How to replicate data with Horde and your phone, PDA or Outlook

This is Horde the SyncML HowTo page. It describes how to setup your phone, PDA, or Outlook to synchronize its data (calendar, events, tasks, notes) with Horde. You might also want to check out these pages:

• SyncMLRoadmap describes planned, upcoming or currently missing features.
  • Once you managed to sync your phone with Horde, please check the SyncMLContributeTesting page and provide a test case if there's none for your client yet. You'll help us to improve the stability for your client!
  • If you encounter problems with syncing and can't resolve them on your own or using the FAQ below, please follow the directions in SyncMLProblemReport for reporting problems.

General information

Syncing is not yet production-level code - you need to be able to at least read logfiles! Testing is welcome; please report to the sync list (sync@lists.horde.org), but please keep in mind that the code is still in development.

• you have to use the cvs version or a cvs snapshot. The latest stable release won't do. Please note that you have to run framework/install-packages.php to install the required packages into your PEAR path. (Unless you use framework/devtools/fw-create-symlinks).
  • client configuration is as follows:
    • The sync URL is http(s)://pathtoyourhordeinstall/rpc.php
      • Username/password: your Horde account data
      • Databases (sometimes called remote settings or 'server path') must be calendar, tasks, notes, or contacts.
  • For debug output create dir /tmp/sync and make it writeable by web server
  • Set log level to PEAR_LOG_DEBUG in Administration:Horde Setup_Logging.
  • When reporting problems to the mailing list, please include the /tmp/sync/syncml_log.txt. This greatly helps to figure out what's going on.

Information for syncing with Outlook or Blackberry

• You need the Funambol outlook connector. Go to http://www.funambol.com/ -> Download -> PIM-Only Client Software -> Version for your client -> Download and install.
  • Configure as mentioned above. Device ID must be sc-pim-outlook or anything containing the text sync4j so that the Horde backend can identify the connector. If you're using multiple instances of the connector (one on your home pc, one on your laptop), make sure that the device ID is different on those.
  • Sync4J Outlook Client needs to have the port configured in the sync url when using https, i.e. https://pathtoyourhordeinstall:443/rpc.php

Information for syncing PDAs with the Synthesis client

• The Synthesis is a commercial SyncML client from http://www.synthesis.ch/. It is available for PocketPC2002, PocketPC2003, Windows Mobile 5, !Smartphone2003 and PalmOS. Stability and SyncML conformance is very good, currently a lot better than the Funambol Outlook connector. There's a 30 days trial version.
  • Make sure to set the events server path to "calendar"
  • Uncheck the "only from 30 days before until 90 after today" setting

Synchronization of Address Book Data with Turba

The current default turba address book database structure is not very suitable for SyncML: only one name field instead of separate first name last name, address in one multi line field instead of split into city and so on.

So if you want to replicate your address book using SyncML, you should use a different SQL database schema. See SyncMLTurbaConfiguration

Sync clients being used succesfully:

• Synthesis client: that's the primary client used during the development
  • Sony Ericsson P800/P900
  • Outlook with Funambol SyncClient PIM outlook 3.0.15

FAQ

It's not working! I got a message like 'Invalid response' on the phone

There's a chance that SyncML processing stopped due some php error in the server. Like Object of class PEAR_Error could not be converted to string in /usr/share/php/SyncML/Backend.php on line 294. As this is passed to the phone rather than displayed in a web page, the phone gets confused because it doesn't receive a valid XML message. To catch these error message, you need to make php log errors to a file: edit your php.ini and include a line like error_log = /var/log/phperrors.log. Then try a sync an check if anything comes up in this log.

Syncing of events fails with a log entry like "No sync object found for URI=calendar?dr(-30,90)"

Syncing of date ranges as used by the Synthesis client is not yet supported. Please uncheck the "only from 30 days before until 90 days after today" checkbox.

I can't find any *.xml log files in /tmp/sync anymore. They used to be there!

We now use our own wbxml libary in the XML_WBXML package. The wbxml gets directly passed and processed, no xml is produced. To see the xml, you can manually decode it like this:

for a in *.wbxml; do wbxml2xml -m 1 -i 4 -o `basename $a .wbxml`_conv.xml $a; done 2>/dev/null

I really don't want to upgrade my complete Horde installation. What can I do?

Nothing. This is cutting edge technology, so you need to invest a bit if you want to participate at these exciting new features.

It's still not working! What can I do?

Please follow the directions in SyncMLProblemReport and report the problem to the sync mailing list.

I Want to test syncing on my pc , does some Palm emulator or Pocket Pc exist and how do i use it?

Please see the PdaEmulators page for info.