Address Book and iSync

January 21, 2005

I was setting up iSync and the iSync Palm Conduit on an iMac running 10.2.8. When it came time to set up the sync preferences in iSync, I clicked on the Palm icon, but the iSync window would not expand to show the settings. The odd thing was that if I then clicked on the .Mac icon, the Palm settings would briefly appear, only to be replaced with the .Mac settings screen. Clicking back on the Palm brought up a blank screen.

After nuking every preference I could find, I resorted to moving the user's entire ~/Library to the desktop. After that, it worked, although the user now had no data. I migrated all of the newly created preferences into the old Library and then put it all back in place. After a logout/login, the problem came right back. That pretty much narrowed it down to the Calendar or Address Book files.

A quick look at the Calendar revealed nothing amiss. When I looked at the Address Book, I noticed a Group in the list that had no name— it was blank. I renamed it and deleted two other groups that had no members. That worked.

iSync opened the Palm prefs just fine. I was able to choose the calendars that needed to be synced, and perform a sync with no troubles.