Blackberry and Outlook Sync Issue Folder

There are times when you see lot of messages in Outlook's Sync Issues folder. It may be noticed that this happens more when you have outlook in cached mode and that user also uses a Blackberry.

I had a chance to work on a similar issue and thought of sharing with you all. In my case the users were using Outlook 2007 and Blackberry. Exchange server 2003.

Looking into the Cached Outlook-Exchange Mode causing emails to appear in the conflict folder, we can say that it is by design.
When a new message comes into a mailbox, Outlook is notified first, then the BES is notified. When the BES accesses the message, it modifies some properties including injecting a RefID. This is done almost immediately after we are notified of the message. If Outlook (the end user) modifies/updates any properties of that same message, with Cached Exchange Mode enabled, the updated copy of the message will be synced back to the mailbox.


At this point, there will be conflicting properties and the message will be placed in the conflicts folder. The conflicts folder was designed specifically for situations where the original copy of the message in the mailbox conflicts with the copy being synced from the cache that is from the .OST file on the user's computer.

The BES is functioning properly and the only way it can is by updating the original copy of the message in the mailbox. It seems this functionality is by design and there is nothing RIM-Blackberry or Microsoft can do to change this behavior. I am not sure if this is noted by RIM and MS and a bug is filed or a fix is found.

I do not think this is a problem as many of us think :
Conflict messages don't necessarily indicate a problem; they simply indicate that there is a difference in the store version of an item and the OST-cached version of the same file. The "winning" item goes to the calendar, or inbox, or wherever it was destined; the conflict item is kept just in case the user wants to change winning messages.

Possible Workaround

There are a couple of things we can look at to reduce the occurrence of this issue. If this is happening with newly received messages, we could enable the
The ProcessMailDelay registry key to cause the BES to wait a period of time before picking up the message

If this is happening with old or existing messages, ProcessMailDelay will not help. Also noted is the issue with some users where a third party application/plug-in is modifying properties of messages on a more rigorously basis than the end user would do normally. Therefore, the amount of messages in the conflicts folder was much higher.

In such we need to verify  a specific message from the conflict folder and check the relevant data in BES los  However, this will only help determine which properties a third party application might be modifying, as the BES is functioning correctly by updating the properties on the original message in the mailbox. Also, to clarify, the conflicting or second copy of the message is always going to be the one from the cache on the user's PC. If the Outlook modification was made and synced to the mailbox before the BES updated the message, there would not be a conflict as the BES would simply add it's update to the mailbox copy of the message. This is why ProcessMailDelay might help if mostly new messages are affected.

It’s a good idea to determine if most of the affected messages are newly received, or have been in the mailbox for a while, as this will help us determine if we can reduce the impact of this issue.
 
As always use education will help as it’s not an error, it’s a way to correct possible issue.

For auto resolution of the meeting conflicts, we need to put a registry entry on the client machines. Check to see if they use any custom template for Calendar, if so not down the message class and enter it in the registry.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Options\ConflictMsgCls

DWORD IPM.Appointment (or custom message class if used): Make the VALUE 4

This registry will take care of future conflicts As far as the existing items in the conflicts folder, user please do the needful.

If I have missed any point on the subject please feel free to comment, as we all love to see a comment