Google issue causing login/sync problems

[cwood]

We're continuing to hear from lots of users who can't log into Spanning Sync. When the Spanning Sync client tries to fetch a list of the user's calendars, it's getting a generic "Spanning Sync encountered an error" error. Under the covers, our authenticated request to Google for the user's metafeed (list of calendars) is getting a "400 Premature end of file" error" from Google.

The problem seems to affect some users consistently, some sporadically, and others not at all. I've posted a request for technical support from Google to the Google Calendar API forum and am optimistic Google will find and fix the problem on their end soon. You can follow that discussion here:http://goo.gl/tX1xN

Thanks,
Charlie

[Adam Aronson]

Thanks for the update, Charlie. Every user in our domain is
experiencing the "Calendar temporarily unavailable" message.

Thanks,
Adam Aronson
FullCity Consulting Inc.

Certified FileMaker Developer
Platinum FileMaker Business Alliance Members
2007 FileMaker Business Partner of The Year
http://fullcityconsulting.com

[MC]

I'm see this consistently on our side. We're also having lots of
trouble syncing several calendars.

[byron.shaheen]

Until the Google outage clears you will continue to have problems
syncing calendars. We're hopeful this will clear up soon.

-Byron

---
Byron Shaheen
byron....@spanningsync.com
http://spanningsync.com

[Todd Dube]

Seems to be working finally for me - no errors on my two macs as of
waking up this am... keeping my fingers crossed.

On Jun 10, 11:31 am, "byron.shaheen" <byron.shah...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Until the Google outage clears you will continue to have problems
> syncing calendars.  We're hopeful this will clear up soon.
>
> -Byron
>
> ---
> Byron Shaheen

> byron.shah...@spanningsync.comhttp://spanningsync.com

[cwood]

That's great to hear, Todd. I can't remember a Google issue that lasted this long. Thanks for sticking in there.

-c

[Clemens Hell]

The problem still persists and it's annoying. I already missed
appointements because of this. I understand that no system can work
100% of the time, but it's been days and there has been no noticable
progress. Any projection on how long it will take until the syncing is
up again would be very helpful and greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[Todd Dube]

Was sporadic yesterday - try logging out and back into spanningsync.
I had a couple times yesterday with errors but seems to be error free
after that... Sorry on the missing the appointments.

Todd

[Clemens Hell]

Seems to work again. Thank you very much for your help!

[BDipert]

I'm still having issues. Contacts sync fine; my calendar stopped
sync'ing after (I believe) some time on the 10th. I've tried all sorts
of things; disabling and re-enabling the calendar sync settings within
the Spanning Sync System Preferences entry, resetting Sync History in
iSync, deleting ~/Library/Application Support/SyncServices and
allowing MobileMe to recreate it, logging out of and back into my
Google account within the Spanning Sync System Preferences
entry...nothing helps. iCal is syncing fine with my MobileMe account.
Suggestions, anyone?

[LoRob]

I continue to have sporadic syncing failures with the 'Google reported
an unknown error' with Spanning Sync. Trouble is none of the other
apps and utilities that I use are having similar issues syncing with
Google. 'Calendar' on my iPad syncs fine with CalDAV sync to GCal.
'Pocket Informant' on my iPhone syncs fine without error to Google as
well. That only leaves Spanning Sync on my MacBook Pro with a problem
syncing since June 8. I've not added my voice to this thread
previously. But it's been 12 days now. What is Spanning Sync doing to
find a resolution to this problem. It seems to be the only piece in my
syncing that's not performing.

Robert

[byron.shaheen]

Hi Robert,

Syncing with Google over CalDAV is completely different than syncing
with Google through their Google Client URL. The Google Client URL is
throwing errors and causing the connection to fail.

-Byron

---
Byron Shaheen
byron....@spanningsync.com
http://spanningsync.com

[Hausii]

I understand that this might be different, but again this is going on
for weeks, I have calendar events disappearing, not syncing contacts
or random deletions - this is just unacceptable for a 25 $ per year
subscription. I need to look for something else now, maybe Busycal
does a better job....

On Jun 21, 5:16 pm, "byron.shaheen" <byron.shah...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Robert,
>
> Syncing with Google over CalDAV is completely different than syncing
> with Google through their Google Client URL.  The Google Client URL is
> throwing errors and causing the connection to fail.
>
> -Byron
>
> ---
> Byron Shaheen

> byron.shah...@spanningsync.comhttp://spanningsync.com

[thewgp]

This still seems to be happening. In fact, I've been noticing it for
awhile now, but I thought maybe it was related to checking too often -
so instead of 10 minutes I did every 30 minutes.

Hasn't helped a bit. I first noticed this a couple of weeks ago, and
usually Spanning Sync issues "fix themselves" so I didn't worry too
much about it - but it's been getting worse since. I even just tried
a MANUAL sync just now and it failed with the red icon.

I understand there's a Google-side issue of some kind - in the
discussion that was linked elsewhere (http://code.google.com/apis/
calendar/community/forum.html?place=msg%2Fgoogle-calendar-help-dataapi
%2FsDEAIE9gVks%2F89qCgWVbBfoJ) it looks like Charlie is having issues
getting emails through to the Google employee responding to the issue.

I know there's not much Spanning Sync can really do about this except
prod Google - but at some point I do need my iCal (non-caldav) and
GCal to sync, for practical purposes. For now I'm resorting to
forcing manual syncs every time I change a calendar entry - but
really, I can't keep that up for the long term, especially for my
other family members.

By the way - while I'm on this group, I know it's the wrong topic, but
since you'll read this anyway, here we go: There's one excellent
reason to do CalDav that you guys haven't mentioned, and it's
unfortunately the exact situation I'm in. My family and I have all Mac
computers - but all ANDROID smartphones, and CalDav is an insufficient
reason to switch to iPhones! Right now I'm doing okay just using iCal
and gCal with Spanning Sync to bridge them, but at some point I'll
probably use MobileMe.

Thanks for everything you're doing to stay on top of this! :)

[ciwa]

For me the problem was solved only to come back now after a few days.
It is extremely disappointing - especially for a relatively expensive
piece of software like spanning sync (crappy sync is for free). I paid
to have a problem-free solution and now it's quite the opposite.
PLEASE FIX THIS!!!!

[ciwa]

OK, just an update: After clicking the "sign in" button at least 100
times this seems to have worked (why doe I have to try so often?). But
now still, the calendars syncs all return " *** Server returned fatal
error: Spanning Sync encountered an error."

[Damian]

Alright. I'm just going to leave Spanning Sync alone until this gets
resolved, and use the Google Calendar site directly. I hope you guys
post something on your blog or whatever when it's working again.

[Bobby]

Still having problems. Just an FYI.

Thank you!

-Bobby

[thewgp]

What other solutions are you guys using? I'm about to give up on
Spanning Sync because of this and ask for a refund.

Unfortunate that it's happened this way, but there hasn't even been
any update to the Google discussion for this problem since June 10 -
and that discussion seems to indicate the Spanning Sync devs are
having issues communicating with Google. The last post was from a
USER pleading for some relief, and there was no reply. Given that,
I'm not sure Spanning Sync has a very high likelihood of any sort of
workaround, or that Google has any sort of fix coming in the near
future.

Devs: It's been nearly a month now - should you not be considering
alternative strategies? Apparently there are other sync programs that
do NOT have this issue so other methods clearly exist. I appreciate
your posting to let everyone know it's Google's problem, and I can
appreciate that - but it doesn't look like Google is going to fix it,
so either you need to implement a workaround or take steps to
discontinue Spanning Sync, at least in its current form.

Nothing personal - I'm just saying what many are thinking.

[byron.shaheen]

Hi everyone,

We know this Google outage is a major problem for many of our
customers, but this is not caused by Spanning Sync. The last response
from Google in the thread linked to by Charlie was for us to send some
reports of the outage so they can try to figure out what's causing the
problem. We've done this many times and will continue to provide
Google with reports to assist in finding the issue. We're hopeful
this will be resolved soon.

There is no simple work-around that we can implement in Spanning Sync
to circumvent this problem. Spanning Sync communicates with Google
through Google's Client URL, which is where the issue is coming from.
Changing Spanning Sync to communicate with Google through something
other than the Client URL (if there is one), would require a complete
re-write of Spanning Sync from the ground up. That's a complete
overhaul/re-write and not a simple work-around. This would also
require many many months of coding to accomplish this. That's not
very feasible considering Google is working on the problem and it
could be fixed any time now.

As I stated above, we know this is a major problem and very
frustrating, but we're doing everything we can to assist Google in
finding the problem. In the end, it's Google's problem to fix and
we're hopeful they will do so in a timely manner. Please be patient
and trust that we're actively doing everything possible to get this
resolved.

Thanks,

Byron

---
Byron Shaheen
byron....@spanningsync.com
http://spanningsync.com

[Damian]

Fair enough -- I think we all (or most of us anyway) understand this
problem is Google's.

You should really update your blog, though. That last post really
understates what's going on, and was updated 20 days ago.

> byron.shah...@spanningsync.comhttp://spanningsync.com

[protoplasm]

We are having the same problem. I also noticed that when I go into the
Spanning Sync pref, I'm no longer logged in. When I try to sign in I
get "Spanning Sync encountered an error."

[byron.shaheen]

Hi,

It's all part of the Google outage. We're hoping it clears up soon.

-Byron

---
Byron Shaheen
byron....@spanningsync.com
http://spanningsync.com

[Jeff Spies]

Byron,

I do understand the problem is not due to anything that Spanning Sync has done, but I will admit this entire episode causes me concerns over whether the Google Spanning Sync system is viable.  

If your tech staff cannot resolve this problem soon and provide more robust service, I believe many like me will consider the move to an iPhone.  The only reason that I did not get an iPhone was AT&T.  That is no longer a problem since Verizon now offers the iPhone.  The sad thing is that I am very happy with my Android except for this problem with unreliable syncing.  This problem is starting to offset my satisfaction with my Android phone.

I am really disappointed that Google Android is not putting a higher priority on syncing of information to their calendars and contact apps.  I have been a syncing user since I got my first Palm Pilot in the 90's.  I have always been able to manage the sync between my mobile and my laptop, until Android.  Android syncing with my laptop is poor overall compared to every other system I have ever used.

While Google calendar and contact apps are convenient, they are not a suitable alternative for Outlook or Entourage for many business people.  Syncing between platforms is critical for many customers.  If Google cannot solve these problems and make syncing more reliable, I think they will lose market share to iPhones.

Sincerely,

Jeff S.

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[Jeff Spies]

[Alin S]

ATTN to any google employee reading this. HURRY UP AND FIX IT
PLEASE!!!

ok


thanks...

[byron.shaheen]

Hi,

We were able to work around the problem on Google's end, so everything
should be back to normal.

> On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 4:54 PM, byron.shaheen <byron.shah...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hi,
>
> > It's all part of the Google outage.  We're hoping it clears up soon.
>
> > -Byron
>
> > ---
> > Byron Shaheen

> > byron.shah...@spanningsync.com

[teri]

Byron - I have just discovered that I have had this problem since June
22. I am trying to sync now and it isn't working. The sync appears to
be stuck on "Waiting for Apply Sync Services," which implies it is an
Apple problem, not a Google problem. Or, is mine a different issue. I
did send in a report. Please advise.

On Jun 29, 3:05 pm, "byron.shaheen" <byron.shah...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We were able to work around the problem on Google's end, so everything
> should be back to normal.
>
> -Byron
>
> ---
> Byron Shaheen

> byron.shah...@spanningsync.comhttp://spanningsync.com

> > > "Spanning Sync" group.> > To post to this group, send email tospann...@googlegroups.com.

[byron.shaheen]

Hi Teri,

Your problem isn't related to the Google outage at all. I got your
email and responded with what you need to do to resolve your
particular issue.

Thanks,

Byron

---
Byron Shaheen
byron....@spanningsync.com
http://spanningsync.com

[Damian]

Seems to be working fine for me now.
Thanks for getting everything running again.

As inconvenient as this was, I think this kind of thing highlights the
value of having an intermediary between Google's "cloud" and one's
local services (in this case, iCal and Address Book), who is able to
fix things when they go wrong, and to work with Google to rectify
things.

If you've ever tried to get any kind of coherent support out of
Google, you realize that having someone else responsible (Spanning
Sync team in this case) is really helpful. Worth the price of the
subscription, in my opinion.

On Jun 29, 7:49 pm, "byron.shaheen" <byron.shah...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Teri,
>
> Your problem isn't related to the Google outage at all.  I got your
> email and responded with what you need to do to resolve your
> particular issue.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Byron
>
> ---
> Byron Shaheen

> byron.shah...@spanningsync.comhttp://spanningsync.com

[Charlie Wood]

Thanks, Damian. We wind up doing a lot of support for Apple and Google, and that's OK. In fact, that's a big part of our job. I appreciate your recognizing the value in that and your continued support of Spanning Sync. As always, please let us know if you have any questions or run into any problems.

Cheers,
Charlie

--

Charlie Wood
Spanning

> To post to this group, send email to spanni...@googlegroups.com.

[Marc B]

+1 to Damian's comments: the reason I pay for Spanning Sync is for them to deal with Google's (virtualy nonextistent) support.  Yes, it's a PITA when Spanning Sync doesn't work, but at least I don't have to be the one spending too much time trying to figure out which crazy obscure setting is causing things not to work properly.  That's Charlie's and Byron's job (sucks for them, but they're getting paid to do it, at least).

To Charlie, Byron, and the whole Spanning Team: THANK YOU!!!

Marc

[Charlie Wood]

Thanks, Marc!

-c

[Dwight McKay]

Not sure if this is the same issue or not. This morning I started
seeing the following error:

Aug 02 13:48:11 -- *** Server returned fatal error: Spanning Sync
encountered an error: Error attempting to insert new user into user
database.

Is this the same sync failure?

[kazar]

It is August 2 and I am still having this exact same problem. Then,
even though I'm not logged in, Spanning Sync is able to sync my
contacts, which sorta creeps me out. Calendar sync failing. At this
point I will switch to using gMail and Google Contacts for adding/
editing data. By the way, this is the third time I've tried to post to
the forums today -- once via email and once earlier today via browser,
and neither of those two posts showed up. If this one doesn't show up
I'll have to conclude there is some kind of forum censorship going on
with regard to these widespread and long-term problems with syncing.

[Jake]

I'm having this issue for the first time today. Spanning Sync just
says "Google reported an unknown error" when I try to log in. Is there
a log file or some diagnostic I can look at to see more information
about the error?

[Mariano Iannuzzi]

I just purchased a license and could not even sing in into my account ONCE! 

Please fix ASAP.

[glenn m]

I am also having this problem for the first time.... any update?

[S. McIntire Allen]

I am trying to setup Spanning Sync on three computers. I was able to login on my desktop. When I try signing into Spanning Sync on one of my MacBooks, I receive the error: "Google couldn't be contacted or authentication failed. Please check your name and password." I checked my name and password by logging into Google again, but I still cannot login. This has been going on for two days. Is the problem related to the one you explain?