August 4, 2011
The Novell Data Synchronizer Connector for Mobility is the component of the Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack that connects your GroupWise system with mobile devices.
The Mobility Connector can also be used to connect mobile devices to other applications for which Data Synchronizer connectors are available.
For device-specific information, see the Data Synchronizer Mobility Connector Devices Wiki.
For a list of the enhancements and bug fixes provided since the Mobility Pack 1.1, see the Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack 1.2 Readme.
The general system requirements for the Mobility Connector are the same as for the Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack, as listed in Data Synchronizer System Requirements
in the Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack Installation Guide.
Mobile device requirements for the Mobility Connector are listed in Mobile Device Requirements
in the Mobility Connector Installation and Configuration Guide.
The Mobility Connector is automatically installed as part of the Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack, as described in the Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack Installation Guide.
For device-specific setup instructions, see the Data Synchronizer Mobility Connector Devices Wiki
For general connector issues, see General Connector Issues
in the Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack 1.1 Readme.
During Mobility Pack installation, you can choose whether to use an SSL connection between the Mobility Connector and mobile devices. Using a non-secure connection can simplify initial testing, but a secure SSL connection should be used in a production environment.
By default, the Mobility Connector rejects SSLv2, which reportedly has several cryptographic flaws and has been deprecated for several years. SSLv3 and TLSv1 are automatically accepted.
For instructions to reconfigure the security protocol for the Mobility Connector, see Selecting a Specific Version of SSL
in Synchronizer System Security
in the Novell Data Synchronizer System Administration Guide.
Make sure that the GroupWise Connector is running before you start the Mobility Connector. The Mobility Connector needs to access the GroupWise Address Book through the GroupWise Connector in order to start successfully. If the GroupWise Connector is not already running, you see an error such as:
Couldn't sync GAL: None
Couldn't sync GAL: Connector currently unavailable: groupwise_connector_name
NOTE:GAL stands for Global Address List.
The Mobility Connector tries again in 30 minutes to contact the GroupWise Connector. If the GroupWise Connector is running at that time, the address book lookups begin.
If you delete a user from the Mobility Connector, then immediately re-add the same user, the user might not be successfully added to the Mobility Connector.
Deleted users are cleaned up in the Mobility Connector database every 30 seconds. If you re-add the user to the Mobility Connector in less than 30 seconds, the re-added user is deleted from the database, even though the user is still listed in Synchronizer Web Admin. As a result, mobile device synchronization fails, even though it looks like the user has been added to the Mobility Connector.
If this situation occurs, delete the user from the Mobility Connector in Synchronizer Web Admin, then wait at least 30 seconds before re-adding the user.
If initial synchronization fails for a user, the Mobility Connector automatically retries three times. Often, the retry process is successful. You can check the status of the retry process in the Mobility Connector log file (default.pipeline1.mobility-AppInterface.log) in the following directory:
/var/log/datasync/connectors
If the three automatic retries fail, you can try deleting and re-adding the user. If initial synchronization still fails, see Mobility Connector Troubleshooting
in the Mobility Connector Installation and Configuration Guide for assistance.
If a user’s LDAP password expires, the Mobility Connector does not allow the user’s mobile device to connect to the Synchronizer system until the user resets the LDAP password and configures the mobile device with the new password. This functionality prevents mobile devices from consuming grace logins and locking the user out.
In Synchronizer Web Admin, the Mobility Connector Monitoring Information page might show that a user’s device has successfully completed initial synchronization, but the user is not seeing the expected results on the mobile device.
To verify synchronization status, click the username in the User Status box on the Mobility Connector Monitoring Information page to display synchronization statistics for synchronized items, events, and folders. If initial synchronization has failed, see Mobility Connector Troubleshooting
in the Mobility Connector Installation and Configuration Guide for assistance.
In Synchronizer Web Admin, the Mobility Connector Monitoring Information page might list two device IDs for one mobile device. Some mobile devices have one device ID for e-mail and contact information and a second device ID for calendar information. This is working as designed.
When you configure the GroupWise Connector, you select the items to synchronize. For the option, even if you deselect , reminder notes are still included during initial synchronization, although they are not synchronized after initial synchronization.
To prevent reminder notes from being including during initial synchronization:
In Synchronizer Web Admin, click the Mobility Connector to display the Mobility Connector Settings page, then click .
Locate the following line:
<notes>1</notes>
IMPORTANT:If you see <Note>1</Note> rather than <notes>1</notes>, you are editing the XML for the GroupWise Connector, not the Mobility Connector. It is the Mobility Connector setting that is overriding your selection for the GroupWise Connector, so you need to make sure that you are editing the Mobility Connector XML to resolve the problem.
Change 1 to 0 (zero), the click .
Click to return to the main Synchronizer Web Admin page, then stop and start the Mobility Connector to put the change into effect.
This change affects users who are added to the GroupWise Connector and the Mobility Connector after you change the configuration of the Mobility Connector. When you add users during installation of the Mobility Pack, reminder notes are synchronized by default.
If you install the Mobility Pack and then install updates to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) operating system, you might see errors in the Mobility Connector log during the SLES update. After the update has finished, restart the server, then restart the Synchronizer services to successfully complete the update.
After you enable or change the device password security policy on the Mobility Connector, synchronization stops on Droid X and Droid 2 mobile devices. Removing the existing account from the mobile device and re-adding it puts the device password security policy into effect. This is a problem with the Android 2.2 operating system only on those specific devices.
The Mobility Connector does not support BlackBerry devices. Instead, you can use BlackBerry Enterprise Server for GroupWise. ActiveSync clients for BlackBerry devices are not supported for use with the Mobility Connector.
If a GroupWise user has multiple devices, multiple synchronization solutions can access the same GroupWise account without causing any conflicts.
S/MIME is not currently supported by the Mobility Connector. You can open encrypted messages in GroupWise, but not on your mobile device.
For device-specific synchronization issues, visit the Data Synchronizer Mobility Connector Devices Wiki.
If you create a new contact on your mobile device, and if you do not assign it to a specific address book (perhaps called a “group” or a “category” on your mobile device) or if you assign it to an address book that does not exist in GroupWise, it might not synchronize back to GroupWise as you expect.
By default, an unassigned new contact synchronizes to your default personal address book in GroupWise. However, the default personal address book in GroupWise is your Frequent Contacts address book, which is not synchronized to your mobile device by default. So an unassigned new contact from your mobile device might not synchronize to GroupWise where you expect it, or it might not synchronize at all.
To assure that new contacts created on your mobile device synchronize to GroupWise as expected, always assign them to a mobile device address book (or “group” or “category”) that is synchronized with a specific GroupWise personal address book. Or, make sure that you change your default personal address book in GroupWise to a personal address book that synchronizes with your mobile device.
Your default personal address book in GroupWise is the address book that displays when you click the tab in the GroupWise client. When you change your default personal address book in the GroupWise client, the change takes effect for your mobile device the next time the GroupWise Connector is restarted.
If you copy a contact from one GroupWise address book to another, the contact is not synchronized to your mobile device in the destination address book. The GroupWise client links the original contact into the destination address book. Such links are not currently synchronized to your mobile device. However, on some mobile devices, you can search for contacts, regardless of which address book they are located in.
If the original contact is in an address book that is not synchronized to your mobile device, such as the Frequent Contacts address book, the copied contact does not appear on your mobile device, even when you are synchronizing the address book that it was copied into. If you want a copied contact to appear on your mobile device, delete the original contact from the original address book. This creates the contact as a normal contact in the address book that is being synchronized.
On some mobile devices, contacts with categories appear to be duplicated. If this is a problem, remove the category from the contacts.
If you create a contact on your mobile device and add a picture to it, the contact might not synchronize to GroupWise if the picture that you added to the contact on your mobile device exceeds the GroupWise picture size limit. For more information, see Section 5.19, Picture Quality.
Organizations currently do not synchronize to mobile devices.
When your default personal address book synchronizes to your mobile device, it is named Contacts rather than the name that you see in GroupWise.
The default GroupWise personal address book is your Frequent Contacts personal address book. If you change your personal address book in GroupWise, this change does not synchronize to your mobile device. As a result, if you add new contacts to the new default personal address book in GroupWise, those new contacts synchronize to your original default personal address book on your mobile device. Restarting the GroupWise Connector resolves the problem, so that new contacts synchronize to the correct personal address book.
On some mobile devices, personal address books with categories appear to be duplicated. If this is a problem, remove the category from the personal address books.
Shared address books are synchronized to the owner’s mobile device, but not to the mobile devices of those with whom the address book has been shared.
If you create a draft item on your mobile device, it does not synchronize to your Work in Progress folder in the GroupWise client. If you create a draft item in the GroupWise client, it does synchronize to your mobile device, but you cannot modify it on your mobile device.
E-mail messages that display with HTML formatting in GroupWise display with HTML formatting on Apple iOS devices.
On other devices, HTML-formatted e-mail messages might display with partial HTML formatting or with plain text formatting, depending on the capabilities of the device. For details about the HTML limitations of supported devices, see the Data Synchronizer Mobility Connector Devices Wiki.
On some devices, the first instance of a recurring appointment does not immediately synchronize to your mobile device. If you manually resynchronize your device, the first instance of the recurring appointment appears.
However, if you decline the recurring appointment on the first instance, only the first instance is declined on the mobile device and in GroupWise. The rest of the recurring appointments remain in both places.
Declining an additional instance of the recurring appointment declines the rest of them.
In the GroupWise client, you can select the personal calendars from which you want appointments displayed in the main GroupWise Calendar. However, when calendar data is synchronized to your mobile device, all appointments are synchronized into the main calendar on the mobile device, regardless of which personal calendars you have selected in GroupWise. This is working as designed at present.
Shared calendars are synchronized to the owner’s mobile device, but not to the mobile devices of those with whom the calendar has been shared. If shared calendars are important to users, shared calendar owners can post them to the Internet using the GroupWise Calendar Publishing Host, as described in Publishing Personal Calendars on the Internet
in Calendar
in the GroupWise 8 Windows Client User Guide. After the owner publishes the calendar, other users can view the calendar URL in the Web browser on their mobile devices.
The following GroupWise folders do not synchronize to your mobile device:
Shared folders (Shared folders do synchronize to your mobile device if you are the folder owner. Users with whom the folders are shared do not see the shared folders on their mobile devices.)
Find Results (A Find Results folder is a view of search results, not an actual folder in GroupWise.)
Sent Items
Work in Progress
Junk Mail
Trash
Documents
POP and IMAP accounts
RSS feeds
Internet calendar subscription folders
Any folders that you move under a non-synchronizing folder no longer synchronize.
On some mobile devices, items that have attachments are available on your mobile device before the attachments themselves have synchronized. When this happens, you see an informational attachment that indicates why the actual attachment is not present. For example, the attachment might still be downloading, or the attachment might be too large to download, based on size restrictions set by the Data Synchronizer administrator.
Synchronizing large attachments to other applications and mobile devices can put a substantial load on the Mobility Connector. To decrease the amount of data that is synchronized to mobile devices, you can control the maximum size of attachments for both the Mobility Connector and the GroupWise Connector, as described in:
Reminder notes are synchronized to your device as all day events. If you create an all day event on your mobile device, it synchronizes to GroupWise as an all day event. If you create a reminder note on your mobile device, it does not synchronize to GroupWise.
Tasks are not currently synchronized to your mobile device.
Phone messages are not currently synchronized to your mobile device.
As a workaround, you can set up a rule to forward phone message items to yourself as e-mail messages, which then synchronize to your mobile device.
GroupWise personal address books limit contact pictures to 64x64 pixels and less than 2K in size. Mobile devices often handle pictures with more pixels and a larger file size.
When pictures are synchronized from your mobile device to GroupWise, GroupWise makes two attempts to optimize the picture to fit within the GroupWise limits of 64x64 pixels and 2K file size. The resulting picture might not display as well as expected in the GroupWise personal address book. You can use an image editing program to manually adjust the original picture to fit within the GroupWise limits, then synchronize it from your mobile device to GroupWise.
When pictures are synchronized from GroupWise to your mobile device, they might not display as well as expected on the mobile device because the GroupWise limit is retained on the mobile device.
See the Data Synchronizer Mobility Connector Devices Wiki to check for issues related to your particular mobile device.
The representation of extended characters in event IDs has changed between GroupWise 8.0.1 and 8.0.2. The change affects GroupWise mobile device users in domains and post offices where the domain or post office name includes extended characters. It affects these users regardless of the synchronization application they have been using (GroupWise Mobile Server, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, or the Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack).
Perform the following procedure when updating to GroupWise 8.0.2 in order to accommodate the change in the representation of external characters:
Identify the users who have been synchronizing data using GroupWise Mobile Server, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, or Novell Data Synchronizer, and who belong to domains or post offices whose names include extended characters.
Remove the affected users from the synchronization applications.
Run GWCheck for each user to see if the user database currently contains any event records:
In the field, browse to and select the path to the user’s post office.
In the box, select , then specify the user’s GroupWise user ID.
The action is selected by default, as well as the and options.
Select and .
On the tab, select .
On the tab, specify any users in addition to the GroupWise administrator that you want the log file sent to.
The log file is created in the post_office_directory\wpcsout\ofs directory, then e-mailed to the specified users.
Click to check the user database and generate the log file.
Review the log file for lines similar to the following:
Starting scan of EVENT (and EVENT configuration) records
Located EVENT configuration record (drn=58517; key='string')
Finished scan of EVENT (and EVENT configuration) records
The key string varies depending on the synchronization application. For example, if the user has been synchronizing through Synchronizer, the key string would look similar to:
default.pipeline1.gw_Trusted App_C29AC0403_userid
If the user has been using multiple synchronization applications, there might be multiple event records, each with a different key string.
(Conditional) If the log file shows no event records for the user, repeat Step 3 and Step 4 for the next affected user.
For each affected user:
Identify the key string for the user’s synchronization application.
Rerun GWCheck as described in Step 3, then on the tab, specify the following option in the field:
cleanupgwevntskey=string
This removes all event records for the associated synchronization application.
(Conditional) If the user has been using multiple synchronization applications, repeat Step 6 for each synchronization application.
After all event records have been removed for all affected users, stop the POA.
Update the POA to GroupWise 8.0.2.
Add the affected users back to their synchronization applications.
This process is necessary because item IDs include domain and post office names. Because extended characters are represented differently in GroupWise 8.0.2, event records for items that contain the old representations of extended characters must be removed, so that subsequent synchronization of events for existing items can function correctly.
Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack documentation is available at the Novell Data Synchronizer Documentation Web site:
Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack Readme
Novell Data Synchronizer installation and administration guides
Novell Data Synchronizer connector documentation is available at the Novell Data Synchronizer Connector Documentation Web site
Connector Readmes
Connector Quick Starts
Connector installation and configuration guides
In addition to the Data Synchronizer product documentation, the following resources provide additional information about Data Synchronizer and connectors:
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