Treo 700 Activesync fails

[toolcaserp]

We are evaluating Zimbra. While the product is great, our needs don't seem to be a good use for the tool.

We receive system alert notifications. We have to act on the alerts urgently so we're looking for a direct push technology. We've been using GoodLink thus far and were looking forward to the Zimbra mobile.

But... ActiveSync with VersaMail is tremendously flaky. It might be VersaMail, but it's so unreliable that we're contemplating not converting to Zimbra as a result.

Two primary questions...

1) How can we make ActiveSync more reliable?
2) Is there a better Palm mail client? (We're using Treo's .. 650's, 680's, 700's and 755's)

Thanks!

[jholder]

Windows Mobile machines are widely considered the most reliable. . although most clients work without issue.

Check to make sure you have the latest version of Versa Mail.

Also, can you please describe what you mean by flaky? Can we get the sync.log?

[toolcaserp]

Originally Posted by jholder

Also, can you please describe what you mean by flaky?

Yesterday and the day before, I suffered late deliveries of email. I have VersaMail configured to obtain email via IMAP from our Exchange server and EAS from Zimbra. I am using Zimbra as my primary email server but have Exchange as a backup. Yesterday I received an email at 9:27PM from another employee asking if I was working on a server that was down. The message he forwarded was from 7:23pm. I manually sync'd the Zimbra account in VersaMail and received about 9 messages from the first at 7:23 through my reply to the 9:27 message.

In two hours the account was not synced and the phone didn't complain. My phone is running VersaMail 3.5.4.

Another employee today was experiencing error notifications periodically from 9AM through 1PM.

Originally Posted by jholder

Can we get the sync.log?

(yes, Check your PM.)

We have an employee who is using a 700p, received an error message today at approx. 12:45 MST (he is using a Treo 700 with VersaMail 3.5). I looked in the log and his last connection was 12:20:44 prior to the connection at 12:45:36. The phone is set to "Deliver items as they arrive" but the log doesn't show a connection in that 25 minute timespan. The user did receive two emails in Zimbra within that timespan.

[toolcaserp]

Well, the sync.log doesn't appear to contain anything of value.

I have two questions:
1) Is there a way to enable more verbose logging to the sync.log file?
2) Is there a better mail client for Palm based phones that would work better than VersaMail?

[jjzhuang]

If you have the "w" version of Treo devices, they are windows mobile so they don't use VersaMail. The windows mobile sync client is much more reliable than versamail based on my personal experience.

[toolcaserp]

We're all mired in the Palm OS.

We've changed a few settings to see if it helps.

We've done the following:
Get Subject only
Mail from last 1 week
Events from last 2 weeks
Download attachments was already unchecked
Changed Sync button to only sync email

We'll see if it helps.

[jjzhuang]

VersaMail is not completely reliable if you choose the "as items arrive" options which we refer to as "push". Can you use the "check every x minutes" options?

I believe RoadSync has a client that runs on PalmOS. We have only tested RoadSync's nokia client, so we don't have first hand experience with their Palm client. You can give that a try. RoadSync is not free. I believe it's about $50 a license. But you can use a trial license for testing purpose.

The email "push" channel is also pretty sensitive to the carrier network behavior. For example, we noticed that Cingular network automatically closes connections every 60 seconds, so devices doing "push" on Cingular network drains battery pretty fast.

[toolcaserp]

None of the settings I posted previously seem to have helped... Just this morning I hit the sync button and received 43 emails.

The phone never alerted me to any issues with Syncing.

Originally Posted by jjzhuang

VersaMail is not completely reliable if you choose the "as items arrive" options which we refer to as "push". Can you use the "check every x minutes" options?

Unfortunately, the very reason we get email requires almost instant notification. We just cannot can't wait the 5 minutes.

Originally Posted by jjzhuang

I believe RoadSync has a client that runs on PalmOS. We have only tested RoadSync's nokia client, so we don't have first hand experience with their Palm client. You can give that a try. RoadSync is not free. I believe it's about $50 a license. But you can use a trial license for testing purpose.

We're happy to pay for the right tool. It's just finding the right tool that's the trick!

Originally Posted by jjzhuang

The email "push" channel is also pretty sensitive to the carrier network behavior. For example, we noticed that Cingular network automatically closes connections every 60 seconds, so devices doing "push" on Cingular network drains battery pretty fast.

We're on Sprint. We've been using GoodLink for quite a while with satisfactory results. But that's not to say that (notso)VersaMail isn't being effected by the carrier.

I just cannot seem to narrow the cause! It could be VersaMail, it could be the phone, it could be Sprint, it could be Zimbra.

[jjzhuang]

Which version of zimbra server are you evaluating? 4.5.x or the 5.0 beta? In 5.0 beta there's some improvement to cope with "push" clients with robustness issues. If not already, you can try 5.0. 5.0 GA is coming up so might just as well.

The RoadSync client on Nokia is pretty good, much better than Nokia's own Mail4Exchange client based on my personal experience in terms of robustness. You can try their client for Palm.

It it not easy to isolate the issue. Try RoadSync with 5.0 first. If you still see problems, we can take a look at your sync.log. Thanks!

[toolcaserp]

Originally Posted by jjzhuang

Which version of zimbra server are you evaluating? 4.5.x or the 5.0 beta? In 5.0 beta there's some improvement to cope with "push" clients with robustness issues. If not already, you can try 5.0. 5.0 GA is coming up so might just as well.

We are going to upgrade to the 5.0 beta. Do know of any issues upgrading from 4.5.x to 5.0?

Originally Posted by jjzhuang

The RoadSync client on Nokia is pretty good, much better than Nokia's own Mail4Exchange client based on my personal experience in terms of robustness. You can try their client for Palm.

It it not easy to isolate the issue. Try RoadSync with 5.0 first. If you still see problems, we can take a look at your sync.log. Thanks!

I have installed RoadSync and am trying it to see if it experiences the same connection issues, but it won't sync any sooner than every 5 minutes so it will not be an appropriate solution for us.