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by Christopher Breen

Troubleshooting .Mac iCal syncing

Reader Turner Kellogg is unhappy with .Mac’s inability to sync his calendars. He writes:

For some reason I’m no longer able to sync iCal with .Mac on my home computer. When I try, I get a warning that tells me I have inconsistent data. I thought inconsistent data was the whole point of syncing! I’ve tried resetting the calendar in my .Mac preferences several times with no luck. I’ve also unregistered my Mac and then reregistered it to see if that would help. The next time I sync I get the same thing even though I have it set to replace the data on my computer with what’s on .Mac.

You’re on the right track, but you need to take it up a notch. By that I mean that you should try mucking with your .Mac settings on every computer configured to sync its data to .Mac.

That mucking takes this form:

Begin by making a backup of your iCal and Address Book data. I explain how to back up iCal toward the end of this entry. To back up Address Book, in Tiger choose File -> Back Up Address Book and in Leopard choose File -> Export -> Address Book Archive. Should you need this backup you can use Address Book’s Revert (Tiger) or Import (Leopard) commands to bring back your data. Now on to syncing.

On the Mac that holds your master calendar–the one where you most often enter events–pull up System Preferences and click the .Mac preference.

If you’re running Tiger, click the Advanced tab, select the name of your computer in the list of registered computers, and click the Reset Sync Data button. In the resulting sheet click the right arrow button so that you’ll replace any contact and calendar data on .Mac with the data on that Mac and then click the Replace button.

If you’re running Leopard, the process is similar. The difference is that you must choose the Sync tab in .Mac preferences, click the Advanced button, and then choose your computer and click the Reset Sync Data button. As promised, the data on your computer will replace the information on .Mac.

Repeat this process for other Macs you’ve synced with .Mac. However, this time be sure that when you ask your Mac to Reset Sync Data, you click the left arrow button, which tells the .Mac preference to sync the data on your computer with info from .Mac. With luck, you’ll no longer see the inconsistent data warning.

I mention “luck” because even though this technique should work, it doesn’t always. Some have found that they have better luck when they first hand-copy their iCal data from one Mac to the other. You can do this by choosing File -> Back Up Database (Tiger) or File -> Back up iCal (Leopard) to create an iCal Backup file. Make a copy of that file and take it to your other Mac. From within iCal on that other Mac choose File -> Revert to Database Backup (Tiger) or File -> Restore iCal (Leopard) and choose the backup file you created on the original Mac. This will cause iCal to replace all its calendars, events, and To Do items from the other Mac so be sure you don’t have any unique information in this copy of iCal. (And to be safe, you might want to create a backup file of this iCal’s data before replacing it.)

Moving Mail accounts offline

Reader and Weeds cast-member Andy Milder has recently made the transition from Entourage to Apple’s Mail. Following that transition he encountered this issue:

I’ve got a whole bunch of mail accounts that are halfway bogus and/or I don’t want checked. That is to say, accounts that on rare occasions I’ll check and download, but not always. Here’s the $64,000 question: Is there a way to customize the Get Mail button so that it only checks the accounts I want checked? I’ve set the automatic checking to not bother with them, but the Get Mail button seems to check ‘em all.

You can’t do anything with the button specifically, but you have a couple of options for barring particular accounts from retrieving mail. You’ve already mentioned that you can keep an account from being automatically checked by opening the Accounts preference, selecting an account, clicking the Advanced tab, and disabling the Include When Automatically Checking For New Mail option. As you rightly point out, this option has no effect on the Get Mail button.

However, the checkbox just above it does. Disable the Enable This Account option and the account disappears from Mail’s list of mailboxes. You can press Get Mail from now until doomsday, and the disabled account will be left unchecked.

If you want an account ignored only occasionally, this isn’t the best way to go as you have to dig down into Mail’s preferences to switch it on or off. A more expedient route is to Control-click the account’s Inbox in Mail’s list of mailboxes and choose Take “nameofaccount” Offline. (Alternatively, you can choose Mailbox -> Online Status and, from the submenu, choose Take “nameofaccount” Offline.) A tilde-like symbol appears next to the account to indicate it’s offline. Press the Get Mail button and the offline account will be ignored. To bring it back online, you can simply click the tilde-like symbol.

Fix Apple TV wireless syncing

We have a helpful crew here at Macworld. For example, not only did Chief Gemologist, Dan Frakes, propose a terrific Mac 911 question, but a couple of days later, answered it as well. We begin with the question:

My Apple TV is having loads of connection problems. Unfortunately, over the past few weeks I changed my network configuration in the house and applied the Apple TV [2.0.1] update, so it could be due to either. Essentially, the Apple TV appears to be connected to the wireless network, and shows up in iTunes; I try to sync, and it appears (in iTunes) to start syncing, but it eventually drops off the network and out of iTunes. When I go to the TV, nothing has been added to the Apple TV, and it claims it’s not connected to the network. So I connect it to the network again. Rinse, repeat.

After a “Huh, let me look into it” response from yours truly, he came back with this:

If your wireless network is set up as a 5GHz network using wide channels, the Apple TV can’t maintain a connection. I disabled wide channels (which, unfortunately, reduces performance) and the Apple TV was able to join the network and, more important, maintain the connection.

To earn my day’s pay, allow me to add some details. Specifically, to do as Dan suggests, launch AirPort Utility, select your base station, make sure the AirPort item is selected in the toolbar, and click the Wireless tab. With the Radio Mode pop-up menu set to 802.11n Only (5 GHz), click the Wireless Options button. In the sheet that appears, disable the Use Wide Channels option, click Done, and then click Update to do just that to your AirPort Base Station.

But hang on a sec, one tmartine in the Apple Discussion Forums contends that you can fix the problem without disabling wide channels. He suggests that while in the aforementioned Wireless tab, you hold down the Option key, click on the Channel pop-up menu, select 161, and click Update. Others have offered that any channel over 40 will work just as well.

If you’ve had this problem and discover that tmartine’s solution is the goods, please make your voice heard by putting the Comments link to good use.

Macworld Senior Editor Christopher Breen is the author of Secrets of the iPod and iTunes, fifth edition, and The iPod and iTunes Pocket Guide (both Peachpit Press, 2005).

Find Chris’ books at www.amazon.com and www.peachpit.com. Get special user group pricing on Macworld Magazine! Subscribe today at http://www.macworld.com/useroffer.

Posted under Mac 911