Why won't my iPhone 3G sync with Outlook 2003

Same here - just got the 3g - moved from Blackberry where it was a non-issue.

I've lost 3hrs trying to import my contacts from outlook which should be a trivial task IMO.

What gives?

I've also tried Mobile Me which is a complete mess...I cancelled me MM trial and tried to sync manually and iTunes tells me I have MobileMe and don't need to sync manually. Yikes.

Hi Jeff,
I am wondering if you have found a solution yet, or if anyone has! I too have outlook 2003 and an original iphone, which I updated with the new 2.0 software along with the updated iTunes. Everything worked seamlessly until I updated with the latest greatest. Then suddenly my calendar would not sync anylonger.

So, like everyone else, I followed advice from websites. I found advice on the apple website, which seems logical. It suggested resetting the "sync history" in iTunes and then if you were sure that the info on your computer was correct, then in the INFO tab of iTunes (advanced section), i was supposed to "Replace information on this IPHONE" selecting Contacts and/or Calendars". I selected Calendars because my contacts were fine.

Any way, now I have NO CALENDAR INFORMATION AT ALL on my iphone, because apparently, itunes doesnt recognize my calendar in outlook at all.

So before, while I had been unable to sync my calendars, I at least had everything from before the update on my phone...now nothing.

I have tried doing all the suggested things on this website - no luck so far...
Any ideas anyone?????

Ina

I also have the same problem... Did all the above and have NO CALENDAR ON MY BRAND NEW FREAKIN' IPHONE.... which is rapidly looking like a better paperweight. If someone figures this out please post.

I purchased an iPhone 3G and the contacts "appear" to be transferring correctly back&forth with Outlook 2003.

I've wasted quite a bit of time trying to get my appointments created in iPhone3G to transfer into Outlook 2003. One helpful post in another section suggested the following:

Go to Calendar -> View -> Arrange By -> Current View -> Active Appointments

This DID show my appointments created in iPhone. However, still no luck getting them to show up in the much-needed normal views.

I believe that I found the cure:
It is all about the *pst file in Outlook
i-tunes 7.7.0.43
ipod 2.0
outlook 2002
Windows XP

I don't know why contacts sync without problem and calendar does not.
This is how I successfully cured the glitch.

1. Go to iTunes and reset Sync History, close i-Tunes.
2. Check Time and Date in Outlook to confirm same settings with your I-pod touch or i-phone
3. Find your *.pst file that holds all of your exchange date
4. It should be called "Outlook.pst" and should reside in the folder C:\\Documents and Settings\USERNAME (whatever your name or the name of your organisation)\Application

Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst.
5. If you can't locate this file, do a new calendar entry, close outlook and search for *.pst. The one file with the newest date is the file you want - wherever it might might reside. Save this file to

a directory, where you can find it again and copy it to the directory above.
6. Save to a secure place any *.pst file you found.
7. Don't worry all files are still there - to rebuild your Outlook Calendar
8. Open Outlook and if it prompts that it cannot find the file, direct it to your outlook.pst in the directory quoted above.
9. At this time you might also want to put the backup.pst in the same directory - and do a backup in outlook. Remember all the files are still save, wherever you put them
10. After you found that all your calendar entries are in tact - and outlook knows where to find them - you might want to add a "new test date - like "breakfast" two days down the road.
11. Open iTunes, connect your i-Phone, i-Pod touch and open the device.
12. Go to Info and uncheck any other sync than calendar (Photo, Contacts, mail accounts)
13. Scroll to advanced and check Replace information Calendars
14. Check "all Calendars" and do a "Sync"
15. Open your i-Phone / i-Pod toch an and go to calendars. You might end up with two calendars. One should be empty and one should ave all of your Outlook calendar entries. Check for the

one, that you put in as a test. You don't have tyo keep Outlook open during the sync!
16. I'm still trying to figure out, how to delete / or close the empty calendar, but that should not be the major concern, as long as you have all your appointments transfered from Outlook.

Couple of hours spent, Apple still has not come up with an explanation or fix, though it worked for me. It is all in the *pst file!

I believe that I found the cure:
It is all about the *pst file in Outlook
i-tunes 7.7.0.43
ipod 2.0
outlook 2002
Windows XP

I don't know why contacts sync without problem and calendar does not.
This is how I successfully cured the glitch.

1. Go to iTunes and reset Sync History, close i-Tunes.
2. Check Time and Date in Outlook to confirm same settings with your I-pod touch or i-phone
3. Find your *.pst file that holds all of your exchange date
4. It should be called "Outlook.pst" and should reside in the folder C:\\Documents and Settings\USERNAME (whatever your name or the name of your organization)\Application

Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst.
5. If you can't locate this file, do a new calendar entry, close outlook and search for *.pst. The one file with the newest date is the file you want - wherever it might might reside. Save this file to

a directory, where you can find it again and copy it to the directory above.
6. Save to a secure place any *.pst file you found.
7. Don't worry all files are still there - to rebuild your Outlook Calendar
8. Open Outlook and if it prompts that it cannot find the file, direct it to your outlook.pst in the directory quoted above.
9. At this time you might also want to put the backup.pst in the same directory - and do a backup in outlook. Remember all the files are still save, wherever you put them
10. After you found that all your calendar entries are in tact - and outlook knows where to find them - you might want to add a "new test date - like "breakfast" two days down the road.
11. Open iTunes, connect your i-Phone, i-Pod touch and open the device.
12. Go to Info and uncheck any other sync than calendar (Photo, Contacts, mail accounts)
13. Scroll to advanced and check Replace information Calendars
14. Check "all Calendars" and do a "Sync"
15. Open your i-Phone / i-Pod toch an and go to calendars. You might end up with two calendars. One should be empty and one should ave all of your Outlook calendar entries. Check for the one, that you put in as a test. You don't have to keep Outlook open during the sync!
16. I'm still trying to figure out, how to delete / or close the empty calendar, but that should not be the major concern, as long as you have all your appointments transfered from Outlook.

Couple of hours spent, Apple still has not come up with an explanation or fix, though it worked for me. It is all in the *pst file!

Thanks! I finally have my calendar back on my iphone :) *grin* What a great forum. Thanks for all the help.

First Apple suck for not having a fix yet. They probably blame Microsoft. Or is Apple the future Microsoft 10 years from now!! Who has the time to work out a solution of which there appear to me many...
Well I have the perfect solution. We all want to get off MS products right. We'll I'm migrating to the cloud (Google's cloud). Download the Google app that auto syncs with Outlook 2003/2007 - IT DOES WORK perfectly. Then simply download the Google App (only one in ITunes) to your iPhone and use that as your calendar when away from your desk. When you are at your desk use Outlook or Google Calendar via browser. Google Calendar has great features.

I had problem to sync my contact on outlook with Iphone, i try all the recommend solution without any success. Finally i found this alternative way. www.funambol.com. It work perfect for contact, but calender and task is still need to wait i guess. Anyway, i hope this help some of the ppl here.
Itune sucks!!!

I saw an Apple iPhone 3G ad tonight specifically pushing it for the "Work" environment. I am pissed, because I moved over from my Blackberry to this toy!! My calendar does not sync with Outlook calendar, and have had to use Google's calendar on the web, which is a band aid and not a real solution since it does not allow editing the entries properly on the iPhone.

I am an attorney. I will seriously consider whether there is a legal remedy here somewhere. They cannot--or at least should not--get out there and say this thing is suitable for a serious work application and then NOT check something as simple as compatibility with Microsoft Outlook Calendar? No Way!!! I am mad...I want a solution NOW...or I am taking this toy back to the store. I have spent over 20 hours of my precious time trying to find some acceptable way to fix this, but there is not even a proper 3rd party solution out there to buy!!!

PST files are always getting corrupted, so you need to use the SCANPST.EXE. Go to the help in Outlook and it will guide you. Small errors jam up everything!

I bought an Iphone 3G yesterday and got it working almost fine with Outlook 2003. It syncs Calendar and contacts almost fine. The only strange thing is that is won't sync contacts from the standard Outlook 2003 Contact folders, but only from extra contacts folders I created myself in Outlook...?..

Rolf

My issue is that my work calendar syncs.. but every time I click the mail tab, it acts like it is going to go into the mail, and then it backs out to the main iphone screen... it is like that with my gmail also.. further complicating matters is that i can not seem to delete my gmail account on the iphone... why is this?

any advice on how i can get the mail working. i don't understand why the calendar would sync, but the email wont work.. because it is the same with the gmail also, i wonder if it's not a problem with the syncing (it must be if the calendar syncs, yes?)

anyhow, any advice would be awesome. also, i have the original 16G iphone with the new software update.

I found this article that might be able to help you. I'm still looking for the right way to make the conversion, but at least I have a direction.

See this site and look past the initial "MSG" thought.

http://www.floridalawfirm.com/msg.html

Good luck!

SPECIFIC CASE FIX FOR IPOD/IPHONE AND OUTLOOK SYNC PROBLEM

Okay ...
A bit of history...
I got an Ipod touch with the Macbook I got my son for college. I had Outlook 2003 installed on my Dell Laptop. I got the 7.7 version of Itunes.
Music, photos, etc synced ...BUT NOT the Outlook Contacts or Calendar.
I updated the Ipod software to the latest 2.x version.

This is when I started to go nuts because I want to get a new Iphone 3G and I can't get one if I can't sync.

I currently have a Treo 650 and use Palm Desktop. Also, Eudora for email.

I went through the usual bs, as has everyone here. Nothing worked. I updated Outlook2003 with service pack 3. Nothing. I tried to downgrade Itunes to 7.5 and 7.6 and that really screwed up my syste, ... thank goodness for backups.

Then I uninstalled everything Apple and reinstalled ITunes. (probably not necessary since it screws up playlists, etc)

And I uninstalled Outlook 2003 and put in a trial version of MS Office 2007.
(But probably could have stuck with 2003.)

Nothing.

I spent useless time on the phone with Apple and Microsoft, as they blamed each other.

But I'm obsessive so I kept combing the message boards.

Today I read that someone else who'd used Eudora figured out that Eudora (by Qualcomm) REPLACES THE Mapi.dll and Mapi32.dll files in the Windows/System32 folder with its own (and the old files are renamed mapi.000 and mapi32.000 etc. He discovered this when trying to solve an unrelated problem: he wanted to export his Outlook 2007 contacts to a .csv file and Outlook kept giving him an error message. (I was trying to do that, too.)

So ... I went to http://www.dll-files.com/ (there are other similar sites) and got the MS versions of mapi.dll and mapi32.dll, took out the Qualcomm versions (hold your cursor over the file to see who made it, or click on properties, version), put them in a temp folder, and replaced them with grade-A ms versions.

Lo and behold, I was able to export my outlook contacts to a .csv file.

Then I thought ... hmm ... maybe this is the problem with Outlook and Itunes ... maybe the bad .dll file prevent the syncing... (I should add that I could sync the Ipod with Windows Address Book ...)

So I tried it.

I'm still in awe. It worked. The contacts synced to the Ipod (and I imagine they would to the the IPhone.)

Then I tried it with the calendar, after I had used a utility to copy my Palm Desktop calendar to outlook (or you could export to a .csv and import, etc.)

That worked too!

Now ... I don't know yet if I can add to the Ipod contacts or calendar and have it sync back. I'll have to test it.

I DO know that I got the stuff over to the Ipod by clicking the box in iTunes, on the INFO tab, that forces Outlook and Calendar to replace what's on the IPod.

ALSO: and this is very important... if you do all this and then run Eudora again to check mail IT WILL ONCE AGAIN REPLACE THE MAPI AND MAPI32.DLL'S and the syncing will not work. So you'll have to re-copy the MS versions of those .dlls back to WINDOWS/SYSTEM32.

I've spent days and valuable hours reading many message boards about this problem, and I'm sure there are many iterations, and this fix may only work for Eudora users, or for anyone using programs that replace the .dlls.

You may have once used Eudora and moved on, but left their .dlls behind.

Clearly, Outlook uses these .dlls to map out the file for syncing, and if they're not standard MS, they don't work.

Finally, if you're migrating from Palm, etc to the IPhone and plan to do everything in Outlook from Contacts to Calendar to Email, you won't have to worry about constantly replacing the .dlls.

Hope it works for you -- and continues to work for me.
--- ps:
Re Eurdora Mapi files:
I found that you can just go into OPTIONS on Eudora, go to Mapi
in the list, and tell Eudora to never use its Mapi servers. Now it doesn't
automatically replace the mapi.dll and mapi32.dll files.

And I've experimented with adding a contact on the IPod to see if it would sync to Outlook ... it did. And vice versa.

So far, so good. I may uninstall Outlook 2007 and try this with 2003 next.

Thanks Fisher for refering that site url.

Seems fine to me.

--
Raqueeb Hassan
Bangladesh

The only problems I had was on MS Exchange 2003 where sent emails came up as code. I've updated to Exchange 2007 and it works fine with Office 2008 and iPhone 3G 2.2.

Looks like your NEW phone might new NEW software to sync with. Not alot to ask.

I have problem with my iphone 3g, it does sync calendar and contacts, however my mail it does not.

i tried to configure and tried many website solution but in vain.
I am using outlook 2003 sp2

can anyone help me out

yes you are to say that it only sync the email a/c settings.
have always been using outlook and it is for office use.
My boss wana his office email sync.
he wana only 2 weeks email to b on iphone.
can you tell me if there is a way u can sync it to his iphone
you told me about importing messages from variety of other emails prog. kindly tell me how.

I have never been able to sync my calendar or my contacts for 6 months - gave up in frustration then I got an error message saying the "apple mobile device is turned off". So i fixed this issue and hey presto I can now syncronise calendars and contacts, but I have no idea why this worked. What I did:

Close Itunes and disconnect phone

Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Services
Open "Apple Mobile Device"
Select Automatic start
Apply

Open "ipod services"
select automatic start
Apply

Restart itunes and reconnect phone, then sync

Sorry I can't explain why this worked

My calendar was syncing successfully, but NOT my contacts.
Tried all solutions on this board, at apple, and on other boards...

Just used SCANPST (Inbox scan & repair tool for outlook):
"C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033\SCANPST.EXE"
Ran it on both the OUTLOOK default, and OUTLOOK hotmail pst files (in my case) - where both were found to contain errors.
Backed up and repaired using the tool, then ran iTunes again and synced successfully!

Hope this proves a winner for other frustrated users.
> I was XP, Toshiba Satellite, iTunes 8.2.1.6, iPhone 3G running 3.0

Ok, I was right the first time... I didn't change ANYTHING!!! Suddenly the Calendar decides NOT to sync. What the **^%%%$$##@#?????!!!!!!! Am I supposed to clear the rest of my day to trouble-shoot this crap?!!!! Is this iPhone going to consistently work or not? I have to leave NOW... and my Calendar isn't synced... unbelievably frustrating!!!! If my company gives me the option of going with iPhone or Blackberry... what will I choose?

The solution to your problem is sometimes not so easy. Let's face it these Windows 2003 exchange servers have been place for many years. Different updates and changes have taken place. In addition, it is possible that your configuration was not perfect for this bling bling iPhone. Therefore, it is best that you first delete the existing account on the phone. Then recreate the account. There should be no magical setting that would cause calendar items on the phone not to sync. You should see all of your email, contacts, calendar on your iPhone 3G

In addtion, check out the TechnoKOZ "iphone exchange setup" cookbook. http://computerrepairservice.net/blog...

It is not fruitful to just start making changes one your server, because before you know it, OWA stops working.

Sincere thanks KOZ and Michael and everyone for the help!

Although I reset the sync history twice - and reset my iPhone ("reboot") - that actually did nothing to sync the Calendar - everything would sync but the Calendar. Something automatically downloaded to my PC from Microsoft - some OS update or something, and...

Now much to my delight Outlook 2003 syncs with my iPhone. This entire phenomena is a "Bermuda Triangle" experience for me - I have no idea why it stopped and started working again.

I really want to rely on my iPhone Calendar for BUSINESS - but I need "five 9's" reliability - like telecom dial tone... 99.999%. I just don't know how many more hiccups like this I can deal with. I don't want to go back to the Franklin planner.

my challenge is slightly different. I uploaded the newest version of software for the iphone 3G successfully. Sync'd contacts and found I now have two calendars on my i phone. one empty, and one complete with all the data as of that last sync.

Have not been able to open my outlook from the laptop it has resided at for years ever since that day. help.

And we have yet another problem. First, though, I found about 14 months ago that Iphone 3G just doesn't really sync with 2003. I phoned Apple and they said it must be 2007. So we bought 2007 and it worked perfectly for me. I have two calendars and Itunes saw them both back then, and it has worked great.

SO my husband upgrades from his first generation to the 3GS and now wants to put a second calendar on his new Iphone. Problem is Itunes isn't SEEING his second calendar. So, why is it seeing my second calendar and not his?

Any clues out there?

Everything worked fine until about a week ago. Now I have "random" calendar appointment that do not synch.

I have tried every one of the suggestions above. Still no luck! Some appointments synch and some don't. Even the "non-recurring" appointments are very sporadic as to which ones synch. Does someone have a suggestion?