Desktop Software for Mac

[southbay]

I sync my blackberry 8830 (verizon) every morning with my macbook pro, and the three things I need to sync are my contacts, calendar, and tasks. The contacts and calendar sync fine, but when the tasks try to sync, the progress bar stops moving and the program is not able to sync my tasks. Does anybody know how to make it so that my tasks sync as well? Or is it a lost cause in terms of getting my task lists to sync? 

[mundo]

I have a similar problems with Contacts. The progress bar stops moving and it leaves the PocketMac in a hung state. When I try to restart the program, without restarting the O/S, it doesn't respond.  PocketMac seems to be buggy in general.   

[athena0711]

I had the same problem and neither Verizon nor RIM have tech support for this because Pocket Mac is a 3rd party program. They just direct you to the online forums. If I find anything I'll post back. In the meantime I'm using Google Sync.

[mundo]

Synchronizing tasks with PocketMac seems to be "hit or miss"  I found instructions, I don't remember where, that provide a step by step process for removing Pocketmac from your Mac, there are a number of files and folders that the uninstaller doesn't remove (notice a pattern here regarding the quality of the software?). Anyway, I followed the instructions, reinstalled PockectMac and all three synchronized fine the first time.   I will dig around to see if I can find these instructions again and will post them here.

[athena0711]

Yes, after much digging around I came across similar instructions and it really is hit or miss. I've uninstalled and reinstalled several times, taken out the phone battery and put it back in, all to realize this was taking up a lot of my time. I decided to just buy Missing Link, the software by Mark Space and it's $40 but my time is more valuable. I haven't had any problems so far and I'm running Leopard on my Mac. There are some known issues like the fields in the Address Book not transferring neatly but overall I'm satisfied.

[mundo]

Athena, you raise another very valid point, i.e., mapping fields. When Pocketmac does work, I've noticed that some of my contacts, for whom I have multiple phone numbers, only one number is synchronized to my Blackberry.  Is there a field mapping utility with Pocketmap?

[mundo · Accepted solution]

OK, we may have a partial solution to the syncing problem, 1st some environmentals. I use Mac OS X 10.5.5 and PocketMac SyncManager 1.2 (1.4).  Download the manual for PocketMac Blackberry 4.1, as well as the latest version of the PocketMac software from the Blackberry site.  Delete old, install new and go to the following section of the manual:

8.3.9 Data Cleanup and Maintenance Utilities 

All the data cleanup and maintenance utilities may be found in your home folder (the folder with 

your name on it in the Users folder), under ~/Library/Application Support/PocketMac 

SyncManager/Additional Tools/. 

I followed the instructions in this section, (1) 1st ran data clean up utility to purge my device, one by one (contacts, tasks, notes, etc.), (2) ran utility to clean the sync files on the Mac (3) started PocketMac for Blackberry, selected for each (contact, tasks, etc.) one way sync (overwrite device), (4) when step 3 completed successfully, I reset PocketMac to Two Way Sync and selecte Sync again, it completed successfully.  

[Apostata]

For me, it's definitely a problem with the Contacts. That's where it always hangs, and when I de-select (within PocketMac) Contacts for syncing, everything else works like a charm.

The problem is this: I don't want to wipe my device, because I don't sync every night (well, I used to before I downloaded the new vers. of PocketMac and the USB fix...which rendered PocketMac useless). I don't want to *lose* Contacts in order to fix this.

I realise RIM/BB is new to the Mac game, but boy they better do something soon. Band-aid solutions are not enough.

[athena0711]

Yes, this problem is more than frustrating. I also just realized some of my contacts never made it to my device but I'm not sure where in the chain this occured. It could have been when I went to Verizon in person and had them transfer data from my old Treo to my new Blackberry Storm, or when I synched my Storm to my Macbook for the first time via Pocket Mac, or when I gave up and bought Missing Link and synced with that. Way too confusing and now I will probably have to check every single contact against my Treo which was the most complete version!

[southbay]

mundo -- thank you so much! I will definitely follow the instructions and hopefully that will solve the problem! also i did notice that sometimes mailing addresses for people and additional phone numbers (in things like home 2, etc) would not transfer from mac to blackberry..... very frustrating, but maybe this will help change it. 

athena0711 -- how do you like the new touch screen blackberry storm? i was thinking of getting it for xmas and i'm wondering how the performance is??