Nokia Mail 4 Exchange on e61/62/70 'Always on' sync does nothing on ZCS 4.5 net

[math]

As reported elsewhere in the forums in the fall of 2006, having the Always on sync schedule in your mail for exchange profile on a nokia e61/2/70 would give an error.

However, now there's no error, just nothing happens.

When I switch sync sched to 15 minutes instead, everything works.

It was reported that this would be fixed in 4.5.

I am using ZCS net 4.5:

236338110 2007-04-23 20:44 zcs-NETWORK-4.5.4-20070418.UBUNTU6.tgz

with the Nokia Mail for Exchange client on my e70:

1233952 May 24 15:07 MailForExchange(1.5.0).SISX

With 'Always On' I see alot of this in the sync.log:

2007-05-25 16:09:25,987 DEBUG [http-80-Processor98] [mid=3;name=harmony-mobile.com\foobar;DeviceId=IMEI004400711633461;DeviceType=IMEI004400701633461;SyncCmd=Ping;
] sync - 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Ping xmlns="Ping">
    <Status>1</Status>
</Ping>

2007-05-25 16:09:25,987 INFO  [http-80-Processor98] [mid=3;name=harmony-mobile.com\foobar;DeviceId=IMEI004400701633461;DeviceType=IMEI004400711633461;SyncCmd=Ping;
] sync - HTTP/1.1 200 OK

2007-05-25 16:09:28,420 INFO  [http-80-Processor98] [] sync - POST Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync?User=harmony-mobile.com%5Cfoobar&DeviceId=IMEI004400711633461&Device
Type=IMEI004400711633461&Cmd=Ping

Occasionally, I dont know when, I also see the <Ping> section display:

<Ping xmlns="Ping">
    <HeartbeatInterval>180</HeartbeatInterval>
    <Folders>
        <Folder>
            <Id>10</Id>
            <Class>Calendar</Class>
        </Folder>
        <Folder>
            <Id>7</Id>
            <Class>Contacts</Class>
        </Folder>
        <Folder>
            <Id>2</Id>
            <Class>Email</Class>
        </Folder>
    </Folders>
</Ping>

after authenticating with a login, but no sync.

Is this a Nokia M4E or a ZCS 4.5 net issue? Is there a work around?

It's really too bad there's no 5 minute or 3 minute sync schedule, that would be the same as 'always on'.

Thanks.

/kc

[jjzhuang]

Server push completely relies on the client being responsive. I used MailForExchange on E61 myself for a while and over time the client does appear to simply "forget" to Ping the server.

In order for push to work, the client must:

1) Send a "Ping" request to server whenever a previous "Sync" finishes,
2) Perform a "Sync" whenever server responds to indicate new data available,
3) Send a "Ping" whenever server responds the previous "Ping" with no new data,
4) Send a "Ping" after timeout

I have found that E61 eventually, sometime long sometimes short, always "forgets" to do one of the above and effectively breaks the push mechanism. To bring it back on track, I had to do a manual sync and push may work for a while until it breaks again later.

In sync.log, you should see the Ping requests and Ping responses as regular as heartbeat when the client is behaving correctly.

Hope this helps explaining the issue. Thanks!

[math]

Originally Posted by jjzhuang

In order for push to work, the client must:

1) Send a "Ping" request to server whenever a previous "Sync" finishes,
2) Perform a "Sync" whenever server responds to indicate new data available,
3) Send a "Ping" whenever server responds the previous "Ping" with no new data,
4) Send a "Ping" after timeout

I have found that E61 eventually, sometime long sometimes short, always "forgets" to do one of the above and effectively breaks the push mechanism. To bring it back on track, I had to do a manual sync and push may work for a while until it breaks again later.

In sync.log, you should see the Ping requests and Ping responses as regular as heartbeat when the client is behaving correctly.

So you're saying this is the client's fault here? Can zimbra fix this in some way or not? I see pings going through on the proper schedule of 2-3 minutes that I set on the test phones here, but I dont see any syncing. If the phone is pinging, why cant it also sync? Cant the server say "hey, btw, i got some sync data for you to take!"

[jjzhuang]

No, there's nothing the server can do when the client is not "Pinging" the server in succession.

Some clients, like RoadSync which does have an S60 version that works on E61, does support 5 minute interval in addition to push. However RoadSync is not free software.

[math]

Originally Posted by jjzhuang

No, there's nothing the server can do when the client is not "Pinging" the server in succession.

Some clients, like RoadSync which does have an S60 version that works on E61, does support 5 minute interval in addition to push. However RoadSync is not free software.

Thing is it DOES ping. Literally, but thats all it does, as per my code block in my first post. It pings every 2 minutes if I set the retry time to that, but the server doesnt react to it at all.

Here's a proper sync:

(sorry didnt put this in code blocks because it makes it hard to read long lines

2007-05-28 00:30:10,705 INFO [http-80-Processor99] [] sync - OPTIONS Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync?User=harmony-mobile.com%5Ckchase&DeviceId=IMEI004400711633461&D eviceType=IMEI004400711633461
2007-05-28 00:30:10,710 INFO [http-80-Processor99] [] sync - HTTP/1.1 200 OK
2007-05-28 00:30:11,723 INFO [http-80-Processor99] [] sync - POST Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync?User=harmony-mobile.com%5Ckchase&DeviceId=IMEI004400711633461&D eviceType=IMEI004400711633461&Cmd=Sync
2007-05-28 00:30:12,201 DEBUG [http-80-Processor99] [mid=3;name=harmony-mobile.com\kchase;DeviceId=IMEI004400711633461;Dev iceType=IMEI004400711633461;SyncCmd=Sync;class=Cal endar;] sync -


here's one when its set to Always On (yes the 401 Unauth and 200 Ok lines arent shown in the logs for some reason):


2007-05-24 22:40:45,806 DEBUG [http-80-Processor97] [mid=3;name=harmony-mobile.com\kchase;DeviceId=IMEI004400711633461;Dev iceType=IMEI004400711633461;SyncCmd=Ping;] sync -
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Ping xmlns="Ping">
<Status>1</Status>
</Ping>

2007-05-24 22:40:45,806 INFO [http-80-Processor97] [mid=3;name=harmony-mobile.com\kchase;DeviceId=IMEI004400711633461;Dev iceType=IMEI004400711633461;SyncCmd=Ping;] sync - HTTP/1.1 200 OK
2007-05-24 22:40:47,544 INFO [http-80-Processor97] [] sync - POST Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync?User=harmony-mobile.com%5Ckchase&DeviceId=IMEI004400711633461&D eviceType=IMEI004400711633461&Cmd=Ping

as you can see, the phone seems to be sending a totally different message when it goes to sync - Ping vs Sync - you can see the server sees the syncCmd as 'Sync' instead of 'Ping' as well. Interesting that its only 'Calendar' when it does the sync, though it continues onto other sync types (email, contacts) if there's something to update.

Im wondering if I cant proxy the tcp stream through a perl script or otherwise, and change the cmd sent by the phone from ping to sync - im wondering if this is a statefull or stateless protocol - if the phone will accept more than a ping responce when it thinks its only sent ping.

Anyone else's help on this would be appreciated (any Zimbra devels got some comments?)

I guess I need to look at the exchange mobile protocol now

Either nokia or zimbra should be fixing this.

/kc

[jjzhuang]

From the segment you posted one can see that the server is responding to Ping correctly. Sync command and Ping command are of course different. When "Always On" is turned on, Sync is supposed to be triggered by Ping response.

You don't want to flip each Ping into a Sync as that will spin both the client the server until the client runs out of battery. Ping is designed to stay pending for a long time but Sync is not.

If you need further assistance you can open a support ticket. We'll have to look at the entire server log to track down which side is missing the beat. Thanks!

[math]

Originally Posted by jjzhuang

From the segment you posted one can see that the server is responding to Ping correctly. Sync command and Ping command are of course different. When "Always On" is turned on, Sync is supposed to be triggered by Ping response.

but it's not, so Im figuring you're saying that Ping IS the correct message from the client, but the server isnt responding with anything - so this problem is on the Zimbra end?

You don't want to flip each Ping into a Sync as that will spin both the client the server until the client runs out of battery. Ping is designed to stay pending for a long time but Sync is not.

Pending for what? Can the server send ('push') something at the client during the pending ping? I leave GPRS on all the time on my eSeries (im on IRC via putty, for eg) and I still get pretty good battery life. Im not worried about being on GRPS constantly (as long as not much data is flowing).

I obviously dont understand the MS mobile activesync protocol, and finding proper documentation on it is hard. Obviously me hacking a network proxy to force the correct messages back and forth isnt the right solution. Im just confused by what the server should be doing in responce to a "Ping" request becuase it seems to be doing nothing.

If you need further assistance you can open a support ticket. We'll have to look at the entire server log to track down which side is missing the beat. Thanks!

Will do.

/kc