multisync can't connect to evolution

[Stefan Bethge]

When trying to synchronize my mobile phone(sony ericsson t630), multisync connects to the phone and gets data but then fails to synchronize with evolution. The error message in the log is "Failed to get first plugin changes: Unknown error" (first is evolution).
It seems that synchronization works once after creating a new pair and then fetches the whole database from the phone.

[jalonsom (jalonsom)]

Same here.
I think that it worked more or less the first time I synced, but hasn't worked since.
Not related to phone, as the same happens if I choose backup as 2nd plugin.
Reversing plugin order does not change anything.
In Dapper 28 may 2006

[Patrik Klinger (patrik-klinger)]

I get this error aswell.

I am trying to sync between Evolution and my mobile phone using multisync and the multisync evolution and IrMC plugins.

First sync everything goes well. The items from my phone are added in the empty evolution calendar. But after the first sync no sync will work after that.

In the log I see the message
"Failed to get first plugin changes: Unknown error "
and in that message "first plugin" referes to the evolution plugin.

One workaround I have figured out was to remove the files created by multisync in the evlution folder before a sync is initiated.

So when I want to sync my phone and evolution I do it doubleclicking a runnable script looking like this
-------------
#!/bin/sh

rm /home/patrik/.evolution/calendar/local/system/calendar.ics-msyncid3.db
multisync

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

A good trick to bypass this bug is to :

1 : Create a empty Calendar
2 : Create a synchronisation profile in Multisync that will include that Calendar in first plugin
3 : DON'T SYNC, use Resync, which can be found in the "option" menu of multisync

You can now sync without any problem, just because the first sync was made with the resync option.

This is a clue, apparently that the natural first sync of multisync isn't really complete. By using resync, multisync really do a correct first sync and so further syncing all works.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Seems that my trick was working at 100% on edgy, but now doesn't work.

I think that this bug could be closed because multisync development has been stopped and people should look at multisync0.90 which is the future of multisync. It uses the opensync framework and appears to be a very rising project.

[jso (ubuntuforum-jso)]

Finally got my mobile (sony ericsson w880i) to sync with evolution (on gutsy, using bluetooth). As opensync/multisync0.90 still failed, I retried multisync and catched the described error ( "Failed to get first plugin changes: Unknown error"). The solution for me was:

Second Plugin / IrMC Mobile Device -> Options... -> Options ... -> Bug workarounds -> [x] Translate from character set utf-8

(There are still some errors with entries containing UTF-8 characters, but bi-directional synchronization works.)

[Magnus (koma-lysator)]

I've got this bug as well.

The strange thing is that syncing has been working great for weeks until today. Now it works only one if the calendar.ics-msyncid3.db file is removed.

It may have arisen after installing btscanner, but uninstalling it did not help.

The workaround to enagle utf-8 translations did not work for me...

When the bug appears the phone (SE K750i) sticks in synchronizing mode until multisync is killed.

Once there seemed to be half a sync done when I aborted. Interestingly enough the title of the event was synchronized correctly up to, but not including, the character 'ä'.

However, I have successfully been able to sync 'ä' before.

I don't get it.. How can it break just like that?

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

I confirm the jso workaround, it works for me. With UTF-8 and ISO8859-1 too

[Magnus (koma-lysator)]

The workaround doesn't work for me: it still reports an unknown problem with the Evolution plugin when syncing with by bluetooth phone...

[argotnaut (argotnaut)]

Same problem with a Sony Ericsson K550i.

UTF workaround didn't help.

Started with new calendar, tasks, and contacts files, and used Resync to start. This does work to some degree, but I still have to go in and delete all of those .db files before syncing. And now I have problems with duplicate entries that just won't go away.

[argotnaut (argotnaut)]

The duplicate entries problem was not related to this bug after all -- I think I had another syncml profile set up and I'd forgotten to turn off the auto-sync.

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

Is anyone still working on this?

Has anyone tried this with Ubuntu 9.04 beta?

Seems there has been generally little progress as far as Ubuntu's syncing with mobile phones is concerned.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

oss_test_launchpad : To answer your question, multisync project as we know it is dead. Instead, another project named opensync was born from it. opensync is a synchronisation framework that aims to be very versatile. Unfortunately, the opensync development took more time than expected, but there is already the 0.22 version in ubuntu, which does not always work. However, we'll get opensync 0.40 very soon. There is a "new" multisync based on opensync in ubuntu repositories, named multisync0.90, this is the future of multisync.

So this issue will stay with current multisync version. The new opensync version will for sure not be perfect, but this bug has no chances to still exist because everything has been re-worked from the root in opensync. We are only waiting for this new version to hit repositories to mark this bug as fix released.

[rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for posting this bug.

Seems this bug should be marked Won't Fix.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for multisync (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount)]

While review of the multisync upstream website -> http://multisync.sourceforge.net/news.php does not show a readily accessible bug tracker, your welcome to post to their developer mailing list. However as their website notes, they are moving to deprecate multisync in favor of opensync (which has an upstream bug tracker). The next step is to test this issue in newest multisync (Maverick) & opensync. Does this work in either?

[Stefan Bethge (kjyv)]

To be honest I don't have the phone anymore and am unable to test anything at all. Maybe someone else still cares?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for multisync (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]