MobileMe syncing is erratic and worthless

[rogersmj]

I'm still in my extended free trial of MM, and I have to say it's next to worthless (my primary need is syncing of iCal and Address Book). The syncing seems to be completely arbitrary, and I haven't been able to figure out a pattern at all.

I have a Mac at home that's on all the time, plus a MacBook Pro that I carry to and from work, plus an iPhone. The Macs are both set to sync to MM automatically, and push services are setup on the iPhone. But it can still be days before an event or contact shows up on another device.

For example, I was in a meeting this morning and was caught off guard when someone referenced another meeting we're having on Tuesday, because my iPhone still indicated that it was on Thursday. Then I remembered that last Friday -- three days ago -- I had received an updated invite that moved the meeting from Thurs to Tues. I've confirmed that it's showing up correctly in iCal on my MacBook Pro, but the iPhone STILL shows the meeting in its original time slot. The MacBook Pro last autosynced yesterday (Sunday) at 12:23 pm, so the updated time slot should be up in the MM cloud.

Another example that's repeated itself several times over is updating contacts. I'll enter someone's address into Address Book on my Mac, because I'm going to their place later. Then I go to pull it up on my iPhone several hours later, and their address isn't there!

What the hell is the point of this "automatic" syncing and push stuff if this is the way it behaves? Sometimes it seems that the data-originating device doesn't sync it up to MM, and sometimes it seems that a client device just won't read the new data in. Any suggestions? I think I'm just going to let my trial expire, because this is next to worthless for syncing.

 

[waw74]

Automatic on the mac really isn't. there are several posts out there, that say that
mobileMe -> mac should happen quickly
but mac -> mobileMe automatic really means every 15 minutes.

so if you change a contact/calendar and then sleep your mac, it probably won't update.
The way around this is to check "show status in menu bar" on the sync page of the mobile me settings, you can then click that and do "sync now" if you make an important change.

also check the MMe website, are the changes happening there? it's a good way to trouble shoot if the problem is between your mac & Mme or MMe and your iPhone.

i've had the phone get a bit lost before also, if you turn off push, exit settings, then re-enable push it seems to straighten things out.

 

[ucfgrad93]

One thing I've noticed is that if I leave iCal up on my iMac and add something on my iPhone, it won't show up on my iMac until I quit iCal.

 

[rogersmj]

I don't sleep my Mac right after changing things, so it's not that. I just confirmed that in the case of this week's meeting, it IS showing up on the web site, so it seems to be just my phone that's not picking it up this time.

I just tried shutting off Push and then going back in and re-enabling it, no dice.

And thanks for the tip about closing iCal, ucfgrad...that doesn't seem to be the problem this time but I'll keep an eye out for this.

I realize that data syncing is inherently difficult, but I really wanted this to just work. I don't think I'll be paying for this until I can just depend on my data being available without me having to fiddle with things.

 

[gwerhart0800]

I would take erratic if the damn thing would actually sync!!!

I have been unable to get any Mac to sync to my MobileMess account at all. I get the dread "inconsistent data" message and I have tried ALL of the troubleshooting methods posted by Apple and others. (I am able to sync two iPhones and that works, but the Macs fail, fail, fail!)

 

[iammike1]

MobileMe has been a real stumper for me.

On one hand, syncing is unreliable and that sways me away from using it.

BUT, the syncing is only unreliable every so often and works fine most of the time. When working MM is exactly what I want and I'd easily spend the money on it.

Problem is, as it stands its' not reliable enough to use as my primary email/calander/address book store.

 

[rogersmj]

Son of a b*%& this is getting frustrating.

So I'm still losing things I type in on various devices. Example: I rescheduled a dentist appointment while at work over two weeks ago, yet iCal on my home machine STILL shows the original appointment. A concert I entered on my iPhone a month ago vanished, never to be seen on ANY other device or the iPhone itself. Now, my own calendar (yes, the WHOLE THING) has disappeared from the iPhone. I still have my wife's calendar and my work calendar, but not my personal one.

So I turn off MobileMe calendars on the iPhone, then turn it back on. Now I have all my calendars back, plus a duplicate of my wife's. ARRRGH. Get your crap together, Apple. I will NEVER pay for this.

 

[koobcamuk]

it's mail account across 4 macs that used to work just fine on .mac but now, under MobileMe, there's syncing conflicts over things that are the same... such a pain.