Fixing Blackberry Exchange Server Calendar Sync

I’m unashamedly a Blackberry addict. I think most folks who read this column know that, as I’m quite honest about my issues with the Windows Mobile platform, and quite looking forward to seeing if Windows Mobile 7 fixes them.  That being said, occasionally the Blackberry platform will have issues synchronizing non-email information from the Exchange Server through a Blackberry Enterprise Server.  Email and Contacts tend to sync correctly. If they don’t, the issue usually resides with the BES server itself. 

Calendar info, on the other hand, seems to stop syncing for some folks much more frequently. This can happen for many different reasons, and will usually happen if you do a device switch and something happens during the switch itself.  Luckily, if your calendar is not syncing correctly, there are a couple of things that will typically fix the problem for you.

1 – Try removing and replacing the CICAL record on the Blackberry device.  You do this by going to Options – Advanced Options – Service Book. Once there, look for a record for Desktop [CICAL] and highlight it.  Click the Menu Button and then Delete. 

*IMPORTANT* don’t close the Advanced Options panel yet.

Wait for about 10 seconds, then click the Menu Button again and choose Undelete.

If all went well, you should see a ton of send/receive activity going on, and your calendar will suddenly start syncing up again.

2 – If that method didn’t work, you can try to re-activate your Blackberry.  This will involve your BES system admin, so it’s not something you can do alone.  Have your admin get you a password for an Enterprise Activation.  They’ll supply you with that password, which will be valid for a limited amount of time (usually 12 hours), but more than enough time for this activity to happen.

On your device, go to Options – Advanced Options – Enterprise Activation.  The system will ask for your registered Exchange Email address and the password your admin created for you.  On some OS’s it may also ask for routing information to your BES server, which your admin can supply to you.

After entering this information, the device will begin an Enterprise Activation, which pulls down all of the settings and configuration from your corporate BES server and Exchange Server.  This could take up to an hour to complete, but you’ll see a new icon on your device for Enterprise Activation that will let you keep an eye on the progress of the process. If you have very large (1500+ entry) contact lists, you might see one or more databases failing to sync during Activation. This has happened to me often, and generally the issues are corrected via the normal contact list sync over the next couple of hours after Activation is complete.

Once you have re-activated the device, the calendar should be synching again.

As you would guess, re-activation is a process that will take much longer than the CICAL delete/undelete method, but sometimes it is the only way to get the Exchange Server sending you your calendar information again.

Note that on OS 4 and higher, most of your personal settings are stored via BES, so you won’t lose signatures or most personalization during the re-activation.

Hopefully, this will be helpful for those who have been having trouble with Exchange BES sync components. Calendars not syncing is an odd problem, as with all the Blackberry devices I’ve had since remote calendar sync started it has worked without a hitch in nearly every case.  But keeping this info handy could quickly correct for minor hiccups with Over The Air calendar syncing, I know it certainly saved my bacon more than once.