[wired4net]

Does anyone have public folders (contacts) on Exchange 2007 syncing with handhelds reliably???

We have BESX 5.0.1.58 running in windows 2008 server with exchange 2007. We have a number of public folders with varying number of contacts ranging from one PF with 21 contacts to others with a 1000.

We cannot get public folders (contacts) to sync reliably to the handhelds. Either the folder gets created and not all the contacts get created, no contacts get created or when other public folders get sync we loose contacts in other public folders. All very frustrating!!!

Just want to hear from people who have it working reliably or not.

First post here so look forward to hearing from the community on this one.

Handhelds are new Bold 9700 II on Vodafone here in the UK

best regards
Peter

[wired4net]

Has anyone got public folder contacts working successfully with BlackBerry handhelds?? regards Peter

[KOR]

We've got it working, but on Server 2003, and so far so good. Do you have a support contract with RIM? If not, it may be a good investment since you're looking for integration with Exchange. We've had a few problems, but nothing RIM support couldn't figure out. And, my personal experience has been that their support is pretty good compared to other vendors.

That being said, there are some pretty sharp people on this forum. I'm sure someone will chime in soon.

[wired4net]

Hi KOR, thanks for replying. Yes, we have a support contract and case open. I think we have identified the problem to be with one specific public folder and could be down to the MIS system exporting the contacts. Currently we have 4 public folders with around 3750 contacts sync'd with the handhelds. We did experience issues where all the contacts have downloaded then mysteriously all deleted. RSET sorted this problem. One last thing to say, we dragged the problem public folder into contacts and all the problem public folders came down as a subfolder within contacts - bizarre!

[KOR]

Originally Posted by wired4net

Hi KOR, thanks for replying. Yes, we have a support contract and case open. I think we have identified the problem to be with one specific public folder and could be down to the MIS system exporting the contacts. Currently we have 4 public folders with around 3750 contacts sync'd with the handhelds. We did experience issues where all the contacts have downloaded then mysteriously all deleted. RSET sorted this problem. One last thing to say, we dragged the problem public folder into contacts and all the problem public folders came down as a subfolder within contacts - bizarre!

Kinda sounds like you've got a corrupt record in the public folder you mentioned as being problematic. Don't know if that's the case for sure, but there's a way you can find out. The way I'd do it:

1. Wipe all contacts from a BlackBerry - test device or otherwise
2. Add a contacts folder to a user account - not a public folder
3. Copy 1/2 of the problem folder's contacts into this new folder
4. Do a wired sync with the new folder that has 1/2 the records from the public folder
5. If there are no sync errors, you know these records are good. Do the same with the other half

Doing this will allow you to isolate any corrupt records. It sounds tedious, but it doesn't take as long as you might think. If it a corrupt record, the problem is likely something like a letter in a number only field or something similar. And, you mentioned dragging the public folder. I would suggest that you never drag 'n drop folders, contacts, mail, etc. This can sometimes cause sync problems.

Good luck