iPad <> Mac <> Phone sync problem

[barryjaylevine]

This is totally weird.

Syncing phone (Motorola Q with Missing Sync or SyncMate) to Mac. Calendar events created in either Mac or phone were synced properly.

Added iPad April 3rd. Now the problem begins:

- Calendar event created on iPad doesn't show up in iCal on Mac but does show up on phone.
- Calendar event created on phone doesn't show up in iCal but does show up on iPad.
- Calendar even created in iCal on Mac shows up in both iPad and Phone.

I know the calendar info is being stored on the Mac somewhere because the sync between the phone and Mac takes place at a different time (and with the iPad not connected) than the sync between the Mac and the iPad.

Just in case this is confusing, I'll graph it out:

Created**********Sync'd****************Add'l sync
iPad >>> Mac (doesn't show) >>> Phone (iPad info shows)
Phone >>> Mac (doesn't show) >>> iPad (phone info shows)

iCal on Mac >>>Phone (shows up)
Calendar on iPad >>>iPad (shows up)

So iCal-created events do end up on the phone and iPad but I rarely edit any data on the Mac; rather, I live on my phone and iPad so it's those devices which should be updating the Mac (and each other). They do, in fact, update each other (as detailed above) but iCal isn't aware of it (and doesn't show the data). I'm stumped. Can anybody figure out what's going wrong here? The Mac is a 27" 3.06GHz Core2Duo running 10.6.3.

[Jay Carr]

Are you only syncing them through the computer, or is there a wireless sync going on as well?

[barryjaylevine]

No wireless syncing. Just the iPad to the iMac through iTunes and the Q phone to the iMac through SyncMate.

Since I first posted, however, I replaced the iMac (Core2Duo) with another iMac (i7) and pushed all the contacts and calendars from the Q Phone to the iMac (to empty Addressbook and Calendars). Then I pushed from the iMac to the iPad. (No "sync"; just a "replace".)

All seems to be fine now. As I indicated in my original post, it seemed to be the addition of the iPad that screwed up the iMac's display of data. What I mean by that is the iPad and Q phone always managed to sync (through the iMac) properly in the two separate steps. (Therefore the iMac's data had to be correct.)

Whatever it was, it's now resolved.

[mclbruce]

There is an Apple app called Syncrospector that can be helpful in resolving problems like this. It's part of the developer tools. It can do many things. It lists the software that is using Apples sync services and tells the status.

This has come in handy with me for getting various phones to sync with Address Book, as well as getting Google Contacts to sync with AB.

My guess is that iCal somehow got out of sync with the sync services database. There are tools in Syncrospector that you can use to force syncing with iCal or any specific software that is using sync services. It is tricky to use though, and you can mess things up badly by pressing the wrong button at the wrong time. So it's a good thing that this particular problem has been resolved.