQ on just installing dtm2xml when I went to the Dsitri.de site.  I can't see how that would've caused this problem, though, but it's good to know that tidbit when I try this again.

I probably should've just done the backup like they suggested, eh?

Curt