Windows Mobile 5 Activesync messages not marked as read : mobile, read, unread, windows, activesync

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10.16.2007 at 02:11AM PDT, ID: 22895541

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Windows Mobile 5 Activesync messages not marked as read

Zones: Windows Mobile (Pocket PC / Win CE) Operating Systems, Exchange Email Server, SBS Small Business Server

Tags: mobile, read, unread, windows, activesync

I have Activesync to an SBS 2003 server up and running fine. There is just one annoying flaw in the email synchronisation. Messages on the phone inbox appear as 'unread' even though they have been read and flagged as read in Outlook on the PC. This is all the more annoying because Outlook in Windows Mobile 5 appears to lack the facility to mark an entire folder as read (as you can do in Outlook on the PC).

The only way I seem to be able to flag emails as read on the phone is to go into the inbox and read them (even though I have read them once on my PC). But this is becoming unfeasible because of the large number of emails I have to handle.

Am I doing something wrong, or missing something? Does anyone know a way of flagging large numbers of emails as unread in Windows Mobile 5?

Chris

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Question Stats

Zone: OS

Question Asked By: chris_shaw

Solution Provided By: TechSoEasy

Participating Experts: 4

Solution Grade: B

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10.16.2007 at 04:35AM PDT, ID: 20084605

Rank: Savant

Sembee:

That doesn't seem to happen with me. The only thing I have noticed is that the prompt doesn't change - so you get the notification that says you have x unread messages, but go in to the inbox and find that they have been read.
I would have to suspect that your sync isn't working 100% correctly.

If you mark a message as read on the device, does it mark it as read in Outlook?

Simon.

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If your question has been answered, please remember to accept the answer and close the question.

10.16.2007 at 05:55AM PDT, ID: 20085039

chris_shaw:

Hi Sembee,
Yes if you read an email on the phone and then sync it is marked as read in Outlook.

I should say that it is not 100% of emails that remain marked as unread on the phone, just most of them unfortunately. The only thing I can think of is that I scan through a lot of emails in Outlook by moving the cursor over them in the Inbox column. This marks them as read in Outlook without having to actually open the emails. I think I will test this a bit further to see if I get a full correlation on this i.e. emails marked as read in Outlook without actually opening them remain as unread on the phone.

Chris

10.17.2007 at 07:27AM PDT, ID: 20093670

Rank: Genius

TechSoEasy:

You just need to force a sync. That should sync the "read" status as well.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

10.18.2007 at 01:54AM PDT, ID: 20099468

chris_shaw:

Jeff, thanks for your reply.

Synching is not the problem. Syncs occur automatically or I can force them, and I get the mail appearing in the Inbox. The issue is that I have 70+ emails marked as unread on the phone. But they have all been read (not on the phone but on my PC). The PC shows all emails as read. The only way I can get these emails flagged as read on the phone is to open each one up and read it on the phone. I dont want to do that because I have already read them.

10.20.2007 at 02:44PM PDT, ID: 20116169

Rank: Genius

TechSoEasy:

If the emails are read on your PC then the "read status" should change on the phone when you sync. Something is not right with your setup if that's not happening.

Are the messages being stored in your Exchange Mailbox? (As opposed to being stored in a .pst file?).

You might want to try doing a hard reset on the device to wipe it out and re-establishing the relationship.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

10.22.2007 at 02:02AM PDT, ID: 20121669

chris_shaw:

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your feedback that the situation I am experiencing is not the normal state of affairs. Yes Messages are stored in the Exchange server mailbox, not a Personal folder file. The synching can occur directly over the USB connection to the PC, or remotely via GPRS when I am out. It is strange because all other aspects of synchronisation appear to be OK. I will have to play around with the setup to see if I can see a cause or, as you say, perform a more drastic reset.

Chris

10.22.2007 at 11:03AM PDT, ID: 20125260

Rank: Genius

TechSoEasy:

There are no settings to be played around with... a "Hard Reset" on a mobile device wipes out the messaging database file which is required when you have problems such as you are describing.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

10.24.2007 at 05:03AM PDT, ID: 20137981

chris_shaw:

Hi Jeff,

I performed a hard reset on the phone, set it up with all the defaults with the minimum of tweaking. At first I thought it had fixed it, all messages marked as read. But this morning, after having read my email on the PC, the phone was showing just 2 emails (out of 20 or so) that were not read. I synched several times, but it failed to mark them as read - I had to read the emails on the phone to clear it. So I believe there IS an issue with the Windows Mobile 5 software here. I will keep looking to see if I can determine any common theme in the few mails that it refuses to see as read. Many thanks for your help.

Chris

10.25.2007 at 01:37AM PDT, ID: 20145911

Rank: Genius

TechSoEasy:

I don't believe that it's an issue with the Windows Mobile 5 software. I've never seen this problem on ANY device that is using ActiveSync.

Which version of ActiveSync are you using?

Perhaps you should run through the Synchronization Troubleshooting steps outlined here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/activesync/default.mspx

Jeff
TechSoEasy

10.25.2007 at 07:21AM PDT, ID: 20147842

chris_shaw:

The PC is running Windows Vista Business and Windows Mobile Device Centre. The phone is running Activesynce supplied with Windows Mobile 5 with Messaging and Security Pack V.5.1.461 (Build 15671.3.3.0). I can't see any specific info about Activesync itself.

10.25.2007 at 07:52AM PDT, ID: 20148124

Rank: Genius

TechSoEasy:

Ahh... then Vista doesn't run ActiveSync... but is the WMDC updated to 6.1?
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter.mspx

Also, has the Daylight Savings Time Update been applied to your Mobile Device?
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/daylightsaving/default.mspx

And have DST updates been applied to the Exchange Server?
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/dst_smmb

Jeff
TechSoEasy

10.31.2007 at 04:23AM PDT, ID: 20184199

chris_shaw:

Jeff,,
Thanks for your help on this, although I do not seems to have found a solution. WMDC I am using is currently on V.6.1. I am still trying to find a common thread for those emails which remain marked unread, and I have a possible theory. It seems to be the emails from the previous day which remain unread - that certainly seemed to be the case this morning - I read all my emails on the PC, but the six that came in yesterday after I had closed Outlook for the day were the ones that remained unread on the phone.
Chris

10.31.2007 at 09:02AM PDT, ID: 20186630

Rank: Genius

TechSoEasy:

So, you're saying you didn't read those six in Outlook yesterday. And you didn't read them on the phone either.

But today, you open Outlook and read them, but the ones on the phone don't update as being read?

Do I have that right?

What if you delete one of those messages in Outlook, does it get deleted on the phone?

Jeff
TechSoEasy

10.31.2007 at 10:09AM PDT, ID: 20187234

chris_shaw:

Jeff

Yes that's right as you describe it, and it doesnt matter how many times you sync, once an email has got into this flagged as unread state, the only way to rectify it is to open the email on the phone.

If you delete an email in Outlook this change IS synched to the phone. In fact I would say that all aspects of synching work OK, with the exception of the flagging of read emails, and this only occurs with a certain proportion of them - most of them DO get flagged as read.

Chris

10.31.2007 at 02:54PM PDT, ID: 20189371

Rank: Genius

TechSoEasy:

But the portion is not based on where the email is sent from, but rather that it's received AFTER Outlook is closed?

Jeff
TechSoEasy

11.02.2007 at 02:40AM PDT, ID: 20199105

chris_shaw:

Jeff,

Yes it happened again this morning. I read all emails on my PC, but two emails remained marked as unread on the phone, which were the two that came in yesterday, after Outlook had been closed down for the day.

Chris

11.02.2007 at 01:47PM PDT, ID: 20204420

Rank: Genius

TechSoEasy:

Are there any rules within Outlook that are designated as "this machine only"?

Jeff
TechSoEasy

11.05.2007 at 03:27AM PST, ID: 20214995

chris_shaw:

Not as far as I can see Jeff, although I cannot readily see any designation for rules. The only rules I have move messages with certain text in the subject line into other folders, so any mail in the Inbox will by defintion not have been affected by a rule. I hope this answers your question?

Chris

11.05.2007 at 04:38AM PST, ID: 20215381

Rank: Genius

TechSoEasy:

Well, those could cause a problem... but actually I'm just thinking that the message database which contains the information of whether or not a message has been read is corrupt.

You can clear that up by taking Outlook out of Exchange Cached Mode, close Outlook and make sure that the .ost file has been deleted. Leave cached mode off for a day to see if that resolved your problem. If it did, you should be able to put it back into cached mode without a problem.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

11.14.2007 at 01:21AM PST, ID: 20278521

chris_shaw:

Jeff,

I turned off cached mode, disabled offline files and actually removed the .ost file. I ran for about a week in direct Exchange access mode and had no problems with synchronising of read emails (although this is not ideal because it is slower, and I like to have a cached copy of the emails). After a week or so I turned my Outlook 2007 client back to cached mode and recreated a new .ost file. The next morning the problem was back - the emails which had arrived the previous evening after Outlook had been shut down, although read the following morning on my PC, failed to show as read on the phone regardless of syncs.

Chris

11.14.2007 at 03:12PM PST, ID: 20284891

Rank: Genius

TechSoEasy:

Ok... how about giving this a try...

From your PC on the LAN, go to http://<servername>/oma

Enter your DOMAIN\username and password to log on and when the menu comes up click "Preferences"

If "Mark Read:" is "OFF", click that and it will switch to "ON".

Close that out and see if it fixes the problem.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

11.20.2007 at 04:39AM PST, ID: 20319181

chris_shaw:

Hi Jeff,

Thanks again for your reply. I have tried what you suggest above. Mark Read was already set to ON, but I set it OFF then back ON again. It doesn's seem to have made any difference.

To make things worse any theory I may have had about which emails remain unread was blown this morning. I had 16 emails remain unread, of which two were from the previous day, but the rest were today's emails, some of which were marked read on the phone, but 14 remained marked as unread, despite the fact they had all been read on the PC. So the situation appears to remain exactly as it always has been unfortunately.

Chris

11.20.2007 at 04:51AM PST, ID: 20319230

Rank: Genius

TechSoEasy:

Okay, then as a last resort... delete your Outlook Profile on the PC and do a hard reset on the phone. Because what's happening is the databases which keep track of what's read and what's not read are corrupt and aren't talking to eachother. That's actually how this works anyhow... it's not a per-message comparison... but rat